20世纪初加尔各答城市改造与英帝国殖民统治

Urban Transformation and British Imperial Colonial Rule in Early 20th Century Calcutta

17世纪末加尔各答建城,逐渐形成了“黑白城”的城市布局。在殖民体系下,印度人聚居的黑城在城市发展中处于边缘位置。19世纪末20世纪初,在鼠疫、民族主义运动的冲击下,城市发展陷入困境。英印政府则利用此次危机,将城市改造的触角深入至印度本土社会内部,以维护自身统治的稳定性。英印政府凭借自身在殖民地中突出的政治权位,主导了加尔各答的城市改造,企图建立一个更符合殖民利益、更便于管理的新秩序。纵观此次改造活动,公共卫生问题是英印政府进行城市规划与治理的重要导向,其背后的逻辑是英帝国在印度以“差异性”原则为基础的治理机制。卫生问题成为了帝国建构异族他者、凸显宗主国与殖民地之间异质性的工具,进而为殖民者干预控制殖民地社会提供了合理性。同时,殖民权利的推行不仅具有强力性的一面,协商性也是保障殖民统治平稳运行的内在要义,即殖民者面对现实情况,在印度社会做出的不曾言明的让步。

The city of Calcutta was founded at the end of the 17th century and gradually formed a“black town”and“white town”layout.Under the colonial systerm,the Indian populated Black Town was marginalized in the urban development.At the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century,the city's development was in trouble under the impact of the plague and nationalist movements.The Anglo Indian government,for its part,used the crisis to extend its power of urban transfornation deep within native Indian society,in order to maintain the stability of its own rule.The Anglo-Indian government,with its own prominent political position of power in the colony,dominated the urban transformation of Calcutta to create a new order that was more in line with colonial interests and more manageable,Throughout this transformation,public health issues were an important guide to urban planning and governance for the Anglo Indian govemment,and the logic behind this was the imperial governance principles in India based on the principle of“difference”.The issue of hygiene became a tool for the empire to construct the other and highlight the heterogeneity between the suzerain state and the colony,which in turn justified the colonizer's intervention to control colonial society.At the same time,colonial power was not only enforced with forcefulness,but negotiation was also inherent in the smooth operation of colonial rule,the unspoken concessions made by the colonizers in Indian society in the face of the realities of the situation.