The development of a landscape: a Little India in the Pontine Plain

If the environment of Pontine Marshes was the stage for the forced colonization and foundation of new cities made by Mussolini under Fascist rule (1922-1943) today we have new scenarios: the new migratory flow of Sikh community from Punjab (India) is running over this landscape. New migration flows that choose not the city but the rural areas, driven by affinity with the land of origin, and that become fundamental economic support, especially in agricultural sector, but living a rural isolation and lack of dedicated services. All this in contrast with the policies and land reclamation schemes desired by Fascism, borghi di servizio (service districts, in some case villages) and Casa del Fascio with their essential services for the community represented the basic urban unit to set up new settlers (from Veneto and Emilia Romagna regions) in the new-modern rural landscape. In the province of Latina and in Sabaudia, especially in the district of “Bella Farnia”, we can find the beating heart of this new community (about 12.000 people) that has re-colonized the Pontine Plain, among Indian shops, workers in the countryside and gurdwara much more than places of worship but places for socializing and connecting with institutions. The contribution aims at clarifying the relationship between the contemporary and its needs and the Pontine landscape, structured since its inception to accommodate migration flows, in which the change is necessary and has already started.