The origins of urban planning in India can be traced to the planned towns of Mohenjodaro and Harappa belonging to the Indus Valley Civilisation as early as 2500 BC(Ramachandran 1989). Cities and towns werealso built around forts and centres of trade and commerceat various periods in the history of India. More broadly, over the longer historical span, scholars argue that India witnessed very little in situ urbanisation. Historically, urban centres have grown up due to concerted investment in certain areas by state governments or through administrative mechanisms such as transplanting district and sub-district (tehsil) headquarters and municipal apparatus (Bhagat2005).Pre-colonial rulers built up prominent towns and cities mainly for political and strategic reasons. One can find many such cities that were built during medieval times. FatehpurSikri andSikandra, in Uttar Pradesh, Murshidabad in West Bengal, Sindhudurg in Maharashtra, Chittorgarh, Jaipur, Jodhpur, Jaisalmer, Mewar and Udaipur in Rajasthan,Ahmedabad in Gujrat, Hyderabad in Andhra Pradeshand Gwalior in Madhya Pradesh are some of the prominent towns and cities developed during medieval times under various rulers and dynasties.
City Development in Ancient and Medieval India:
Scholars such as Ramachandran (1989: 24) divide urbanisation and city development in pre-colonial India into three time periods:
· The pre-historic (2350 to 1800 BC)
· Early historical period (600 BC to 500 AD)
· Medieval period (600 AD to 1800 AD)
Cities of the Indus Valley civilisation, such as Harappa, Mohenjodaroand Lothal followed a system of town planning with similarities in their layouts on a rectilinear basis of main east-west routes directed to the citadels and north-south cross routes (Morris 1979). These cities were also the earliest instances of gridiron town planning. The city proper consisted of two components– a citadel, built on high ground and a lower city where the majority of the population lived (Ramachandran 1989: 30). The citadel consisted of a large number of structures with large halls and palaces and was fortified with walls. The lower city was built on a gridiron pattern with a hierarchy of streetslarge, small and smallest. An elaborate drainage system, storm water drainage system, water supply in brick lined wells, houses of different sizes and sites like the granary and public bath were some of the prominent features of the cities under the Indus Valley Civilisation.
The earliest city developments in the second phase of urbanisation around 600 BC took place in and around the Indus valley and adjoining parts of Rajasthan, Punjab and parts of western Uttar Pradesh and also in the Deccan and southern parts of India. These cities were Nalanda, Taxashila, Vijayanagar, Pataliputra, Kancheepuram, Madurai, Varanasi and Delhi.It was during this period that towns like Varanasi and Pataliputra in the North 4 and Kancheepuram and Madurai in South gained prominence and became the centres of India’s earliest urban history (Ramachandran 1989). The use of iron helped clear forests and facilitated human settlements, triggering the emergence of these cities. During the Mauryan period,a complex town planning pattern developed and the janapadas (politicoadministrative units ruled by local kings) and later mahajanapadas (larger kingdoms) came into being. Texts like Kautilya’sArthashastra and the travelogues of Fa Hsien and Megasthenesalso suggest that cities also increased in size and number (Ramachandran 1989). Taxashila, Mathura, Kausambi, Pataliputra and Sravasthi were important cities of the Mauryan period. The decline of these cities in the post-Mauryan period could be attributed to factors like recurrence of natural calamities, the decline of well-administered empires and foreign invasions. The major cities in South during this period were Puhar (the port of the Chola kings), Madurai, Kanchi, Karur and Korkai(Ramachandra 1989).
Around the fifth century AD, during the rules of the Gupta kings,there was a revival.Again there were revivals at the time of the Delhi Sultanate and the Mughals. Delhi became the capital city of the slave dynasty and later the Khiljis, Tughlaqs and Lodhis. Two leading cities from around this time were Delhi and Agra. Others like Mathura, Allahabad, Varanasi, Thaneshwar, Gwalior, Ujjain, Somnath, Meerut, Panipat, Baroda and Srinagar also developed. During the Mughal period (1526-1800 AD) the growth of capital cities, building of forts, large residences and buildings, palaces and mosques became essential features of cities like Agra, Delhi, Sikandra, Shahjahanabad in the north and Hyderabad and Ahmedabad furtherSouth. For instance,Shahjahanabad was a planned city with a central avenue leading to the main gate of the Red Fort. Chandni Chowk housed the market; on one side of the avenue was the Jama Masjid and on the other the residence of the nobles. Commoners usually lived outside the fort area in mohallas with narrow streets
Urban Planning under British Rule in India:
During the colonial era, up to the early 20th century, cities were consciously laid out for 5 military and political dominance.The concerns of public health and sanitation, spatial and social segregation, colonial dominance, and control were the underlying ideas of colonial planning in India. The establishment of town planning institutions and a knowledge edifice complete with the establishment of civil works departments and engineering colleges and the use of statistics, census and surveys institutionalised the planning process in colonial India. The underlying philosophy that cities are important centres of economic productivity informed the colonial urban planning process