The on-going and historical tensions between the Indian state and minority groups pertaining to t... more The on-going and historical tensions between the Indian state and minority groups pertaining to the idea, use and framing of ‘nation-space’ and physical space has come about through a complex historical development of conceptions of land, space and identity, that are instrumentalised to inscribe, include, exclude or manipulate ideas of citizenship. In particular, this thesis explores how specific mythologies and narratives not only affect these conceptions, but are (re)constituted by dominant agents as tools of oppression. Moreover, how persecuted communities mobilise their own mythologies and narratives to resist them as well as to define their own roles, positions, rights and selfhood.
The thesis looks at the cultural politics of India through the conceptual triad of mythology, identity and space – often instrumentalised to perpetuate dominant notions of citizenship, persecution of particular groups, and equally, to resist hegemonic forces. It investigates this triad’s manifestation in two critical historical episodes that share an exemplification of the operating capacity of myth, identity and narrative at two different scales and temporalities. One affecting national imagination, and the other, local imagination rooted in place, that generate conceptions of citizenship and space.
The thesis draws on the problematisation of the territorial spatiality of the Indian nation-state, exemplified through the deployment of the Hindu mythology of a sacred landscape or Ram Rajya. Selectively extracted by the Hindu right-wing and projected onto the contemporary geo-political territorial template of the modern Indian nation-state, Ram Rajya contributes to the reconstitution of a Hindu spatiality as a mechanism of ‘othering’.
The notion of a sacred landscape re-emerges in the temporal sacralisation of the forest in the context of the Sundarbans, in West Bengal, India through the bonbibi myth. On the one hand it is a means to navigate and negotiate identity and territory. On the other hand, it becomes a mode of resistance, as in the case of the Marichjhapi Massacre of 1979. Similarly, a distinct spatiality of resistance is seen in the anti-CAA protests of Shaheen Bagh. In their contestations of identity and spatial representations, both these episodes problematise the notions of (national) territory, nationhood and citizenship.
At a broader level, the conceptual framework of myth, identity and space posed in this thesis not only highlights the deep interrelationships between them, but also allows for a spatial understanding of narrativized cultural politics. This, I suggest, has wider implications in reading current issues of citizenship globally, especially in terms of the role space and cultural mythologies play in codifying notions of nationhood, identity and belonging.
On the 6th of December 1992 during a political rally of two hundred thousand participants in the ... more On the 6th of December 1992 during a political rally of two hundred thousand participants in the town of Ayodhya, in Uttar Pradesh, India, Hindu nationalist militants demolished the Babri Masjid, a 16th Century mosque. The event shocked the country and the rest of the world, culminating in vast communal conflicts throughout the country.
The demolition of the Babri Masjid cannot be seen as an isolated incident as it marked a climactic point in a series of strategically orchestrated events, mostly violent, within the Ram Janmabhumi movement. Launched and led by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), the movement – a political movement cast in religious form – was an attempt towards the violent mobilisation of Hindus by this militant section of radical Hindu nationalist ideologues for the demolition of the Babri Masjid and the subsequent construction of a temple for the Hindu God Ram on that site.
Within the extensive landscape of discourse related to the Ram Janmabhumi movement, very rarely have the spatial dimensions been considered or analysed. This is what marks the inception of the article. The paper argues that examining the spatial dimensions of the sites and events within the Ram Janmabhumi movement will allow for understanding the role of spatial agents in the politics of orchestration, production and proliferation of conflict. This should have wider implications on the instrumentalization of space in the politics of communalism, religious nationalism and mass mobilisation as well as its role as a social agent.
The article first attempts to define the Hindu nationalist notion of territory and the construction of a specific spatiality, arguing how this idea of territoriality is intrinsically connected to the formation of a specific unified Hindu identity. Secondly, the paper discusses the televised serial, the Ramayan and its spatial implications, whose success prepared the environment for the Ram Janmabhumi movement. Thirdly, the paper examines the spatial implications and territorial aspects of the Ram Rath Yatra – a political rally in the form of a religious procession – which proved to be a crucial moment in the movement. Finally, the paper analyses the Babri Masjid as a space of conflict.
The politics behind Ram Janmabhumi movement’s success in mobilising support across India’s majority Hindu society can be seen as the championing of religious symbols through a series of improvised manoeuvres and the instrumentalization of spaces and spatial practices in the strategic orchestration of conflicts. This analysis is suggested to have wider implications in reading the role of spatial agents and religious symbolism particularly in the strategizing of conflict and political mobilisation.
The on-going and historical tensions between the Indian state and minority groups pertaining to t... more The on-going and historical tensions between the Indian state and minority groups pertaining to the idea, use and framing of ‘nation-space’ and physical space has come about through a complex historical development of conceptions of land, space and identity, that are instrumentalised to inscribe, include, exclude or manipulate ideas of citizenship. In particular, this thesis explores how specific mythologies and narratives not only affect these conceptions, but are (re)constituted by dominant agents as tools of oppression. Moreover, how persecuted communities mobilise their own mythologies and narratives to resist them as well as to define their own roles, positions, rights and selfhood.
The thesis looks at the cultural politics of India through the conceptual triad of mythology, identity and space – often instrumentalised to perpetuate dominant notions of citizenship, persecution of particular groups, and equally, to resist hegemonic forces. It investigates this triad’s manifestation in two critical historical episodes that share an exemplification of the operating capacity of myth, identity and narrative at two different scales and temporalities. One affecting national imagination, and the other, local imagination rooted in place, that generate conceptions of citizenship and space.
The thesis draws on the problematisation of the territorial spatiality of the Indian nation-state, exemplified through the deployment of the Hindu mythology of a sacred landscape or Ram Rajya. Selectively extracted by the Hindu right-wing and projected onto the contemporary geo-political territorial template of the modern Indian nation-state, Ram Rajya contributes to the reconstitution of a Hindu spatiality as a mechanism of ‘othering’.
The notion of a sacred landscape re-emerges in the temporal sacralisation of the forest in the context of the Sundarbans, in West Bengal, India through the bonbibi myth. On the one hand it is a means to navigate and negotiate identity and territory. On the other hand, it becomes a mode of resistance, as in the case of the Marichjhapi Massacre of 1979. Similarly, a distinct spatiality of resistance is seen in the anti-CAA protests of Shaheen Bagh. In their contestations of identity and spatial representations, both these episodes problematise the notions of (national) territory, nationhood and citizenship.
At a broader level, the conceptual framework of myth, identity and space posed in this thesis not only highlights the deep interrelationships between them, but also allows for a spatial understanding of narrativized cultural politics. This, I suggest, has wider implications in reading current issues of citizenship globally, especially in terms of the role space and cultural mythologies play in codifying notions of nationhood, identity and belonging.
On the 6th of December 1992 during a political rally of two hundred thousand participants in the ... more On the 6th of December 1992 during a political rally of two hundred thousand participants in the town of Ayodhya, in Uttar Pradesh, India, Hindu nationalist militants demolished the Babri Masjid, a 16th Century mosque. The event shocked the country and the rest of the world, culminating in vast communal conflicts throughout the country.
The demolition of the Babri Masjid cannot be seen as an isolated incident as it marked a climactic point in a series of strategically orchestrated events, mostly violent, within the Ram Janmabhumi movement. Launched and led by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), the movement – a political movement cast in religious form – was an attempt towards the violent mobilisation of Hindus by this militant section of radical Hindu nationalist ideologues for the demolition of the Babri Masjid and the subsequent construction of a temple for the Hindu God Ram on that site.
Within the extensive landscape of discourse related to the Ram Janmabhumi movement, very rarely have the spatial dimensions been considered or analysed. This is what marks the inception of the article. The paper argues that examining the spatial dimensions of the sites and events within the Ram Janmabhumi movement will allow for understanding the role of spatial agents in the politics of orchestration, production and proliferation of conflict. This should have wider implications on the instrumentalization of space in the politics of communalism, religious nationalism and mass mobilisation as well as its role as a social agent.
The article first attempts to define the Hindu nationalist notion of territory and the construction of a specific spatiality, arguing how this idea of territoriality is intrinsically connected to the formation of a specific unified Hindu identity. Secondly, the paper discusses the televised serial, the Ramayan and its spatial implications, whose success prepared the environment for the Ram Janmabhumi movement. Thirdly, the paper examines the spatial implications and territorial aspects of the Ram Rath Yatra – a political rally in the form of a religious procession – which proved to be a crucial moment in the movement. Finally, the paper analyses the Babri Masjid as a space of conflict.
The politics behind Ram Janmabhumi movement’s success in mobilising support across India’s majority Hindu society can be seen as the championing of religious symbols through a series of improvised manoeuvres and the instrumentalization of spaces and spatial practices in the strategic orchestration of conflicts. This analysis is suggested to have wider implications in reading the role of spatial agents and religious symbolism particularly in the strategizing of conflict and political mobilisation.
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Papers by Arinjoy Sen
The thesis looks at the cultural politics of India through the conceptual triad of mythology, identity and space – often instrumentalised to perpetuate dominant notions of citizenship, persecution of particular groups, and equally, to resist hegemonic forces. It investigates this triad’s manifestation in two critical historical episodes that share an exemplification of the operating capacity of myth, identity and narrative at two different scales and temporalities. One affecting national imagination, and the other, local imagination rooted in place, that generate conceptions of citizenship and space.
The thesis draws on the problematisation of the territorial spatiality of the Indian nation-state, exemplified through the deployment of the Hindu mythology of a sacred landscape or Ram Rajya. Selectively extracted by the Hindu right-wing and projected onto the contemporary geo-political territorial template of the modern Indian nation-state, Ram Rajya contributes to the reconstitution of a Hindu spatiality as a mechanism of ‘othering’.
The notion of a sacred landscape re-emerges in the temporal sacralisation of the forest in the context of the Sundarbans, in West Bengal, India through the bonbibi myth. On the one hand it is a means to navigate and negotiate identity and territory. On the other hand, it becomes a mode of resistance, as in the case of the Marichjhapi Massacre of 1979. Similarly, a distinct spatiality of resistance is seen in the anti-CAA protests of Shaheen Bagh. In their contestations of identity and spatial representations, both these episodes problematise the notions of (national) territory, nationhood and citizenship.
At a broader level, the conceptual framework of myth, identity and space posed in this thesis not only highlights the deep interrelationships between them, but also allows for a spatial understanding of narrativized cultural politics. This, I suggest, has wider implications in reading current issues of citizenship globally, especially in terms of the role space and cultural mythologies play in codifying notions of nationhood, identity and belonging.
The demolition of the Babri Masjid cannot be seen as an isolated incident as it marked a climactic point in a series of strategically orchestrated events, mostly violent, within the Ram Janmabhumi movement. Launched and led by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), the movement – a political movement cast in religious form – was an attempt towards the violent mobilisation of Hindus by this militant section of radical Hindu nationalist ideologues for the demolition of the Babri Masjid and the subsequent construction of a temple for the Hindu God Ram on that site.
Within the extensive landscape of discourse related to the Ram Janmabhumi movement, very rarely have the spatial dimensions been considered or analysed. This is what marks the inception of the article. The paper argues that examining the spatial dimensions of the sites and events within the Ram Janmabhumi movement will allow for understanding the role of spatial agents in the politics of orchestration, production and proliferation of conflict. This should have wider implications on the instrumentalization of space in the politics of communalism, religious nationalism and mass mobilisation as well as its role as a social agent.
The article first attempts to define the Hindu nationalist notion of territory and the construction of a specific spatiality, arguing how this idea of territoriality is intrinsically connected to the formation of a specific unified Hindu identity. Secondly, the paper discusses the televised serial, the Ramayan and its spatial implications, whose success prepared the environment for the Ram Janmabhumi movement. Thirdly, the paper examines the spatial implications and territorial aspects of the Ram Rath Yatra – a political rally in the form of a religious procession – which proved to be a crucial moment in the movement. Finally, the paper analyses the Babri Masjid as a space of conflict.
The politics behind Ram Janmabhumi movement’s success in mobilising support across India’s majority Hindu society can be seen as the championing of religious symbols through a series of improvised manoeuvres and the instrumentalization of spaces and spatial practices in the strategic orchestration of conflicts. This analysis is suggested to have wider implications in reading the role of spatial agents and religious symbolism particularly in the strategizing of conflict and political mobilisation.
The thesis looks at the cultural politics of India through the conceptual triad of mythology, identity and space – often instrumentalised to perpetuate dominant notions of citizenship, persecution of particular groups, and equally, to resist hegemonic forces. It investigates this triad’s manifestation in two critical historical episodes that share an exemplification of the operating capacity of myth, identity and narrative at two different scales and temporalities. One affecting national imagination, and the other, local imagination rooted in place, that generate conceptions of citizenship and space.
The thesis draws on the problematisation of the territorial spatiality of the Indian nation-state, exemplified through the deployment of the Hindu mythology of a sacred landscape or Ram Rajya. Selectively extracted by the Hindu right-wing and projected onto the contemporary geo-political territorial template of the modern Indian nation-state, Ram Rajya contributes to the reconstitution of a Hindu spatiality as a mechanism of ‘othering’.
The notion of a sacred landscape re-emerges in the temporal sacralisation of the forest in the context of the Sundarbans, in West Bengal, India through the bonbibi myth. On the one hand it is a means to navigate and negotiate identity and territory. On the other hand, it becomes a mode of resistance, as in the case of the Marichjhapi Massacre of 1979. Similarly, a distinct spatiality of resistance is seen in the anti-CAA protests of Shaheen Bagh. In their contestations of identity and spatial representations, both these episodes problematise the notions of (national) territory, nationhood and citizenship.
At a broader level, the conceptual framework of myth, identity and space posed in this thesis not only highlights the deep interrelationships between them, but also allows for a spatial understanding of narrativized cultural politics. This, I suggest, has wider implications in reading current issues of citizenship globally, especially in terms of the role space and cultural mythologies play in codifying notions of nationhood, identity and belonging.
The demolition of the Babri Masjid cannot be seen as an isolated incident as it marked a climactic point in a series of strategically orchestrated events, mostly violent, within the Ram Janmabhumi movement. Launched and led by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), the movement – a political movement cast in religious form – was an attempt towards the violent mobilisation of Hindus by this militant section of radical Hindu nationalist ideologues for the demolition of the Babri Masjid and the subsequent construction of a temple for the Hindu God Ram on that site.
Within the extensive landscape of discourse related to the Ram Janmabhumi movement, very rarely have the spatial dimensions been considered or analysed. This is what marks the inception of the article. The paper argues that examining the spatial dimensions of the sites and events within the Ram Janmabhumi movement will allow for understanding the role of spatial agents in the politics of orchestration, production and proliferation of conflict. This should have wider implications on the instrumentalization of space in the politics of communalism, religious nationalism and mass mobilisation as well as its role as a social agent.
The article first attempts to define the Hindu nationalist notion of territory and the construction of a specific spatiality, arguing how this idea of territoriality is intrinsically connected to the formation of a specific unified Hindu identity. Secondly, the paper discusses the televised serial, the Ramayan and its spatial implications, whose success prepared the environment for the Ram Janmabhumi movement. Thirdly, the paper examines the spatial implications and territorial aspects of the Ram Rath Yatra – a political rally in the form of a religious procession – which proved to be a crucial moment in the movement. Finally, the paper analyses the Babri Masjid as a space of conflict.
The politics behind Ram Janmabhumi movement’s success in mobilising support across India’s majority Hindu society can be seen as the championing of religious symbols through a series of improvised manoeuvres and the instrumentalization of spaces and spatial practices in the strategic orchestration of conflicts. This analysis is suggested to have wider implications in reading the role of spatial agents and religious symbolism particularly in the strategizing of conflict and political mobilisation.