Decolonising from London. An Indian psychogeography around Victorian railway spaces (1870-1914)

As London neighborhoods took on an Asian character, Indian memories inhabited London in a typographical imagination, or Typogravia.

Author

Arup K. Chatterjee, Professor of English, Jindal Global Law School, O.P. Jindal Global University, Sonipat, Haryana, India.

Summary

As the expansion of the London Underground coincided with that of the Indian Railways, an Indian psychogeography was gradually emerging in the geographies on the fringes of the Victorian imperial capital. In their memoirs, Pothum Ragaviah, Mukharji, Jang, Malabari, Pillai and Pandian, among other Indian travellers, took an interest in London’s railway spaces to renew their colonial subjectivity.

As London neighborhoods took on an Asian character, Indian memories inhabited London in a typographical imagination, or Typogravia. Architectural, economic, artistic and literary consciousnesses overlapped in this typographic space to highlight an Indian aesthetic independent of travel and self-reliance, shaped around London’s railway spaces.

Published in: Diasporas

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