How Colonial Drainage Systems Reshaped Social Hierarchies in Lahore: Sanitation as Surveillance

Abstract

The sanitation infrastructure that was introduced in South Asia during the British colonial era was often viewed as an intervention in the sphere of public health to control epidemics and enhance urban hygiene. But, in addition to its professional and medical purposes, sanitation was also a tool with the help of which colonial governments could control the population of cities and restructure the social space. This paper discusses the role of colonial drainage and sewerage systems in Lahore as the tools of control and management between the late nineteenth and the early twentieth century. The research uses the municipal documents, colonial administrative reports, urban planning documents, and historical maps to explore the ways in which the sanitation reforms reconfigured the space and strengthened the social hierarchies that existed in the colonial city. The discussion shows that the policies of sanitation were well connected to the colonial city control policies. The drainage systems, inspection systems, and sanitation laws provided colonial administrators with the ability to patrol the neighborhoods, provide hygiene standards, and categorize urban areas based on cleanliness. Such categories often overlapped with the socio-economic and professional boundaries, so the distribution of the sanitation facilities in Lahore was uneven. Elite local neighborhoods and residential zones in Europe were given a higher priority in terms of drainage systems and waste management systems, and the crowded native quarters and working areas were not uncommon in terms of being under increased surveillance and management control. In turn, the reforms in sanitation not only have a positive effect on the social health issues but also led to the spatial isolation and governmental control of the colonial urban populations. This analysis allows the development of a concept of sanitation as a variety of surveillance, which is why it contributes to a body of literature on colonial urban governance and environmental history. It emphasizes the role of infrastructural systems in the formation of the patterns of power, social differentiation, and urban control in colonial Punjab, which provides new perspectives on the political aspects of sanitation and public health policy in South Asian colonial cities.