Marhoom Faizabad

Neoliberal Demolitions and Ruinous Governmentality in New Ayodhya

Bibliographic Data

ID8130873
AuthorsGhazala Jamil (0009-0009-5551-0618, Jawaharlal Nehru University, corresponding author)
Year2026
Volume58
Issue2
Publication date2026-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueAntipode (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0066-4812 • E-ISSN: 1467-8330
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/anti.70152
OpenAlexW7135187344
LanguageEN
References cited32

Changing names of streets, institutions and even cities in post‐colonial India has been a political project signalling shifts in power and ideology. In one such example, the district of Faizabad in the North Indian state of Uttar Pradesh was renamed Ayodhya in 2018. This was accompanied by reorganisation of governance structures to affect land acquisitions, displacement and ‘developmental’ demolitions. The new Ayodhya, which lies at the heart of the Hindu nationalist ( Hindutva ) project, can arguably stand in as a metaphor for the project of transforming the secular Indian state into a Hindu nation ( Hindu Rashtra ). This article presents the narrative of legal‐administrative erasure of Faizabad as a template for the effaced cultural history of Muslim urbanisms in India and as a parable of Indian citizenship. It shows that neoliberalism, reinforced by Hindutva , did not dispossess only Muslims, but potently neutralised all resistance to destructive nationalist urbanisation. This is evidenced through a narrative of diminished belonging, intense irrelevance and powerlessness experienced by poets, teachers, journalists, activists and common residents of Ayodhya‐Faizabad. The article draws its theoretical framing from Urdu literary topos, Shehr Ashob , which has been used to produce socio‐literary biographies of ‘troubled’ or ‘disturbed’ cities in India

Framing (construction · Governmentality · Hindu nationalism · Hinduism · Narrative · Nationalism · Politics · Power (physics · State (computer science · Postcolonial and Cultural Literary Studies · South Asian Cinema and Culture · South Asian Studies and Diaspora

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