Colossus: The Anatomy of Delhi (South Asia in the Social Sciences, Series Number 15)

The National Capital Region of Delhi is a diverse and unequal space. Its more than 30 million people are sharply differentiated by economic class, religion and caste, education, language, and migration status. Its 45,000 square kilometres is a tapestry of spaces - ghettoes, slums, enclaves, institutional areas, planned and unplanned and authorized and unauthorized colonies, forests and agricultural fields. In some ways it is a dynamic society aspiring to global city grandeur; in other ways it is a bastion of tradition, sectarianism and hierarchy. Colossus details these realities and paradoxes under three themes: social change, community and state, and inequality. From the material condition of the metropolis - its housing, services, crime and pollution - to its social organization - of who marries whom, who eats with whom, and who votes for whom - this book unpacks the complex reality of a metropolitan region that is emblematic of India's aspirations and contradictions. "Colossus: The Anatomy of Delhi is an ambitious, wide-ranging, analytical, data-driven, theory-rich, multidisciplinary, and up-to-date compilation of fifteen essays that dissect the physical and social structure of India's National Capital Region, the second-largest metropolis in the world. The volume brings together experts from economics, environmental science, geography, history, political science, sociology, and urban planning to cover a wide range of subjects including demography and mapping, housing and settlements, physical assets and services, energy and pollution, political parties and leaders, crime, migration, marriage, education, and religion, caste, and class. It introduces a large-scale and granular household survey of the metropolis, including unique questions on social attitudes. Analysis of this data, combined with original contributions from established scholars of Delhi, yields deep insights into the social, political, and economic conditions and transformations in the region. The most significant of these insights raise doubts about the received wisdom on the inevitability of social change with urbanization, suggest new ideas about urban communities and their relationship to the state in its various forms, and point to new ways to examine the multiple manifestations of urban and spatial inequality"-- Provided by publisher Colossus is a comprehensive, data-driven, theory-rich, and multidisciplinary compilation that dissects the figurative anatomy of Delhi and India's National Capital Region. It will find a prominent place in studies on South Asia, urbanization and urban social behavior, and become a standard resource on these subjects.