SOAS, University of London (The School of Oriental and African Studies)

Grave investments: abstraction and sacral spaces in 20th Century Colonial Delhi

Sacral spaces across early 20th century colonial North India came to stand at the heart of number of explosive confrontations between communities. Most analyses of these confrontations have concentrated on the constellation of meanings generated around these spaces in order to draw conclusions about the nature of community formation. This paper argues that there is much to be gained by connecting the structure of feeling invested in such spaces with the kinds of material processes that were affecting non-sacral spaces. To use a metaphor from art, the figure of intensified sacral investment ought to be reintegrated with the ground of quotidian transactions of space per se. Using examples of temples, mosques and graveyards in Delhi, this paper will suggest that the manner in which the issue of ownership of these structures was posed over this period was transforming the relationship of community to sacral space. More generally, the commodification of urban land meant the emergence of a landscape in which built-over and empty land were each constantly subject to change. The consequent experience of abstraction has important implications for an understanding of this class of communal conflagrations.