View the H-Asia Discussion Logs by month
View the Prior Message in H-Asia's December 2013 logs by: [date] [author] [thread] View the Next Message in H-Asia's December 2013 logs by: [date] [author] [thread] Visit the H-Asia home page.
H-ASIA December 9, 2013 Member publication: Primary sources on the construction of New Delhi ********************************************************************** From: "Dinyar Patel" <dinyar.patel@gmail.com> Dear all: Oxford University Press India has just published (5 December 2013) a new volume edited by Mushirul Hasan and me: *From Ghalib's Dilli to Lutyens' New Delhi: A Documentary Record *(New Delhi: OUP India and National Archives of India, 2013)*. *344 pages. CD included. ISBN 0-19-808499-4. This volume brings together some of the key archival documents found in the National Archives of India related to the early construction and planning of New Delhi (1911-14). Government reports and correspondence detail the various reasons for the transfer of capital from Calcutta to Delhi, debate over the scope and extent of the envisioned new capital, how planners and government authorities evaluated prospective locations for the construction of the city in the Delhi vicinity, the Delhi Town Planning Committee's initial schemes for the layout and orientation of a garden city, major health and sanitary issues that loomed before officials, and the challenges posed by land acquisition for the imperial project. The last issue is of particular importance: these documents illustrate how, well before the outbreak of World War I began fundamentally cutting down the financial resources available for building New Delhi, government officials were already beginning to balk at the enormous costs and challenges posed by acquiring vast tracks of land in the vicinity of Shahjahanabad, leading them to whittle down significantly the size and scale of the capital. An introduction to this volume provides an overview of planning and financial considerations during the years 1911-14 and then traces how the broader issues of Indian political reform and Indian finance were reflected in the planning and development of New Delhi in the long run (through 1931). An attached CD provides historical maps of New Delhi and the Delhi vicinity. Contents: Introduction -- A Century of New Delhi: Political Reform, Questions of Finance, and the Creation of a New Capital for India, xix 1 -- Transfer of the Capital, 1 2 -- Plan of the Capital, 18 3 -- Temporary Works Department, 90 4 -- Site Selections, 116 5 -- Land Acquisitions, 149 6 -- Appeals/Protests/Requests, 226 7 -- Town Planning Committee, 245 8 -- Health and Environment, 268 For further information, please see: http://www.oup.co.in/product/academic-general/history/social-cultural-history/281/from-ghalibs-dilli-lutyens-new-delhi-documentary-record/9780198084990 Best regards, Dinyar Patel -- Dinyar Patel Ph.D. Candidate, Modern South Asia Department of History Harvard University +91 88796 00407 ********************************************************************** To post to H-ASIA simply send your message to: H-ASIA@h-net.msu.edu For holidays or short absences send post to: <listserv@h-net.msu.edu> with message: SET H-ASIA NOMAIL Upon return, send post with message SET H-ASIA MAIL H-ASIA WEB HOMEPAGE URL: http://h-net.msu.edu/~asia/ --
|