'Traffic on the Meerut-Delhi Road'

About the Speaker

Stefan Tetzlaff is a historian of modern India with broad interests in mobility, technology and business practices in India. His first book project considers these themes in the context of the arrival of the automobile in rural and small-town India during the interwar period. Stefan's second project traces paths of industrial development by looking at foreign business collaborations in India between the 1950s and 1990s. Stefan was trained at the Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University (New Delhi) and at the Centre for Modern Indian Studies, University of Göttingen. He then held postdoctoral positions in different academic institutions in Asia, Europe and the US and is currently a senior research fellow at the Godrej Archives in Mumbai.

Abstract

The talk analyses the political, economic and social environments of western UPs road transport sector during the Great Depression of the 1930s. The talk first examines attempts by the state and district administration to regulate the transport sector and the growth of transport enterprise. The paper then looks at the social backgrounds of several transport entrepreneurs in the region (including Vaish banias, Muslim zamindars, Punjabi Hindu merchants and Brahmin professionals) and situates their trajectory in the specific regional context.