This book examines the politics behind, and the socio-economic and ecological repercussions of, the making of a new township, variously called New Town, Megacity or Jyoti Basu Nagar, in Rajarhat near Kolkata. Conceived by the West Bengal state government in the mid-1990s, in pandering to the vision of urban planners of creating a hi-tech town beyond an unruly, crowded Kolkata, and feeding the hunger of realtors and developers, the city is built on the foundations of coercive, even violent, land acquisition, state largesse and corruption - and at the cost of erasing a self-sufficient subsistence economy and despoiling a fragile environment. Yet, after its completion and departure of construction labour, the new town appears as a necropolis, a ghost city, that belies its promised image of an urban utopia, even as the displaced locals lead a precarious, mobile existence as 'transit labour', engaged in odd and informal jobs. Written on the basis of intensive fieldwork, government documents, court records, and chronicles of public protests, this book broadly analyses the politics and economics of urbanisation in the age of post-colonial capitalism, particularly the paradoxical combination of neoliberal and primitive modes of capital accumulation upon which the global emergence of 'new towns' is based. Departing from the dominant styles of urban studies that focus on cultural or spatial analysis of cities, the authors show the links between changes in space, technology, political economy, class composition, and forms of urban politics which give concrete shape to a city. It will immensely interest those in sociology, political science, economics, development studies, urban studies, policy and governance studies, and history.

This volume explores the transition from colonial to constitutional rule in India, and the various configurations of power and legitimacies that emerged from it. It focuses on the developmental structures and paradigms that provided the circumstances for this transition, and the establishment of the post-colonial state. Different articles interrogate the idea of liberal constitutionalism, the spaces it provides for rights and claims, the assumptions it makes about citizenship and its attendant duties, and the assumptions it further makes about what it can, or has to, become in the particular situation of India. The book locates these questions in the reconfiguration of society, power, and the economy since the shift in the identity of the state after Independence, and deals with issues of constitution-making in a historical and political setting and its outcomes, especially the centrality of law and legalisms, in shaping civil society. With a companion volume on the transition to a constitutional form of governance and the consequent moulding of the citizens, this book emphasises continuity and change in the context of the movement from the colonial to the constitutional order. It will be of interest to those in politics, history, South Asian studies, policy studies, and sociology.

This volume looks at the ways in which governance in the exercise of its strategies also acts as a process of production of subjects. It argues that governance is not a one-sided affair starting and ending with those who rule and govern, producing fiats, decrees, and diktats, but a productive process - one that produces subjects of governance who in turn respond to the process, and make the field of governance a contentious one. Against the backdrop of the first transition of democracy in India from its origin in a colonial polity to the first phase of its independent life after the promulgation of the Indian Constitution in 1950, this volume explores the second transition towards developmental democracy, examining the interrelations between globalisation, development and structures of governance. The volume suggests that while there is need to reflect on the governance of transition, it is important to question how democracy negotiates this transition.

This book examines the politics behind, and the socio-economic and ecological repercussions of, the making of a new township, variously called New Town, Megacity or Jyoti Basu Nagar, in Rajarhat near Kolkata. Conceived by the West Bengal state government in the mid-1990s, in pandering to the vision of urban planners of creating a hi-tech town beyond an unruly, crowded Kolkata, and feeding the hunger of realtors and developers, the city is built on the foundations of coercive, even violent, land acquisition, state largesse and corruption - and at the cost of erasing a self-sufficient subsistence economy and despoiling a fragile environment. Yet, after its completion and departure of construction labour, the new town appears as a necropolis, a ghost city, that belies its promised image of an urban utopia, even as the displaced locals lead a precarious, mobile existence as 'transit labour', engaged in odd and informal jobs. Written on the basis of intensive fieldwork, government documents, court records, and chronicles of public protests, this book broadly analyses the politics and economics of urbanisation in the age of post-colonial capitalism, particularly the paradoxical combination of neoliberal and primitive modes of capital accumulation upon which the global emergence of 'new towns' is based. Departing from the dominant styles of urban studies that focus on cultural or spatial analysis of cities, the authors show the links between changes in space, technology, political economy, class composition, and forms of urban politics which give concrete shape to a city. It will immensely interest those in sociology, political science, economics, development studies, urban studies, policy and governance studies, and history.

This volume explores the transition from colonial to constitutional rule in India, and the various configurations of power and legitimacies that emerged from it. It focuses on the developmental structures and paradigms that provided the circumstances for this transition, and the establishment of the post-colonial state. Different articles interrogate the idea of liberal constitutionalism, the spaces it provides for rights and claims, the assumptions it makes about citizenship and its attendant duties, and the assumptions it further makes about what it can, or has to, become in the particular situation of India. The book locates these questions in the reconfiguration of society, power, and the economy since the shift in the identity of the state after Independence, and deals with issues of constitution-making in a historical and political setting and its outcomes, especially the centrality of law and legalisms, in shaping civil society. With a companion volume on the transition to a constitutional form of governance and the consequent moulding of the citizens, this book emphasises continuity and change in the context of the movement from the colonial to the constitutional order. It will be of interest to those in politics, history, South Asian studies, policy studies, and sociology.

This volume looks at the ways in which governance in the exercise of its strategies also acts as a process of production of subjects. It argues that governance is not a one-sided affair starting and ending with those who rule and govern, producing fiats, decrees, and diktats, but a productive process -- one that produces subjects of governance who in turn respond to the process, and make the field of governance a contentious one. Against the backdrop of the first transition of democracy in India from its origin in a colonial polity to the first phase of its independent life after the promulgation of the Indian Constitution in 1950, this volume explores the second transition towards developmental democracy, examining the interrelations between globalisation, development and structures of governance. The volume suggests that while there is need to reflect on the governance of transition, it is important to question how democracy negotiates this transition.