Beyond fragmentation: uneven urbanization and sanitary infrastructure in colonial Madras City

Abstract

Extant scholarship on colonial urbanism portrays colonial urbanization as producing fragmented infrastructures wherein modern networked systems were reserved for elites, while the majority remained excluded, relying instead on traditional or informal infrastructures. This article moves beyond such framings, bringing into view adaptationist currents within colonial thinking about urban infrastructure building. Focusing on sewerage modernization in colonial Madras, it shows how municipal engineers devised novel ways to adapt modern sanitary principles for the city’s lower middle-class households. This led to the emergence and widespread diffusion of cheap, but self-confessedly substandard, modes of sanitary provision, such as hand-flushed water closets and low-cost household drainage devices. While extending access, these processes came with their own set of contradictions and exclusions. By critically investigating these issues, the article also contributes to ongoing scholarship in the historiography of colonial cities about the novel materialities of colonial built environments.