The soft aesthetic, however, masks the reproduction of Muslim exceptionalism. The show’s economy centers on the mosque, the madrasa, and the Muslim community in Lucknow. It offers a clichéd version of Islamic urbanism: an abundance of minaret-shaped silhouettes and a generous dash of shrill green – that tired trope Bollywood employs whenever it portrays Muslims or Pakistan. The line between Indian Muslims and Pakistan has been actively blurred by the ideological machineries of the state, with television and Bollywood carrying the propaganda torch.
I grew up in Lucknow in the 1990s in the wake of Mandal-Kamandal. I do not harbour liberal delusions of multiculturalism, but the city’s spatial landscape was punctuated by the presence of burqa-clad Muslim women like figures in a relief print. Perhaps that is why I recoiled seeing Muslims being reproduced through a lens of exceptionalism, especially in Lucknow. As per the 2011 Census, 26.36% of Lucknow City is composed of Shia and Sunni Muslims. Political anthropologist Raphael Susewind’s research on Muslim urban belonging in North India has canvassed a range of sophisticated long-term spatial data to constitute an Index of Dissimilarity (D-index). The index measures the level of segregation and calculates the percentage of one group that would need to relocate to a different sub-area to achieve an even distribution relative to the other group. Lucknow’s D-index is at 0.23, which means that it is one of the least segregated cities in the study of 11 cities (Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Lucknow, Aligarh, Bhopal, Hyderabad, Delhi, Cuttack, Kozhikode and Bangalore). While that of Ahmedabad is at its highest at 0.71, given the prolonged history of communal riots and state neglect.
