Spatialization, crime and making of Bombay, India: a geocritical study of Narcopolis, maximum city and Shantaram

Abstract

To understand the crime in terms of space, we need to understand the geographical restructuring of spaces. The transformation of the space into a place has its own distinctive historical, social, cultural, and political geography, which is full of several stories, voices, and struggles over the means of survival. In context to Literary texts, Narcopolis, Maximum City and Shantaram, this research paper analyses Bertrand Westphal’s theory of Geocriticism and focuses on those physical spaces which have been transformed into spaces of criminal activities through the reconfiguration of Bombay. The research explores that in the shaping of the geography of Bombay, capitalism is not the only creator; proletarianism also plays an equally important role, which leads to transforming Bombay as a heterogeneous space. This research attempts to understand the reconfiguration of Bombay and its impact on society and the occurrence and nature of crime with changing geography. It examines how a given space defines social beings and their set of relations and associated crimes in it. The research analyses capitalism, migration, economic inequality, and geopolitics of power structures as the main reasons to sustain crime in Bombay.