“Capital” consciousness: Reading Rana Dasgupta

Abstract

This article situates Rana Dasgupta’s Capital: A Portrait of Twenty-First Century Delhi (2014) within contemporary trends in urban writing from India. It analyses Dasgupta’s representation of the cultural milieu of Delhi and its explosive growth in 2000s India using Saskia Sassen’s concept of “global city” and Asher Ghertner’s concept of “world-class city”. It examines Dasgupta’s usage of the non-fiction form – comprising extensive commentary and reportage – to chart the social attitudes underpinning the city’s neo-liberal evolution. In studying the way Capital critiques Delhi’s gentrification (which repackages it as a commercial city for the global stage), the article frames Dasgupta’s work as part of an extended discourse on the city which foregrounds its development as embedded in the genealogies of India’s postcolonial nationhood and economic liberalization.