The boundary within

• Verfasst von: Lazzaretti, Vera [VerfasserIn]
• Titel: The boundary within
• Titelzusatz: demolitions, dream projects and the negotiation of Hinduness in Banaras
• Verf.angabe: Vera Lazzaretti
• Jahr: 2021
• Umfang: 13 S.
• Fussnoten: Gesehen am 01.12.2023
• Titel Quelle: Enthalten in: Spaces of religion in urban South Asia
• Ort Quelle: London : Routledge,, 2021
• Jahr Quelle: 2021
• Band/Heft Quelle: (2021), Seite ?
• ISBN Quelle: 978-1-000-33149-3
• ISBN Quelle: 1-000-33149-0
• ISBN Quelle: 978-1-000-33141-7
• ISBN Quelle: 1-000-33141-5
• ISBN Quelle: 978-1-003-10606-7
• ISBN Quelle: 1-003-10606-4
• ISBN Quelle: 978-1-000-33145-5
• ISBN Quelle: 1-000-33145-8
• DOI: doi:10.4324/9781003106067-7
• Datenträger: Online-Ressource
• Sprache: eng
• Bibliogr. Hinweis: Erscheint auch als : Druck-Ausgabe: Lazzaretti, Vera: The boundary within. - 2021
• K10plus-PPN: 1871745497

Abstract

In 2017, one of the buildings on the eastern side of the Kashi Vishvanath temple-Gyan Vapi mosque compound in Banaras was demolished. The house occupied a strategic position in this highly sensitive area of the city: it opened onto a wide open area that, although squashed between temple and mosque,was animportant Hindu ritual arena managed independently by a family of ritual specialists. Its dismantling was, then, a crucial step in the Hindu nationalist government’s flagship urban renewal project — the Kashi Vishvanath Corridor, also known as Prime Minster Narendra Modi’s “dream project.” Drawing on archival and ethnographic research, this chapter unpacks the spatial history and material transformations of the area and highlights ways in which a variety of actors have engaged with the city’s material fabric before, during and after demolitions in the neighbourhood. Informed by debates on urban regeneration and anthropological reflections on boundaries, the chapter suggests that such demolitions signalled the collapse of a material and symbolic boundary — not only one that separated and connected temple and mosque and thus two religious communities (Hindus and Muslims) but one that also afforded negotiations of Hinduness. This ‘boundary within’ seems to have disappeared as the iconic city becomes increasingly a showcase of exclusive Hindu nationalist logic and urban aesthetic.