Communal Geographies: Space, Identity and Electoral Constituency in Colonial North India

Abstract

The Indian Councils Act, 1909, the Government of India Act, 1919, and the Government of India Act, 1935, defined political space—an arena of political negotiations through electoral representation—along religious lines. The most crucial aspect of these legislative-institutional developments was the definition and delimitation of ‘communal-territorial constituencies’, and franchisee qualifications. This specific colonial form of representative politics, which was debated, negotiated and translated by the religio-political elite in the arena of local politics, produced a communal notion of space. Thus, each of the localities, wards, cities and regions at large were officially demarcated into Muhammadan, General/Hindu, Sikh and Indian-Christian electoral constituencies. The paper explores the intricacies of this process and the complex question of ‘representation’ during the period of the national movement. It argues that this official demarcation of social groups and localities into political constituencies produced a complex configuration of identity and space, which had multiple manifestations with extended franchise. It established electoral representation as a mode to make legitimate claims and counterclaims over space.