In November, 2014, Narendra Modi, the freshly elected prime minister of India visited Nepal, and declared Janakpurdham and Ayodhya as ‘sister cities’ – the birth places of Sita and Ram, the Hindu gods and goddess, and soulmates, as per Ramayana, the Hindu epic –; the ties to be concretized through the Ramayana Circuit, an infrastructural project of connectivity. Soon after, Janakpurdham began to witness a series of city beautification projects – partly in preparation for the visit of Yogi Adityanath, Uttar Pradesh’s chief minister. 

Set against this backdrop, I examine the municipal government’s planning logic in prioritizing the placemaking projects purportedly to preserve Janakpur’s identity as a Hindu heritage site and Sita’s city. Parallelly, I also analyze the affective effects of the socio-spatial manifestation of ‘heritage’ and its implications for secularism in the city. I question if the municipal government-led placemaking projects might have had the (un)intended consequence of providing an irreversible impetus for the rise of ‘saffronization’, the politics of Hindu majoritarianism, in Nepal.

Enrollments to be made via the email vera.lazzaretti@iscte-iul.pt. Please write to the organiser by May 9th and mention your name and affiliation. 

Biographical note
Sabin Ninglekhu is a research fellow based in Social Science Baha, Kathmandu, Nepal. He is currently leading an international project on heritage that uses four key themes of erasure, bureaucracy, commoning and decolonization to study planning and governance of ‘heritage cities’ in India and Nepal. Sabin has a PhD in urban geography from the University of Toronto, Canada. He regularly writes and publishes on slum, heritage, landlessness and poverty in the city. He is also currently working on a book monograph titled ‘Slum, Heritage and the Afterlives of Revolution in Kathmandu, Nepal’.