Malba and Mandirs The politics of divine resurgence in Delhi, 1911 - 1940

<strong>Centre for Historical Studies School of Social Sciences </strong> a Lecture <strong>Malba and Mandirs The politics of divine resurgence in Delhi, 1911 - 1940</strong> <strong>Deborah Sutton</strong> Department of History, Lancaster University <strong>3rd February 2016</strong> This paper explores the displacement and subsequent re-emergence of Hindu temples and shrines in the city of Delhi after 1911. From the initial, brutal clearance of nazul land, the capacity of the colonial state to displace and place shrines gradually weakened. By the 1920s, oversight of sacred spaces in the new city depended upon compromise and the identification of organisations that could mediate between the colonial authorities and popular, local claims to sacred sites. The paper uses the Shiv Mandir controversy of 1938-1940 to consider the escalation of disputes over 'sacred' spaces into communal arguments and examines the place of this, and similar, disputes in broader registers of anti-colonial resistance. I argue that the particular fluidity of shaivite shrines confounded attempts by both the colonial state and community advocates to create static and disciplined orders of space in the city. Dr. Deborah Sutton teaches history at Department History, Lancaster University, UK. She is currently editor of South Asian Studies, journal of the British Association of South Asian Studies.