Abstract
This chapter is about a locality recognised as a town long before the colonial period: a historical sea-gate on the Coromandel Coast, known as Parangipettai today, but also as Porto Novo, Mohammed or Mahmud Bandar. With 25,000 inhabitants in 2011, it had remained a non-growth locality for half a century, a place that had fallen off the map of Indian liberal development. Nevertheless, behind a landscape of decay and ruin, dotted with 200 Sufi tombs, a lively network of circulation emerges beside a rich diaspora connected to an expanding Muslim community. It reveals complex ramifications of transnational trade, subaltern cosmopolitanism and intensive job circulation in South-East Asia and the Gulf monarchies, fuel flows and accumulations of wealth. An unbound town appears, with linkages throughout the Indian Ocean. Parangipettai is a relevant case for SUBURBIN as it questions, as many Indian localities could, the dominant metro-centric narratives and the prevalent conception of development as necessarily driven by urban concentration and a mechanical redistribution of wealth. Indian Ocean connections have been of great importance for over two centuries. Hence, the hierarchical model usually associated with the spatial and size distribution of cities does not apply here. Parangipettai is not a place of redistribution of banal activities, dependent on a chain of larger cities. Nevertheless, the business friendly developmentalist perspective can be seen in the implementation of a mega-power plant that will serve distant industrial needs and support the large cities’ access to a continuous electricity supply.
What the map cuts up, the story cuts across.
Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life, p. 129 (1988)
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Notes
- 1.
The Maraikayar Muslims probably got their name from marakallam, which means a boat (mara is sometime linked also with the Maure).
- 2.
Kalima stands for Khadar Ali Maraikayar, family ancestor.
- 3.
In our interview with the Jamaat members and residents, the zakat (2 % of revenues in principle) is often designated as an essential means of leveraging action along with the land revenues on wakf. It provides the capacity to conduct charity and educational initiatives, but we do not have any figures to evaluate those financial dimensions. We should take into consideration the fact that migrants in the Gulf are, for the most part, not earning much.
- 4.
1 acre = 0.405 hectare or 4046.8 m2.
- 5.
1 cent = 40.5 m2.
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Annexes
Annexes
1.1 Annex 1
Parangipettai population 1813–2011 | |
|---|---|
1813 | 9147 inhabitants |
1866 | 7499 |
1871 | 7182 |
1881 | 7823 |
1891 | 14,061 |
1901 | 13,712 |
1911 | 15,804 |
1921 | 12,940 |
1931 | 13,762 |
1941 | 14,175 |
1951 | 15,084 |
1961 | 18,079 |
1981 | 21,523 |
1991 | 23,550 |
2001 | 20,912 |
2011 | 25,541 |
1.2 Annex 2
List of houses in a street of Parangipettai centre (January 2013).
-
1.
Rented house that costs 6000 INR/month. The owner lives abroad in a Gulf country.
-
2.
The owner does not live here. Three shops and a tea stall are accommodated in the house. Same tenant for the four boutiques (2000 INR/month rent for each shop).
-
3.
An old family house in decay, inhabited by the owner, two children and their families.
-
4.
The owner lives in Singapore. He did not let out his house. He just comes once a year for a vacation. The market price of his house is around 60 lakhs.
-
5.
A rich family’s house occupied partly by the watchman and his family. The owners have a number of businesses established in Singapore where they are settled. They do not return often.
-
6.
The house is rented to a doctor for 3000 INR/month.
-
7.
The family owner, absent, has some businesses in Malaysia. They rent their Parangipettai property to an optical shop and it is subdivided into four flats.
-
8.
This is an old house not well maintained. The owner rented it out to a relative a long time ago.
-
9.
The owner is absent and comes only for few months each year. He has businesses in Oman, Dubai and India. He invests in real estate and plots along the Pondicherry to Karaikal strip that passes Parangipettai.
-
10.
The owner lives in Singapore. He rents his house to his stepmother.
-
11.
S., the owner, renovated the house in which he lives. The market price of this house is estimated at 8 million INR (80 lakhs).
-
12.
S.—a totally rebuilt house.
-
13.
The owner lives in this house with his family, wife and four sons.
-
14.
The owner lives in Singapore. The house is not rented. He visits only every 3 years.
-
15.
Belongs to K., a major business family. The house is empty. No one uses it.
-
16.
Occupied by one member of the K. family, a major business family. He runs a shop in Karaikal after his father died during the tsunami.
-
17.
Occupied by its owner.
-
18.
The house is closed. The owner is a citizen of Singapore. He has a business there. He is well settled. He owns many flats and hotels. He returns once year to India.
-
19.
The owner lives in Singapore. The house is not for rent.
-
20.
The owner rented it to relatives.
-
21.
Belongs to K., a major business family. They rent it out for 3500 INR/month.
-
22.
Belongs to K., a major business family. One family member lives in it.
-
23.
Belongs to K., a major business family. One family member lives in it.
-
24.
Belongs to K., a major business family. One family member lives in it.
-
25.
The owner works in Abu Dhabi. He comes twice a year.
-
26.
The house is rented out to a doctor working at the Annamalai Centre of Advanced Study in Marine Biology.
-
27.
House inhabited by its owner.
-
28.
Owned by a trader who has gold and grocery shops in Chidambaram and Parangipettai. He owns four houses.
-
29.
A K. major business family house occupied by one family member.
-
30.
A K. major business family house, rented.
-
31.
The owner lives in Dubai. He comes to Parangipettai once a year.
-
32.
Empty house.
-
33.
Occupied by the owner.
-
34.
The owner lives in Dubai. Not for rent. He uses it when he comes back.
-
35.
House rented out.
-
36.
A house rented out. The owner runs a business in Singapore.
-
37.
A family house. They own a shop in Chidambaram but live here with the extended family.
-
38.
Empty house.
-
39.
Empty house. The owner family lives abroad in South Asia.
-
40.
The owner is settled in Singapore (second generation abroad). She does not return but she keeps the house empty.
-
41.
Inhabited by its owner who has a shop in Parangipettai.
-
42.
Empty house that is used only for 1 month per year when the owner who lives in Dubai comes to Parangipettai for his summer’s holidays and some years also for the main Muslim festival.
-
43.
Inhabited by its owner.
-
44.
Occupied house.
-
45.
The owner lives in Singapore. He does not return often. The house is kept empty.
-
46.
House occupied by the owner and his son’s family.
-
47.
A major K. business family house that is rented out.
-
48.
Major K. business family house, occupied by one family member.
-
49.
Occupied house.
-
50.
Major K. business family house that is rented out.
-
51.
Occupied by its owner.
-
52.
Occupied by its owner.
-
53.
The owner is in the army: occupied.
-
54.
S.N. family house, rented out.
-
55.
S.N. family house occupied by the family.
-
56.
S.N. family house, rented out.
-
57.
S.M. family house occupied by the owners (only Hindu-owned house in the street).
-
58.
S.M. family house, rented out.
-
59.
House occupied by the owner’s family.
-
60.
House rented out—same family as 59.
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Denis, E., Ahmad, Z. (2017). On Global and Multiple Linkages in the Making of an Ordinary Place: Parangipettai-Porto Novo. In: Denis, E., Zérah, MH. (eds) Subaltern Urbanisation in India. Exploring Urban Change in South Asia. Springer, New Delhi. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-81-322-3616-0_7
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