State-sanctioned demolitions are distinct and powerful tools of control and punishment in both Israel and India, targeting specific marginalised communities in these disparate geographies. While operating in vastly different historical and political contexts, both nations have weaponised demolition policies against the communities they see as the Other—Palestinians in Israeli occupied lands, and Muslims in India. These demolitions function as expressions of state control, revealing striking parallels in their justifications and implementations, while also underlining the differences in the respective practices in Palestine and India. By comparing these practices, what emerges is the understanding of how architectural violence becomes institutionalised within democratic frameworks. The establishment of the Israeli state in 1948 was accompanied by the uprooting of more than half the population living in historical Palestine. More than 7,50,000 people were forced to move from what came to be Israel to the West Bank, Gaza, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria. A…

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