This week on NL Hafta, Manisha Pande, Mehraj D Lone and Raman Kirpal of Newslaundry are joined by Fahad Zuberi, researcher in architecture and city studies.

Kicking off the discussion with the Hindu supremacist ecosystem’s targeting of Varanasi’s Gyanvapi mosque, Fahad examines the role mythology plays in how the Indian society deals with “conflicted Historical sites”. “Mythology is not to be proven and so people are allowed to believe anything,” he says.

Raman recounts reporting on the Hindutva mobilisation to destroy the Babri Masjid in 1992 and how that was also based on “500 pages of mythology and nothing else”.

The panellists also discuss the horrific Mundka fire in which at least 27 workers at an illegal factory in Delhi were killed and dozens injured. In this context they discuss poor city planning that leaves migrant workers in particular vulnerable to such tragedies, the erosion of labour protections in the country and why the lives of marginalised people are so cheap.

The conversation also spans Hardik Patel’s exit from the Congress in Gujarat, the Central Vista project and the ongoing Hindutva campaigns against many monuments that are seen as ‘Muslim’.

This and a lot more, only on NL Hafta.

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