Beyond socialist cities and superblocks: contextualized modernism of an Indian planned working-class city

In this article, I explore the history of Bokaro Steel City – a planned industrial settlement conceived in the 1960s in the Indian state of Jharkhand as part of India’s post-Independence modernization programme. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork and archival materials, I demonstrate the unique socially inclusive approach of tackling social inequalities, focusing specifically on how planners approached social reproduction. By foregrounding the distinctiveness of Bokaro’s urban design, I argue for a re-evaluation of modernist urbanities, delinking them from the exclusively Eastern European monotowns or Western superblocks and demonstrating how Indian planners adapted modernist ideas to meet their local objectives.