By Kanhu Charan Pradhan from CPR, who was among the first scholars to highlight the specific role of Census Towns in the 2001-2011 period, draws on his earlier research to explain the role of census towns in understanding the pattern of urbanisation in India.
Coining the term ‘Subaltern Urbanisation’ can be seen as polemical but it seeks to embody two important strands that shape a common thinking around the potential role of small towns.
First, it attempts to make small places intelligible in contrast to their current level of invisibility in India and at the international level. Second, it tries to think of small towns as sites endowed with some level of autonomy and agency while the dominant paradigm, in particular in the New Economic Geography school of thought, sees small urban spaces as dependent on large metropolitan economies.
