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3 - Space in Motion: An Uneven Narrative of Urban Private Property in Bombay

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2020

By
Nikhil Rao
Edited by
Ajay Gandhi ,
Barbara Harriss-White ,
Douglas E. Haynes  and
Sebastian Schwecke
Ajay Gandhi
Affiliation:
Universiteit Leiden
Barbara Harriss-White
Affiliation:
University of Oxford
Douglas E. Haynes
Affiliation:
Dartmouth College, New Hampshire
Sebastian Schwecke
Affiliation:
Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta
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Summary

Although it is well known that the colonial state embarked upon creating a “rule of property” in India from the eighteenth century onward, the manner in which this project unfolded in early East India Company settlements such as Bombay was different from the territories that only later came under British control. In the latter, a confident and assertive colonial state executed its agenda; in the former, a tentative Company was concerned initially with asserting its sovereignty by asserting that all the land in Bombay belonged to it. In cities like Bombay, thus, a deep and enduring tension lay at the heart of the rule of property: between a state that endorsed a liberal vision sanctifying private property, on the one hand, and a state that jealously guarded its proprietary rights over lands, on the other hand. This tension was deployed by state and nonstate actors to pursue their own ends.

Keywords

landland tenurepropertyBombayhousingurban developmentcolonialism
Type
Chapter
Information
Rethinking Markets in Modern India
Embedded Exchange and Contested Jurisdiction
 , pp. 54 - 84
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

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