Ahmedabad : Colonial Imagery and Urban Mindscapes

The present work, ¿Ahmedabad: Colonial Imagery and Urban Mindscapes¿ deals with the period between 1856 -1919, during which the city still retained many aspects of its antediluvian life style. This transitory period created a rupture in the city¿s trajectory and drew Ahmedabad into the vortex of colonial metropolitan trade. The rationale for the particular period is because the emergence of the textile mill industry brought into focus a civic leadership whose policies and politics were totally dissimilar from the traditional elite. They were responsible for creating a public sphere albeit not completely secular which dragged the city into modern terms of political discourse. In Ahmedabad, the political culture was transferred through the broadening scope of education, which enabled new professionals, as distinct from caste based elites to enter public life. These changes ushered in a new social structure based on achievement and legal rational norms.