Since 2014, under Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), India’s socio-political discourse has shifted to the right, driven by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’s (RSS’s) ideology. The unprecedented moves like the triple talaq ban, Article 370 revocation, Citizenship Amendment Act-National Register of Citizens (CAA-NRC) legislation, and the Ram Janmabhoomi project reflect this shift, enabled by capturing institutions, media, judiciary, and public imagination.
Moving beyond its established role as a socio-political-cultural ideology with core philosophy of othering of those not belonging to the wider Hindu fold, Hindutva’s new phase is now possibly shaping cities and the urban lived environment, as a site for demonstrating ideology – socially, culturally and spatially. The targeted demolition of homes of Muslims as an act of collective punishment, and the recent cases of staged violence including at Sambhal mosque are only facets of a broader, emerging urban manifestation of the Hindutva ideology.
It is, therefore, pertinent to examine the urban practices and policies and unpack how Hindutva ideology manifests spatially to reshape the urban, impacting housing, livelihoods and public spaces for Muslims in India. This development is in parallel with the Hindutva-isation of other facets of Indian life, such as political discourse, media, music, cinema, education and public sphere, in general.
The transformation of Indian cities: From ghettoization to total exclusion
Historically, Indian cities have had longstanding patterns of social segregation – based on caste and now more visibly on religious lines. The idea of “mini-Pakistan,” used pejoratively to denote Muslim-majority areas, reflects a legacy of ghettoization, where Muslims have been pushed into underserved, poorly developed areas with limited access to essential services, education, and economic opportunities.
These areas often lack official recognition or legal protections, existing on coerced informality, forcing residents to live in precarious conditions. Over the past decade, it now not only seeks to relegate Muslims to these ‘ghettos’ but goes further, actively working to redesign cities to align with a homogenous Hindu identity. Urban schemes as tools for ‘development’, are now increasingly employed to assert religious-cultural dominance. There are five such facets of Hindutva urbanism being observed in the cities. These are of erasure, disruption of livelihoods, exclusionary urban demolition-reconstruction schemes, and wider everyday localised mobilisations.
The urban manifestations of Hindutva
First, Indian cities have been emblematic of historical religious and cultural coexistence. Streets, monuments, and public spaces carry names and narratives reflective of the diverse communities that have shaped them. However, the present regime is systematically erasing these markers of shared heritage, casting them as symbols of ‘foreign’ or ‘invading’ cultures, as symbols of a ‘thousand years’ of slavery.
The decolonisation efforts starting in the 1990s, changed the names of Mumbai, Chennai, and Kolkata, has now gone awry to de-Islamise cities. This expunction began subtly, with renaming of street in New Delhi on Aurangzeb – painted as a cruel bigot Mughal – to a more worthy Indian Muslim – former President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam.
Since then, it has acquired a scale to include prominent cases like the renaming of road, stations, and cities such as Mughal Sarai to Deen Dayal Upadhyay Nagar, Allahabad to Prayagraj and so on. This erasure of a syncretic history and culture was not restricted to mere names, but eventually shifted focus to removal of any presence of Muslim-ness – like dargahs, mosques and eidgahs in different cities. Many of these being of historical value and recognition. Such actions were undertaken under the guise of flouting regulations, violation of master plans or even flimsy reasons as traffic congestion.
Also read: The Ajmer Dargah Sharif Is the Site for the Tussle Between Sufism and Hindutva
In Delhi, authorities recently ordered the removal of dargahs and mosques, some of which predate Lutyens’ New Delhi – that ironically even the colonizers took care to protect. This shift marks a move from symbolic erasure of names to an actual physical cleansing, systematically stripping ‘Muslim-ness’ from urban spaces.
Second, while demolitions in Indian cities are not new, often used as a tool against the urban poor under the pretext of ‘illegality,’ the recent developments reveal a disturbing trend. Today, the state actively employs domicide against Muslims, used to collectively punish entire homes, families and even neighbourhoods, with an intention to teach a ‘lesson’ to the Muslim other. This practice, dubbed “bulldozer justice,” has become a powerful, fear-inducing symbol of authoritarian state power.
First seen and perfected in Uttar Pradesh, it is now a standard operating procedure against minorities across India. Bulldozer justice operates outside the bounds of due process, allowing authorities to demolish homes without fair hearings or legal recourse. In effect, these demolitions strip entire communities of their right to shelter, reinforcing the idea that Muslims do not have a rightful place in Hindu-majority India. This many a times is executed by sanction or with tactic agreement by judicial orders, supported by the apparatus of administration, state, and with applause from media and even the society.
Third, the impact on the livelihoods and economic participation of Muslims in urban areas. Among the most socio-economically marginalised communities in India, Muslims often work in low-waged informal sectors like food, craft, meat, and leather industries. These areas of work – already precarious – face systematic harassment, but now on religious lines as well.
The best example is the case of street vendors. Following the pandemic, where Muslim street vendors were systematically targeted for being unhygienic and spreading the virus, these accusations have also gradually – through a well-planned media and social media campaign – been exported and scaled to other industries like food and hotel industry in the recent times.
Progressively, Muslim establishments of different kinds are now facing economic boycott and restrictions. Many cities and states often initiate arbitrary policies where vendors and restaurant owners must display their names, stop selling meat during certain Hindu festivals or even national holidays, and other such demands of regulation that disproportionately affects minority-owned establishments.
‘Meat bans’ across states and restrictions on sale of non-vegetarian food in cities like Ahmedabad and Delhi are presented on the grounds of hurting religious sentiments and even health measures, but function as tools of daily exclusion, limiting economic opportunities for Muslims who depend on these trades. Now, it has become increasingly common to declare entire localities as ‘teerth kshetras (sacred localities)’ and cities as vegetarian without even sparing a thought for the livelihoods lost.
Fourth, this new urbanism is not limited to destruction only; it also includes narratives of urban reconstruction and rejuvenation designed to reinforce a Hindu identity. The projects like the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya, a politico–religious endeavour, built on the site of the demolished Babri Masjid is the epitome of such a trend.
The temple is a hallmark of symbolism of the triumph of Hindutva, taking the land back for efficient original ‘Hindu’ usage. After successful ‘resolution’ of the Ayodhya debate, now numerous locally contested sites are emerging one after another, with a standard procedure to lay claim to Muslim religious sites. Sambhal mosque dispute being the latest casualty of the same.
The pause by Supreme Court intervention may not impede in the longer run the local mobilisations or festival processions that initiate vandalisation drives to attack mosques. Schemes like The Heritage City Development and Augmentation Yojana (HRIDAY) – targeting heritage development in select cities – and Smart Cities Mission (SCM) subtly propagate the Hindu symbology and purge other identities, along with informality.
It is unsurprising that we see the concentration of the urban projects around temples, ghats, forts and other ‘development’ emboldening Hindu iconography. This redevelopment pattern can be seen in other projects, such as the Kashi Vishwanath Corridor in Varanasi, which ostensibly a cultural restoration project, that ironically displaced smaller temples, erasing historical neighbourhoods and baring into wider view the temple – Gyanvapi Mosque contradiction. Projects under the SCM followed a similar – more secular – pattern, focusing on beautifying urban areas while often sidelining local needs and communities, reinforcing a narrative of exclusion under the guise of modernisation with nationalist toppings.
Also read: Mosques Under Siege: Are ‘Respectable Hindus’ Willing to Be Held to Account?
Fifth, in the most recent times, the exclusionary urban discourse is not only driven by state policies but is also voluntarily mobilised by grassroots supporters in creating everyday actions of exclusions. The Ram Mandir consecration on January 22, 2024, extended beyond Ayodhya, marked by saffron flags across public and private spaces nationwide, delivered at doorsteps through organisations of the Hindu right and the wider public as well.
Similar to other social acts, such as daily harassment and occasional lynchings of minorities, these voluntary acts of intimidation by increasingly radicalised communities – targeting minority establishments, street vendors, and procession routes, often accompanied by Hindu pop DJ songs – have become a disturbing new normal, provoking confrontations and further polarisation.
This points to the hyper-localisation of daily conflicts. New spatial innovations for exclusions emerge as localities, cities, and even entire regions are being voluntarily transformed into ‘dev-bhoomi’ (land of gods) or ‘vegetarian zones’, ‘kavad yatra routes’ designated spaces for Hindu purity and restricted to Muslim other. Or of how Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojna (PMAY) Urban housing schemes always ends up segregating further the erstwhile more ‘secular’ slum dwellers. This shift represents a voluntary, community-led drive to reshape public spaces, ensuring everyday violence and exclusion of Muslims.
The last decade of Hindutva as an ideology in socio-political realm is possibly reshaping Indian cities, transforming urban spaces into more fragmented landscapes of exclusion. The forced relocation of urban marginalised communities, facilitated by national schemes like SCM and events such as the G20 summit, to the peripheries may still be perceived as ‘secular,’ but it cannot be denied that a significant proportion of those affected are minorities and Dalits.
Our cities now need not just be segregated as ghettos, but even the ghettos are under attack. The methods of domicide adopted against urban poor through urban planning and schemes are being increasingly employed against Muslims. The livelihoods and public presence of Muslims – that until now were accepted – are seen to be an anomaly; and in many cases it is leading to localised economic boycotts.
With the wider public mobilisation, and state sanction, and now with an ever-increasing repertoire of actions, there is no need to create large scale rioting, or mass movements, but continue voluntary acts of hyper local aggression to ensure that Hindutva as an ideology is put to practice in daily life – of Muslims being the other, second-class citizen. All the while cultivating the wider public acceptance, preparing as if for bigger planned coordinated actions in the future.
Globally, this approach mirrors racial apartheid in the colonial South Africa and demolitions of Palestinian homes in the West Bank provide a contemporary parallel, underscoring how urbanism is employed to enforces systemic oppression through planning practices.
Hindutva urbanism – I then posit is a result of this changed socio-political milieu and is more than a top–down political ideology; it is an ideology-driven transformation and reinvention in urban discourse, with demolition unitedly with reconstruction, that risks eroding the foundational pluralism of Indian cities. The physical reshaping of cities, employment of urban schemes, economic marginalisation, and cultural erasure collectively signal a dangerous turn towards permanent–widened divisions. Recent instance of Sambhal dispute and consequent violence are a mere facet of the same. Countering this transformation demands a commitment to progressive, newer ways of engaging with the cities in India, of crafting new ideological positions to Hindutva, combined with practical actions in our cities.
Aravind Unni is an urban practitioner and researcher working with informal workers and urban communities for inclusion in urban planning and cities.