Contested spaces, political practices, and Hindutva: spatial upheaval and authoritarian populism in Noida, India

Contemporary India is showing increasing signs of ‘competitive’ authoritarian populism (Levitsky and Way, 2010). The mainstream political discourse in the country is dominated by the sectarian religious forces of Hindu nationalism or Hindutva, serving as the agency of a development narrative that promises to return India to its ‘greatness of yore’. In this paper, we examine the case of Noida, an upcoming satellite township adjacent to the capital New Delhi, to describe a process of spatial upheaval that is leading to continuous practices of ‘othering’. These processes are enabling the Hindutva forces to take root locally. In effect, we argue that local space-making has an intrinsic relationship with authoritarian populism, and it therefore needs to be at the analytical forefront.