Between the highway and the red dirt track : subaltern urbanization and census towns in India

In the 2011 Census of India, more than 2500 settlements were inducted into the category of ‘census towns’ – the lowest size-class of urban settlements in India. Aerial images have established that a vast majority of these towns are situated away from million-plus metropolitan areas and have developed independently. Taking this geographical phenomenon of subaltern urbanization as a point of entry, this thesis attempts to make an empirical and conceptual intervention into our understanding of urbanization processes. Based on discourse analysis, narrative analysis of personal interviews, participatory mapping exercises and a household survey (carried out in two towns of West Bengal, the state with the largest number of new census towns) this thesis explores what can be learnt about the experience of small-town urbanization from a subaltern studies perspective.