







































Ecology, Economy and Society–the INSEE Journal 5 (1): 235-238 January 2022 

BOOK REVIEW  

Revisiting Regulations: Air Pollution and Colonial 
Urbanism 

Ayushi Chauhan* 

Awadhendra Sharan. 2020. Dust and Smoke: Air Pollution and Colonial 
Urbanism, India, c.1860–c.1940, Delhi. Orient BlackSwan. 

Urban environmental 
histories of India 
predominantly focus on 
water and waste 
management. Awadhendra 
Sharan’s Dust and Smoke 
clearly deflects from these 
thematic concerns and 
explores the history and 
visualization of smoke as a 
nuisance in the sprawling 
colonial cities of Calcutta 
and Bombay. It is not, 
however, a simple tale of air 
pollution and its evolution 
into a health hazard. Rather, 
the monograph discusses 
the colonial concerns 
regarding air quality that 
compelled them to tackle 
the challenges of economic 
waste in addition to 
developing a vision for 

 
* Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of History at Boston University. 

ayushi18@alumni.iitg.ac.in  

Copyright © Chauhan 2022. Released under Creative Commons Attribution © 

NonCommercial 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC 4.0) by the author.  

Published by Indian Society for Ecological Economics (INSEE), c/o Institute of Economic 

Growth, University Enclave, North Campus, Delhi 110007.  

ISSN: 2581-6152 (print); 2581-6101 (web).  

DOI: https://doi.org/10.37773/ees.v5i1.509  

mailto:ayushi18@alumni.iitg.ac.in
https://doi.org/10.37773/ees.v5i1.509


Ecology, Economy and Society–the INSEE Journal [236] 

 

hygienic cities, documenting health concerns, seeking technological 
interventions, and debating the social nature of air itself.  

Dust and Smoke comprises six main chapters that are richly referenced with 
archival findings, government reports, commercial advertisements, and a 
comprehensive list of newspapers. The book outlines the colonial 
authorities’ three-staged response to the problem of smoke: first, 
discussions around municipal interventions and a steady turn to involving 
English expertise; second, setting up Smoke Nuisance Commissions, which 
worked on the twin principles of restricting smoke within time limits as well 
as prosecuting violators; and finally, a shift of direction to energy 
conservation, efficient utilization of resources, and direct colonial 
interventions to abate smoke. 

With the emergence of modern sanitary science in the nineteenth century, 
hygiene was regarded as both a “natural” and a “moral” issue. Although 
smoke eventually became integral to European sanitary discourse, it was 
initially perceived as being unnatural and undesirable in British India. The 
modern understanding of smoke and sanitation paved the way for  colonial 
intervention and regulation in Indian cities. 

In the first phase of interventions on smoke abatement, the Act of 1862 
was introduced in Bombay with the chief objective of attempting to reduce 
furnace smoke emanating from factories. Soon after, in 1864, the 
Government of Bengal passed a similar legislation that directed factories 
“to consume or burn the smoke” (p. 58). Interestingly, while the initial 
responsibility for abating smoke in Calcutta was assigned to the Boiler 
Commission, Bombay, it was later tasked to the municipal commissioner, 
an administrator. 

Sharan argues that the initial smoke laws in British India were drawn from 
English standards rather than a local comprehension and understanding of 
smoke. Moreover, smoke inspections in the 1860s and 1870s in Calcutta 
and Bombay focussed more on prosecution and penalties without providing 
the administrative machinery to actually reduce smoke levels within the city. 
British authorities tended to blame excessive smoke on the absence of 
suitable technology, country coal, and bad firing of smoke (p. 68). By the 
late nineteenth century, however, mill owners and British authorities began 
to challenge existing smoke laws, claiming that manufacturers did not 
provide sufficient evidence for administrators to properly monitor and 
prosecute smoke polluters. Consequently, there was a percieved need to 
develop the required expertise to efficiently tackle smoke emissions.   

The turn of the century marked the beginning of a new phase, with 
advanced laws being formulated for a twin strategy involving persuasion 



[237] Ayushi Chauhan 

 
 

and prosecution, which was based on the expertise of the European mill 
managers. In Calcutta, the law of 1862 was substituted with the 
appointment of a Smoke Nuisance Commission to provide better 
monitoring of smoke, a clear limitation on the maximum amount of smoke 
that could be emitted per hour, and technical and skilled expertise. In 
Bombay, however, rather than amending the law of 1864, the municipality’s 
role in enforcing the law was replaced by the Smoke Nuisance Commission 
in 1912. New regulations were framed based on observations from Calcutta; 
more importance and power were given to English experts, who dictated 
new regulations on the permitted degree and density of smoke as well as the 
time during which it could be emitted.  

Even though warnings and prosecutions were relatively fewer in Bombay, 
the overall reporting pattern remained similar to Calcutta. Commissions 
were quick to claim success in reducing industrial smoke, which drew global 
attention towards their achievements. However, Sharan asserts that these 
claims were far from reliable, as the complaints surrounding smoke 
pollution continued to pour in from both cities. By the end of the second 
phase, the Bengal and Bombay commissions accepted that the cities being 
entirely smoke-free was a naïve idea, especially considering the contribution 
of industrial smoke. Failing to provide a permanent solution to the smoke 
problem, the authorities sought to lay blame on railway locomotives and 
shipping, which, in any case, had been granted exception in the original act. 

The third phase steered away from focusing only on the volumes of smoke 
emitted, and concentrated instead on resource optimization, direct 
interventions based on expert advice targeting industries, and innovations in 
combustion engineering. Commissions were repurposed towards ensuring 
resource conservation and the efficient use of “national resources”—fuel 
and coal. During WWI, between 1914 and 1918, there followed a further 
turn towards exploring new energy sources—electricity and hydro 
electrification. Developing electric power was increasingly put forth as a 
permanent solution to the smoke nuisance, with electric grids coming up 
not only in Calcutta and Bombay, but also in Karachi and Ahmedabad.  

In the post-war years, the British mandate became more advisory than 
repressive, and commissions offered advice to factories with regard to 
furnace and chimney design. However, the amendment of 1916 permitted 
commissions to enter industrial premises without prior notice, after which 
the Bombay authorities began to direct attention towards smaller industrial 
units and petty industries. Unaware of the Act, many small traders were 
subjected to fines and unexpected inspections. Sharan contends that by the 
end of this final phase, soon after declaring Calcutta and Bombay as smoke-



Ecology, Economy and Society–the INSEE Journal [238] 

 

free cities, the commissions resorted to large-scale prosecution of the 
perceived offenders, thus returning matters to the way they were at the turn 
of the nineteenth century (p. 193). 

Through a careful study of these three phases, Sharan insightfully expands 
our understanding of  how the urban air imagery was shaped by industrial 
smoke laws in British India. Beyond industrial contribution, the question of 
smoke from homes was generally avoided throughout the nineteenth 
century. To the colonial administration, the high mortality rates in cities in 
non-epidemic periods was predominantly caused by poor sewerage systems, 
the practice of purdah amongst women, poverty, and inadequate housing, 
rather than the quality of air as a disease factor (p. 228). In the immediate 
post-war years, however, domestic smoke received more attention in both 
Calcutta and Bombay and was increasingly linked to urban health. Sharan 
observed that adoption of alternative energy sources such as gas and 
electricity by the growing middle classes were now be touted as solutions 
and were soon heeded to be the means to achieving city health, safety, and 
beauty. The importance given to the rising middle class, however, worked 
to breed administrative neglect towards the domestic smoke originating 
from poor working-class homes, which continued to inversely impact the 
skies of Bombay and Calcutta.  

Dust and Smoke: Air Pollution and Colonial Urbanism makes a compelling case 
of why we should examine the journey of smoke in India. At a time where 
air pollution is finally being given more importance, Sharan's work urges us 
to reconsider the social nature of air in India and suggests that we step 
beyond colonial modernist and technocratic imaginary. 

  

  

  

  

  

 

 


