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Combating ‘Filth’: The temple, the state, and urbanization in late nineteenth-century Puri

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 June 2019

UJAAN GHOSH
UJAAN GHOSH*
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin Madison Email: ughosh2@wisc.edu
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Abstract

This article interrogates the urbanization of Puri at the time of the cholera epidemic in the latter half of the nineteenth century. In the wake of the epidemic the colonial state took serious steps to reorder the urban landscape of the pilgrim town in general and Puri in particular. However, in Puri the narrative of infrastructural development is slightly complicated by the presence of the temple of Jagannath which acted as an alternative public body. Thus, on every occasion the colonial state had to negotiate with the temple in order to facilitate urban governance in Puri. As a result, I argue, Puri's urban landscape could only develop through interaction and negotiation between the temple and the state.

Type
Research Article
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 53 , Issue 6 , November 2019 , pp. 1849 - 1891
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019 

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Footnotes

I am grateful to the staff of Puri Municipality, who gave me access to their records without which this article would have been incomplete. I am indebted to Padmanabh Panda and Siddheshwar Mahaptra, for sharing their insights on Puri's urbanization. I thank the anonymous reviewers of Modern Asian Studies for their detailed reviews, which helped me develop this article. I cannot thank Ritajyoti Bandyopadhyay enough for his insightful comments on this article at different times, over the years. I am grateful to Tapati Guha-Thakurta and Rajarshi Ghose for their earlier corrections, as well as to Shekhar Bhowmik, Jatin K. Nayak, and Mari. C. Lewis for their help on earlier drafts. My sincerest thanks to Amrita Chowdhury for editing this piece countless times. This article would not have been complete without the help of Gopinath Mahapatra and his second-in-command, Gagan. They helped me become acquainted with Puri's geography in a way that would not have been possible for me otherwise. Gopinath Mahapatra gave me access to rare documents, including his family’s private records. These records have been kept for generations and are not usually shared with outsiders. He did all of this and in return only asked me to acknowledge Jagannath, if ever the research reached fruition, which I hereby do.

References

1 The residential population was, in fact, microscopic in comparison to the pilgrim population of the town. To give a rough estimate, the 1872 census of Puri denotes that its residential population was 22,695; in 1829 the number of pilgrims alone was 121,442. Since the statistics belong to two different years, this perhaps might not paint an accurate picture. The problem is, however, that we do not have exact population records after the abolition of the pilgrim tax, so there is no way of knowing exactly how many pilgrims visited in any particular year after this. However, the data give an adequate sense that the pilgrim population was substantially more than the residential population, and this would have only increased as the century progressed. For the figures, see Pati, B., ‘Ordering disorder in a holy city: Colonial health interventions in Puri during the nineteenth century’, in Health, Medicine, and Empire: Perspectives on Colonial India, Pati, B. and Harrison, M. (eds), Orient Longman, New Delhi, 2001, p. 278Google Scholar.

2 There are a very few works on the urban history of Orissa, but see Kalia, R., Bhubaneshwar: From Temple Town to a Capital City, Southern Illinois University Press, Carbondale, 1994Google Scholar; and Mohanty, P., Colonialism and South Asia: Cuttack 1803–1947, R. N. Bhattacharya, Calcutta, 2007Google Scholar.

3 Pati, ‘Ordering disorder’.

4 Ibid., p. 294.

5 Ibid., p. 295.

6 The backlash they feared was from both the pilgrims and the Odia elite.

7 This is the section of Pati's article that I am primarily interested in and engage with from a historiographical perspective. There is another longish section in his essay that deals with gender issues and how that interacted with colonial politics. For example, he emphasizes the fact that how ‘saving’ the women pilgrim from the grasp of the corrupt punda became an important aspect of the colonial project when interventions were planned by the colonial government. Beyond this Pati also briefly mentions the importance of missionary discourse in framing Puri as a ‘Valley of Death’, which was imprinted on later colonial policies as well.

8 Tripathi, G. C., ‘The classical version of the temple legend’, in The Cult of Jagannath and the Regional Tradition of Orissa, Kulke, H., Tripathi, G. C. and Eschmann, A. (eds), Manohar, New Delhi, 2014, p. 14Google Scholar.

9 R. Geib, ‘The temple legend and the king Indrayumna’, in ibid., pp. 26–27.

10 This is an extremely oversimplified version of the legend. The above two works elucidate in detail the legend and its credibility as a whole.

11 H. Kulke, ‘Early royal patronage of the Jagannatha cult’, in The Cult of Jagannath, Kulke, Tripathi and Eschmann (eds), p. 213.

12 For a discussion on the political importance of the temple in pre-modern Orissa, see Mubayi, Y., Altar of Power: The Temple and the State in the Land of Jagannatha, Sixteenth to Nineteenth Centuries, Manohar, New Delhi, 2005Google Scholar.

13 Jagannath remained central to pre-modern devotional and Riti poetry in Oriya. Seminal authors like Balaram Dasa, Dinakrishna Dasa, Lokenath Vidyadhar, and Upendra Bhanja, among others, gave Jagannath an important place in their literary works. Balaram Dasa's Laxmi Purana, which is a brilliant commentary on the oppressions of the caste system, revolves around the relationship between Jagannath and Laxmi. His other works also place the deity at the centre of their narrative form and content. Even later poets like Upendra Bhanja, whose devotional disposition is perceived to be lesser, dedicated verses of his works to Jagannath. In ‘Baidehisa Bilasa’, for example, he compares Rama's returning to Ayodhya after his victory over Parashuram with Jagannath coming back to his temple after the Rathayatra. See Bhanja, U., ‘Baidehisa Bilasa’, in Upendra Bhanja Rachanabali, vol. 3, Dharmagrantha Store, Cuttack, 2014, p. 222Google Scholar.

14 In common parlance, a dham translates as an ‘abode of God’; it ‘may be described as both the location and the refraction of the divine, a place where it manifests its power and where one experiences its presence’: Eck, D., India: A Sacred Geography, Harmony Books, New York, 2012, p. 29Google Scholar. The four dhams in Hindu cosmology includes Badrinath (in the north), Dwarka (in the west), Rameshwar (in the south), and Puri (in the east).

15 In his work on Ayodhya, Peter van der Veer focuses on this evolution from pilgrimage as an elite enterprise to a mass phenomenon by the turn of the century. See van der Veer, P., Gods on Earth: The Management of Religious Experience and Identity in a North Indian Pilgrimage Centre, Athlone, London, 1988Google Scholar.

16 Ravi Ahuja points out that the road was one of the ‘most important’ achievements of the colonial state in terms of public works projects in Orissa. See Ahuja, R., Pathways of Empire: Circulation, ‘Public Works’ and Social Space in Orissa (c. 1780–1914), Orient Black Swan, Hyderabad, 2009, p. 196Google Scholar. Pilgrim traffic would acquire an absolutely different character with the coming of railways when tourism developed organically alongside pilgrimage.

17 The nearby court of Khurda, though, was a vibrant literary centre in pre-nineteenth-century Orissa. The court of Divyasingha Deva was known for its immense literary patronage and its vibrant cultural dynamic. Das, S. N., Odia Sahityara Itihas, vol. 2, Grantha Mandir, Cuttack, 1965, pp. 199–201Google Scholar.

18 M. Desai, ‘Resurrecting Benares: Urban Space, Architecture and Religious Boundaries’, PhD thesis, University of California Berkeley, 2007, p. 173.

19 Besides the pilgrims, Puri's urban culture was (and is) dominated by sahis or neighbourhoods. The important sahis in Puri were Dolmandap Sahi, Bali Sahi, and Kalikadevi Sahi, among others. There were four main sahi nayaks or heads who played an important part in the urban culture of the town. For details, see Patnaik, N., Pilgrimage and Puri, Gyan Publishing House, Delhi, 2005Google Scholar. At the end of the nineteenth century, the entire residential population of Puri was estimated to be 24,803. Proceeding Number 10, Municipal Department, December 1891, Government of Bengal (GB), West Bengal State Archives (hereafter WBSA).

20 Buchanan, C., Christian Researches in Asia, J. Smith, London, 1811, pp. 22–23Google Scholar.

21 House of Commons Parliamentary Papers (HCPP), 1812–13 (194), No. 7, Papers Relating to East India Affairs, p. 67.

22 Proceeding Number 20, 2 March 1810, Bengal Revenue Proceedings (BRP), Miscellaneous Consultation, GB, WBSA.

23 Proceeding Number 30, 5 February 1814, BRP, Miscellaneous Consultation, GB, WBSA.

24 Proceeding Number 49 A, June 1859, GB, WBSA.

25 Ibid.

26 Proceeding Number 69, General Department, November 1862, GB, WBSA.

27 The bhog comprises the remnants of the sacred food which is given to the devotees after the deity has consumed it. For a theoretical discussion on how the bhog is central to the economy of the temple, see Appadurai, A., Worship and Conflict under Colonial Rule, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1981, pp. 85–93CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

28 After the occupation of Orissa, initially the East India Company took the temple under its own jurisdiction and sent the raja of Khurda into exile. In 1806, the government partially relinquished its influence, and in 1809, the Court of Directors, realizing that the government's intervention in the business of the temple was far too ‘universal’, passed Regulation IV of 1809 (which was strongly opposed by the commissioner of the East India affairs). By this act, the exiled raja of Khurda was brought back and made the superintendent of the temple, with control of the interior economy being vested in him, although the Company retained the power to depose him. For a general deliberation among the colonial officials about the regulations and the raja of Khurda as the superintendent of the temple, see HCPP, 1812–13 (194), No. 7, Papers Relating to East India Affairs, pp. 10–30. Also see Dube, I. Banerjee, Divine Affairs: Religion, Pilgrimage and State in Colonial and Postcolonial India, Institute of Advanced Studies, Shimla, 2001Google Scholar, especially Chapter 2.

29 Mukherjee, Prabhat, History of Jagannath Temple in the Nineteenth Century, Firma, Calcutta, 1977, p. 97Google Scholar.

30 Ibid.

31 I place emphasis on the paranoia surrounding cholera: even though there were frequent outbreaks in Puri prior to the 1860s, before the mid-nineteenth century they never aroused the kind of concern from the colonial government as cholera did after 1865. The reasons for this shift in attitude are explained in the following sections.

32 Proceeding Number 130, Judicial Department, February 1866, GB, WBSA.

33 Pati, ‘Ordering disorder’, p. 285.

34 Ibid.

35 The magistrate made a distinction between the bhog offered to the temple god and the ‘miscellaneous bhog’ made available to the public, which was his main cause for concern.

36 Proceeding Number 130, Judicial Department, February 1866, GB, WBSA.

37 Ibid.

38 Stein, B., ‘The economic function of a medieval South Indian temple’, The Journal of Asian Studies, vol. 19 (2), February 1960, pp. 163–176Google Scholar.

39 HCPP, 1867, Papers and Correspondence Relative to the Famine in Bengal and Orissa (hereafter RFBO), p. 141.

40 Ibid.

41 Ibid.

42 For an overall understanding of the importance of muths in Puri, see Mishra, B., Matha Parampara, Friends Publishers, Cuttack, 2012Google Scholar.

43 HCPP, 1867, RFPBO, p. 262.

44 Ibid., p. 234.

45 Ibid., p. 240.

46 Das, J. P., Desha Kala Patra, A Time Elsewhere, Nayak, J. (trans.), Penguin, Gurgaon, 2009, pp. 57–60 and 68–72Google Scholar.

47 HCPP, 1867, RFPBO, Part Two, Statements recorded by the Commissioners for enquiry into the famine, No. 12, Report of Sashi Bhusan Mukherjee, p. 15.

48 Ibid., Statements recorded by the Commissioners for enquiry into the famine, No. 32, Report of Baboo Dwarakanath Chakrabarty, p. 35.

49 Ibid., Statements recorded by the Commissioners for enquiry into the famine, No. 22, Report of Baboo Shib Prasad Sino, p. 21.

50 Ibid.

51 W. W. Hunter, Orissa, vol. 1, Smith, Elder and Co., London, 1872, p. 162. My emphasis.

52 Proceedings of Puri Municipality, 8 June 1886, Puri Municipality Proceedings, Year 1886–1888.

53 For a discussion on pilgrimage and governmental policies, see Harrison, M., Public Health in British India, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1994, pp. 117–138Google Scholar.

54 Quoted in Mishra, S., Pilgrimage Politics and Pestilence: The Haj from the Indian Subcontinent, Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 2011, p. 54CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

55 Hunter, Orissa, p. 166.

56 Gilbert, P., Mapping the Victorian Social Body, SUNY Press, Albany, 2004, p. 165Google Scholar.

57 Ibid., p. 169.

58 Arnold, D., ‘Cholera and colonialism in British India’, Past and Present, vol. 113, November 1986, p. 141CrossRefGoogle Scholar

59 Proceeding Number 13, Sanitation Branch, General Department, April 1869, GB, WBSA.

60 Though this sort of interventionist measure never materialized, the fact that such a drastic step was seriously considered by colonial officials seems quite surprising. The only other instance when the colonial state became so intrusive in civic life in the name of public health was during the Bubonic plague in Bombay in 1897. The colonial state encroached on its population to the extent that often the boundaries between the public and the private became blurred. In order to fight the epidemic, large-scale evacuations were undertaken by the municipal authorities, soldiers infiltrated the plague-‘infected’ houses, ill-treated the residents, and often burned ‘infected articles’ forcefully. While it is important to acknowledge that cholera never resulted in an equally massive interventionist endeavour from the colonial state, in the 1870s, officials quite seriously considered putting an end to pilgrimage to Puri altogether. For a discussion on the interventionist nature of the state during the plague, see Chandavarkar, R., ‘Plague panic and epidemic politics in India, 1896–1914’, in Epidemics and Ideas: Essays on Historical Perception of Pestilence, Ranger, T. and Sack, P. (eds), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1992, p. 221Google Scholar; and Klein, I., ‘Plague, policy and popular unrest in British India’, Modern Asian Studies, vol. 22 (4), October 1988, p. 741CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

61 Proceeding Number 24, Sanitation Branch, General Department, April 1869, GB, WBSA.

62 Proceeding Number 16, Sanitation Branch, General Department, April 1869, GB, WBSA.

63 Proceeding Number 26, Sanitation Branch, General Department, April 1869, GB, WBSA.

64 Proceeding Number 30, Sanitation Branch, General Department, April 1869, GB, WBSA. My emphasis.

65 W. P. Alison, one of the central medical figures in England at the time, ‘associated with the foundation of the Edinburgh New Town Dispensary’, maintained that fever ‘was associated primarily with destitution’. J. V. Pickstone, ‘Dearth, dirt and fever epidemics: Rewriting the history of British “public health”, 1780–1850’, in Epidemics and Ideas, Ranger and Sack (eds), p. 133. But Alison maintained that destitution was not a ‘direct cause’ or the ‘sole cause’ of disease but it was most common and dangerous among destitute people who were responsible for its rapid diffusion. An effective Poor Law, according to Alison, would be successful in preventing the disease. See Hamlin, C., Public Health and Social Justice in the Age of Chadwick, Britain, 1800–1854, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1998, p. 79Google Scholar.

66 The shift was marked primarily by the fact that disease and health were not seen to go hand-in-hand any more. Disease, according to this new theory surrounding filth, was either ‘present or absent. Its presence would be random with regard to economic conditions and occupations’: Hamlin, Public Health, p. 97.

67 Baldwin, P., Contagion and the State in Europe 1830–1919, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1999, p. 139CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

68 Baldwin describes neo-quarantinism as follows: ‘In response to this dilemma there developed a school of neoquarantinist thought and practice that, while accepting the transmissibility of cholera and other epidemic diseases, sought new means of hindering their import. Inspection in search of cholera's victims and their symptoms (revision, as the system was sometimes called), notification of disease to the authorities, isolation of the ill, medical surveillance of travelers, sometimes observation quarantines for ships, disinfection of persons, goods, vessels and dwellings: these now became the main tenets of neoquarantinist prophylaxis. The approach remained quarantinist in assuming cholera's basic infectiousness and seeking to block its transmission between humans. At the same time, it accepted that quarantine in the old sense was impracticable and unrealizable. In essence, it sought to shift the means of cutting chains of transmission from the lazaretto out into society at large, through surveilling the potentially infected, identifying the ill and imposing the necessary measures of disinfection and sequestration to render them harmless’: ibid., p. 141. The shift towards an approach that favoured quarantine occurred in Britain as a response to the ‘resurgence of Yellow Fever’. Mark Harrison notes that the outbreak of yellow fever in the 1860s (especially that in 1865, through the arrival of the ship Hecla in Swansea) was instrumental in changing British attitudes in favour of quarantine. By 1866 public opinion in Britain was favouring quarantine and medical journals like The Lancet which had ‘denigrated quarantine’ were no longer speaking in favour of it. See Harrison, M., Contagion: How Commerce has Spread Disease, Yale University Press, London, 2012Google Scholar, especially Chapter 5, pp. 107–138.

69 Gilbert, Mapping the Victorian Social Body, p. 165.

70 Ibid.

71 Ibid., Chapter 7, pp. 175–176.

72 HCPP, 1867, RFPBO, p. 250.

73 Proceeding Number 30, Sanitation Branch, General Department, April 1869, GB, WBSA.

74 Utkal Deepika, 25 July 1869.

75 Proceeding Number 30, Sanitation Branch, General Department, April 1869, GB, WBSA.

76 Though the official account does seem to be an exaggeration, it is worth noting the disparity between the numbers of people dying from cholera in 1869 from when Ravenshaw furnished his report.

77 Pati, ‘Ordering disorder’, p. 283.

78 This is not to suggest that prior to the 1860s cholera was not prevalent in Puri. Through a 1781 report, it can be traced in Puri in the eighteenth century. See D. E. S. Stewart-Tull, ‘Vaba, Haia, Kholera, Foklune, or Cholera: In any language still the disease of seven pandemics’ cited in R. L. Constance, ‘The Cholera Networks: Constructing Imperial Knowledge in the British Empire, 1817–1917’, PhD thesis, North Arizona University, 2012, p. 25. Also, in his autobiography Fakirmohan Senapati notes that his father died of cholera during his pilgrimage to Puri: Senapati, F., Story of my Life, translated from the Oriya by Nayak, J. K., Satirtha Publications, Bhuwaneshwar, 1997Google Scholar. In addition, there was a massive outbreak of cholera in Puri in 1836.

79 Pati, ‘Ordering disorder’, p. 289.

80 Maclean, K., Pilgrimage and Power: The Kumbh Mela in Allahabad 1765–1954, Oxford University Press, New York, 2008CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

81 Khalid, A., ‘Subordinate negotiations: Indigenous staff, the colonial state and public health’, in The Social History of Health and Medicine in Colonial India, Pati, B. and Harrison, M. (eds), Routledge, New York, 2009, pp. 45–73Google Scholar.

82 Ibid., p. 51.

83 Proceeding Number 32, Sanitation Branch, General Department, March 1870, GB, WBSA.

84 Proceeding Number 33, Sanitation Branch, General Department, March 1870, GB, WBSA.

85 Again, my use of the word ‘paranoia’ is not intended to indicate that the threat was exaggerated since cholera was very real a problem. But before it was identified as a global threat, cholera and pilgrimage never generated the kind of fear in the colonial bureaucracy as it did after 1865.

86 Dey, L., Bengal Peasant Life, Macmillan and Co., London, 1878, p. 246Google Scholar.

87 Proceeding Number 33, Sanitation Branch, General Department, March 1870, GB, WBSA.

88 Ibid.

89 Corbin, A., The Foul and the Fragrant: Odor and the French Social Imagination, Harvard University Press, Massachusetts, 1986, p. 4Google Scholar.

90 Otter, C., Victorian Eye: A Political History of Light and Vision in Britain, 1800–1910, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2008, p. 66CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

91 Hunter, Orissa, p. 148.

92 Corbin, The Foul and the Fragrant, p. 7.

93 Proceeding Number 37, Sanitation Branch, General Department, August 1871, GB, WBSA.

94 Ibid.

95 Note that Corbin gives equal importance to the development of science for the lowering of the tolerance to olfactory sensations. Corbin, The Foul and the Fragrant, p. 56.

96 Ibid., p. 133.

97 O'Malley, L. S. S., Bengal District Gazetteers: Puri, Bengal Secretariat Book Depot, Calcutta,1908, p. 619Google Scholar.

98 Proceeding Number 2, Sanitation Branch, General Department, August 1871, GB, WBSA. As noted, this reference has been one of the most oft-cited quotations in writing about Puri. Hunter notes it in his work, Hunter, Orissa, p. 149; O'Malley notes it in O'Malley, Bengal District Gazetteers, p. 182. And recently this has also been cited by Pati, ‘Ordering disorder’, p. 281.

99 Proceeding Number 2, Sanitation Branch, General Department, August 1871, GB, WBSA.

100 O'Malley, Bengal District Gazetteers, p. 132.

101 Proceeding Number 9, Sanitation Branch, General Department, August 1871, GB, WBSA.

102 Flandrin, J. L., Families in Former Times: Kinship, Household and Sexuality, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1979, p. 101Google Scholar. Flandrin demonstrates how the communal bed was the meeting place of the poor since fuel for fires was expensive in France.

103 Corbin, The Foul and the Fragrant, p. 102.

104 Foucault, M., ‘Of other spaces, of utopias and heterotopias’, in Rethinking Architecture: A Reader in Cultural Theory, Leach, N. (ed.) Routledge, New York, 1997, p. 334Google Scholar.

105 In his survey on causes of fever, James Phillips Kay, for example, gives ample space to overcrowding and its relation to disease. He also questions one of the fundamental tenet of overcrowding: is crowdedness a habit or is it simply a mark of disparity between supply and demand in housing? See Hamlin, Public Health, p. 109.

106 King, A., Colonial Urban Development: Culture, Social Power and Environment, Routledge, Abingdon, 2007, p. 111Google Scholar.

107 Ibid.

108 The Bengal Code, vol. 4, Bengal Secretariat Book Depot, Calcutta, 1905, p. 65.

109 Corbin, The Foul and the Fragrant, p. 101.

110 Harrison, Public Health, pp. 100–103.

111 Jones, G. S., Outcast London: A Study in the Relationship between Classes in Victorian Society, Verso Books, London, 2013, p. 188Google Scholar.

112 Ibid., p. 217.

113 This is intimated by almost every colonial official who has written on Puri. Most notably this accusation was made by John Beames. See Beames, J., Memoirs of a Bengal Civilian, Eland Books, London, 1984, p. 196Google Scholar. Biswamoy Pati also discusses this issue at some length in Pati, ‘Ordering disorder’, p. 279.

114 Proceeding Number 9, Sanitation Branch, General Department, August 1871, GB, WBSA.

115 Ibid. My emphasis.

116 Proceeding Number 3, Municipal Department, December 1880, GB, WBSA.

117 Utkal Deepika, 15 June 1872.

118 Ibid., 6 June 1874.

119 Ibid., 25 July 1874.

120 Proceeding Number 3, Municipal Department, December 1880, GB, WBSA.

121 Utkal Deepika, 15 August 1874.

122 Proceeding Number 14, Sanitation Branch, General Department, August 1871, GB, WBSA.

123 Ibid.

124 Ibid.

125 Ibid.

126 Ibid.

127 Ibid.

128 ‘Badi’ in Odia denotes cholera, and Badi-Nrisingha is an idol of Nrisingha (the fourth avatar of Vishnu) kept in the temple of Jagannath, which is taken out twice in a year (during Chaitra and Sravan, the two months when cholera was generally rampant) along the borders of the town. Siddheswar Mahapatra, Puri Boli, Sahitya Academy, Bhubaneshwar, 2006, p. 260. I am especially thankful to Siddheswar Mahapatra himself who informed me about this tradition and practice prevalent in the town.

129 Proceeding Number 14, Sanitation Branch, General Department, August 1871, GB, WBSA. Ravenshaw held a meeting at Puri at which he discussed the policies that the government planned to implement. ‘I took the opportunity,’ noted Ravenshaw, ‘when recently at Pooree, to call a meeting, of the chief muthdharees, or trustees of endowments, and had a long discussion with them.’ Ravenshaw noted that the meeting was a public one and he asked the people present to think over the possibility of handing over a portion of the religious endowments to the government for the betterment of pilgrims. It is difficult to ascertain whether the plan was eventually executed or not. Nonetheless, it is undeniable that the temple authorities in Puri exercised considerable influence on the formation of government policy.

130 Proceeding Number 8, Municipal Department, December 1880, GB,WBSA.

131 Proceeding Number 10, Municipal Department, December 1880, GB, WBSA.

132 Ibid.

133 Harrison, Public Health, pp. 202–220. In this work there is a discussion on urban finance and the Calcutta Municipality, which reflects similar opposition faced by various municipal bodies in terms of taxation.

134 Proceeding Number 8, Municipal Department, December 1880, GB, WBSA.

135 Broich, J., ‘Engineering the empire: British water supply systems and colonial societies, 1850–1900’, Journal of British Studies, vol. 46 (2), April 2007, p. 350CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

136 Proceeding Number 9, Sanitation Branch, General Department, August 1871, GB, WBSA.

137 Ibid.

138 Proceeding Number 4, Municipal Department, December 1880, GB, WBSA.

139 Pati, ‘Ordering disorder’, p. 290.

140 Proceeding Number 7, Municipal Department, March, 1889, GB, WBSA.

141 Proceeding Number 10, Municipal Department, March 1889, GB, WBSA.

142 Proceeding Number 12, Municipal Department March 1889, GB, WBSA. This was a pattern similar to those found in cities like Bombay, where donations from Indian elites were solicited. See Chopra, Preeti, A Joint Enterprise: Indian Elites and the Making of British Bombay, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 2011, pp. 118–120CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

143 Proceeding Number 8, Municipal Department December 1889, GB, WBSA. Proceedings of Puri Municipality, 23 August 1889, Puri Municipal Proceedings, Year 1890–1891.

144 M. Dossal, Imperial Designs and Indian Realties: The Planning of Bombay City 1845–1875, Oxford University Press, Bombay, 1991, p. 103.

145 Constance, ‘The Cholera Networks’, p. 90.

146 Proceeding Number 2, Municipal Department, August 1884, GB, WBSA.

147 Proceeding Number 9, Municipal Department, December 1891, GB, WBSA.

148 Proceeding Number 10, Municipal Department, December 1891, GB, WBSA.

149 Proceeding Number 13, Municipal Department, December 1891, GB, WBSA.

150 Ibid.

151 Proceeding Number 10, Municipal Department, April 1892, GB, WBSA. My emphasis.

152 Proceeding Number 6, Municipal Department, December 1889, GB, WBSA.

153 Proceedings of Puri Municipality, 31 August 1890, Puri Municipality Proceedings, Year 1890–1891.

154 Raut, K. C., Local Self Government in British Orissa, 1869–1935, Daya Publishing House, Delhi, 1988, p. 205Google Scholar.

155 Proceedings of Puri Municipality, 5 September 1889, Puri Municipality Proceedings, Year 1889.

156 Ibid., 17 September 1889.

157 Inspection Book of Municipal Officers of Puri Municipality, 1897–1898, Puri Municipality.

158 In 1890 the municipality had tried to close the Narendra Tank for bathing purposes during the Chandan festival, but they eventually had to rescind the order. The opposition to closing the tank was primarily spearheaded by the superintendent of the temple and ‘large number of taxpayers’. Proceedings of Puri Municipality, 25 April 1890, Puri Municipality Proceedings, Year 1890–1891.

159 Proceeding Number 20, Municipal Department, October 1893, GB, WBSA.

160 Proceeding Number 7, Municipal Department, February 1894, GB, WBSA.

161 O'Malley, Bengal District Gazetteers, p. 134.

162 Amrita Bazar Patrika, 12 October 1902, p. 3.

163 Corbin, A., The Lure of the Sea: Discovery of the Seaside in the Western World, University of California Press, Berkley, 1994Google Scholar.

164 Hobsbawm, E., The Age of Capital, 1848–1875, Weidenfeld and Nicholson, London, 1975Google Scholar.

165 Corbin, Lure of the Sea, p. 53.

166 Amrita Bazar Patrika, 12 May 1911, p. 3.

167 Nirmal Kumar Bose, writing about his days in Puri, notes the large number of Bengali tourists who visited all year round. Bose, N. K., Paribrajaker Diary, India Associated Publishing, Calcutta, 1945, p. 25Google Scholar.

168 Amrita Bazar Patrika, 12 July 1922, p. 1.

169 Amrita Bazar Patrika, 18 February 1910, p. 3.

170 In 1930s the land near Gourbarsahi became particularly covetable, with Bengalis from Calcutta, especially, making repeated requests for leases of property. For example, Harichand Mitra of Nilmani Mullick Bose Lane appealed for 0.125 acres of land from plot no. 1366 in Gorbar Sahi. The land was granted at Rs 200 per acre. Proceedings of Puri Municipality, 11 August 1930, Puri Municipal Proceedings, 1929–1931. Another example is that of Harihar Das Chowdhury of Chingrihata who demanded a lease of 0.149 acres in Gourbar Sahi for 20 years, which was granted at the same rate of Rs 200 per acre. A similar request was made by Pradulla Gopal Mukherjee who wanted to renew his lease of 0.160 acres of land. Proceedings of Puri Municipality, 26 November 1934, Puri Municipality Proceedings, Year 1934–1935.