Religious Offence Policed: Paradoxical Outcomes of Containment at the Centre of Banaras, and the ‘Know-How’ of Local Muslims

Abstract

In the 1980s and 1990s, during the Ram Janmabhoomi movement, the Gyanvapi mosque in Banaras was identified by Hindu nationalists as the next place to be 'liberated' from Muslim presence. A security plan was then implemented by the government to prevent the occurrence of a 'religious offence' as specified in the Indian Penal Code, namely 'destroying, damaging or defiling a place of worship' (Section 295). Drawing on ethnographic research, this article explores religious offence within and beyond its legal definition and examines the contradictory impact that its containment through policing has on everyday life and interreligious relationships in the centre of Banaras.

New monuments for the new India: heritage-making in a ‘timeless city’

“…I observed his anxiety about the precarious status of his house and his family's role in the area. The struggle of the Vyas family to remain an independent ritual authority had lasted for years, but in summer 2017 the Vyas house was finally demolished in what was a landmark in the implementation of the Corridor (Lazzaretti 2021a).…”

“…37 As buildings began more rapidly to be acquired and demolished, the rubble and detritus remained where they fell and residents lived for months with a half-broken neighbourhood, as many tried to resist pressure to sell their properties. According to protestors, a supposedly 'Hindu raj' -as many described the BJP-led state and central governments -was now destroying not only the houses and shops of a Hindu neighbourhood, but also Hindu deities and temples within it (Lazzaretti 2021a).…”