Author Description

South Asia which is home to two of the largest river basins in the world has a long history of urban settlements. Several holy towns, believed to be the dwelling places of divine forces have come up along the banks of its rivers as have capital cities and centres of trade. By a study of seven cities and the rivers that flow through them, from Sehwan Sharif on the plains of the Indus in Pakistan to Guwahati on the banks of the Brahmaputra in the state of Assam, from Varanasi and Delhi based respectively in the valleys of the Ganges and the Yamuna to Madurai which lies along the banks of the Vaigai in South India while passing through the pilgrimage centres of Amarkantaka and Omkareshwara on the Narmada basin in Central India, this work explores the multiplicity of the visions and emotions that are generated by the practices and land development along the urban river banks. This collective volume proposes to make a multidisciplinary appraisal of this unique heritage which is today threatened by a rapidly expanding population and pollution as well as of the contemporary mutually contradictory perceptions of devotees and tourists, local actors and national level decision makers and shanty town dwellers and members of the urban middle class.