Spaces & Flows: Ninth International Conference on Urban and ExtraUrban Studies

Abstract

The decade after the liberalization of the Indian economy witnessed a paradoxical rise in state intervention within the urban system to facilitate private capital, resulting in diminution of collective consumption of “public goods” such as streets and public parks which have historically functioned as sites for the practice of contentious politics. The Jantar Mantar Road in New Delhi emerged as a “designated” site for political agitations within this context and gradually acquired the symbolic meaning as the “national site of protest” due to its proximity to major political and administrative centres in the national capital city. Through ethnographic data collected in the course of a month-long field work, prior to the termination of Jantar Mantar Road as a protest site, this paper narrativizes the lived experiences of the social actors involved in the protest. Furthermore, this paper foregrounds how different social groups such as farmers, Dalits, civil liberties activists, etc. negotiate the space on account of their social location vis-à-vis class, caste, and gender. The paper also unpacks the various processes through which “designated” sites structure protest repertoires, consequently engendering newer modes of deliberation between the state and social actors, which conform to the repressive social control exerted by state apparatuses through policing and surveillance. Lastly, through the lens of Jantar Mantar Road, the paper studies the impact of “designated” sites of political agitations on contemporary urban resistance and the practice of democracy.