1 Purda: the curtain of darkness Dr Ankit Kumar School of Innovation Sciences, Eindhoven University of Technology 1 The Agency of Darkness Much of the work of development and modernity has focused on the annihilation of literal darkness by providing modern lighting and metaphorical darkness by bring education and knowledge. Darkness is ‘characterized as a symbol of disorder, neglect, or abandonment’ (Gandy, 2017: 1100). Harrison (2015: 9) explains that these negative cultural connotations of darkness were reflected in the 18 th and 19 th -century western literature where ‘the physical darkness of streets was matched by a moral darkness that lurked in those places, underlining common fears of night’. Similarly, in Arabic culture, ‘shadows and dark areas are thought of as places where the spirit (jinn) dwells and misfortune lurks, further suggesting the importance of orchestrating illumination and avoiding shadows in the house’ (Bille, 2017: 36). These negative connotations attached to darkness have an inherently racialized aspect where the subaltern ‘other’ (based on race, religion, gender and sexuality) is interpreted, analysed, discriminated and segregated. For example, Harrison (2015: 20) demonstrates that with the unequal deployment urban street lighting in 1900-1930 USA, ‘conceptions of early twentieth century progress and modernity were built on ideas of racial segregation and inequality’. As the ‘colonisation of night gathered pace’, urban spaces also became bourgeois spaces as ‘systematic exclusions and differentiations’ were carried out, evidenced by, for example, the ‘lantern laws’ in 18 th century New York which barred ‘the movement of unaccompanied slaves through the streets after dark’ (Gandy, 2017: 1100). The racialisation of darkness was also evident in India. In the 1920s and 1930s Bombay, social scientists saw ‘darkness’ inside dalit homes not only as poor ventilation but also as a ‘lack of morality and the absence of ‘harmony or peace’ (Shaikh, 2014:503-04). For the social reformers, the darkness inside homes, along with filth outside needed cleaning because they prevented ‘the assimilation of Dalits into Hindu society’ (Shaikh, 2014:504). This move towards the replacement of darkness with light in the 18 th , 19 th and 20 th centuries has recently given way, especially in the west, to laments about the loss of darkness and a movement against light pollution. For example, Hölker et al. (2010: 12) argue that ‘Managing darkness has to be