Divine and wine: negotiating the past in Nashik’s urban future

Abstract

With its religiosity and aspirations of becoming a world-class city, Nashik is oscillating between its past and future. As a city of pilgrimage and vineyards, Nashik is experimenting by re-imaging itself to attract global capital. This article analyzes the politics of the urban utopias envisaging different futures for Nashik by examining the ambitious state-led Godavari Riverfront Development projects. Extending the idea of “worlding,” I analyze the state-sanctioned utopian imaginations and how they become sites that expose alternative futures. I take the Kumbh Mela (largest Hindu congregation) of 2015 as a critical event that makes multiple urban utopian imaginings immediately recognizable in Nashik. Further, using the political ecology framework, I unpack the contestations between these utopian visions and how locals embody state-sanctioned urban utopias, organize resistance, and pose alternative visions of Nashik’s future. By doing so, I argue, there is a need to investigate local peculiarities when assessing the dynamic worlding processes.

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