Background

Abstract

Chapter 1 traces the transformations of Delhi after the Rebellion of 1857. It draws attention to four crucial phenomena between 1857 and 1911: the demolition and reconstruction of the city after the rebellion, the process of building the railways, administering garden lands around Delhi, and the economic activity that developed around these transformations. These phenomena constituted an extended form of primitive accumulation in Delhi over the second half of the nineteenth century. Despite important differences, It incorporated the classic features of such a process: displacement of people, the creation of funds of wealth for future investment, and the employment of force to achieve this. On the eve of the shift of the capital to Delhi in 1911, the railways, commerce, finance, and the actions of the colonial state had between them generated a cityscape in which properties were bought and sold and suburban land was being built over.