This article examines how the management of railway traffic was problematized in urban plans for colonial Delhi after the 1890s. It reveals how Delhi was reconstituted as a space of circulation in municipal plans attempting to combat railway-induced ‘traffic congestion’. Yet, even as new gardens, localities and footpaths were envisaged as enabling smooth flows of traffic and generating a commercially healthy city, policing anxieties and concerns over political security dominated in such plans. Finally, this article shows how the process of railway-inspired ‘urban planning’ was itself driven by a contestation between different ‘scales’ of the colonial state.
Figure 1: ‘Clarke’s memorandum regarding approaches to Delhi station,1899’. Dotted lines depict footpaths cutting through Queens Gardens with ‘burj’ in centre. Red dots represent localities of Kuncha Kabuli Attar and Lattu Shah earmarked for 30-foot road clearances. (Source: DSA, CCO, S.No.50, B-10, 1899, box 56. Modified by author.)