Politics beyond name-changing: Prayagraj and the making of a Sanatan Hindu city in Uttar Pradesh.

Abstract

Right after coming to power in Uttar Pradesh in 2018, the Yogi Adityanath-led government of  BJP changed the name of multiple cities, aiming for the cultural reemergence of Hindu heritage associated with them. The name-changing was also part of the decolonisation narrative. Allahabad, popular for the confluence of Ganga and Yamuna (Sangam) and Kumbh Mela, was renamed Prayagraj, given its religious and cultural heritage of Hindu pilgrimage. This paper attempts to understand the political imagination of a Sanatan Hindu city by the Hindutva regime in India. Beyond name-changing, how is a sacred Hindu city visualised and architecturally manifested, and how does it impact communal relationships and belongingness in the city? It examines the recent infrastructural upgradation, icon installation and architectural developments that have taken place in Prayagraj in the wake of the Kumbh Mela to explain the political rationale behind prominently reconfiguring public spaces with Hindu religious symbols. By doing so, the Hindutva regime has effectively remoulded the public spaces of Prayagraj visibly into a Hindu religious bend and emerges as a sanatan city for Hindutva politics. The paper argues that Prayagraj affectually and visually gives the impression of a sacred Hindu city. Embedded within this transformation is the cultural diminishment of Muslim heritage and religious spaces in the city; the paper delineates the construction of a sacred Hindu city in the era of Hindutva, altering Muslim belongingness in the city. Drawing on a comprehensive ethnographic study of Prayagraj, the paper concludes that the politics of name changes is intricately linked with concomitant architectural developments that coincide with and reinforce the name change, promoting dominant Hindu cultural symbols while undermining the city’s traditionally syncretic heritage.