Early Scientific Maps: The European maps representing India with ever-greater planimetric details in the wake of Vasco Da Gama’s arrival to the subcontinent in 1498 marked a rupture from the spiritual traditionof geographic imagination. The recognisable design of modern India can be seen as slowly taking shape inthese early trade maps.Early
Colonial Maps:These are the maps that detail the complicated and contentious
ties that existed between many European powers and significant Indian states in
order to gain control of the Indian Subcontinent. The strong graphic depictions
tell the highly ambiguous story of ambition, bravery, conflict, cunning, and
intellect as India was forcibly opened up to the rest of the globe.We have hundreds of civil and military maps and plans depicting Britain’s engagement with India, the mercantile and political history of the East India Company, and the history of British imperial authority gradually consolidating up to 1947.
The valuable collection of municipal survey maps of Hyderabad produced between 1912 and 1915 under Leonard Mann’s direction, a mining engineer with the Nizam’s Government, shows the revitalised city spaces following the devastating Musi river flood in 1908.