While cities have always been important in the fortunes of the Indian subcontinent, most of India’s vast population has lived in villages and hamlets whether in pre-colonial, colonial or even post-colonial times.

For pre-British India there are no accurate figures though the rural base on which the state depended for resources was clearly very extensive. At the height of Britain’s domination of the subcontinent in the first two decades of the twentieth century, the proportion of people living in towns and cities hovered around 10 to 11 per cent (adjusted to 1948 borders), a proportion that rose to 17 per cent in 1951 shortly after the end of British rule,¹ and reached to about a third of the population after sixty- four years of independence in 2011.² So while the rate of urbanisation has increased and the cities themselves have grown immensely larger over the years, the country has remained predominantly rural and agrarian.

It might seem from the statistics that, historically, Indian cities were insignificant and unimportant, and that what was important about India was in the countryside or derived from agrarian life. The converse, however, is more the case: cities were critical in the functioning of the state, whatever its form, just as they were critical in the functioning of its economy. They were instruments through which the state exercised its powers and asserted its pre-eminence, they served as the seat of government, the centre through which power was deployed and control asserted over a large and widely distributed population. The capital city moreover signalled the greatness of a dynasty and its empire. The attitude applied equally to the British as they proceeded to take over India and replaced the legendary and mighty Mughal Empire. The British raj (rule) took over its territories, its cities and not least its capital. For both, cities had importance and a complex symbolism.