SOAS Research Online

Abstract

The city of Gurugram, the administrative headquarters of a district of the same name, is located in the state of Haryana. Gurugram adjoins the southern borders of Delhi and has been the site of intense urban development over the past two decades. Rapid urbanisation has attracted a variety of workers from different parts of the country. Unlike Hindus, however, the majority of the Muslim migrants to the city tend to be poor and unskilled. In recent times, there has been a great deal of public debate and conflict over Muslims offering namaaz (prayer) at different public places – such as streets and parks – in the city. Both official and private pronouncements regarding public namaaz is couched in the language of urban administrative rationality: viz., the ‘proper’ uses of public land and religious practice as a possible source of permanent illegal occupation of public land.This article explores the manner in which specific discourses of planning and administration in Gurugram – despite their ‘neutral’ vocabulary – become aligned to political and cultural agendas of urban ‘theo-topias’, viz., the processes of producing religion-specific spaces. It also outlines relationships between class, religious identity, the state and private capital that produce new ideas of ‘the people’.