Changing the iconography of power

The hegemony of Hindutva can be gauged by its confident makeover of structures with a powerful symbolic significance

One of the ways in which this regime’s apparently unshakeable confidence in its ideological plank of Hindutva can be gauged is by its systematic takeover and makeover of a number of spaces and structures that have powerful symbolic significance in the public life of the nation.

Nationalism of refurbishment

From the Gandhi Ashram in Sabarmati to the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya, from the Parliament House on Raisina Hill to the Vishwanath Mandir in Varanasi, from Ahmedabad’s Sabarmati Riverfront to the capital’s Central Vista Avenue, from Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar to Teen Murti House in Delhi, all kinds of historic sites, whether sacred or secular, ancient or modern are being subjected to extravagant renovation.

As architect Bimal Patel, responsible for most if not all of the Modi administration’s most ambitious redevelopment projects in Gujarat, Delhi and Uttar Pradesh, said to a university audience in the capital recently: “We are interested in changing the iconography of power.” One could hardly ask for the agenda of the Hindu Right to be more explicitly spelt out.

Patel and his Ahmedabad-based firm HCP Design, Planning and Management Pvt. Ltd., along with other Government functionaries and spokespersons, Ministers and bureaucrats, State and central officials, as well as right-wing culture warriors producing media commentary, have a uniform justification for these massive undertakings: India needs to transition from dilapidated Mughal grandeur, leftovers of the British Raj and remnants of Nehruvian socialist frugality, to its own 21st century self-image of a rising Asian Giant.

The Chinese model is preferred, where the past is unsentimentally obliterated, differences are brutally homogenised, and so far as possible, things are made brand new, enormously large and technologically advanced. Special Economic Zones, Smart Cities, international airports, multi-lane expressways and glitzy malls have already erupted all over the country. Refurbished heritage structures are the latest emblem in this ideologically driven visual and aesthetic transformation of Modi’s India.

People should visit Sabarmati not as Gandhians but as tourists; so too Kashi Vishwanath not merely as devotees of Shiva, nor the Janmabhoomi as just believers in Ram, but also as tourists; similarly the National Museum or India Gate not only as citizens but also as tourists. Parliament itself needs to attract tourists, as the arena for debate and legislation. It is no longer enough to seek a functioning polity, society or religious community — we need a staging of Indian democracy.

Citizenship as viewership

We should not see India for what it is — old, diverse, incoherent, complex, messy, inclusive, subtle and resilient — but instead be overwhelmed by the simulacrum of a Hindu Rashtra, an imposing edifice that has no space for the wretched of the earth. The relationship of the people to the nation is no longer that of participation and agency. Rather, we are reduced to passive awe-struck viewers of an impressive scene whose narrative we cannot question, much less determine through our choices.

In exchange for “amenities” like toilets and parking lots, we should be ready to give up all ownership of our neighbourhoods, places of worship, hubs of commerce, and the intricately woven fabric of our sociality, evolved organically over centuries. Residents of Sabarmati Ashram or Kashi Vishwanath for generations can simply be bought out of their ancestral homes and done out of their traditional livelihoods. Muslims have to fight for a legitimate dwelling, mosque, trade or locality — a form of state-led exclusion and marginalisation perfected in Gujarat, now pervasive in Uttar Pradesh.

The current dispensation’s taste for monumentality, spectacle and grandeur is reminiscent of imperialist and fascist regimes the world over. Gandhi’s ethic of service and humility embodied in the routines and rituals of his ashram; Nehru’s commitment to inculcating democracy and engendering secularism in the first years of the Indian republic; Ambedkar’s egalitarian campaigns to open temples, tanks and roads to all Indians regardless of caste and gender; the true seeker’s quest for liberation in a sacred city of prayer and pilgrimage like Banaras or Ayodhya — none of these habits and practices familiar to Indians is recognised as valid. Because, all of these ways of being, for individuals and communities, require tolerance of difference, coexistence with others, respect for nature, accepting the finitude of life, and most importantly, remaining mindful of the evanescence of power.

The same Ganga that bore away thousands of bodies of the Covid dead during the Delta wave just a few months ago, is without shame, irony or apology supposed to serve as a scenic backdrop for the ostentatious “Vishwanath Dham” inaugurated by the Prime Minister. The scriptwriters of his speeches, architects of his corridors, curators of his sound-and-light shows and designers of his outfits forget that in the 17th century, Kashi bowed to neither Aurangzeb Alamgir nor Chhatrapati Shivaji. Even today, Banaras is no mere electoral constituency — from a truly Hindu perspective, infused with faith, it is the eternal stronghold of Shiva Tripurantaka, Destroyer of the Three Demon Cities.

The manufacturers of Mr. Modi’s vaunted image seem not to know that Banaras produced both Tulsidas and Kabir, the greatest poets of medieval north India who represent two alternative imaginations of divinity and use the languages of their region in radically dissimilar ways. They fail to acknowledge that from the weaving of Banaras’s famed brocades to the carving of its colourful wooden idols, the city is unimaginable without its Muslim artisans. They gloss over the fact that none of the defining work of Banaras — from religious rituals to learned scholarship, from making music to plying boats, from cooking to cremation — is possible without an intricate ecology of communities. Comprising all manner of religious, sectarian, caste and occupational identities, these groups have evolved a modus vivendi through the ages in defiance of the ham-fisted interventions of any state.

What is needed

Like all Indian cities, crumbling and collapsing Varanasi desperately needs better urban infrastructure. Like all Indian rivers, the highly polluted Ganga urgently requires cleaning up. One of the most revered and visited places on the subcontinent could certainly do with the governance, investment and development it has not had in decades. But bulldozing the very heart of Banaras, the Vishwanath Temple and Gyanvapi Mosque complex, to erase its historically multi-religious character and make an opulent display of Hindu pride, is contrary to the spirit of the Constitution, and shockingly insensitive and wasteful in a pandemic.

The Bharatiya Janata Party leadership expects to reap the rewards of its blatantly communal messaging and magnification of Hindu symbols in the forthcoming Uttar Pradesh elections. But it should not underestimate the famed insouciance of the denizens of Kashi, their abiding scepticism about illusions and appearances, be it the magic of Modi or the chimera of the world. “Maya maha thugni hum jaani,” sang Kabir, that canny bard of the cynical city.

Ananya Vajpeyi, an intellectual historian, is a fellow at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, New Delhi. The views expressed are personal

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