ABSTRACT
Writing about the nationalist elite in urban areas under the colonial rule, Partha Chatterjee maintained that since these were not created by the indigenous elite, devoid of control on the process of the development of urban spaces, they adapted in those areas without investing much energy and thought about the future of the city; they were more concerned about the future of rural India.4 Recent works on the nationalist middle class suggest however that the middle classes in the late colonial period did not simply adapt to the city life without thinking. By participating in the civic and political associations, publishing and arguing for their own ideology vis-à-vis the dominant one, and often by forcing the colonial authorities to rethink decisions and measures, the nationalist elite left their mark in the public sphere, and the making of the city spaces they inhabited.5
