Urban History Association
4th Biennial Conference on “Shock Cities”: Urban Form in Historical Perspective
Houston, 6 November 2008, 10.45 a.m,. to 12.15 p.m.

Panel Abstract

Until recently, the historical study of cities in South Asia has had to contend with an anti-urban bias. If, as nationalists often asserted, “the real India” lived in its villages, the countryside was more deserving of scholarly inquiry than cities. When forced to confront rapid urbanization in recent decades, postcolonial planners viewed the city less as a ocial form than as a set of problems, an ahistorical object of state intervention and control. These biases have shaped modern scholarship on South Asia, where urban change has been submerged within the narrative frameworks of colonial power, resistance and identity – concerns which have dominated nationalist historiography and postwar area studies.

Recent urban “shocks” in South Asia – from communal violence and religious extremism to ecological crises and infrastructure collapse – have renewed the debate on the significance of urban form and governance in India and cities of the postcolonial world. New urban histories of South Asia have demonstrated that its cities were a key arena for the circulation of transnational ideas and technologies of sanitation, mass housing and town planning, as well as a site for the articulation of novel forms of modernity whose history is neither “colonial” nor “national”, but are part of global urban history.

Our panel includes historians of Bombay, Calcutta, Hyderabad and Lahore in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in an attempt to rethink urban change in colonial India beyond the nationalist framework of “impact” and “response”, and the dualism which structures most studies of colonial urbanism. While the great port cities and princely capitals of the subcontinent gave expression to the British Empire as paramount power in India, the colonial state was often most insecure in its urban seats of command and control. Rapid urbanization rendered the boundaries between colonial cantonments and native towns contested and porous, as Indian elites and masses confronted and appropriated “shocks” to the time, space, and built environment of the colonial city.

The subjects of the individual papers include battles over urban clocks and standard time between colonial scientists, municipal politicians and merchants in turn of the century Bombay; the cholera pandemics which shaped colonial Calcutta as a sanitary space through fever theory, colonial ethnology and free trade doctrine; contests over legal sovereignty and territorial control between the British imperial state and Muslim princely state in Hyderabad; and the innovation and rapid growth of the apartment building in late colonial Bombay as this type was shaped by colonial engineers, Indian architects, and middle-class apartment dwellers.

Panelists

Ishita Pande is Assistant Professor in the Department of History, Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario.

Eric Lewis Beverley is Assistant Professor in the Department of History, SUNY (State University of New York), Stony Brook.

Nikhil Rao is Assistant Professor in the Department of History, Wellesley College, Massachusetts.

Shekhar Krishnan is a Graduate Student in the Program in Science Technology & Society at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology).

Discussant

William J. Glover is Associate Professor in the Taubmann College of Architecture and Planning and Director of South Asian Studies at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

Our last session this semester will be on WEDNESDAY 28 MAY 2008 in MIT E51-195 from 2.30 p.m. to 4.30 p.m. when we will discuss:

Primary Text

Janaki Nair, The Promise of the Metropolis: Bangalore’s Twentieth Century. (New Delhi: Oxford University Press India, 2005).

Supplementary Texts

Janaki Nair, Beladide Noda Bengaluru Nagara!, Photo Exhibition on “Worlding the City : The Futures of Bangalore”, 2000

Our next session will be on WEDNESDAY 14 MAY 2008 in MIT E51-195 from 6.30 p.m. to 8.30 p.m. when we will discuss the work of historian Swati Chattopadhyay.

Primary Text

Chattopadhyay, Swati. Representing Calcutta: Modernity, Nationalism and the Colonial Uncanny. Routledge, 2006.

Supplementary Texts

Sudipta Kaviraj, “Filth and the Public Sphere: Concepts and Practices about Space in Calcutta”, Public Culture vol.10, no.1 (1997) pp.83-113.

Dipesh Chakrabarty, “Of Garbage, Modernity and the Citizen’s Gaze” in Habitations of Modernity: Essays in the Wake of Subaltern Studies, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002, pp.65-79.

Dipesh Chakrabarty, “Adda: A History of Sociality” in Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000, pp.180-213.

Our next session will be on WEDNESDAY 23 APRIL 2008 in MIT E51-195 from 6.30 p.m. to 8.30 p.m. when we will discuss the work of geographer Stephen Legg on New Delhi.

Primary Text

Stephen Leggg. Spaces of Colonialism: Delhi’s Urban Governmentalities. Wiley-Blackwell, 2007.

Supplementary Texts

Stephen P. Blake, Shahjahanabad: The Sovereign City in Mughal India 1639-1739, New Ed (Cambridge University Press, 2002).

Stephen Legg, “Beyond the European Province: Foucault and Postcolonialism,” in Space, Knowledge and Power: Foucault and Geography, ed. Jeremy W. Crampton and Stuart Elden (Ashgate Publishing, 2007).

Stephen Legg, “Ambivalent Improvements: Biography, Biopolitics, and Colonial Delhi,” Environment and Planning A 40, no. 1 (2008): 37-56.

Our next session will be on WEDNESDAY 2 APRIL 2008 in MIT E51-195 from 6.30 p.m. to 8.30 p.m. when we will discuss the work of historian Sandip Hazareesingh.

Primary Text

Hazareesingh, Sandip. The Colonial City and the Challenge of Modernity : Urban Hegemonies and Civic Contestations in Bombay City 1900-1925. New Delhi: Orient Longman, 2007.

Supplementary Texts

Chopra, Preeti. “Refiguring the Colonial City: Recovering the Role of Local Inhabitants in the Construction of Colonial Bombay, 1854-1918.” Buildings & Landscapes: Journal of the Vernacular Architecture Forum 14 (2007): 109-125.

Hazareesingh, Sandip. “Colonial Modernism and the Flawed Paradigms of Urban Renewal: Uneven Development in Bombay, 1900–25.” Urban History 28, no. 02 (2001): 235-255.

Hazareesingh, Sandip. “The Quest for Urban Citizenship: Civic Rights, Public Opinion, and Colonial Resistance in Early Twentieth-Century Bombay.” Modern Asian Studies 34, no. 4 (October 2000): 797-829.

Our group reconvenes after a hiatus of almost a year on TUESDAY 19 FEBRUARY at 6.30 p.m. at MIT E51-195 . Please join us for dinner and conversation on the work of urban historian Prashant Kidambi.

Primary Text

Kidambi, Prashant. The Making of an Indian Metropolis: Colonial Governance and Public Culture in Bombay, 1860-1920. Ashgate, 2007.

Supplementary Texts

Kidambi, Prashant. “‘An Infection of Locality’: Plague, Pythogenesis and the Poor in Bombay, 1896–1905.” Urban History 31, no. 02 (2005): 249-267.

Kidambi, Prashant. “Housing the Poor in a Colonial City: The Bombay Improvement Trust, 1898-1918.” Studies in History 17, no. 1 (February 1, 2001): 57-79.

This is the list of our public meetings and primary texts for the group in Spring 2008. Our meetings are from 6.30 to 8.30 p.m. in the MIT Program in Science Technology & Society (STS) in Building E51, Room 195.

Tuesday 19 February 2008

Kidambi, Prashant. The Making of an Indian Metropolis: Colonial Governance and Public Culture in Bombay, 1860-1920. Ashgate, 2007.

Wednesday 12 March 2008

Glover, William J. Making Lahore Modern: Constructing and Imagining a Colonial City. University of Minnesota Press, 2007.

Wednesday 2 April 2008

Hazareesingh, Sandip. The Colonial City and the Challenge of Modernity : Urban Hegemonies and Civic Contestations in Bombay City 1900-1925. New Delhi: Orient Longman, 2007.

Wednesday 23 April 2008

Legg, Stephen. Spaces of Colonialism: Delhi’s Urban Governmentalities. Wiley-Blackwell, 2007.

Wednesday 14  May 2008

Chattopadhyay, Swati. Representing Calcutta: Modernity, Nationalism and the Colonial Uncanny. Routledge, 2006.

Wednesday 28 May 2008

Nair, Janaki. The Promise of the Metropolis: Bangalore’s Twentieth Century. Oxford University Press, 2005.

MAIN TEXTS

Rajnarayan Chandavarkar, “From Neighbourhood to Nation: The Rise and Fall of the Left in Bombay’s Girangaon in the 20th Century”, introductory essay from Meena Menon and Neera Adarkar, One Hundred Years, One Hundred Voices: The Mill Workers of Girangaon: An Oral History (Calcutta: Seagull Books, 2004).

Rajnarayan Chandavarkar, “Workers’ Politics and the Mill Districts in Bombay Between the Wars” from Imperial Power and Popular Politics: Class, Resistance and the State in India, 1850-1950, pp.100-142

Rajnarayan Chandavarkar, “Police and Public Order in Bombay, 1880-1947″ from Imperial Power and Popular Politics: Class, Resistance and the State in India, 1850-1950, pp.180-233

Rajnarayan Chandavarkar, “Plague Panic and Epidemic Politics in India, 1896-1914″ from Imperial Power and Popular Politics: Class, Resistance and the State in India, 1850-1950, pp.234-265

Douglas Haynes and Subho Basu, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rajnarayan_Chandavarkar

We will meet for a screening of the film C.I.D. (1956) on TUESDAY 17 OCTOBER in MIT Building E-51 Room 191 (the STS Reading Room) at 7.00 p.m.

See you this evening and feel free to bring friends.

Main Texts

Patrick Geddes, Selection from “Cities in Evolution” from Marshall Stalley, ed., Patrick Geddes: Spokesman for Man and the Environment, New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1972.

Patrick Geddes, “Committee on Collaboration between the Bombay University and Bombay City” (Maharashtra State Archives, Educational Department, 1920)

Patrick Geddes, “Essential of Sociology in Relation to Economics”,  Indian Journal of Economics, vol. III, part 1, 1919 (?)

Hellen Meller, “Urbanisation and the Introduction of Modern Town Planning Ideas in India, 1900-1925″

Ramachandra Guha, “Patrick Geddes and Ecological Town Planning in India”, talk given to the Seminar on Environmental and Agricultural History, MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), September 2006

Indian Town Planning Reports by Patrick Geddes

(with sincere thanks to Arindam Datta for sharing his collection of these reports with the group)

Geddes, Reports on Re-Planning of Six Towns in Bombay Presidency, 1915. Bombay: Government of Maharashtra Urban Development and Public Health Dept, 1965.

Geddes, Town Planning in Lucknow: A Report to the Municipal Council. Lucknow: Murray’s London Printing Press, 1916.

Geddes, Report on Town Planning, Dacca. Calcutta: Bengal Secretariat Depot, 1917.

Geddes (with H.V. Lanchester), Town Planning in Jubbulpore: A Report to the Municipal Committee. Jubbulpore: Hitkarini Press, 1917.

Geddes, Town Planning towards City Development: A Report to the Durbar of Indore. Indore: Holkar State Printing Press, 1918.

We will be screening Raj Kapoor’s classic film Shree 420 on TUESDAY 9 MAY 2006 from about 5.45 to 8.45 p.m., with discussion to follow. Released in 1955 and set in Bombay, Shree 420 is one of the most influential products of the booming fifties Bombay film industry, and a canonical representation of urban life in the postcolonial city.

Shree 420 names itself in a contradiction. Article 420 of the postcolonial Indian Penal Code provides juridical sanction for the prosecution of acts of cheating or fraud; Shree is a standard appellation of respect, naming a modern Mister, or denoting a gentleman. And this gentlemanly cheat is, in the text of the film examined here, embodied in the equally ambiguous figure of the subaltern hero Raj Kapoor — the tramp bumbling his way through the gullies and crowded, inhospitable streets of that favoured location of the 1950s popular Hindi cinema: the metropolis of Bombay, the privileged place for the production of the newly independent nation’s identity and the socialist vision. Hailed by cinema audiences throughout the new republic on its release in 1955, Raj Kapoor’s tramp-hero Raju was the cinematic embodiment of an unique historical conjuncture of the new Indian republic. The educated unemployed, the urban proletariat, Partition refugees, and the reformist petty bourgeoisie could all identify with Raju, newly arrived in the steamy concrete jungle of Bombay, following the noisy and irresistible path of the new expansive capitalism in search of distinction, prosperity, and a certain experience of modernity.

Primary Text

Henri Lefebrve, The Urban Revolution (1969). Robert Bononno, trans. London: University of Minnesota Press, 2003.

Supplementary Texts Henri Lefebvre, “Plan of the Present Work” in The Production of Space (1974), Donald Nicholson-Smith, trans., Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2000, pp.1-67.

Edward W. Soja, “The Extraordinary Voyages of Henri Lefebvre” (chapter 1) and “The Trialectics of Spatiality” (chapter 2) in Thirdspace: Journeys to Los Angeles and Other Real-And-Imagined Places, Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1996, pp.26-82.

Civic Sensibility: Bombay in the Twenties and Thirties

Clifford Manshardt, Pioneering on Social Frontiers in India, Bombay: Lalvani Publishing House, 1967.
Clifford Manshardt, ed., Bombay Today and Tomorrow: Eight Lectures at the Nagpada Neighbourhood House. Bombay: D.B. Taraporevala and Sons and Co., 1930
——, ed., How the Bombay Municipality Works: A Symposium at the Nagpada Neighbourhood House. Bombay: D.B. Taraporevala and Sons and Co., 1935
——, ed., Bombay Looks Ahead: Eight Lectures at the Nagpada Neighbourhood House. Bombay: D.B. Taraporevala and Sons and Co., 1934
——, ed., Some Social Services of the Government of Bombay. Bombay, D.B. Taraporevala and Sons and Co., 1945
A.R. Burnett-Hurst, Labour and Housing in Bombay: A Study in the Economic Conditions of the Wage-Earning Classes in Bombay, London: P.S. King & Son, Ltd., 1925.
Pestonji D. Mahaluxmivala, History of the Bombay Electric Supply and Tramways Company (BEST), Limited, 1905-1935. Bombay: BEST, 1936.
S.M. Edwardes, The Rise of Bombay: A Retrospect. Bombay, 1902.
S.M. Surveyor, ed. Harvey-Nariman Libel Case: With a Brief History of the Development Department, Important Extracts from the Mears Committee Report Leading upto Prosecution, Court Proceedings including the Statement of Defence, Judgement in Full, with Press Comments, Illustrations, Etc. Bombay, 1927-1928
Jal F. Bulsara, ed., Bombay Citizenship Series. Bombay: National Information and Publications, 1949-1953

• Claude Batley, “Bombay’s Houses and Homes”
• A.L. Guilford, “Our Transport System”
• F.M. Surveyor, “Our Harbour and Docks”
• D.S. Savkar, “Banking and Finance in Bombay”
• Salim Ali, “Birds of Bombay”

Samuel Townshend Sheppard, Bombay. The Times of India Press, 1932.

Housing the Middle and Working Classes

Silver Jubilee Souvenir to Founder Members of the Saraswat Co-Operative Housing Society, Limited. Bombay, 1940.
R.S. Deshpande, Modern Ideal Homes for India. Poona: United Book Corporation, 1948 [1939]
R.S. Deshpande, Cheap and Healthy Homes for the Middle Classes of India. Poona: United Book Corporation, 1969 [1935]
R.S. Deshpande, An RCC Primer. Poona: United Book Corporation, 1969 [1932]
A.E. Mirams, Bhamburda: A Garden Suburb, Poona, 1922.
A.E. Mirams, Report on the Development of Karachi, Bombay Government Town Planning and Valuation Department, 1922.
A.E. Mirams, “Town Planning in Bombay under the Bombay Town Planning Act, 1915, British Town Planning Institute, Papers and Discussions, 1919-20, v.6, pp.43-57
A.E. Mirams, Report on the Proposed Development by the Bombay Port Trust of Antop Village, Poona: Scottish Mission Industries Company, 1919.
A.E. Mirams, “Memorandum on Industrial Employees” submitted to the Indian Industrial Commission, 1916-17, Bombay: Government Press, 1917.
J.P. Orr, Density of Population in Bombay: A Lecture Delivered before the Bombay Co-operative Housing Association. Bombay, British India Press. 1914.
J.P. Orr, The Bombay City Improvement Trust from 1898 to 1909, Bombay: Times of India Press, 1911.
Kamu Iyer, ed. Buildings that Shaped Bombay: Works of G.B. Mhatre. Mumbai: Kamala Raheja Vidyanidhi Institute of Architecture (KRVIA) and Urban Design Research Institute (UDRI), 2000.

Civics and Science: The Bombay School of Economics and Sociology, 1922-1956

Patrick Geddes, “Bombay University and Bombay City: Scheme of Possible Collaboration Between University and City”, Bombay, 1922.
Patrick Geddes, “Essentials of Sociology in Relation to Economics”, Indian Journal of Economics vol.III, parts 1-3, Bombay, 1922.
Jacqueline Tyrwhitt, Patrick Geddes in India, London: Lund Humphries, 1947.
Jal F. Bulsara, Patterns of Social Life in Metropolitan Areas (with particular reference to Greater Bombay), New Delhi: Research Programmes Committee, Planning Commission and Bombay: Gujarat Research Society, 1970.
J.V. Ferreira and S.S. Jha, The Outlook Tower: Essays on Urbanization in Memory of Patrick Geddes, University Department of Sociology, Bombay: Popular Prakashan, 1976.
G.S. Ghurye, “Social Work and Sociology” and “Salary and Other Conditions of Work of Clerks in Bombay City” in Anthropo-Sociological Papers, Bombay: Popular Prakashan, 1963.
G.S. Ghurye, Cities and Civilization, Bombay: Popular Prakashan, 1962.
C. Rajagopalan, The Greater Bombay: A Study in Suburban Ecology, Bombay: Popular Book Depot, 1962.

Wartime Economics

C.N. Vakil, J.J. Anjaria and D.T. Lakdawala, Price Control and Food Supply (with special reference to Bombay City), Bombay: N.M. Tripathi and Company, 1943.
C.N. Vakil, Socio-Economic Survey of Bombay City, 1954-57.
D.T. Lakdawala, V.N. Kothari, J.C. Sandesara, P.A. Nair, Work, Wages and Well-Being in an Indian Metropolis: Economic Survey of Bombay City, New Delhi: Research Programmes Committee, Planning Commission, 1954, published by University of Bombay, Series in Economics no.11, Bombay, 1963.
Benjamin Zachariah, Developing India: An Intellectual and Social History, 1930-1950. Delhi: Oxford University Press India, 2005.
S.L. Rao, ed. The Partial Memoirs of V.K.R.V. Rao. Delhi: Oxford University Press India, 2002.
H.T. Parekh, The Bombay Money Market. Bombay: Geoffrey Cumberledge/Oxford University Press, 1953.
K.N. Naik, The Co-Operative Movement in the Bombay State, C.N. Vakil, ed., Studies in Indian Economics, Bombay: Popular Book Depot, 1953.

Social Work in the City: The Dorabji Tata Graduate School of Social Work/Tata Institute of Social Sciences, 1935-1952

Clifford Manshardt, Pioneering on Social Frontiers in India, Bombay: Lalvani Publishing House, 1967.
P. Ramachandran and A. Padmanabha, Social and Economic Rents and Subsidies for Low-Income Groups in Greater Bombay, Bombay: Lalvani Publishing House, 1967.

Tata Institute of Social Sciences Series

• Social Disorganisation in India, 1938
• Mobilising Social Service in Wartime, 1943
• Dharavi: An Economic and Social Survey of a Village in the Suburbs of Bombay, 1944
• Our Beggar Problem, 1945
• Students and Social Work, 1949
• Social Service Department in a Hospital, 1950
• Public Shopping Habits and Conveniences, 1952

Planning Space and Society in Greater Bombay

Mulk Raj Anand, et. al. Bombay. Bombay: Modern Architects Research Group (MARG) Publications and Tata Press, 1966
Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA), Draft Regional Plan for Bombay Metropolitan Region, 1996–2011. Mumbai: MMRDA and Government of Maharashtra, 1995.
Modak and Mayer
S.G. Barve
Joint Town Planning Committee
Tata History Project, Tata Electric Companies. Bombay: Tata Economic Consultancy Services, 1981.
Nigel Harris, Economic Development, Cities and Planning: The Case of Bombay. Bombay: Oxford University Press India, 1978
Meera Kosambi, Bombay in Transition: The Growth and Social Ecology of a Colonial City, 1880-1980. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International, 1986.

Urbs Prima in Indis: Nineteenth Century Bombay

Mariam Dossal, Imperial Designs and Indian Realities: The Planning of Bombay City, 1845-1875. Delhi: Oxford University Press India, 1991
Teresa Albuquerque,
Gillian Tindall, City of Gold
Lakshmi Subramanian, Indigenous Capital and Imperial Expansion: Bombay, Surat and the West Coast, Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1996.

Labour and Industrial Histories

Rajnarayan Chandavarkar, The Origins of Industrial Capitalism in India: Business Strategies and the Working Class in Bombay, 1900–1940. Delhi: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
——, Imperial Power and Popular Politics: Class, Resistance and the State in India, 1850-1950. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
Neera Adarkar and Meena Menon, One Hundred Years, One Hundred Voices: The Millworkers of Mumbai: A Vanishing History. Calcutta: Seagull Books, 2004
Darryl D’Monte, Ripping the Fabric: The Decline of Mumbai and its Mills. New Delhi: Oxford University Press India, 2002
Rajni Bakshi, The Long Haul: An Account of the Textile Strike. Bombay: BUILD Documentation Centre, 1984.
Hubert van Wersch, The Bombay Textile Strike, 1982-1983. Bombay: Oxford University Press, 1992.
Sudha Deshpande and Lalit Deshpande, Problems of Urbanisation and Growth of Large Cities in a Developing Country: A Case Study of Bombay. Geneva: International Labour Organisation (ILO), World Employment Programme Research Working Paper no.177, 1991.
Vasant Gupte, Labour Movement in Bombay: Origin and Growth upto Independence. Bombay: Institute for Workers Education, 1981.
Jairus Banaji and Rohini Hensman (Union Research Group, Bombay), Beyond Multinationalism: Management Policy and Bargaining Relationships in International Companies. Delhi: Sage Publications, 1990.
A.D.D. Gordon, Businessmen and Politics: Rising Nationalism and a Modernising Economy in Bombay, 1918-1933. New Delhi : Manohar, 1978
K. Sita, V.S. Phadke, Swapna Banerjee-Guha, The Declining City-Core of an Indian Metropolis: A Case Study of Bombay. New Delhi : Concept, 1988.
K. Sita and R.N. Sharma, eds., Issues in Urban Development: A Case of Navi Mumbai. Jaipur: Rawat Publications, 2001.

The Urban Turn: Mumbai in the Nineties

Namas Bhojani and Arun Katiyar, Bombay: A Contemporary Account of Mumbai, New Delhi : Harper Collins Publishers India, 1996.
Thomas Blom Hansen, Wages of Violence: Naming and Identity in Postcolonial Bombay. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001
Rahul Mehrotra and Sharda Dwivedi, Bombay: The Cities Within. Bombay: India Book House Limited, 1995.
Sujata Patel and Alice Thorner, eds., Bombay: Metaphor for Modern India. Delhi: Oxford University Press India, 1995
Sujata Patel and Alice Thorner, eds., Bombay: Mosaic of Modern Culture. Delhi: Oxford University Press India, 1995
Sujata Patel and Jim Masselos, eds., Bombay and Mumbai: The City in Transition. Delhi: Oxford University Press India, 2003
Gyan Prakash, “The Urban Turn” in SARAI Reader 2: Cities of Everyday Life, Delhi: Centre for the Study of Developing Societies/Waag Society for Old and New Media, 2002
Pauline Rohtagi, Pheroza Godrej and Rahul Mehrotra, eds., Bombay to Mumbai: Changing Perspectives. Mumbai: MARG Publications, 1997.
Teresa Albuquerque, Bombay, A History. New Delhi: Rashna in association with Promilla, 1992.

Our next screening is tomorrow SATURDAY 19 NOVEMBER at 9.00 P.M.

Based on the Godfather, Sarkar (2005) is the last in an unique trilogy of films by director Ram Gopal Varma on the Mumbai criminal-political underworld. Satya (1998), the first film in the series, was a new kind of gangster film which hit the theatres when the city was the setting of major gangland warfare in the mid-nineties. Company (2002), its sequel, was a fictionalised tale of the rise of the real-world Mumbai dons Dawood Ibrahim and his understudy Chhota Rajan (Small Rajan), their subsequent split and war with each other, and the criminal-politician nexus which extends to the highest levels of the state. ‘Satya’ is the Gandhian-Ashokan motto of the Indian state, and ‘Company’ signifies the modern firm, but also the earlier form of the colonial state and its commercial empire. ‘Sarkar’ appropriately finishes this trilogy. Literally translated as ‘government’ but also a term of address to superiors in colloquial Hindi, Sarkar is a cognate for Godfather. Amitabh Bacchan plays a character based on the nativist political boss of Mumbai, Balasaheb Thackeray, chief of the Shiv Sena (Army of Shiv), the party machine which still rules Mumbai politics. Sarkar is about the rise and fall of this party and its ruling family. Along with Satya and Company, Sarkar explores the split domains of organised crime and politics in Mumbai, and related themes of business, morality, and the law.

On request, we will also screen either Satya or Company around 6.30 p.m. tomorrow before the main film.