Abstract
This chapter examines the ontological conditions of urban life in postcolonial India. By looking at some of the post-millennial Indian novels in English, it attempts to theorize urbanism and its consequences for the poor and slum-dwellers. The chapter makes a claim that the story of modernity and the concomitant progress of humanity has also been a story of mass exclusion, a chasm in the social division, denial of human rights, and, hence, a crisis of our moral imagination. This stems from the fact that urban life is essentially consumerist and hence divisive in nature. The scale and degree of one’s consumption, therefore, become qualifying parameters of who can find healthy breathing space in urban life. The chapter concludes by making a case for strong and engaging frameworks of social assets to ensure a democratic life in cities.
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Dwivedi, O.P. (2022). Slums and Urbanization of Poverty in Postcolonial India. In: Tambling, J. (eds) The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Urban Literary Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-62419-8_264
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