IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/urbstu/v60y2023i4p597-619.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Saffron geographies of exclusion: The Disturbed Areas Act of Gujarat

Author

Listed:
  • Sheba Tejani

Abstract

This article elucidates the discursive, spatial and procedural mechanisms by which residential segregation and ghettoisation based on religion in Ahmedabad is reproduced and reinforced. It studies the application of the Disturbed Areas Act of Gujarat, a 1986 law ostensibly intended to curb spatial segregation based on religion by preventing the distress sale of property in ‘disturbed areas’ affected by sectarian violence. However, this law is being used for precisely opposite ends and as a tool of ‘ethnocratic urban planning’ to advance the Hindu right’s goal of separate and hierarchical nations based on religion and to actively ‘Hinduise’ urban space. Current practices of the law enable the state to police boundaries between Muslim areas and adjoining Hindu localities, sealing their porosity and preventing the formation of mixed areas by restricting property transfers. The article uses semi-structured interviews, mapping techniques, participant observation and official data as sources of evidence. It maps ‘disturbed areas’ in Ahmedabad for the first time and presents previously unpublished data on applications for property transfers between persons of different religions under the Act. The article argues that ethnocratic planning combines with a range of other vectors, such as targeted anti-Muslim violence, the hindrance of justice and reconciliation thereafter and the persistent vilification of minorities, to produce saffron geographies of exclusion in Ahmedabad. These saffron geographies of exclusion are grids of Hinduised spaces cleansed of Muslim presence that embody the ascendancy of the ideology of Hindutva over the city and simultaneously create Muslim ghettos.

Suggested Citation

  • Sheba Tejani, 2023. "Saffron geographies of exclusion: The Disturbed Areas Act of Gujarat," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 60(4), pages 597-619, March.
  • Handle: RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:60:y:2023:i:4:p:597-619
    DOI: 10.1177/00420980221110738
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/00420980221110738
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/00420980221110738?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bharathi, Naveen & Malghan, Deepak & Mishra, Sumit & Rahman, Andaleeb, 2021. "Fractal urbanism: City size and residential segregation in India," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 141(C).
    2. Michael Storper & Allen J Scott, 2016. "Current debates in urban theory: A critical assessment," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 53(6), pages 1114-1136, May.
    3. Ananya Roy, 2009. "The 21st-Century Metropolis: New Geographies of Theory," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 43(6), pages 819-830.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Kevin Ward & Timothy Bunnell, 2021. "Reflections on five years of the Summer Institute in Urban Studies," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 58(4), pages 863-878, March.
    2. Christof Parnreiter, 2022. "The Janus-faced genius of cities," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 59(7), pages 1315-1333, May.
    3. Mary Lawhon & Yaffa Truelove, 2020. "Disambiguating the southern urban critique: Propositions, pathways and possibilities for a more global urban studies," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 57(1), pages 3-20, January.
    4. Allen J. Scott, 2019. "City-regions reconsidered," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 51(3), pages 554-580, May.
    5. Cary Wu & Rima Wilkes & Daniel Silver & Terry Nichols Clark, 2019. "Current debates in urban theory from a scale perspective: Introducing a scenes approach," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 56(8), pages 1487-1497, June.
    6. Michael Hoyler & John Harrison, 2017. "Global cities research and urban theory making," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 49(12), pages 2853-2858, December.
    7. Jamie Peck, 2017. "Transatlantic city, part 1: Conjunctural urbanism," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 54(1), pages 4-30, January.
    8. Shenjing He & Junxi Qian, 2017. "From an emerging market to a multifaceted urban society: Urban China studies," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 54(4), pages 827-846, March.
    9. Luca, Davide & Terrero-Davila, Javier & Stein, Jonas & Lee, Neil, 2023. "Progressive cities: urban–rural polarisation of social values and economic development around the world," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 118275, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    10. Jennifer Robinson, 2022. "Introduction: Generating concepts of ‘the urban’ through comparative practice," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 59(8), pages 1521-1535, June.
    11. Allen J. Scott, 2022. "The constitution of the city and the critique of critical urban theory," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 59(6), pages 1105-1129, May.
    12. Azunre, Gideon Abagna & Amponsah, Owusu & Takyi, Stephen Appiah & Mensah, Henry & Braimah, Imoro, 2022. "Urban informalities in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA): A solution for or barrier against sustainable city development," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 152(C).
    13. Shin, HaeRan & Chae, Sangwon, 2018. "Urbanisation and land use transition in a second-tier city: The emergence of small factories in Gimpo, South Korea," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 534-541.
    14. Hillary Angelo & David Wachsmuth, 2015. "Urbanizing Urban Political Ecology: A Critique of Methodological Cityism," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(1), pages 16-27, January.
    15. Hyun Bang Shin & Loretta Lees & Ernesto López-Morales, 2016. "Introduction: Locating gentrification in the Global East," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 53(3), pages 455-470, February.
    16. Seth Schindler, 2014. "Understanding Urban Processes in Flint, Michigan: Approaching ‘Subaltern Urbanism’ Inductively," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(3), pages 791-804, May.
    17. Assem Abu Hatab & Padmaja Ravula & Swamikannu Nedumaran & Carl-Johan Lagerkvist, 2022. "Perceptions of the impacts of urban sprawl among urban and peri-urban dwellers of Hyderabad, India: a Latent class clustering analysis," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 24(11), pages 12787-12812, November.
    18. Tim Bunnell & Daniel P. S. Goh & Chee-Kien Lai & C. P. Pow, 2012. "Introduction: Global Urban Frontiers? Asian Cities in Theory, Practice and Imagination," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 49(13), pages 2785-2793, October.
    19. Chakravarty, Dwarka & Goerzen, Anthony & Musteen, Martina & Ahsan, Mujtaba, 2021. "Global cities: A multi-disciplinary review and research agenda," Journal of World Business, Elsevier, vol. 56(3).
    20. Tom Gillespie, 2020. "The Real Estate Frontier," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(4), pages 599-616, July.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:60:y:2023:i:4:p:597-619. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.gla.ac.uk/departments/urbanstudiesjournal .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.