The introduction to this book begins with a single question, “What is Delhi?” As we have seen, the answers are not simple. When we embarked on this project, we understood that the intellectual challenge was to deal with Delhi as a whole—at the scale of the entire metropolitan region known now as the National Capital Region (NCR). Today, the administratively defined boundaries of the National Capital Territory of Delhi (that is, the city) only encompass about one-third of the region's population and 50–60 percent of the region's urban population. It turns out that there is a lot more to Delhi than just Delhi, and we know very little about it. Spanning across four states, and including more than 30 million urban residents, varying in caste, religion, economic condition, migration status, among other things, we knew that empirical characterizations of the region would be challenging. It is hardly a surprise that we soon started referring to this project as the “Colossus Project”—which eventually became the title of this volume.

Understanding the National Capital Region at Metropolitan Scale

To begin with, there are existing studies, especially detailed colony-level and neighborhood-level studies in and around Delhi that we cite throughout the book. These have influenced our thinking about these topics. Rather, we wish to emphasize that certain intellectual concepts require an empirical understanding of the metropolitan region as a whole, and the social conditions and differences generated therein. The region functions as an interconnected unit that structures employment, social interactions, and access to public services. Looking at an Indian city at the metropolitan scale allows us to develop new theoretical tools to study urban change and social behavior.

Unfortunately, when we began this project, we did not even have some basic information about the NCR. Where are the urban areas and rural areas in the NCR, and how has the region grown over the past few decades? Where do different caste, religious, and migrant groups live, and what is the welfare/wealth distribution across the region? How do the complex legal frameworks around land tenure and access to public services affect the lives of residents? What is the profile of energy usage and criminal activity in the region?