Urban transformation, state power, and climate vulnerability in Varanasi, India: A three-century perspective
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.64866/j.ijdscr.2026.10032Keywords:
spatial transformation, state power, climate vulnerability, urban resilience, Varanasi, IndiaAbstract
This study examines how successive governments´ state power has shaped the urban landscape in Varanasi, India, and how these interventions have led to uneven vulnerabilities that are now being exacerbated by increasing climate stresses. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in summer 2024, archival research, and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) analysis mapping 1,685 features across three time periods, we trace the transformation of green, blue, and social spaces under Mughal, British colonial, and contemporary Indian governance. Our GIS analysis reveals that urban water bodies decreased by 75% in area and green spaces fragmented significantly over 200 years, with the geometric Mughal gardens replaced by British-style lawns and interconnected waterscapes drained and centralized under colonial sanitation regimes. According to cited secondary sources, the recently completed Kashi Vishwanath Temple Corridor involved the demolition of 291 buildings and the displacement or relocation of approximately 4,500 residents. While confirming existing research identifying legibility, categorization, and control as drivers of states' spatial interventions, we propose an additional theoretical dimension: ontological security. States and empires, constituted by humans with collective fears, spiritual needs, and ideological commitments, may shape space not only for rational control but also to address deep insecurities about mortality and identity. The spatial order societies inherit is not neutral terrain on which climate stress acts, but a landscape already structured by inclusion and exclusion. Understanding how and why state power has produced vulnerability in Varanasi illuminates why climate impacts manifest locally in different ways, and why disaster and resilience studies must attend to the historical architecture of risk.
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Copyright (c) 2026 Dominik Juling, Deep Shikha, Samprikta Chatterjee (Author)
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