Ghazala Jamil - Accumulation by Segregation - Muslim Localities in Delhi-OUP India (2017)

Title Pages
Accumulation by Segregation: Muslim Localities

in Delhi
Ghazala Jamil
Print publication date: 2017

Print ISBN-13: 9780199470655
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: April 2018
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780199470655.001.0001
Title Pages
Ghazala Jamil
(p.i) Accumulation by Segregation
(p.iii) Accumulation by Segregation
(p.iv)
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford.
scholarship,
and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered
trademark of
Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries.
Published in India by
Oxford University Press
Page 1 of 2
PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (oxford.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright Oxford University Press,
Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 18 October 2020

Title Pages
2/11 Ground Floor, Ansari Road, Daryaganj, New Delhi 110 002,
India
© Oxford University Press 2017
The moral rights of the author have been asserted.
First Edition published in 2017
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,

stored in
a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
without the
prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as
expressly permitted
by law, by licence, or under terms agreed with the appropriate
reprographics
rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the
scope of the
above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University
Press, at the
address above.
You must not circulate this work in any other form

and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer.
ISBN-13: 978-0-19-947065-5
ISBN-10: 0-19-947065-0
Typeset in Minion Pro 10.5/14

by Tranistics Data Technologies, Kolkata 700 091
Printed in India by Rakmo Press, New Delhi 110 020
Access brought to you by:
Page 2 of 2

Frontispiece

in Delhi
Ghazala Jamil

Print ISBN-13: 9780199470655
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780199470655.001.0001
Frontispiece
Ghazala Jamil
(p.ii) Map 1 Study Areas

Source: Author (based on google maps).
Note: This map is not to scale and does
not depict authentic boundaries.
Page 1 of 1

Dedication

in Delhi
Ghazala Jamil

Print ISBN-13: 9780199470655
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780199470655.001.0001
Dedication
Ghazala Jamil
(p.v) For Manoj K. Jha who cleared the space for me to speak
Page 1 of 1

Epigraph

in Delhi
Ghazala Jamil

Print ISBN-13: 9780199470655
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780199470655.001.0001
Epigraph
Toni Morrison
(p.vi) Stop thinking about saving your face. Think of our lives and tell us
your particularized world. Make up a story. Narrative is radical, creating
us at the very moment it is being created. We will not blame you if your
reach exceeds your grasp; if love so ignites your words they go down in
flames and nothing is left but their scald. Or if, with the reticence of a
never enough; neither is skill. But try. For our sake and yours forget your
name in the street; tell us what the world has been to you in the dark
the language that tells us what only language can: how to see without
pictures. Language alone protects us from the scariness of things with no
names. Language alone is meditation.
Tell us what it is to be a woman so that we may know what it is to be a

man. What moves at the margin. What it is to have no home in this place.
To be set adrift from the one you knew. What it is to live at the edge of
towns that cannot bear your company.
Toni Morrison
Nobel Lecture: 7 December 1993
Page 1 of 1

Acknowledgements

in Delhi
Ghazala Jamil

Print ISBN-13: 9780199470655
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780199470655.001.0001
(p.ix) Acknowledgements
Ghazala Jamil
Kaun jae Zauq par Dilli ki galiyan chhor kar
(Who wishes to leave, Zauq, wandering the streets of Delhi)
Time spent wandering the streets of Delhi, drinking in the depths of everyday
life; meeting with people, partaking in their memories and experiences; pouring
over the work of the finest thinkers and maverick walkers of the world;
reflecting on human existence, oppression, and emancipation has come to
fruition in this work. Based on my doctoral thesis from the University of Delhi
me. The entire process is marked by moments of serendipity followed up with

much digging, probing, and analysing. Though this process had its solitary
moments, for the most part I was travelling with wonderful companions.
I was extremely fortunate in having Professor Manoj K. Jha as my doctoral

supervisor. He is an inspiration for championing against ignorance, apathy, and
prejudice. Every interaction with him is a lesson in being political and doing
theory. I can never even begin to thank him (p.x) properly because I know I will
never be able to thank him enough for his generosity and brilliance, both of
which know no bounds. I thank my colleagues at Delhi School of Social Work
(DSSW), University of Delhi, where I taught at the time of being engaged in my
doctoral work. Special thanks to Pushpanjali for being a comrade in arms and
for sharing true empathy. I particularly wish to acknowledge my students in the
State, Political Economy and Governance course. They (without knowing it,
Page 1 of 3

Acknowledgements
perhaps) challenged me to see familiar concepts with a critical perspective, and

escape the danger of oversight and oversimplification.
I would be setting myself up for an impossible task to thank all the participants
of this study, but I would certainly be amiss if I did not mention Juned Khan and
Ovais Sultan Khan, Shakeel Malik and Azeem Akhtar sahab for sharing their
deep insights with me; for their faith in my efforts; for their willingness to
indulge me with constant conversations, walks, and phone calls; and for
introducing me to numerous other people. Thanks are also due to Humera Arzu
for her support in accessing newspaper archives and transcribing interviews.
Grateful thanks also to the OUP team who worked on this book, for their
exceptional professionalism, their openness, and for making me keep to the
schedule.
It was in the work of Professor N. Sridharan that I first encountered spatiality of

marginalization. I thank him for drawing me to engage with students at the
School of Planning and Architecture (SPA), Delhi, as Visiting Faculty. I thank my
MA Regional Planning and Urban Planning students, who not only made
teaching exciting by their critical and enthusiastic response, but also helped me
learn so much about their discipline. Thanks are due to Shubham Mishra for
sharing his insights about mapping and getting me all excited about GIS, and to
Sheema Fatima for her incisive comments on spatiality of middle-class
aspirations. Thank you all for demystifying Planning for me.
The discussions and feedback received in two conferences gave my work an

additional edge. I thank the Sir Dorabji Tata Trust for giving me a travel grant to
(p.xi) Differential Belonging: Variable (but
Committee for Urban and Regional Studies of the International Sociological

Association at the University of Amsterdam in July 2011. I also thank Professor
Manish K. Jha who invited me to present a paper at a symposium organized by
him at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences in collaboration with Mahanirban
Muslims in
Delhi: The Normative Non-Citizens of the Global Urban
these were published respectively, in the Economic and Political Weekly (EPW)
in the Working Paper Series of the Centre for the Study of Law and Governance
Slightly reorganized, this material is included in the present book. I thank EPW
and CSLG for permission to republish this material.
I cannot thank Pratiksha Baxi enough for her friendship and camaraderie. The
thesis has been published as a book largely because of her support, and
Page 2 of 3

Acknowledgements
Governance, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.
I am profusely grateful for the comments of the two reviewers. It is difficult for
me to articulate what their feedback and endorsement means to me. Their
suggestions were important in improving the manuscript. Of course, its failings
are all mine.
geography of Old Delhi and its recent history was a constant source of
reference. My younger brother Faiz Ullah would go over each argument in the
book with me as I wrote and revised it. Thank you for our chats (sometimes at
unearthly hours). Biggest thanks are due to my sister-in-law Salma Begum, who
possible only because of her rock solid support and love. (p.xii)
Many thanks are due to my friend of over two decades and my partner Nasir
Jamal. The games he invented ostensibly to keep our daughter Miftah busy, and
the resultant interruptions, kept it real for me.
Finally, I thank my parents Anwari Begum and Azmat Ullah. Even though they
are no more, the attentive memory of their dreams for me egged me on.
Page 3 of 3

Abbreviations

in Delhi
Ghazala Jamil

Print ISBN-13: 9780199470655
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780199470655.001.0001
(p.xiii) Abbreviations
Ghazala Jamil
ABVP
Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad
BJP
Bharatiya Janata Party
BPO
Business Process Outsourcing
BUMS
Bachelor of Unani Medicine and Surgery
CPWD
Central Public Works Department
CSLG
Centre for the Study of Law and Governance
DCP
Deputy Commissioner of Police
DDA
Delhi Development Authority
HCC
Heritage Conservation Committee
HRW
Human Rights Watch
IAC
India Against Corruption
INTACH
Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage
IT
information technology
JNNURM
Page 1 of 3

Abbreviations
Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission

JTSA
LGBT
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender
MLA
Member of the Legislative Assembly
MNS
Maharashtra Navnirman Sena
MP
Member of Parliament (p.xiv)
NCEUS
National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganized Sector
NCT
National Capital Territory
NGO
Non-Governmental Organization
OB
Outside Broadcasting
OBC
Other Backward Classes
PCR
Police Control Room
PR
Public Relations
RWA
SC
Scheduled Caste
SHO
Station House Officer
SPA
School of Planning and Architecture
SSS
Samajik Suvidha Sangam
ST
Scheduled Tribe
TRP
Television Rating Point
US
United States
WTO
World Trade Organization
Page 2 of 3

Abbreviations
Page 3 of 3

Introduction

in Delhi
Ghazala Jamil

Print ISBN-13: 9780199470655
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780199470655.001.0001
Introduction
Ghazala Jamil
DOI:10.1093/oso/9780199470655.003.0001
Abstract and Keywords

The introduction begins with acknowledging rapid urbanization in India and
moves on to a brief historical account of Delhi and its Muslim residents. It
with the history of the city. The narrative traces several historical instances like
the sepoy mutiny, partition, emergency, among others, as a background to the
description of neoliberal Delhi and the contemporary topography of the city.
Continuing in this aim to prepare a background, the introduction briefly
gestures towards various attempts at (i) theorizing the city as spatialization of
capitalism, and (ii) theoretically mapping the geographies of discrimination.
Rationale for use of critical theory to provide the book its philosophical and
conceptual framework of the work is discussed briefly. Within this framework
chapter closes with a brief statement of the core arguments of the work and
their organisation in chapters to follow.
Keywords: Urban theory, Delhi Muslims, Delhi history, critical theory, spatialization of capitalism, neo-
liberal city, Partition of India, Muslims and 1857, ghetto
How do we begin posing and examining anew the questions vis-à-vis the position
of Muslims in contemporary India? If we are to choose the single most defining
feature of India today, it will be the massive urbanization1 that we are
experiencing as a country. This development is not an isolated one but a part of
the globalization project of neoliberal forces. The World Bank (2001) sees this as
immense transformation in terms of infrastructure and facilities for those who
Page 1 of 23

Introduction
(p.2) can afford them, but the change processes have also ended up
marginalizing the already poor and marginalized sections of the urban
population further. The changes have, of course, also impacted urban spaces,
social relationships as well as the way everyday life is lived by its inhabitants.
Today, while the urban condition is attracting the same kind of attention that
and 1970s, the Muslim populations within the urban spaces receive no mention
World Bank 2001). How do these
processes impact Muslims, and what (if any) is the impact they may in turn have
on them? No doubt that the urban Muslim has also been affected but not much
present scholarship is invested in studying these effects. The spatial and
geographical turn in social science focused on the urban in India but has
bypassed the issues of segregation of Muslims in the urban landscape, except to
note the fact of segregation.
In this work I turn my attention to examining urban processes that frame the
creation and articulation of urban Muslim identities, and to charting the
topography of discriminatory segregation. This involved an examination of the
textuality of representation and concerns on how to read texts that represent,
while discerning the impact of nationalistic and transnational politics on the
creation of Muslim identities. Attention is paid especially to geographies of
social reproduction and social control; materiality of culture and identities (p.3)
socio-political positionality of Muslims in the urban social fabric and public

sphere. I also hope to have illuminated, in this bid, the heterogeneity among
Muslims in Delhi, especially along class differences.
Delhi and Its Muslims

Delhi is the largest and oldest metropolis in India (UN Habitat 2016
the one city in India that has seen three thousand years of continuous urban
settlements (Dalrymple 2003). The oldest evidence of inhabitation in Delhi are
Singh 1999). The city has been a seat
of power for centuries. Historians have argued that even though the names of
the various cities that saw their establishment and decline on the site were
Frykenberg
1986: 5). Frykenberg (1986) even goes so far as to say that from the time of
tramped in the vicinity of the Delhi triangle is like reading a variant version of
years in Delhi between 1334 and 1342, have sung paeans to its beauty, might,
and size. Some scholars contend that the architecture, city plans, and everyday
life in Delhi of yore was modelled after the medieval metropolises of Isfahan and
Baghdad and also, that for Muslims, urban life has historically been the
embodiment of ideal life (Bayly 1986
Page 2 of 23

Introduction
requirements of social life required of a faithful. Even in the nineteenth century,

Indian Muslims tended to live mostly in qasbah towns and large cities. At least in
the imagination of its poets like Dagh, Hali, and Ghalib, and the perspectives of
many British and Indian historians, Delhi also has the distinction of its fate being
bound up in the modern age with the fate of its Muslim community (Gupta 1981;
(p.4) Spear 1937). Even today, culturally, Delhi, Lucknow, Hyderabad, and
Bhopal, are among the important cities contributing to the images of Islamicate2
cultures in India.
Narayani Gupta (1981) weaves an account of the fall and re-conquest of Delhi by
the city ravaged and looted. The event marked a major watershed not only in the
narratives of colonial misfortunes to befall India and Delhi, but also left an
indelible mark on the relationship of the Muslim inhabitants of the city with the
colonial state, and the subsequent fortunes of Muslims in India. In January 1858,
after the British took a decision to confiscate the property of all Muslims and any
one could enter the city without a pass, and only those Muslims were given a
Gupta
1981 Gupta 1981: 24)
resettle in Delhi after August 1859 only because the British were finding that the
pass system to keep the Muslims out was difficult to implement! Even then the
Muslim properties were still attached to the British government and many
prominent Muslims were kept under house arrest. Many Muslims chose to leave
Gupta
1981: 25). In a letter written in November 1859, Ghalib lamented that Delhi was
a deserted city in ruins. John Lang, an Australian writer is quoted by Gupta
(1981) (p.5) from the June 1860 copy of the newspaper Moffusilite he published
himself:
[W]hen will the agitation of European nerves subside? There is no reason
plundered. Thousands of Muslims are wandering homeless and houseless;
not been punished. Wend through the empty grass-grown streets, mark the
uprooted houses, and shot riddled decaying palaces. We must not over
Page 3 of 23

Introduction
colonial rulers who found Muslims a very useful pawn in the pursuance of the
divide and rule policy, ensured that the status of Muslims in India only
proceeded from bad to worse.
During my research I found that 1857 figures very prominently in the memories
and even contemporary narratives of the Dilliwalley (families living for
ghadar
(mutiny) against the British; their eviction from the shehr (the city), after being
labelled disloyal to the colonial rule; the confiscation of their properties,
including various mosques, all is remembered just as it appears in the accounts
founding of their locality in the events that took place in the aftermath of the
The next spectre remembered is 1947 or san sentalis. The partition of India,
creation of Pakistan, and mass migration of Muslims was the next big blow in
terms of reducing the Muslims to a persistent minority status in India. It also left
them in a vulnerable position open to prejudice, suspicion, discrimination, and
violence. In fact, on this side of the border, the Muslims who remained or chose
to remain in Delhi were actually the victims of horrific violence and killings
across (p.6) the newly crafted border. The memories of the partition of India
are vivid as though the event is occurring while it is being narrated. Those who
stayed saw the mass exodus of their friends and neighbours. Families were
for their inability to leave due to poverty, sentimental attachments, or simply for
the lack of imagination that would have them believe that people could be
divided like this.
The participants in this study pointed out that while almost all the elite and
educated Muslim families left Delhi, the poor labourers and artisans left behind
in the walled city and the rest of Old Delhi were largely insecure and without
work. The violence and hostilities in the towns of western Uttar Pradesh also
brought Muslims to Delhi. After the creation of Pakistan, the Muslims who did
not leave for that country were virtually charged with criminal disloyalty to the
state, and were held guilty for a historical crime in the committing of which they
had no say. In 1948, when the zamindari system was abolished, most big
zamindars who had not yet left the country also left for Pakistan and the small
ones were pauperized. With no one left to patronize them and hostilities on the
rise, those who were educated came to Delhi from Meerut, Muzaffarnagar,
Amroha, Saharanpur, and Moradabad, looking for jobs. Dilli College, Hamdard,
and Shama were the major institutions of Muslims that played an important role
in anchoring the Muslim population in Delhi.
Page 4 of 23

Introduction
When the Muslims began to try picking up the threads of life and livelihoods
again, the karkhandaars (workshop owners) and karigars (artisans or skilled
workers) had to contend with a business environment that was hostile towards
them. Many years after Partition, those who were discouraged by this hostility,
or wished to be reunited with their family members continued to leave for
Pakistan. The 1971 war resulted not only in the creation of Bangladesh but also
the sealing of borders such that people could no longer cross over and reside in
the other country. By this time, some families also began moving to Jamia Nagar
and Seelampur because of lack of space in the old city. I found clear divisions
between the businessmen and karkhana owners who moved to Seelampur,
Jaffarabad followed/accompanied by karigars (p.7) and labourers, and the
Emergency was imposed in 1975 in the country by the then prime minister,
Indira Gandhi. Apart from other effects of an authoritarian rule, the emergency
Jag Mohan Malhotra as Vice-Chairperson of the Delhi Development Authority
Bazaar, Turkman Gate, and other areas of the city (Dupont 2008). Thousands
migration from Old Delhi continued and more Muslims shifted to Okhla or
Seelampur. Hindus too shifted to Shahdara, Geeta Colony, Uttam Nagar, and
Punjabi Bagh, among others. In many areas where the Muslim population was
greater in number, Hindus sold their properties and moved out, and many
localities became largely Muslim. By the late 1980s, segregation in Delhi on
religious identity lines became almost final and complete.
Muslim craftsmen found that their skills, which were losing relevance in
during this time, Hindutva groups sponsored killings and destruction of

businesses targeting Muslims in Meerut, Moradabad, Aligarh, and Bhagalpur,
discourses (Harriss-White 2005; Khalidi 1995). As a parallel strategy, the Sangh

Parivar
the mainstream owing to relentless and planned tirades. Muslims fell literally
under siege and violent attacks on Muslim communities become the order of the
day. Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Lal Krishna Advani undertook a Rath
Yatra in 1990, which left a deadly trail of violence targeting Muslims all along its
route across north India. In 1992, when the Babri Masjid was demolished, there
was more violence across the country. This frenzy culminated in a (p.8)
genocidal pogrom in Gujarat. The state was openly proclaimed in the
Muslims in Delhi (as elsewhere in the country) stunned by the ferocity of the
Page 5 of 23

Introduction
attacks (Engineer 2002; Sheth 2003; Spodek 2010). The stark and horrific
images of the violence probably stunned the entire country too, for there were
no more instances of communal violence targeting Muslims for many years after
2002. But even in the absence of overt communal violence, India too was
gripped by global Islamophobia and all Muslims were conclusively branded as
terrorists or potential terrorists in the public consciousness in the wake of the
Meanwhile in Delhi, Jamia Millia Islamia anchored not only a residential locality
but also a generation of youth trained in professions for which there is place in
training which armed them with skills and proficiencies needed in liberalized
technology-enabled firms with offshore jobs of transnational companies

outsourced to India. From a small community of teachers and students, Jamia
Nagar grew into a hub of service class professionals. In Seelampur, the small
manufacturers (with their capital contained in segregated areas), and semi-
brought
to India by globalization. Paradoxically, both localities are eminently suitable for
manufacturers with a limited capacity to bargain because of their inability to
cultural marketization of the area. (p.9)
Today, the Indian Muslim languishes deeply in poverty and backwardness

(Khalidi 1995). Much is known regarding the socio-economic status of Muslim
communities across India. It is confounding that this knowledge exists amidst
Indian state. Muslims and their faith Islam are experiencing an unprecedented
focus and attention on various aspects, mostly not of their picking. Muslims and
poverty, Muslim women and their status, Muslims and media practices,
communalism and communal violence are the oft-invoked frameworks in which
Muslims and their issues are mostly discussed. Meanwhile, the community has
fallen behind in almost all aspects of development and progress compared to
even the scheduled castes (SCs)/scheduled tribes (STs), as pointed out by the
PMHLC 2006) appointed to report on
the social, economic, and educational status of Muslims. Chaired by Justice
Rajinder Sachar, the committee (popularly known as the Sachar Committee)
concluded in its report that Muslims fare poorly on most socio-economic indices.
Page 6 of 23

Introduction
The statistics it presented are stark. The Sachar Committee found a clear and
significant inverse association between the proportion of the Muslim population
and the availability of educational infrastructure in most localities.3 It reported
that efforts of the Reserve Bank of India to extend banking and credit facilities
other minorities marginalizing Muslims.4 They are grossly under-represented

relative (p.10) to their populations across all government institutions5
including the highest levels of government service.6 But prison is one place
where proportional representation of Muslims is higher than their population
percentage.7 Most of the variables indicate that Muslim-OBCs (other backward
classes) are more significantly deprived in comparison to Hindu-OBCs.8
per cent of the gross domestic product (GDP). The report also provides some
indications regarding urban Muslims reflecting in its findings that a larger
proportion of the Muslim population in India is urbanized, but also that urban
Muslims are worse off than those in the rural areas.9 (p.11)
While for the majority of the Muslims in India it may not be shocking to be
on almost all accounts of development, progress, and representation, it still is a

piece of information that has not received the kind of academic attention it
deserves. Ample information exists about Muslims lagging behind in their
performance on most socio-economic indices across India. We know that it is so,
but we are yet to begin to pose questions regarding what makes it so. This work
is an attempt to a take a step in an exercise to frame and pose questions.
In the city, as a mechanism for capitalist accumulation, Muslims find the space
that they lacked earlier because their unique positioning makes these areas
ideal for a new kind of economic exploitation. No one is complaining because not
Mamdani 2005) binary imported from the US has been customized for
India-specific conditions, and the good ones are treated differently. The specific
important thing to note in this regard is that elite Indian Muslims also bought
sympathized with the poor Muslims, they also agreed with the mainstream
discourses that because of poverty, lack of education, irrationality, and having
been targeted by communal violence, Muslims were prone to retributive
violence. They sought to distance themselves spatially and socially (p.12) from
against and gets a bigger piece of the commodified life of canned comforts. It is
Page 7 of 23

Introduction
While all these changes are taking place, social science research on Indian
Muslims across disciplines continues to focus on the socio-economic
backwardness of Muslims, researching them only as slum dwellers (Mistry 2005;
Hussain 2008; Engineer 1991; Faridi and Siddiqui 1992; Mondal 1992).
In 2008, several bomb blasts took place at many sites in the city. Two boys
suspected to be terrorists who planned and executed these blasts were shot
were students of Jamia (JTSG 2009). In the entire last decade, there has been a
spate of arrests of Muslim boys and men, which has only intensified
notwithstanding protests (HRW 2011). Most are being found to be
unsubstantiated cases that law enforcement agencies have been unable to
defend in courts of law (JTSA 2012). Also, most Muslims arrested are educated
professionals, giving credence to the global spectre of the techno-savvy,
of
the state to rein in even the elite Muslims, who had begun to raise their voice
against their stereotyping. Recently, the news media has begun to give some
space to instances of discrimination but the reportage has been mostly limited to
elite Muslims not being able to get their children admitted to elite schools
(Perappadan and Zaman 2012), being discriminated against in renting houses
(Ashok and Ali 2012), and mistreated at airports (Menon 2012), even when they
could afford all these things. At the same time, research interest is beginning to
emerge in the upcoming middle class among Muslims. Studies and articles have
Gayer and Jaffrelot 2012).
Meanwhile, middle-class Muslims continue their struggle to run businesses and

keep their jobs in the global recession, while also (p.13) trying to educate their
children. They struggle to keep the foothold they received in terms of an
opportunity to find better livelihoods and lives, be it that this is only within the
and cultural. Lower-class Muslims form a sizable chunk of the unorganized, daily
wage workers, doing the dirtiest and worst paying jobs in the city. Muslims are
overrepresented among the destitute, waste pickers, and street children in Delhi
(Mander and Sehgal 2012; Sheikh 2016). The study concludes by asserting that
Muslims have been silenced by various discursive practices and the disciplinary
power of the state and a deeply discriminatory society, such that any meaningful
speech that raises their real issues is denied to them.
Page 8 of 23

Introduction
Before structural adjustment altered not only the economic landscape of the city
but also its spatial constitution, various Delhi neighbourhoods were not as
strictly segregated along the lines of class and identity. Differences existed but
boundaries overlapped and were not airtight. People had to iron out the creases
of the differences that undeniably existed among them. This is not to say that
there was bonhomie between all kinds of people, but even though prejudice was
always palpable and often expressed in overt discrimination, occasionally
erupting in violent episodes, . The
class, caste, and communal divides often existed within a localized community,
and people had to confront them and negotiate with them in their everyday lives.
In Delhi today, the spatial segregation has reached a point where residents no
longer have to engage with difference. This choice not to engage and the degree
of its availability is a function of positions of privilege and class (which conflate
with religious and caste identities) of the person. The more privileged you are,
the easier it is to shut out and forget that other less-privileged people also exist.
The privileged go to working class neighbourhoods, slums, or segregated
Muslim enclaves probably only for research, fieldwork, or seeking exotic
to traverse the boundary every day and can see the differences clearly. But in
(p.14) order that their wares and services are saleable, increasingly they are
required to leave behind or obscure the tell-tale signs of who they are when they
meet their employers such that even here the powerful are not confronted by the
difference. An everyday critical engagement is neither a requirement nor a
necessity anymore.
Theorizing the City

When the new science of sociology began, urban spaces were one of the first
subjects of study. Marx, Weber, and Durkheim, credited as being the founders of
sociology, were essentially dealing with social changes brought about by the
advent of industrial capitalism and, by corollary, of urbanization (Saunders
1981). Nevertheless, the first urbanists or urban sociologists occupied
Park 2005 [1936]). The
ecological school of urban sociology, also known as the Chicago school, first
through the work of Albion Small and his successor Robert Ezra Park (1926),
of the biotic and symbiotic development of plant ecology to study groups and
urban processes (Roberts 2006). Park himself is reported as having said that his
conception of city and community was not a geographical one, but rather
remained an ambiguous and theoretically deficient view (Roberts 2006) because
Page 9 of 23

Introduction
(Taylor 1973: 122). Social Darwinism led Park to not only proclaim that the city
were
an outcome of unplanned, natural processes that inevitably form a chain of
events akin to stages in individual life (Roberts 2006). Obviously, such a view did
little more than just describe, and in any case had no interest in analysing the
conflicts (such as race conflicts in contemporary cities in the US) which, for
them, were but merely a stage in the natural scheme of things that were
(p.15)
The Ghetto (1928) and article

, considered classics in urban sociology, have an essentially
pessimistic view of the urban in which he regarded urban society as
gave rise to anomie and other negative processes, despite its claims to utility
and efficiency (Smith 1988). Another classic of second generation of human
ecologists, Street Corner Society by W. Whyte (1943), represents the Chicago
E.W. Burgess (1925) in the form of

concentric zones representing a core of commercial and elite residences, a
middle ring of low-income neighbourhoods, and an outer periphery of
manufacturing districts.
While the researchers related to the Chicago school, with their urban ecological
view of the city, did look at the changes brought to everyday life by technological
advancement, they mostly neglected to study the inequality of resources among
classes, capital flows, and built spaces. Beyond a vague notion of benign neglect
they also overlooked the role of the state in the maintenance of the inequalities.
The school instead focused its energies and attention on ghetto life and
essentialized it rather than looking for structural processes underlying the so
C. Wright Mills
(1970)
Castells (1976) also criticized the school scathingly for not realizing
that the changes they were studying could not have been an outcome only of
individual preferences and stylistic matters but were, in fact, the processes of
industrial capitalism. Castells emphasized that the concentric zone model was an
outcome of the specifics of urban processes in one city, and that it could not be
disintegration of the community and individualism were shown to be not specific

only to urban societies. In fact, Herbert Gans (1962) called urban
neighbourhoods he studied in Chicago were similar to those in rural

neighbourhoods. (p.16)
Page 10 of 23

Introduction
In the final analysis, the contribution of the Chicago school remains its attention
to peculiarities of city life and to its spatial pattern. Even though the Chicago
school appeared deficient in theory, it did go on to be influential in later
studies. In reaction to the theoretical deficiencies of the Chicago school, by the

1960s urban studies had taken a Marxist (or a Weberian turn) (Roberts 2006).
Interestingly enough, while symbolic interactionism located itself as a micro-
theory in opposition to structural approaches which they alleged are macro, it is
possible to see the Marxist approaches as those in which macro and micro level
features of social phenomena can both be interpreted (Ritzer and Goodman 2004).
In fact, these approaches can beautifully show how the structure writes itself in
the everyday experiences of individuals.
With the engagements of Castells, Harvey, and Lefebvre, the Marxist turn in
urban studies marked a new concern in the practice of Marxism itself. Merrifield
(2002), in his lively book titled Metromarxism, elaborates on initial anti-urban
tendencies in Marxist thought which envisioned revolutionary practice as
cities as bourgeois in the complex anti-cosmopolitan attitude of the Soviet

Bolsheviks. Debray, whose writings are said to be inspired by Castro and
Merrifield
2002:3). Merrifield credits Antonio Gramsci for coming up with a Marxist praxis
which identified organizing as a more central issue than the supposed dichotomy
of urban and rural. According to Merrifield, Marxist urbanism embraces the
promulgation of Marxist thought is discussed in some further detail in a section

in Chapter 4 of this book which deals with textuality and the work of critical
theorists.
The next major turn in urban studies, which brings us to the present situation,
came with the post-Fordist and post-industrial (p.17) turn in Western
developed societies in the 1980s (Harvey 1987). Globalization and structural
adjustment programmes driven by international monetary organizations pushed
global scale (Banerjee-Guha 2010). This is recognized by many authors as a

logical extension to the enduring story of capitalism and has been aptly termed
neo-imperialism (Harvey 1985). Several trends stand out as a result of this
third world economies (often rapid shifting from one location to another), and
privatization and deregulation of the economic sphere to facilitate an extreme
intra-national (Sassen 1998

Page 11 of 23

Introduction
of communication and transportation (Castells 1989, 1996, 1997, 1998). A very

important impact of all this has been the incredible pace of urbanization
(Castells 1994) and the emergence of what has been called world cities
(Friedmann and Wolff 1982), or global cities (Sassen 1991) from which the
capital flows are being controlled. Social, political, and cultural changes as an
impact of globalization are too many and too intricate to even begin to
enumerate in this space. Suffice to say that the trends here are of deeper and
wider inequalities between the haves and have-nots, xenophobia of different
kinds proliferating across the world (Appadurai 1996, 2006), and the citizen
purchasing power (Katz 2001). It has been noted that in the wake of
globalization, even democratic governments have done little to reduce
inequalities. All this and more obviously has spatial ramifications which have
In her book Theorizing the City, Setha Low (1999) traces the historical
development of the anthropological study of the city, and delineates a number of
theoretical approaches that were developed over time and continue to be drawn
urban ecology models; community, family and network analyses; studies of the
power/knowledge (p.18) of planning and architecture; supralocal/local linkage
representational, and discursive model of study. Elaborating on the

Jane Jacobs (1993) says that this is an
approach in which messages encoded in the environment are read as text.
rendering more real the exotic and marginalised, but were seen to have little
Jacobs 1993: 828).
Jacobs suggests that in this new radicalized ethnography of the city, the urban
built environment is also a discursive realm.
Geographies of Discrimination
Despite their theoretical deficiencies and Darwinian moorings, the Chicago
school researchers did look at segregation, and were among the first to engage
in the systematic study of residential segregation in urban America based on
racial and ethnic differentiation. epic study, The
Polish Peasant in Europe and America, and The Ghetto (1928)
from Roberts 2006:16). In grasping the determinants of segregation, Robert
Page 12 of 23

Introduction
Park defined it as involving a link between the social distance and physical
distance between communities (Park 1915).
Examining the phenomenon of de jure segregation is a good place to start

examining the role of the state in segregation. European Jewish ghettos are
widely thought to be precursors of all such segregation having continuity into
in the horrors of concentration and extermination camps (Wirth 1928). South

African apartheid (p.19) is another such example of residential segregation by
law in recent history (Christopher 1990). Similarly, Israeli state policy relating to
the segregation of Arab-Israeli citizens in Israeli towns has also been studied as
an example of specific laws and policies directly pertaining to discrimination
(Falah 1996). These studies show that in instances of extreme segregation of
populations by law, even when the two communities have to share a space it
was/is not as equals. In most cases, it leads to a very limited social interaction
accompanied with an economic interaction of a coercive, debilitative nature. In a
less extreme method of segregation, zoning, and public housing policies are
often used by states as exclusionary devices even when these policies do not
explicitly exclude (Berry 2001). Extension of financial support for housing is
another such example. Jackson (1985) established in a study in the US that while
housing loans were given only to white families for houses in whites-only
neighbourhoods, the white families also demanded and imposed exclusion of
Black families. Michael Katz (1990, 1997, 2001) has written extensively on the
history and functioning of welfare in the US, framed along the debates on the
discrimination against African-Americans is an underlying thread in the working

of the welfare state.
Massey and Denton (1988) are credited with a framework for understanding
residential segregation in what is widely recognized as a more nuanced and a
more spatial approach. They specified five dimensions of residential segregation,
namely, (i) evenness, which was related to the distribution of the minority
relationship with segregation, (ii) exposure, which was the measure of the
degree of the potential contact of the minority group with the rest of the
population of the city, (iii) concentration, which was the amount of the physical
area that minority groups occupied relative to their proportion in the population,
(iv) centralization, which was the proximity of minority groups to the city centre,
and (v) clustering, which was the extent to which minority groups live in
contiguous areas. Massey and Denton (1993) also wrote a compelling book
tracing the history of segregation (p.20) of African-American people. Calling
were responsible for the existence of the Black ghetto, and that the poverty
between Blacks and Whites is different because of racial discrimination and
segregation. Citing empirical studies and reviews of literature pertaining to
Page 13 of 23

Introduction
racial segregation in cities in the US, Galster (1988)

equally, whereas
others (Clark 1986) were concluding that private discrimination had waned, and
with reference to poverty, it was only benign market forces that were
responsible. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the debates on segregation also
turned towards what has been called Black self-segregation. These alleged that
white prejudice and discrimination driving segregation had markedly alleviated,
and could no longer be held responsible for the continued segregation of Blacks;
instead it was the preferences of the Black people themselves that were
responsible. Noting these debates, Ihlanfeldt and Scafidi (2002) point out that
this implied that enforcement of fair housing and lending laws would not be
required. Many statistical studies citing secondary data but also numerous
studies conducting primary research reached conflicting conclusions. Ihlanfeldt
analysis found statistically significant self-segregation, but it
could not be said to play more than a minor role in explaining the residential
segregation of Blacks.
In Brazilian literature, racial discrimination as a basis of segregation is not

emphasized as much as class differentiations (Oliveira 1996
interrelated and driven by similar socio-economic factors, the relative lack of

racial segregation in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro has facilitated more effective
political engagement around class issues without eradicating racial
York City, he says that African slaves in the US were always a minority of not
more than 20 per cent, mostly concentrated in the southern US, whereas Black
people sold to slavery in Brazil were of a much higher proportion to the entire
population and spread all over Brazil. White people (p.21) in colonial Brazil
were actually a numerical minority and later, after the promotion of European
immigration in the last two centuries, whites are barely a majority in present-
day Brazil. Also, the US saw much more sudden abolition of slavery and violent
conflicts following the abolition compared to Brazil, where the process was
much slower and long drawn out.
On the matter of nomenclature, Oliveira (1996) the

US currently alludes to economic conditions and race/ethnicity but also has
abandonment of neighbourhoods, crime, substandard education, unemployment,
the favelados refers to laziness, and social and political disorganization, it does
not carry negative connotations about race or ethnicity per se because favelas
are not exclusive race neighbourhoods. In a primary study, Perlman (2007) found
itself. Later, Perlman (2009)

Page 14 of 23

Introduction
term as it is no longer characterized by shanty squatter settlements on

undesirable land (marshy, steep hills) in the city. As the land is developed,
increasingly, favelas are no longer free places for poor people to settle, and now
have fierce real-estate markets. Nor does Perlman find that they are home to
acute and chronic poverty any longer. According to her, favela residents are
and blames the so-called marginals for social problems, while legitimating
economically nor politically marginal, they are exploited, manipulated, and

repressed; although they are neither socially nor culturally marginal, they are
On similar lines, Loic Wacquant (2008) compares French working-class quarters

banlieues and Black ghettos in the US, and again comes up with the conclusion
that it would be an error to conflate the two. Wacquant (2008) points to these
places in France and the US as being (p.22) products of different historical
processes and arising from different criteria of classification. In banlieues, it is
racial identity, irrespective of class. Also, importantly, Wacquant (2008) points

out that they are products of different political construction and bureaucratic
management. He elaborates further by saying that even though both are
deprived zones of inequality, the Black ghettos have a task of containing
undesirables and a dishonoured category of people who were needed as labour
in an industrial society, but are no longer needed in post-industrial set-ups. He
Wacquant 2008
The Philosophical and Conceptual Framework

In choosing the broad direction that my work would take, I was immensely
inspired by the speech that Max Horkheimer gave in 1931 at the inauguration of
the Institut fur Sozial Forschung (the Frankfurt school). Given the advent of the
Nazi Party, the approach laid out by Horkheimer in this inaugural address, was
Horkheimer 1993
[1931]) provided me a manifesto or creed on which I could base the approach of
this work. Horkheimer (1993) emphasized that the study of human society
necessarily required an interdisciplinary approach, which must have philosophy
as its core. It was this philosophical core that would bind the multiple strands of
the approach. It was useful that Horkheimer (1993) advocated the use of a new
avatar of the Marxist perspective and methods that included sensitivity to social
Marxism from vulgar economic reductivism, and was especially useful in

providing me a position which was does not fall in the dichotomous traps of
Page 15 of 23

Introduction
theory posits itself at a vantage position which made it (p.23) possible for me
to discern the structural roots of processes expressed in the everyday narratives
of the participants. It is this approach that is the biggest strength of this effort.
What was of utmost importance to me was that in the speech, Horkheimer
(1993) also emphasized that research must have an emancipatory aim, and
towards achieving this end it must bring out the role played by consciousness in
social, cultural, political, and economic processes, and not just focus on the
manifest condition of an oppressive milieu.
The Muslim question in India is considered one purely about identity. In my

understanding, while identity is a necessary conceptual tool to study Muslims, it
is extremely limited in the way it is usually employed, focused on the individual-
of the same group. In this work, I have rather employed a dramaturgical view of
identity as a process of role-prescription. Two things about this view are of
special interest to me. First, that identity is conceptualized as a categorization
disconnected with the actions of the carriers of the identity. As such, conflicts
reflecting the broad structure of dominance in a society are scripted into
identities. Second, the self is conceptualized in a wider arena of what Giddens
(1991)
In order to shift the frame of reference in this study of Muslims in Delhi, I

employ spatiality and positionality as additional conceptual tools to reframe the
questions confronting urban Muslim populations in India today.
Massey 1992
relationship between people and spaces. It operationalizes the way in which
spaces and people communicate. A fundamental postulate of geography is that
the relative positions of communities partly determine the form and intensity of
social interactions. These in turn build back the main structures of geographical
space, while increasingly distorting them. The use of a concept (p.24) such as
spatiality enabled me to examine the spatial relegation of a community, and
highlights but also recreates social difference and distance.
within which positionality was coined to describe the situated positions from
which subjects come to know the world (Maher and Tetreault 1993). Here, the
social situatedness of a researcher (in terms of her identities) is clearly
understood to be shaping her analysis (Nagar and Geiger 2007).
Page 16 of 23

Introduction
While the feminist notion of positionality seems limited to a subjective view of

Eric
Sheppard (2000) specifically adds geographic situatedness to render the concept
suggests that within the studies of globalization, an intense focus on territories

and possibility of networked spaces has meant that the very role of connection
between territories in creating relational inequalities within globalized/
networked spaces has gone largely overlooked. And finally, a third notion of
positionality used in this work is the Foucauldian notion of individuals
competing discourses (Roberts 2006). It is in this broad and multiple usage of

positionality that this work is engaging in its study of the Muslim population in
Delhi.
We may read this along with suggestion that the production and
organization of spaces in the city take place primarily to aid the aim of capitalist
Harvey (1972) wrote an
interacting policies of financial and government institutions, and by privately

and publicly financed multiple submarkets. Through an absorbing analysis of
discriminatory banking policies and speculative rent tendencies of the (p.25)
landowners, Harvey concludes in agreement with Lefebvre (1991) that in the
process of urbanization, distinctions between land and capital, and rent and
profit have blurred (Merrifield 2002). I deduce from this a need to see
accumulation beyond the industrial production of goods to include investment in
land and property, while keeping in mind that the key word is still
Lefebvre is noteworthy for making a potent suggestion in his book, The

Production of Space (1991), that the production of space is not only an
achievement of capital and power, but may also be potentially used as a tool that
can reconstruct and liberate the social world. Lefebvre arms us with this tool of
under capitalism. He insists that cities must not be viewed as a material end
product but as spaces for production of social relations. Lefebvre is credited
with an instrumental view of space in which he maintains that space is not just a
geographical or geometrical conception, but an instrument that needs to be
conquered and integrated for the maintenance of capitalism. Within the scheme
of capitalist modes of production space has to be considered along with raw
material, instruments, and labour, among others, even though it is unique in not
forces are (Zieleniec 2007

Page 17 of 23

Introduction
space that has been commodified by capitalism, but he highlights another

quality of the urban as a place of play and leisure. This, he points out, is an
explanation of spaces that are produced for ideological purposes beyond purely
Lefebvre 1991:
116).
For a critical knowledge of space, Lefebvre (1991) conjures up a spatial version

of the Marxist conception of fetishism and then challenges this fetishism. Since
in his understanding spaces are not material empty vessels that are filled up by
other things, but rather exist because they are produced within the framework
of capitalist production, he asserts that this production of space is obscured by
the emphasis that spaces are physical and natural and just exist (p.26)
(Zieleniec 2007). In order to tackle the issue of production of spaces, Lefebvre
space, but above all for their interrelationships and their links with social
three elements:
ownership, use and designation of land within the hierarchy of administrative

and organizational division of space, with an intrinsic element of social
Zieleniec 2007
professionals and technocrats: planners, engineers, developers, architects,

urbanists, geographers, and others of a scientific bent. This space reflects the
arcane models, signs, and jargon used and transmitted by these specialists.
Usually ideology, power and knowledge lurk somewhere within it, or radiate
from it. This is the dominant space of any society, intimately tied to the
relations of production and to the order which those relations
Merrifield 2002
also some artists and perhaps of those, such as a few writers and
philosophers, who describe and aspire to do no more than describe. His is the
seeks to change and appropriate. It overlays the physical space, making

Lefebvre 1991: 39).
Delhi. The narrative, hopefully, is complex and presents life not in a fractured
Page 18 of 23

Introduction
but rather in a holistic manner. (p.27) As mentioned earlier, the aim is not just
to produce new insights into the subject of the study, but to also present an
emancipatory reading of the spaces in Muslim localities in Delhi.
The Arguments and their Organization

The literature on Indian Muslims reifies the Muslim condition so that the
meaning of communal prejudice and discrimination is either to be found within
with Marxist urbanism and critical theory, this work charts out the changes
taking place in Muslim neighbourhoods in Delhi in the backdrop of rapid
urbanization and forces of capitalist globalization. It argues that there is an
implicit materialist logic in the prejudice and segregation experienced by
Muslims. Further, it finds that different classes within Muslims are treated
differentiation this gives rise to among the Muslim neighbourhoods, creates an
serves to make these stronger and shatter-proof. It is asserted that while there is
no attempt at integration of Muslims socially and spatially, from within the
structures of urban governance, it would be a fallacy to say that the state is
absent from within these segregated enclaves. The disciplinary state, neoliberal
processes of globalization, and discursive practices such as the news media,
cinema, and social science research, combine together to produce a hegemonic
effect in which stereotyped representations are continually employed
uncritically and erroneously to prevent genuine attempts at developing a specific
and nuanced understanding of the situation of urban Muslims in India. The book
finds that the exclusion of Muslims spatially and socially is a complex process
containing contradictory elements that have reduced Indian Muslims to being
homines sacri whose legal status is not an equal
claim to citizenship. The book also includes an account of the way in which
residents of these segregated Muslim enclaves (p.28) are finding ways to build
hope in their lives. It enumerates possible ways in which a viable resistance to
the systems of domination may be imagined and closes with a problématique
some questions and formulations that may revitalize the discussion on building a
vision of the ideal Delhi.
In the following pages, I have attempted to present an image of the areas

studied for this work, composed of small strokes that capture the changes in the
landscape. The images have much detail in terms of narratives of quotidian life
and accounts of political life of the participants of the study. Nevertheless,
because of the nature of the methods and the breadth of view sought to be
captured, the account is largely structural in its approach. My own observations
as a participant were not limited to my role as an ethnographic researcher
immersed in the culture being studied but extended to my membership of this
heterogeneous group. These also form strong colours of the palette adding to
Page 19 of 23

Introduction
the accounts of the spaces being described. The description has a keen eye for
the historicity of the localities so as to contextualize contemporary changes.
Accumulation by Segregation
Materiality of Culture and Identity
Variable but Durable Marginalities
the features of Jamia Nagar, Nizamuddin, and Taj Enclave. These chapters focus
segregated enclaves through the ways in which city residents place themselves
and others socially. It is shown here that the social construction of meaning in
relation to places takes place through different institutions, social relations, and
discourses (Harvey 1996) and that spaces always change in importance,
interpretation, and relevance in relation to the people that occupy them
(Goffman 2010 [1971]).
When I began my fieldwork and writing, I gave in to the temptation to evolve a

typology of segregation of Muslims based on the leading traits discernible in
each area. But I recovered soon enough. As time and my work progressed, I saw
the flaws in this project. In these two chapters the readers will see that even
though I foreground (p.29) a few major traits of an area, many of the traits
were visible, however faintly, or were beginning to make an appearance in all
the segregated enclaves studied. For example, during the time this work was
being written and rewritten Zakir Nagar in the Jamia Nagar area evolved as a
culinary hub for South Delhi. Also, I first recognized and identified segmentation
of the labour market on communal lines in Seelampur; it is at the foundation of
the formation of and difference between all segregated enclaves.
Discursive Bases of Segregation

Chapters 3 and 4. Taking the narrative further in Chapter 3
the global urban where global processes are manifested in the local.
more clearly the linkages between the processes of globalization and the
peripheralization of the poor from the spaces of affecting governance. As
citizenship becomes a function of power for contestation and capacity for claim-
making, elites and corporate lobbying become more and more privy to
governance mechanisms, and the major task of the state becomes that of a
manager of inequalities. In such a situation, Muslims find themselves
experiencing an acute deficit in citizenship. Because of their discursive
subalternity, they are rendered incapable of expressing any concerns that relate
to their other identities such as being part of the unorganized workforce in the
country. I place this discussion within the realm of state power and
governmentality directing a closer examination of how these manifest in a
segregated locality of Muslims. Again, the issue of space and identities remains
Page 20 of 23

Introduction
are brought forth more prominently.
4 is an
attempt to further develop the discussion on the discursive subalternity of
Muslims. Although media practices generally, and Bollywood cinema specifically,
have been an arena for analysis pertaining to the stereotyping of Muslims, I
claim in this chapter that (p.30) this analysis itself has got mired in
stereotypical ways of seeing and analysing. I discuss some of the prominent
stereotypical identity constructs more closely. Focusing on representation as a
cinema regarding Muslim localities.
Counter-
Discourses 5
and attempts to capture and present an account of social spaces of
counterhegemony. These are actual places and institutions inside or connected
to Muslim localities in Delhi, where hope and optimism is carefully being
fostered. Also included are ideational spaces that encourage hope among the
collective consciousness though they are rarely heard in the din of dominant
discourses. I try hard in this chapter not to fall prey to insipid optimism and
attempt to capture some of the trials and tribulations of these spaces too.
Coda: The Problématique of Envisioning the Ideal

Delhi
an exercise in intellectual pessimism following Gramsci. I attempt to argue that
inequality and segregation in the city not only frustrate the possibility of it
becoming an ideal place, but also obstruct the vision for an alternative image of
the city.
Notes:
(1) According to the Census of India 2001, 98 million people migrated all over
India in the 1990s, an increase of 22 per cent over the previous decade. In
every year. Large cities are getting larger: thirty-five mega and metro cities in
the country account for 37.8 per cent of the total urban population. Delhi has
outgrown all other urban centres since 1951: above 50 per cent per decade. The
9,340 persons per sq. km (300,000/sq. km in the slums) (Government of India

2001). In the Census of India 2011, 453 million people reported as being
migrants, an increase of 362 per cent over the previous decade. The decadal
Page 21 of 23

Introduction
Census of India 2001).

Large cities are getting larger: 496 class 1 cities in the country account for
59.34 per cent of the total urban population (Census of India 2011). The 2011
in 2021 (Statistical Abstract of Delhi 2014).
(2) Islamicate is an adjective that may be used to refer to cultural practices and
architectural traditions that are commonly accepted as containing some features
Kesavan (1994, quoting Hodgson 1974) advocates the use of
this term especially to describe those qualities that have peculiarly been
historically associated with Islam and Muslims even when found among non-
Muslims and even though there is no religious sanction for them in Islam.
(3
either never attended school or have dropped out (PMHLC 2006: 58). While 65
per cent of eligible Muslim children finish middle school, only 17 per cent of 17+
years old Muslim children pass matriculation. (PMHLC 2006
(4) The average amount of bank loan disbursed to Muslims in Priority Sector
Advances (indicated by amount outstanding per account for Muslims for all
districts in the year ending March 2005) was one-third of the amount disbursed
to others; and half that of other minorities (PMHLC 2006: 131).
(5) Representation of Muslims does not match their population proportion in any
state (Sachar Committee Report: 171). In 15 states where Muslims average 17
per cent of the population, they are 8 per cent of the lower judiciary (p. 372).
The Muslim community has a representation of only 4.5 per cent in the Indian
Railways of which 98.7 per cent are positioned at lower levels (p. 131). The
representation of Muslims is very low in universities and in banks (p. 169). Also,
their share in the police constabulary is only 6 per cent (p. 172), in health 4.4
per cent, in transport 6.5 per cent (p. 173).
(6) Only 2.2 per cent officers in the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) are
Muslim, while they comprise only 1.8 per cent of the Indian Foreign Service
(IFS), and 4 per cent of the Indian Police Service (IPS). No Muslim is a
Secretary-level official in the Central Government (PMHLC 2006: 165).
(7) At the end of December 2015, 15.8 per cent among the convicts were
Muslim, while 20.9 per cent of the incarcerated under trials were Muslims
(NCRB 2016).
(8) The work participation rate shows the presence of a sharp difference
between Hindu-OBCs (67 per cent) and the Muslims. The share of Muslim-OBCs
in government/PSU jobs is much lower than Hindu-OBCs.
Page 22 of 23

Introduction
(9) A substantially larger proportion of the Muslim households in urban areas is

in the less-than-INR 500 expenditure bracket. When compared to other socio-
religious communities (SRCs), urban Muslims face much higher relative
deprivation than Muslims in rural India. The fall in poverty for Muslims has been
in rural areas has been substantial. (PMHLC 2006: 159). Fazal (2013) reports
cent per annum) was recorded among Muslims, while poverty decline among
Muslims (3.1 per cent per annum) was slowest in urban areas. At the end of the
(30.3) and STs (32.5) while the national average remained at 21.6. Incidence of
poverty among Muslims was 6 per cent higher than national averages in rural
areas and 4 per cent in urban areas.
Page 23 of 23


in Delhi
Ghazala Jamil

Print ISBN-13: 9780199470655
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780199470655.001.0001

Ghazala Jamil
DOI:10.1093/oso/9780199470655.003.0002

This chapter opens with a brief survey of literature on spatialization of
discrimination. It presents an account of Old Delhi and Seelampur. It
investigates ideological purposes of production of space and asserts that urban
space has been commodified by capitalism even in its quality as a place of play
and leisure. Parts of the Muslim localities in the walled city are produced as
museumized space for the adventurous neo-liberal consumer of artistic, cultural,
historical, and architectural heritage. Simultaneously, Muslim localities (such as
Seelampur) are produced as derelict, dense and illicit areas by discursive
development practitioners. It is asserted that the two processes of segregation
identity. Cultural commodification and labour market segmentation, as two

modes of accumulation, are aided by segregation.
Keywords: Walled city, Seelampur, commodification of space, culture, heritage, museums, discursive
practices, Lefebvre, representation of space, materiality, accumulation, segregation, immobility of
labour, labour market segmentation, manufacturing
Civic neglect by the state, discriminatory treatment by its agencies, and

insecurity among urban Indian Muslims have long been offered as apparent
reasons for their marginalization. Violence and/or threat of communal violence
and everyday prejudices combine to give impetus to spatial segregation. But it
would be a mistake to conclude that the discriminatory segregation of Muslims
in the city does not have deeper roots. It would be a bigger mistake to imagine
these neighbourhoods as static, unchanging, decadent spaces. Today, the older
Page 1 of 28

Muslim neighbourhoods are altered in size, composition, and scale of economic

activity and have turned into contiguous clusters of several neighbourhoods with
distinct features. New localities have also come up, many of which are gated
enclaves of the more affluent among the Muslims. In short, during the last
decade, Muslim neighbourhoods in Delhi have undergone changes that are
complex in nature and merit fresh scrutiny. (p.34)
Discourses on related issues have long focused on the fact that margins separate
and exclude. But Muslim localities in Delhi today are not all homogenous slums
the world take recourse to the ease and familiarity offered by the concept
segregation, other streams of debates have also spoken of

Wacquant 2008).
cities which were spaces of difference segregating the Jewish minority in

Christian societies. Recorded references of ghettos date as far back in time as
1084 (Wirth 1928). Not all of them, though, were oppressive. Indeed, many were
economic exploitation) by city regimes to Jews who were, nevertheless, a

community reviled and loathed by the Christians (Wirth 1928). Ghettos were
also easy targets of anti-Jewish pogroms for centuries culminating in the ghettos
of Nazi Germany, which were merely slums in which all Jews were pushed before
finally being deported into extermination camps (Arad 1980). Beginning with the
settling down of European Jewish immigrants in the United States (US), the
nomenclature continued to be used with the same symbolism of stigma and
segregation, but underwent an expanded meaning of being applied even to those
segregated enclaves where European and other ethnic (Irish, Italian, German,
and Puerto-Rican, among others) minorities resided. The usage was also
Glaeser 1997).
of dehumanization of communities. I, thus, tread this ground carefully and prefer

not to use this term.
precincts, there is nothing strange in this. There is an implicit resignation to

there always being inequality in the city, and continuity of conflicting interests of
various groups. (p.35)
insistence regarding his predecessors being wrong in visualizing history as a
while the medieval workers were exploited by being forced into certain
occupations only and barred from others, it may appear that modern workers
Page 2 of 28

Coser 1977: 44).

We may consider the analysis apt for explaining alleged choice in matters of
segregation of the Muslim population in Delhi. Within the original ghettos, the
Jews were confined through coercion, violence, and oppression, whereas in Delhi
the Muslim population sometimes has been perceived to practise what has been
often called self-imposed segregation by scholars (Gayer and Jaffrelot 2012)
the fact of the matter is that choices on this account are existentially limited.
This makes their segregation a historically specific and functionally distinct
condition which may not bear any similarity to the condition of the Jews in
In this work, I attempt to present an account of the creation, existence, and

working of these islands and oases of a marginalized people, whose sense of
belonging with each other is a complex feeling that is subject to forces such as
regional, linguistic, and class identities or professions, among others, even
subservient status in the city and more a process of experiencing a continuous

progression of events and processes such as globalization, liberalization,
communal violence, terrorist attacks, and the targeting/stereotyping of Muslims
people need to continually review and evaluate afresh the opportunities and
choices available to them. This research (p.36) undertakes an ethnographic
exploration into how individuals and families experience these changes in the
spatiality of Muslim neighbourhoods; how people negotiate the intersection of
these multiple, differential boundaries; and how a structural cause can be read
into the narrative of their everyday experiences.
Spatialization of Discrimination in Delhi

Studies of the spatialization of inequality in Delhi since independence have
mostly focused their enquiry on slum and resettlement colonies and urban
planning perspectives (Baviskar 2004, 2006; Roy 2009). A volume on Delhi
edited by Dupont et al. (2000) mainly concerned itself with Delhi as a city of
who came in at the time of the partition of the country, and later, the working
class migrants from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. The volume speaks of the
resettlement colonies. The articles other than these concern themselves with the
history of conservation and architecture of the post-independence city. The
contributions to this volume, and much of the urban studies of contemporary
Delhi continue to engage with similar concerns.
Page 3 of 28

In India, the provision of public housing for members of the scheduled castes
(SCs) often turns out to be a mode of segregating them from the rest of the
population into Harijan, Valmiki, or Ambedkar colonies (Dupont 2004). An
analysis of caste-based segregation in Indian cities (Vithayathil and Singh 2012)
found that among the seven cities studied, there was a high level of caste-based
segregation at the ward level, and on comparison, this was found to be more
prominent than segregation by socio-economic status at the same level of
disaggregation. The researchers note that the data for population based on
religious identities not being available at ward level, they were not able to study
residential segregation by religion would improve our understanding of socio-

Vithayathil and Singh 2012 (p.37)
Segregation of Muslims has attracted less scrutiny in this regard as far as

scholarship in urbanization and urban sociology is concerned. Some of the
treatment of the question of segregation in cities along the lines of religious
identity has been quite perplexing. For example, in his book titled Urbanization
and Urban Systems in India, Ramachandran (1989) presents a classification of
argued that when the population of Muslims in any city equals or exceeds 20
comes up with three types of cities, namely, Muslim cities, Sikh cities, and
populations within cities.
areas, the areas inhabiting fewer Muslims had better roads, sewage and
Lucknow had better quality roads, drainage system, sanitation, water supply and
PMHLC
2006: 149).
In an illustration of how built environments and real estate markets impact

communal relations, Field et al. (2012) conducted a study in the city of
Ahmedabad exploring the relationship of segregation and rent control with
communal violence. They reported that 71 per cent of the population of the city
lived in exclusive, homogenous neighbourhoods by 2002. They actually found
that more incidents of violence occurred in mixed localities in the 2002 violence.
Field et al. refute view that communal violence is
Page 4 of 28

less likely to occur in mixed localities because increased interaction fosters

increased tolerance, and say that in their findings, the reasons indicated lie in
the holding patterns of housing units. Most mixed (p.38) localities in 2002 in
Ahmedabad were actually chawls built for mill workers where the rents were low
and tenancy rights secure. While the mills were now defunct, the secure
tenancies ensured that these properties could not be sold in real estate markets.
Therefore, they did not shift to segregated areas even though the tolerance
levels remained low. Field et al. conclude that the tenancy rights of minority
to a territory war rather than segregation in these locations. As tensions

mounted, acts of violence and intimidation were used to push out residents
In the introduction of the Urban Studies Reader, Patel (2009) notes that many
small towns and medium-sized cities have become characterized by communal
conflict and communal riots. She lists Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Godhra,
Hyderabad, Meerut, and Moradabad among such cities and raise the question
of middle-class Muslims in 12 cities across India put forward in its Delhi

chapters the conclusion that Muslims self-segregate (Gayer and Jaffrelot 2012).
In this chapter, I take a closer look at uncovering divisive and discriminatory

processes of identity formation. This is done by treating the Muslim
neighbourhoods in the framework of
Thus, these spaces are treated as texts that are imbued with structured social
meanings that are lived and perceived. In this understanding, it is easy to see
that these spaces reassert the social difference. The exploration focuses on
negotiations of Muslim people with the spaces they are confined in and identities
purpose because it creates a chance for an explanation of everyday lived

realities, and ideological discourses related to segregation that do not stop at
economic causes. It also offers me a way of understanding (p.39) segregation
that does not make it seem like a problem of land-use as explained by Parks and
Burgess and other sociologists of the Chicago school (Merrifield 2002). Harvey
(1996) pointed this out and recognized that in American cities racism and
ghettos (2002: 140). This is where scrutinizing the issue of representation may
be of great consequence, and this moment presents itself as a chance to engage
with the issue of identity in simultaneity with the issue of spatiality.
Muslim Neighbourhoods in Delhi: A Narrative of Differentiated

Discrimination
Page 5 of 28

For the purpose of commenting on complex issues related to space and identity, I
limited my fieldwork to five small and big clusters of the Muslim population in
Delhi: (i) Old Delhi, including some parts of the walled city and some localities
outside Shahjahanabad; (ii) Seelampur and other Trans-Yamuna Muslim areas in
the north-east of Delhi; (iii) Jamia Nagar in South Delhi; (iv) Nizamuddin,
including Basti Hazrat Nizamuddin and Nizamuddin West; and (v) Taj Enclave,
also in north-east Delhi. In this section, I attempt to piece together a narrative of
temporality and spatiality of the Muslims in Delhi from the experiences,
memories, and stories narrated by the participants of this study to me
individually or in conversations in families or groups.
Old Delhi
Purani Dilli or Old Delhi is located in the Chandni Chowk, Lok Sabha,
constituency, which is considered the heart of Delhi. It is considered to consist of
the entire walled city of Shahjahanabad and some of the old residential and
Shahjahanabad. This part of the city is also often popularly called Delhi-6, which
The old residents of the area have an outlook towards their lives which shows an
immense amount of historicity. They are keenly (p.40) aware of the continuity
in their culture that other areas of Delhi lack as they assert that Muslims and
Hindus both shared Dehli ki tehzeeb (culture of Delhi), even as they bemoan that
what you see is just a shadow that remains of the grand tehzeeb.
In their account, the 1857 ghadar (mutiny) marks a major watershed in the
narratives of misfortunes that were to befall Delhi and its Muslims. Sixty-seven-
year-old Mr Qamar, who runs a shop selling saris and bridal wear in Chandni
Chowk, recounted to me stories of the re-conquest by the British as if he was a
witness himself to a Delhi ravaged by them.
All the Muslim residents were either massacred or driven out. Many took
Sheila1
then they would have to leave in the evening.
In physical surroundings that still have the remnants of the historical eras
woven intricately in their present, the memories are as fresh as ever. The
residents of Delhi-6 who live outside Shahjahanabad can still feel the sting of
being thrown out of the walled city by the British. Shahjahanabad was the shehr
Page 6 of 28

(city) and those who could go back to living inside its precincts felt themselves
fortunate, even superior.
Mr Merajuddin Qureshi lives in Ahata Kedara and shifted here from nearby
Quraish Nagar in 1984. Both these localities are outside the walled city but in
Delhi-6. He says,
batein karte hein. Bachpan mein main yeh suna karta tha ke Faisalganj ke
Kashmiri Gate waghaira ho gaye, yahan ke log sirf apne aap ko hi

Dilliwalley samajhte the. Yahan Bare mein ham to sab mile jule hue hein.
(p.41)
used to talk like this. As a child I used to hear that people from Faisalganj,
they considered only themselves Delhi residents. Here in Bara now, we are
all mixed together).
Many participants in the study stressed that Old Delhi, especially the walled city,
there
are a large number of Hindu residents within this area. Khalid Zafar, a 24-year-
old chartered accountant says,
It is a myth that all the people in Old Delhi are Muslims. Also, many people
mistakenly believe that Delhi-6 and Jama Masjid are one and the same
thing. There are many other areas that are covered under Delhi-6. Chandni
Chowk, for example, is one of the biggest commercial centres of the city. It
is Delhi-6 too. Delhi-6 is not a predominantly Muslim area and the culture
that is made fun of nowadays is not just Muslim culture. The Hindu
residents of the area also share that culture.
Sumaiya, a young teacher at Rabia Girls School in Daryaganj says that Old Delhi
culture is considered Muslim, strange, and inferior. She also agrees that in the
popular imagination regarding the old city, people get confused in talking of
metropolitan city and it has no culture, there was passionate discussion on

this topic. I was adamant that Delhi has a culture, it has a tehzeeb, it has a
a Hindu name in South India, so they had gotten confused. Then he

Page 7 of 28

(p.42) there was Muslim

culture that it does not count? That if it is a culture of Old Delhi it does not
count? You can say that New Delhi has no culture but if you only say Delhi,
it means Old Delhi. And it is the culture of the Old Delhi Hindu and
Just like the culture, a part of the Old Delhi legacy is the partition of India, the
creation of Pakistan, and forced mass migration of Muslims from Delhi. This was
also the next big blow to Muslims in terms of reducing them to a persistent
minority status in India (Hasan 1997). San sentalis
Muslim community.
Qabar, Old Delhi.
All the government servants had already left. The only people who were
left were poor labourers, artisans who worked on handicrafts. Before
Partition, Chandni Chowk, Kashmiri Gate, Khari Baoli, all these areas had a
lot of Muslim population. All the traders in Subzi Mandi were Muslims and
market, a posh area of Muslims. Karol Bagh had the cream of Muslims.
Even today if you go there, you would find numerous mosques there,
because people were so well-to-do. Daryaganj, Paharganj all were emptied
sentalis the refugees started settling slowly into the empty houses.
The environment was very negative. Anyone who had the means kept
migrating even after 1947. People whose families had migrated would visit
them in Pakistan and then out of loneliness and weariness of the hostilities
here they would simply stay back. There you could stay anywhere, start
grandfather had a shop of surma (kohl) under Suraj Masjid in Dariba, he

also had to sell the shop because he could not work his business after
sentalis
have to go (p.43)
should note, only after the 1971 war, the borders were closed finally and
the option to leave was no longer there.
Mr Haji Umar who lived in the walled city at the time of Partition, opines,
Page 8 of 28

My view on this issue is that after 1947, the Muslim who was already
backward educationally and economically was hit very very hard. And with
brass was sold at Jama Masjid for ten aana they

put their effort in was thinking that sooner or later they will have to leave.
with Pakistan that it became clear to everyone that they would be here for
good; it was only then that these people put serious effort into establishing
businesses.
Mr Qamar says, in those days, the situation of Muslims was quite pathetic. It
was a desolate place no one visited. But slowly, the walled city was rehabilitated
by Muslims from towns like Meerut, Muzaffarnagar, Moradabad, Bijnor, Amroha,
and Saharanpur. They began coming to Delhi partially in the wake of the
partition and resultant hostilities, but more because of the abolition of the
zamindari system in 1948. Mr Azeem Akhtar, who retired as DCP (Deputy
Commissioner of Police) Delhi Police, and has also held the position of Chair of
the Delhi Waqf Board, adds,
All the Muslims who were educated and in government services were told
to go to Pakistan. The elite and big landlords also left. But the smaller
zamindars became paupers ( (p.
44) left to give patronage to the artisans. The educated and the illiterate
came to Delhi to look for survival. The only jobs that were available were
Many other participants tell similar stories. Mr Haji Umar, who came to Old
Dobara
Page 9 of 28

Meanwhile, Hindu and Sikh refugees from across the border also began to settle
down in Delhi. The assets and jobs given to them had to be commensurate to
what they had left behind. They were allotted houses left vacant by Muslims in
Old Delhi but there were disproportionately too many of them to be
accommodated thus. Many were given plots of land in parts of south Delhi such
as Lajpat Nagar, Sriniwaspuri near Ashram, and north Delhi such as Kingsway
Camp, among others. The more affluent were given houses in Karol Bagh, and
shops in Kashmiri Gate, which were erstwhile posh residential and business
areas dominated by Muslims, while the working-class and middle-class refugees
were allotted smaller housing in lower-class areas like Bara Hindu Rao, and
middle-class areas such as Beri Wala Bagh, respectively. The old posh areas
became almost exclusively Hindu because all the original inhabitants and shop
owners had left. The new colonies were also exclusively Hindu. Only some of the
middle-class and lower-class areas in Old Delhi remained home to people
belonging to both the communities. While the hostilities did not vanish as a
result of living together but the inevitable touch of everyday life kept things
participants in this study talk of them as highly enterprising people who

unki hi dukaan se saamaan khareeda, unki hi dukaan ke
aage baith kar becha, aur (p.45) unki hi dukaan khareed li! Banyon ko khatam
khatam kardiya banyon ko

the same goods in front of their shops, and then bought the entire shop!
Punjabis finished the baniyas. When they came to Delhi after Partition, this is
fact confirmed by some other participants of this study that this kind of
competition for gains did take place between them.
Pakistan. His father, a young man of twenty-five, who worked with a Hindu
trader and considered him his ustad (teacher), stayed behind and continued
I was born in 1952 in this house. This entire house was ours at that time.
sentalis, there were

very few people left in the neighbourhood. My father rehabilitated the
house with others because of loneliness.
With a large and steady flow of in-migrants, by the late 1960s, Old Delhi was
falling short of space to accommodate all their families and businesses. Many
karkhane (literally, factories)
Page 10 of 28

same time, some families, especially those of teachers in various schools, few
professionals, and government servants also began to shift to Jamia Nagar. The
skilled workers wished to maintain their close proximity to Old Delhi for
availability of work orders and supply of raw materials so they chose Seelampur.
Mr Haji Umar, who is famous as Lipstickwaley (lipstick maker) because he now
owns a small factory (p.46) that manufactures cosmetics in Jaffarabad,
Seelampur, describes how he came to decide where to move from Old Delhi,
When Jaffarabad started getting settled, the first to arrive were those
people from Old Delhi who were facing a space crunch as a result of
karigar karkhandaars
when we heard that India had shot down a Pakistani plane and it had
very little space to accommodate them in, so I decided to move. A lot of my
late in the evening and I could not get any conveyance to come back to Old
here. Some workers stayed here those days but many came from Old Delhi
every day to Jaffarabad to work. It was very convenient that if I needed to
wallah
and on my way back also I could get a tonga for
Seelampur at any time. Most people who came here were not original
Dilliwalley
Amroha, etc., and then they had also brought their families. Most people
came from Mewat, Amroha, Sambhal, Moradabad, Rampur, and Bareilly.
In their accounts, the participants are unanimous in identifying Emergency as

the next blow to Old Delhi residents who had barely begun to recuperate. The
career of Jagmohan (a protégé of Sanjay Gandhi) in urban governance and
planning took off in the Emergency imposed by Indira Gandhi, with a
beautification drive that entailed forced evictions. Numerous localities in Old
Delhi, including many Muslim localities like Turkman Gate and Meena Bazaar
were demolished, displacing several thousand families. Most of these were
relocated to Seelampur and Welcome. (p.47)
Page 11 of 28

Mr Mohd Sultan was a young worker in a factory in Old Delhi when Emergency
was declared in 1975. He says,
Palace. Our seth
7 boys who were my friends used to sometimes stand near Rivoli. Oberoi
seth
over the place and if they arrested us, he would not take any responsibility.
We asked him what an emergency was. He said whatever it was, if the
police did arrest us, nobody would ever know what became of us! [laughs].
was not mature enough to understand. Now I think it was a big lesson for
ruling India, according to my thinking [it was] murder by order.
Commodification of Space: Community as a Living Museum

Jama Masjid always had a number of visitors because of its historical
significance, but in the 1990s, tourists and visitors began flocking to
neighbouring areas of Jama Masjid in unprecedented numbers. On any given day
the fact that of all the Muslim clusters in Delhi, Jama Masjid and other parts of
the walled city get the most visitors of the general kind (while Seelampur mostly
gets social workers, planners, and other social science researchers), the people
of this Muslim neighbourhood seem to be living in an almost-time-warp. What is
part of daily life for some Muslims in other localities becomes here a full-time
occupation for residents. Their lives become a distinct cultural theatre for
and owners are full of curious old stories of the grandiosity of the old days, and
VIP visitors who (p.48) frequent or used to frequent their businesses. Not only
the historical monuments and spiritual/religious shrines in the areas but the less
significant buildings, the history and legacy of Partition, the clothes, the
restaurants, and the smells become live artefacts and installations for the
visitors and tourists (many of them Muslims from other parts of Delhi and
unusual, even bizarre, spectacles for the adventurous.
Walter Benjamin (2009) rued in the streets of Paris that the modern era lacked
the aura of other times. It is here in the arcades that he begins his extensive
work on fetishism of commodities, and deepens it because it was in the arcades
that he saw how a dreadful world of oppressive relations of production became
Page 12 of 28

repackaged and made ready to be sold in glittering display windows. He

asserted that this fetish character seeped into all aspects of everyday life so
much so that the very image of everyday was fetishized, when people went
through the intense, pleasurable experience this image provided (Merrifield
2002). According to Merrifield, while Marxist thinkers in the political economic
track see the capitalist modernization in the urbanization processes, Benjamin
felt
Reading Lefebvre (1991) and Benjamin together brings to us the understanding
production, but as spaces of commodification and consumption. Marx had said
Merrifield 2002 Guy Debord

(1983), who took the concept of space as spectacle a little further and said that
not only has it been commodified but also banalized. The consumer is also a
When I asked the participants of this study regarding the tourists and outside
Mr Zahid (name changed) who runs a very famous kabab shop in Chitli Qabar
says, (p.49)
We welcome them and their business. But it is of no more importance. They
and Magazines a couple of times [pointing towards framed article cuttings

on the wall]. Almost every other day, I get photographed by my customers
But some would like to distance themselves from these performative aspects of
daily life and livelihoods within the walled city, especially those, whose
livelihoods do not depend on the connection. Khalid, the chartered accountant,
has studied in Summerfield School in Vasant Kunj and works in south Delhi. He
says he has a very muddled relationship with the place and keenly feels the
disparaged connotations that his identity gets because he is not only a Muslim
but a Purani Dilli Muslim. The disparagement alludes to the antiquated and
peculiar culture of the place.
(GJ) How has it been, Khalid, being the person you are and living in Purani
Dilli?
Page 13 of 28

(KZ) Basically, its like though I have been living in Old Delhi but my
basically I have never been a part of it as such, though I know the
of the times they have been all non-Muslims and they reside outside Old
convincing skills.
consciousness related to these things, basically then I started to think, (p.

50)
much later I thought that instead of hiding this part of my personality, it is
better I showcase what actually I have, basically I do not hesitate now
when people ask me where do I reside. Rather I take it positively; instead I
give them an impression that though I was born and brought up in Old
an issue any more.
I ask Khalid about the tourists and visitors.
(KZ) Jama Masjid is so near to me but still I do not visit the place so often,
but whenever I go, obviously I feel good, I mean there are tourists coming
from different parts of the country just to see Jama Masjid.
(G) Have you seen these tourists coming into the residential areas?
themselves restricted to the Jama Masjid and the main street where
Mr Qamar remembers that his father used to remark that for a long time after
Partition, the only visitors that the Muslim areas in Shahjahanabad got came
from consulates in cars to buy meat for diplomats. Beginning at the southern
gate of Jama Masjid and walking towards Turkman gate, I can see the
Bhawan, and many other businesses is much recommended in articles in leisure
Page 14 of 28

and lifestyle magazines or newspaper supplements (http://www.livemint.com/

Leisure/jCDl9CGtowdefkZgFdYD8L/Heritage--The-Old-Delhi-dictionary.html;
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/life-style/food/food-reviews/Delhis-age-old-
restaurants-we-swear-by/articleshow/14688546.cms; http://
www.huffingtonpost.in/anubhav-sapra/11-musttry-iftar-
eateries_1_b_7685156.html). If you read these articles, many of which are
written by Muslims, you may be forgiven for thinking that they are talking about
a museum. In this part (p.51) of the chapter, this is the issue that draws my
attention and I attempt to discern why in the 1990s, Jama Masjid and the
adjoining Muslim areas have emerged in the walled city as a museum-like space
for tourism and leisurely activities.
In the globalized local spaces, this process must be seen in the light of these
locations competing with each other for economic growth. While the mainstream
discourse rightly or mistakenly sees this as promotion of cultural heritage and
even communal harmony and cultural tolerance, it is (also) a method of hiding
to promote consumption and monetization of culture (Paddison 1993). Thus, it is

no coincidence that this cultural marketization of areas such as those adjoining
with structural adjustment began. The production and management of the image
of the city is an intrinsic part of this adjustment (Jessop 1998). This image
production is manifested in the creation and promotion of places that use
cultural heritage to ensure economic benefit.
It must also not be thought that this is a spontaneous process. It is rather a

process that is governed by local authorities and the state in a bid to create and
showcase cultural infrastructure for both domestic and international tourists.
The area has also seen in the recent past, considerable regulation and creation
of such cultural infrastructure. The government support to projects and
initiatives that showcase the cultural infrastructure is important to note because
the museumized culture in conventional museums or communities assist the
State in its protracted efforts to define nationhood.
Shahjahanabad was one of the five controlled conservation areas identified by

the Delhi Master Plan 2001. In the Delhi Master Plan 2021 (DDA 2007) the area
This shift in terminology is important to note as it is in line with the neoliberal

heritage tourism approach. Local bodies are given the responsibility of
preparing special conservation plans. The Delhi Urban Heritage Conservation
Foundation Regulations (1999), drawing power from (p.52) the Delhi
Page 15 of 28

host of existing bodies and organizations2 to administer heritage conservation in

Delhi.
function of power. Communities whose culture is on display have no power to
collection and display (Hetherington 2006).
The displays in contemporary museums are carefully curated not only to impress
and amaze but also to communicate to visitors a narrative regarding the cultures
on display. There are non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and private
organizations that mainly conduct what are now called heritage walks and food
destinations in Delhi as well as to places and people who you would never meet
history) have taken to organizing these heritage walks. Many of these are also
conducted by educated elite Muslims who can slip into the roles of insider/
outsider with much ease and capitalize on these for celebrity space in the social
media.
From the early museums which had a humble ambition to awe visitors with
spectacular disjointed things, the later museums wish to suggest that there exist
modern ideas of Enlightenment, the museum is also seen as a space for learning,
and (p.53) thus, for self-realization for the visitor. It is this disciplinary
potential of the museum that endears it so much to those in the business of
civilizing and improving public behaviour. I contend that this project of lofty
intentions is marred by the fact that what is portrayed as self-realization is often
only self-aggrandizement. The difference between the two in the mind of a
visitor to a museum is blurred.
Modern museums are expected to not only teach but also entertain. Because of
the mainstream view of the Muslim neighbourhoods as exotic, strange, and even
dangerous, in the marketization of the cultural heritage and history of these
spaces, it is also pertinent to note that they are likely promoted as ideal places
think that they are brave or because they think they are superior in their
Noordegraaf 2004).
The idea of a museum is, thus, a clue into using display to infuse a displayed
item with a meaning, and then getting people to buy into the logic and narrative
behind this meaning. Commodity culture uses this idea generated by museums
Page 16 of 28

effectively. In a departmental store or mall bereft of conventional aggressive

selling, the item on sale is infused with a meaning merely by the manner in
which it is displayed. The sale requires people to buy into the meaning so that
they buy the item. It is not only the commodity that is being bought but also an
Sauer 1963 [1925]). They have a

palimpsest-like quality. They are shaped by culture and marked by it. Spaces can
thus be understood also as cultural records. Commodified culture and its
banalization become apparent in the spatiality of the community occupying a
space. The museumized community is a heterotopia where not only reality but
even time is suspended (Bennett 1995). Take for example, the haveli where
Mirza Ghalib lived for several years before his death, which had been ignored
for long and was lying in a dilapidated condition. Parts of the haveli (p.54)
were acquired by the Government of the National Capital Territory (NCT) of
Delhi and converted into a Ghalib museum in 2010, while a mostly forgotten
Ghalib museum already existed in the premises of the Urdu Academy in
Nizamuddin. The new museum commemorates Ghalib as a poet of love and
beauty whereas the Ghalib who was a prolific letter writer and chronicled the
been totally short-changed.
The spatial layout of the museum is important if it is to do its job effectively. The
narrative of the museum also depends largely on how it is spatially planned and
spread. In this regard, two things are of consideration known in museum science
Hillier and Tzortzi 2006). These
would define the pathways that visitors follow during their explorations and also
our consideration, culinarily). Built environments are necessarily a network of

spaces and equipment which a visitor negotiates in order to move from one
place to another. It is the ease of movement and the extent to which all of the
spaces are accessed that refers to permeability. Visibility refers to the
relationship of spaces to the degree to which one can be seen from the other.
Even in a conventional museum, these relationships are not obvious to all
visitors (Hillier and Hanson 1984).
What is visible to a person and which spaces they can permeate are both
everyday life of the residents, and indeed, even access different networked
spaces is not an inherent property of that space, but a dynamic interplay of the
is this play of power that renders some communities museumized, and others
not so even though their visibility and permeability in terms of atria and
Page 17 of 28

equipment may be comparable. It is not a consideration whether the roads are

wide or narrow and whether they are connected (p.55) at right angles or
winding and labyrinthine that increases or decreases the degree of visibility and
permeability, it the class position of the residents and visitors that defines these
relations.
Any good museum worth its name has a good layout guide that directs the
visitors. The organized walks in the living museums do a job akin to this. The
scale at which the information of what is present and accessible in these guides
makes it possible for the visitors to reach an interpretation of the display
narrative. As more information is provided regarding access and visibility, the
probability of visitors reaching various alternative interpretations becomes
and their pathways are also largely determined by popular perceptions and also
a consideration of which displays would make for a more compelling, awe-
inspiring impact. The printed walk guides predict this visitor behaviour by
providing the visitors information in various formats such as layout plans,
pictures, and written text, among others. The various books and articles meant
to tell people about Old Delhi often include such things as maps and written
narratives that include facts, opinions, accounts of experiences, and pictures.
The newspaper and magazine articles with their specialized maps, and the
guided walks and tour organizers serve well to museumize the community, and
their historical and cultural infrastructure, because their intervention makes for
a more focused viewing and experience, in a way similar to that in which, say, a
museum places its most popular painting in a visually isolated space, where the
viewers can engage with it without any distraction (Hillier and Hanson 1984).
The unpleasantness of unemployment, degrading houses, and civic amenities
voyeuristic flâneur, it helps that their position and identity renders the
residential areas not as visible or penetrable as the bazaar.
According to Cosgrove (1998 [1984])

a discourse that frames a social group historically in their relationship to the
material surrounding of the place they (p.56) inhabit, and also to the other
groups. He further stresses that this discourse shapes the way things are seen
epistemologically, as well as technically. The museumized space could then be a
the meanings that the items of display represent. Even in a public museum, the
Bennett (1995) actually talks of how

bourgeoisie control over museums has meant that there is emphasis on
than a democratic public sphere for assembly and discussion, according to

Bennett (1995)
Page 18 of 28

parts of the walled city too, the access is regulated and controlled by various
discursive means. The pathways of movement for visitors are well charted out.
In fact, movement rather than assembly
of museumized Jama Masjid (or any other Muslim segregated enclave) is a
reduced to a spectacular display for the consumer. It no longer has the potential
reality they are spaces infused with hegemonic discursive content like all
museums. The museumized community is thus a manifestation of appropriation
of discourse. This is also where it becomes apparent again why the history of the
museum is closely intertwined with the history of colonialism and the history of
capitalism.
In the spectacle put up for the tourist in the areas around Jama Masjid is a
modern construction, presented as if it is of old historicity and its contents are
given and unchanging. Religious identities are, in a similar way, often presented
as if they do not require any definition because they are so natural. The issue of
connection between identities (including religious identity) and places, and the
idea that identification of people with a place is a part of their awareness of
themselves and each other, leads me towards the debate (p.57) on construction
of nationalistic identities. As such, a place that is identified with certain people
is also a discursive construction and can be infused with particular and
pejorative meaning. The landscape and monuments also acquire space in the
collective memory invoking recollection, commemoration, and even oblivion. The
spaces, thus, not only have monuments or cultural historical infrastructure but
are also dotted with memory (Halbwachs 1992). It is in this light that the
essentialist view of collective identities has been challenged by Hobsbawm

(1983)
somewhat similar to
Spaces (with monuments and landscapes contained within them) form the
material spatial axis along which the co-ordinates of life can be plotted. But time
also remains an important co-ordinate. However, Lefebvre (1991) emphasized
that it is not space or time itself that constitutes life content, but rather the
everyday practices, history, and change around material things. This conception
leads into the matter of identities (Fraser 1997). Contemplating on these

conceptions, I am led to think that communities are not necessarily imagined
scale. In fact, whether the two are different at all may be the right question to
ask.
Page 19 of 28

Trans-Yamuna Cluster
On the eastern side of river Yamuna, popularly called Trans-Yamuna in Delhi, is a
belt of exclusive or predominantly Muslim settlements beginning from
Seelampur and extending towards Loni Border to include New Seelampur,
Gautampuri, Jaffarabad, New Jaffarabad, and Welcome, among others.
Seelampur and Welcome are the first two localities in this belt. These areas are
part of the North-east parliamentary constituency. (p.58)
it was, even at that time, a resettlement colony. Welcome is a resettlement

colony of people evicted during Emergency from Yamuna Bazar, Dilli Gate,
Turkman Gate, Daryaganj, and Ballimaran areas of the old city and various other
parts of the city. A sizeable portion of these evictees were Muslims.
Haji Umar says,
Nehru gave them 80 sq yards each, people who came later received 40 sq
In later years, a large number of people from western UP also migrated to

Seelampur. A portion of this belt is that of jhuggis (shanty), squatters, and slum
resettlement colonies, and has lower-caste poor Hindu population too in varying
proportions, but in the largely Muslim population, Hindus remain concentrated
separately on Hindu-only streets. Jaffarabad and Chauhan Bangar primarily
house Muslim small manufacturers, and the skilled and unskilled labourers
employed by them. Most manufacturing units function from the ground floors of
the buildings, doubling as living and sleeping areas for the workers at night. The
upper floors contain residences of the owners and/or their tenants who also
work in different businesses in different capacities.
New Jaffarabad is a contiguous locality but is very different from the rest. It has
upper-middle-class residents who are for the most part the manufacturers who
have managed to afford to separate their residences from their place of
business. Many of the residents are also professionals, being the children of the
older residents, who acquired education and professional training or relatives
who have shifted here to be near their families. The houses are comparatively
large and there is a mosque that is air conditioned. Increasingly now, many
families. The roads are wide and well-paved. The locality is gated (p.59) though
not very stringently guarded so it is possible for anyone to walk into the locality
during the day.
Page 20 of 28

Prior to conducting fieldwork for this research, I had never been to Seelampur.
employed in an NGO connected to a church organization, but when I first made

his acquaintance he was associated with an organization working with Muslim
women. I spoke to him about my research and Sarvar readily offered to take me
to Seelampur, help me understand the area, and put me in touch with
prospective participants. My visits to Seelampur with Sarvar (and I realized this
blocks. As my circle of contact in the area expanded due to coming to know of

relatives of my participants in Old Delhi or Okhla, I realized that the Trans-
Yamuna Muslim areas were much more than just a block of slums. Armed with
experience of home interviews and walks in a much larger area, and localities
like Chauhan Bangar and New Jaffarabad contiguous to the New Seelampur
jhuggis, I asked Sarvar whether he was aware of the existence of these areas.
He said, of course, he was! When I asked him why he had not told me about
been bringing many visitors from numerous NGOs and researchers to show the
area for many years now. They always ask me if I could show them the slums
where Muslims live. So I show them the slums. Research happens only in slums,
The part of Seelampur that Sarvar always put up for display was the very picture
of dereliction. The lanes criss-cross the small shanties and one-room dwellings of
sitting and working in front of their houses, some even bathing or cooking.
There is not enough space and there are no public services to speak of. In the
name of educational institutions, there are a few government schools, where
most people allege that they teach nothing. Some children go to the madrasas
after school only to learn to read the scriptures. There are also many madrasas
running in the neighbourhood in shacks or bare structures where children live,
and learn to read and memorize the scriptures. (p.60) The residents of these
Madarsas are predominantly children from those areas of Bihar which are often
ravaged by floods.
Almost everyone I spoke to in this part of Seelampur owned or was employed in
Jaffarabad, and Chauhan Bangar. Some, mostly women, were home-based

workers. Stripping wire or sorting out metal from scrap; making bangles,
artificial jewellery, and scissors; stitching sequins to cloth; and tailoring in denim
units were the main occupations. Most said they came from the walled city or
were from various towns of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. Everyone tried to sound as
(we are not
Page 21 of 28

association and identification. In her work on forced displacements during

Emergency, Emma Tarlo says that:
A map indicating the key sites of demolition may look more like a
bombardment plan than a development plan (the similarity is not
incidental), but it testifies to the varied spatial trajectories of the displaced.
This means that although today the inhabitants of Welcome are based
within the confines of a single colony they carry with them memories and
experiences of elsewhere. (2003: 15)
Limits to the choices available to the Trans-Yamuna Muslims also circumscribe

this sense of belonging. In my conversations with Huma, a home-based worker,
who strips insulation off wires to extract copper all day long in her one-room
nahin hai. Log itne kharab hein koi kisi ki madad nahin karta. Par ham bachpan
here, where will we go? What will we do there?).
small workshop for stitching denim clothes in (p.61) New Seelampur J Block.
For many years now, he has been giving free tuitions to children around his
street. He says,
Even though education quality in schools is bad, people are making
problem
of his legs but he was very good at Maths. He finished well in his tenth and
vegetable hawker in the locality. I felt bad when he started this work. I
know that not everyone who studies gets a good job or becomes a big
businessman or an officer but education has its own value. My father is
illiterate. He can only do some basic calculations for his business and can
sign his name. Now, I have an MBA degree. What am I doing with it? I have
about the machines that can do special kinds of stitching on jeans. We can
People are keenly aware of the stigma that their identity and their address carry.
In their life experiences and shared memories of evictions or communal violence,
Page 22 of 28

with boys from J and K block, they share with me experiences that are but mere
examples of awareness of carrying this stigma and being confronted by it in
everyday life. One of the participants had gone to buy a TV, wishing to pay in
monthly instalments. Another had wanted to sell an old mobile phone. They said
the shopkeepers or salespeople become uncomfortable the moment they tell
them their name and, sometimes would bluntly refuse to do business with them
when they mention their residential address. One participant said that a mobile
phone shopkeeper in Sadar Bazaar actually told him after seeing his election
identity card that he would not buy the old phone because the seller was a
Muslim and from Seelampur. Another boy said that when he went for his first
year exam in BA at a Delhi University college, the invigilator saw his address on
his identity card and asked him sarcastically if people in Seelampur also study.
(p.62)
The boys say that these things happen also because Seelampur is unduly linked
to criminality. I ask them if there is any truth in the description. The boys argue
that J Block and K Block New Seelampur actually do have some illegal activities
but that it all happens under the patronage of the police. One of the participants,
Javed takes me for a walk around the two blocks. Once we reach the other end
of the block, there is an open and bare stretch of land strewn with a lot of
garbage. Right across this is the police station. We continue our walk on the
slabs covering a big drain which doubles as a road for the lane of jhuggis facing
as much as I can in a very casual glance. He is a young man in his early twenties
sitting on a dirty plastic chair in a pair of trousers and torn vest. He looks quite
unwell and listless. As we pass him I also notice that he has a wad of currency
evening and night selling drugs. Javed says all his customers are for the most
part well-dressed college students coming from other parts of the city. They
come on bikes and buy their merchandise. I am amazed at the smoothness of the
entire set-up. The drug peddler is bang in front of the Seelampur police station.
It would be impossible for the police personnel to not know of him and his
activities, even if they tried hard. When I mention this to Javed, he says from the
point of view of the police, it is the best place for them to keep an eye on him
day. I know the answer but I still ask Javed why no one does anything about it.
usse kya hoga
complete lack of trust in the system and the fear of possible retributive reaction.
I ask everyone in the group about how often they go out of the area. Most say
rarely, because they live and work there. For days on end they do not venture
outside Seelampur. The young men do their shopping at Gandhi Nagar and
Krishna Market, among others. They say their mothers and sisters shop mostly
Page 23 of 28

at the local Seelampur (p.63) market. For leisure, they sometimes go to watch
a film at the Delite theatre but they are careful not to venture out too late at
night and go too far.
Millia Islamia. He is interested in higher studies and keen to build a career in
All his close friends are also involved in various ways in the same trade. Mohsin
says that he was once returning home after a late night leisure trip to India
Gate. It got very late and no auto driver would agree to go to Seelampur. His two
friends and he were joking with each other a little loudly while walking in
central Delhi, still looking for an auto, when they were stopped by a PCR (police
control room) patrol van. The constables very casually asked them what they
were doing out so late and where they were coming from. When the
conversation turned to where they lived, the tone of the conversation changed
and the atmosphere was immediately charged with tension. Many more
questions followed in a more hostile tone. Mohsin says that it must have been
sadak pe danga machaya to andar kar denge danga

which is a rare synonym, mostly used to refer to communal riots, instead of
shor
stopped staying out late at night.
Mr Sultan who in his youth used to live in Old Delhi and was employed in a
factory making mixer-grinders for Bajaj, now owns a small manufacturing unit
who owns (p.64) a factory manufacturing metal sheet cases for various
specialized electronic machines. Mr Monis Siddiqui is trained as a mechanical
engineer.
Muslims are not just some nobodies, they are the heart of India. They are
what make any institution in India complete. Still Muslims are treated as if
and working with some [Hindu] people. They treated me as if I was their
adversary. Once a person took me outside and asked me, you are a
Muslim? I said, yes, my name is Muhammad Monis Siddiqui. He said sorry,
the RSS. He openly refused! So this is the environment in which I have to
Page 24 of 28

industrial area but could not function there. So I decided to dispose-of the
environment is turned against us. Which category citizens are we? We have
here. As far as the discussion on mini Pakistan and mini Japan is concerned
communities. If not, then you feel alone. I am not complaining that we

cannot live in other areas but can we work in peace?
(GJ) You do business with other people from outside the area?
(MS) Yes, we have to supply our goods outside. All kinds of goods are
produced here and supplied all over the world. In the export line, all goods
are produced in and supplied from backward areas. The exporters order
and procure from here and he supplies [further]. Whether he procures
from Moradabad, or from Chauhan Bangar, Mustafabad, Saharanpur, or
stores goods from all the places and then exports it. Ultimately, the labour
in these areas are here only. If someone shifted, let us say to Nand Nagri,
they will not find many labourers to work in their factories. Goods have to
be supplied where the buyers are, but we have to build contacts with the
intermediate buyers. They are here. Whoever (p.65) works in one line
they build their contacts in that line only. Suppose I work in sheet-making
fabrication, all types of metal cabinets, if there is anyone who wants to
Deluxe metal, they come to these areas only and they will buy from here
even though their supply may be in Dubai. We have to be here.
(Mr Sultan): I got to know this today only, what you said about getting only
50 per cent back if you sell your property.
(MS): No, no! Not get back. It is the brokers sitting there who do not let
you sell at the prevailing prices of your land in the area. They do this only
to Muslims.
(GJ): What if you do not want to sell out?
Page 25 of 28

make you feel like oh this guy is a Muslim, a mulla. What is a mulla? Does
he have green-coloured blood?
(GJ): So does the everyday operation of the manufacturing unit become

difficult?
someone injured and took him to hospital but the police register a case
that we should have. [pauses] I mean we are Muslims but we are also
the old generations were Indians. Then this discriminatory treatment
buy a house there, I can live there, I can go to a good place, I can buy a
go there. I know that if violence happens, I will be killed there. And what is
the thought behind it, that this is a Muslim. Kill him. This man has arisen in
life. Cut his life short. What is happening today? What is happening in
Nainital? If 50 or 100 Muslims live there, they are doing well there,
working. And they are powerful. Their aim would be not to fight with
anyone. Their motive would be to keep standing strong, work, bring up
(p.66) are
being treated today is that people think they are Muslims, they must be
forced to run away from here. If he knows this, why would he work there?
rise? We never get any support from the environment. Take the banks, why
is negative. I do not understand it. Are there no defaulters in Greater

Kailash? But that area would never become negative. If any of the small
businessmen here get a loan of 10,000 rupees from a bank, they would
repay because they would wish to take another, larger loan. So if you never
get this support you will never rise? The government never actually talks of
segregating us but we have been scared. We would go and live in areas
rise the way he wants.
manufacturers in Seelampur? Or would you say that this area is not so well
connected to the global markets?
Page 26 of 28

(MS) We could have actually taken benefit of this situation if somehow

credit was available to us. We could have gotten much more work. We are
connected but the connection is difficult to maintain. Take the issue of
electricity. It is privatized in Delhi. Everyone is getting enough of it. In our
area in Seelampur, we still face scheduled load-shedding twice a week but
in reality there is load-shedding four to six hours every day. So whatever
area, then the police comes and harasses us for no reason. So these types
of difficulties do not allow us to take advantage of the larger environment.
The other thing is that with the slowdown, there is less investment from
ride it out. If we were trading also, then the scenario would be different.
Some items always sell but other trends change. The manufacturer is
someone else, trader is someone else. Gandhi Nagar is a market of traders
items that they get orders to manufacture. Sometimes it is this, sometimes
(GJ) What is the presence of Seelampur people in trading? (p.67)
(SM) Almost none. All traders are non-Muslims. Muslims are all small
manufacturers.
(GJ) If someone were to start engaging in trading?
(SM) If at all they succeed they leave. It cannot happen while living here.
There are no traders here. If you want, you will have to buy a shop in
does have a few rare Muslim traders. Trading is also bound to locality. For
example, all the foreigners come to Laxmi Nagar, they purchase from
there. How can anyone operate from here? Manufacturers have to stay
here because they also co-operate with each other. If a small manufacturer
goes to some other area and they require 10,000 rupees, who would give
them that kind of support? Here we help each other in whatever way we
can.
They are not only constrained by religious-identity-based segregation in

bargaining for a better deal, but they are also unable to get beyond operating in
the lower echelons of the supply chain in any item of industry. The mandis in
Delhi, the garments business, spare-parts and machine-parts manufacturing,
businesses by a mix of spatial segregation, lack of credit facilities, and

discriminatory business practices. If these skilled and unskilled workers of
Seelampur could sell their labour and set up their manufacturing units outside
Page 27 of 28

the Muslim neighbourhood freely, without discrimination and fear for property
and life, their material conditions could be different, but as Wacquant (2009)
points out, these neighbourhoods become prisons for their inhabitants,
incarcerating their members as a dishonoured category, while severely
Weber 1918[2009]) by the dominant group

living outside the limits of these neighbourhoods. Communal spatial segregation,
by way of restricting labour mobility, is one of the ways in which labour market
segmentation is maintained. Muslim workers constitute one segment of the
labour market, whose ability to compete with others is limited by their identity
and positionality. (p.68)
The conditions in Chauhan Bangar, Jaffarabad, and New Jaffarabad within

Seelampur district are diverse and very different from the slum shanties of
Seelampur colony. But the element of incarceration impacts not just the
geographical mobility of persons (or workers), but also the geographical mobility
of capital. It is conventional economic wisdom that immobility of factors of
production causes market inefficiencies, and is, therefore, bad for free markets.
But capitalism is not exactly famous for its propensity to just and equitable
distribution, and its rewards to different segments of the market differ.
Communal prejudice and threat of violence add risk, weighing against the
mobility of capital owned by Muslims. Communal segregation ensures capital
accumulation in other parts of city, at the cost of the Muslim areas.
Notes:
(1) Sheila is a cinema theatre in Paharganj, Delhi.
(2) The Heritage Conservation Committee (HCC) has been set up under the
Ministry of Urban Development. Other bodies mandated with heritage
conservation are the Archaeological Survey of India, the Delhi State
Archaeological Department, the Delhi Development Authority (DDA), the three
Municipal Corporations of Delhi, the Central Public Works Department (CPWD),
the Delhi Cantonment Board, the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural
Heritage (INTACH), and the Aga Khan Trust.
Page 28 of 28


in Delhi
Ghazala Jamil

Print ISBN-13: 9780199470655
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780199470655.001.0001

Ghazala Jamil
DOI:10.1093/oso/9780199470655.003.0003

This chapter describes the features of Jamia Nagar, Nizamuddin, and Taj
Enclave. It takes forward the narrative of how in the overall logic of city as a
vehicle of capital accumulation, segregation of Muslim population in specific
neighbourhoods with their contained labour or fixed assets serves a specific
discrimination in housing and real estate transaction not only maintains

segregation but also aids the project of capital accumulation in favour of other
spaces in the city. Muslim middle-class, educated, professionals in these areas
are discovered as a specific segment of workers in the neo-liberal city. This
aspirational class experiences a different kind of alienation in the city. While
they push the boundaries that constrain them, they realize that these are
shatterproof.
Keywords: Aspiration, middle-class Muslims, real estate, labour market segmentation, capital, housing
discrimination, Jamia Nagar, Nizamuddin, Gated Enclaves, David Harvey
product of capitalism. I have also shown how capitalism through liberalization

and globalization is manifested in the segregated Muslim areas in Delhi. Further,
I have established that the capitalist project of accumulation actually finds
segregation of Muslims in Delhi useful. In the final analysis we can conclude,
following Harvey, that capitalism reproduces itself spatially, creating a
capitalism. In this bid, activities aimed at accumulation move quickly to areas

where this can happen most easily. Manufacturing activity from Old Delhi shifted
Page 1 of 18

to Trans-Yamuna, which offered cheaper rent and lower wage rates. Lack of and/
or minimal enforcement of any regulations is an added bonus. The usual
explanation of this sort of process is that this increases (p.70) the value of
these spaces and displaces economic activity in older urban areas. The people
the higher level of economic activities in these areas (Fainstein and Fainstein
1978). In areas of newer growth marked by communal segregation, such as the
Trans-Yamuna Muslim neighbourhoods, the population within is only being
fleeced of the true value of its labour and other fixed capital it owns. While their
position may seem better than what it could have been, given the constraints of
communal prejudice and threat of communal violence, their gains remain, at
best, only marginal. In the overall logic of a city as a vehicle of capital
accumulation, the segregation of the Muslim population in specific
neighbourhoods with their contained labour or fixed assets therein serves a
specific purpose. The old city, meanwhile, after having been looked upon as an
area of degrading living conditions and even destitution, is being rediscovered
by the neoliberal consumer of art and culture for its historical, culinary, and
architectural heritage. While the tourism industry provides many their
livelihood, a people are caught in the cesspool of stereotypical representation,
and pay to see.
For a long time in independent India, Muslims have been languishing in poverty
because in the prejudiced social structure, their labour was of marginal and of
no special economic virtue. Moreover, most of the crafts that they engaged in
were actually slowly loosing relevance in the increasingly industrial India
(Khalidi 2006). In the neoliberal environment, Muslims are being discovered as a
in the accumulation project which has little use for prejudice per se except to
the extent that it aids capital accumulation. Muslims are grateful for jobs and
businesses that take advantage of their skills, time, labour, and assets and other
integrative advantages that this relationship brings with it. For example, those
restaurants in New Friends Colony community centre that would not undertake
home delivery to Jamia Nagar neighbourhoods, now distribute pamphlets with
menus offering discounts and home deliveries. Banks that continue to red-line
(p.71) Muslim neighbourhoods as far as credit is concerned and limit their
business with Muslims mostly to savings accounts, wish to facilitate Muslims
spending (evidenced by the unprecedented increase in the number of ATMs
these neighbourhoods are integrated in the city economy, but only so far as the
balance of accumulation of capital is tipped in favour of spaces elsewhere.
Jamia Nagar
Page 2 of 18

Jamia Nagar is at present a cluster of several contiguous small and big localities.
In the early 1980s, it consisted mainly of small settlements separated from each
other by small tracts of forest-like growth. Mr Shakeel, whose moderately
wealthy family came from a village in Aligarh in western Uttar Pradesh to invest
in the soon-to-be booming real estate business in the area, opines that most of
these people were scared to live in the vast open areas adjoining the river
Yamuna. There were still some wild animals in the woods and nights were
especially difficult with swarms of mosquitoes and fear aroused by howling
hyenas, among others. Jogabai and Okhla were old villages of Hindu Gujjars,
Gaddis, and Yadavs. Ghafoor Nagar and Batla House were small clusters of
double-storied houses and narrow lanes similar to Old Delhi where mostly
teachers and clerical staff, among others, working in Jamia, lived. Some
residents held jobs in other Muslim educational institutions or government jobs.
There were also some residents who had been evicted from Turkman gate in the
walled city during Emergency.
Some Old Delhi residents bought land here recognizing the opportunity for
investment but confess today that they never seriously entertained the thought
of shifting to Jamia Nagar. At best, for Dilliwallah Muslims, the proximity to the
river Yamuna and open spaces posited the area as a picnic spot. Culturally, and
in terms of infrastructure, and access to markets and other amenities, among
others, the two places were poles apart. Also, the claim of Jamia Nagar to being
(p.72) Dilliwallahs, who were
mostly artisans, feel out of place. But even in the early 1980s, the residents of
402 and 403 buses connecting the area to rest of the city, they would say they
were going to Dilli, or to the shehr (literally, city). Slowly, the openness of the
had grown too large to be accommodated in the small dwellings in the walled
city. High premium was placed on education and people saw their shift to the
area as a progressive move. Any sacrifices and hardships in daily life were
mentioned with pride and borne with a brave face. It was their chance to an
almost-escape. With the promise of education and possibly jobs, Jamia Millia
Islamia (henceforth, Jamia) slowly but steadily attracted people from U.P. It
remained a focal point of community cohesion, even for those who had neither
studied at Jamia nor worked there. Mr Rizwan (name changed) came to Delhi as
a young journalist from Aurangabad in Maharashtra. He initially landed up in
the Hauz Rani area, which is an old village in South Delhi inhabited by a large
number of Mewati Muslims. Mr Rizwan says,
of Mewati people. I felt like the odd one out who was always uncomfortably
different from everyone else in the locality. When I came to Jamia Nagar
Page 3 of 18

and diversity allowed me to blend right in. I was about to get married and
felt that even among strangers here, my family would be safe.
In 1990, as part of the Ram Janmabhoomi1 movement, widespread Hindu right-

wing mobilization by the Rath Yatra (literally, chariot (p.73) journey) led by L.K.
Advani, leader of the Hindu nationalist party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP),
left a trail of anti-Muslim violence and massacres in many parts of North India.
Beginning with this event and culminating in the 2002 Gujarat pogrom, in the
entire period that includes the decade of the 1990s, Jamia Nagar saw a surge of
in-migrants from various parts of north India, especially Bihar and U.P. The area
saw unprecedented expansion. All the green forest tracts were gone and many
new colonies came up.
Faizan, a young media professional says,
After exhausting all the possibilities of expanding horizontally, this locality

as
many people as possible in a bid not to spill over the boundary. It is a
comforting thought to know that there are hundreds of thousands of
individuals like you and families like yours, who have similar fears and
In the meantime, Jamia also grew from a laidback educational institution with
moderate academic ambitions to a hub of professional courses. Teachers, social
workers, engineers, lawyers, and media professionals were being trained there
and finding jobs in the new liberalized regime. Upcoming firms in the
process outsourcing (BPO) organizations, software firms, and TV channels,
were willing to hire even Muslims. These industries seized the opportunity of
hiring this highly skilled labour being trained and turned out by Jamia. The
creation of space for this segment of workers marked by their identity was a
deviation, however slight, in the long-standing trend of very low representation
of Muslims in public services as well as in corporate jobs. But by and large here
too, Muslims got recruited mostly in the worst and most precarious jobs. (p.74)
Ghayur Mansuri works as a hardware and networking engineer with a leading IT

company. He says,
heard stories of discrimination, so I was very anxious about being

unemployed. I was so happy to get a well-paid job. I am well-trained and
work really hard to keep up with the technology. My team leader says I am
Page 4 of 18

an asset in the team. I always reach office on time and leave the last but
Many young undergraduate girls and boys who work in BPOs report getting paid
more than their parents. Their families are proud of their achievements and lead
materially comfortable lives. They also articulate a feeling of relief and gratitude
on the one hand, and on the other, a nagging fear of losing the job. Their
readiness to work in inconvenient shifts and for excruciatingly long hours
complements their high-quality training. This combined with an awareness of
their identity, makes them docile employees, who rarely complain.
A middle-class locality to begin with, Jamia Nagar became more diverse in terms
of economic classes. The affluent among the residents clustered together in
came up as affluent enclaves. Even though affluent, the residents could not leave
the neighbourhood either because of their perception of threat or experience of
violence or, in numerous actual instances, when house and plot owners in other
parts of the city where Hindus lived, would not sell/rent their property to
Muslims. The residents of these oases of affluence sought to put up gates to
enclose themselves and preserve their exclusivity. They were in Jamia Nagar but
they felt they did not entirely belong with the other residents of the area.
themselves, exaggerating the similarities of those in the same group and

exaggerating the differences between those in different groups, thus
Oakes et al. 1994
and judged as a stereotyped (p.75) individual belonging to an already formed
actual experiences or information but draws a lot from the historical context and
emotional content of inter-group relations. Accordingly, stereotypes cannot be
seen as irrational and invalid cognitive prejudices, and exaggerated stereotypes
are only a result of a rational selective perception (Turner 1999). The
person finds it more useful to see the other not as individuals with unique
identities, but as one belonging to a social category identity.
At this point, it would be useful to draw in a discussion of power acquired by the

individual through association or through belonging to certain social groups. The
members of the groups that have more power see their own image in a more
positive light, and position themselves at a relatively higher status. The more
powerful group seeks to distance itself from the less powerful. While the
powerful group employs increased ethnocentric and discriminatory practices
Page 5 of 18

involuntary segregation of Muslims because they find it extremely difficult to

rent or buy accommodation in Hindu areas. An offshoot of this process is the
institution of gated enclaves of affluent Muslims within and outside these large
pockets of Muslim population. Still shunned from the affluent Hindu areas, they
resort to using a new group membership as a source of positive self-esteem. This
is true for such areas as New Jaffarabad in Seelampur, the above mentioned
localities in Jamia Nagar, or housing societies like Taj Enclave, also included in
this work.
In Jamia Nagar, the experience of relative affluence is to be seen also in the light
of the fact that many professionals and their families come to Delhi looking for a
life denied them in small towns. Students, computer engineers, media persons,
call-centre executives, teachers, public relations (PR) professionals, lawyers,
property dealers, marketing and sales people, and business people here lead
culturally very different lives vis-à-vis the values/lifestyles/aspirations from those
(p.76) back home. In this regard, I also explore the area from the perspective
of the present first generation migrants to Jamia Nagar. Belonging to the middle-
class, a majority of these migrants to Jamia Nagar are from Bihar. (The lower-
class Bihari migrants who lack skills or education mostly migrate to Seelampur.)
hein, yeh zyadatar Bihar ke bachche hein

see here, most of them are young people from Bihar.)
Moin Ahmed, who is a software engineer, and is himself a first-generation

migrant from an educated but lower-middle-class family in Ranchi (erstwhile
Bihar, now in newly created state of Jharkhand), says,2
Delhi to make their career are actually in [the] service sector?
(MA) Most. There are two different kinds, one is [those] who have studied
somewhere and they got job opportunities and they migrated to Delhi,
there and they are in Delhi like labourers, rickshaw pullers and all, [a] lot
Bengali people, otherwise this field was only dominated by Biharis, and you
will find they are lessening because the situation there in Bihar is getting
who is from Munger and she has studied planning in the Netherlands;
many of her relatives are living in Zakir Nagar working in technical sort of
jobs as you said, and she said they had nice houses in Munger, huge
Page 6 of 18

planner so she was saying that these flats are an architectural nightmare,
but they are happy here because there are some dreams they are perusing
ever. What is your opinion on this observation? (p.77)
be having a job which can bring home every month, a lakh rupees or
something, so that money which they are bringing, again the problem of
numbers is very much[sic], people are thinking whatever you are earning
belongs, so why somebody is earning 50,000 or more is not that much
(MA) Yes, exactly, in schools, in transportation, your living, just eating,

everything is expensive, but opportunities are there, because of this school
mafia you see big-big schools and all, people say my son is going in this
plumber in the Gulf earning [a] few thousand rupees, just a bit more than
double that he could have earned here, and when he comes, he is coming
from foreign, so all his earning he can spend in 2 months and he shows I
am something, so that thing is also to show people that they are not able to
come and see [the] Lal Qila in Delhi, ke hum Lal Qila gae the, we did this
and we did that, so that type of boasting which is actually not very natural
living in Delhi.
(MA) They don't think that about living condition[s], they are happy, we are
so what, nobody asks the question what we are in a big city? Our children
thinking that since his brother or his uncle came to Delhi and got a good
job, so he is earning very much and sometimes he goes for foreign travel
on work as well, if they will study in Delhi they will also do this.
So they think that now they are growing and they will grow, so this is one
thing, and some of them have actually grown, and some of them, what
to
are living in [a] rented house and they realize, what we will do with
Page 7 of 18

property there, now nobody is going back to live there, so (p.78) they sold
a big house there and bought a 100-yard house here, so this is also a
(GJ) And would you say that this story is happening a lot here?
number of people are coming, and those who have not yet come are
daughter is married and she and the guy is working in Delhi or nearby and
[the] son has got [a] job in Delhi, now the best option is to come to Delhi;
now their parents, they look after the grandchildren also. And those who
The son is in Canada. She is a teacher but if she gets even five days off, she
children. I think when she retires, the first thing she will do is sell her
house and shift to Delhi.
(GJ) From among the people that are known to you, is this observation that
my friend made true, that a good number of women are working but most
are not working women, their husbands are earning. Essentially, that they
(MA) Yes, where can they spend that money and what can one do if you
(GJ) Where to spend it and on what?
(MA) Yes, where to manifest that I have money, that manifestation really
In conversations with women, it does come across repeatedly that have more
freedom to order their time and space even though both may be in short supply.
Many women are professionals and work in regular jobs, many more offer
undergarments. Both young and old women who do not have paid work also
report liking their lives here better. It does not matter if (p.79) the houses are
small, lanes decrepit, and sewage lines overflowing. In fact, they like it that
small houses necessitate that they cannot live in joint families, even though
almost the entire extended family lives in the neighbourhood. There are
repeated references to combining the best of the benefits of joint and nuclear
Page 8 of 18

families. Most women do not wear any usually recognized form of purdah/burqa.
Those who do, wear scarves and stoles worn stylistically over the head, abayas
and chadars in unusual colours and slim-fit styles, a far cry from the tent like
garment worn by purdah observing middle-class women in most small towns.
a thriving, bustling witness to small joys of finding cheap and not-so-cheap

delights of urban consumerist aspirations. My neighbour Naghma is a young
housewife and mother of two. Her husband owns a thriving milk and milk-
products shop in Abul Fazal Enclave. Naghma has most of the day to herself and
her daily chores. In her stylish beige burqa and stole wrapped over her head and
face, she is a regular sight in the building as she goes to drop and pick up her
children, who study in Jamia Nursery and primary schools. Visiting Batla house
with a few other women in the building is a regular engagement. She says,
week. I buy everything I need from Batla house. When my sister comes
from Bulandshahr she says baaji, you have such a nice life here. We shop a
lot together. I do all the work on my own. I take the children to the doctor.
Samir [her son] had some problem in [his] teeth; I took him to Jamia Dental
College. I was a bit nervous, but I did it. When I came here after marriage,
I felt so frightened I could not talk to anybody. Now I do everything on my
Shaheena Begum is from Moradabad. All four of her children studied in Jamia.
hosteller in Jamia. Shaheena did not like it at first, when both of them settled in
Delhi for good. Now her daughter is also married and lives in Delhi. Slowly,
when all the children came to Delhi, they insisted that she too leaves
Moradabad. They have sold (p.80) the house because there was no one to take
care of it. When I ask Mrs Shaheena if she misses her Moradabad life, she
laughs and says there is hardly any time. At 62, she looks young for her age and
is quite active. She is the centre of life for all her children who live at a walking
distance from each other. She says, she is engaged all the time in helping them
Zamana kitna badal gaya hai, yaqeen nahin hota. Moradabad mein, apne
muhalle mein, main kabhi burqe ke baghair nahin nikli. Yahan bachchon ne
kaha, Ammi burqa pehennna chhor do. Bachchhon ko mein ne bohot dil
mazboot kar ke dilli bhej diya. Mere sasural waley kehte the, kitni sakht dil
hai chhote-chhote bachchhon ko khud se juda kar diya. Aaj jab bachhe
kehte hein, Ammi aapne haemin ilm diya. Unke ilm ne meri zindagi bhi
badal di. (trans. Times have changed so much, it is difficult even to believe.
In my locality in Moradabad, I never left home without a burqa. Here the
Delhi
Page 9 of 18

after hardening my heart. My in-laws used to say, how stone hearted she is
Ammi you gave us knowledge. Their knowledge has changed my life too).
People ascribe various meanings to their migratory experience and the

motivations therein. This, in turn, gives rise to altered realities. The descriptions
of everyday lives of people in the locality may be weaved together not only in
order to unravel the discourse of the neighbourhood as a segregated space for
residents of Jamia Nagar and other segregated enclaves.
Segregation and Built Environment

The segregated enclaves are fast reaching points of saturation but more are
With the increased in-migration and the growing (p.81) aspirations, all the
large segregated concentrations of Muslim population in Delhi are experiencing
some form of the business of real estate. Jamia Nagar, especially, is experiencing
intense construction activity. Undoubtedly, this is also a great opportunity for
some circuits of capital to encourage Muslim investors to invest such that while
the profits are maximized in the short run, the segregated topography of the city
remains undisturbed.
People who invest in the construction activity do so because this is recognized as

a method of investment which is legal, secure, and sanctioned by the faith as
legitimate. In other words, it is not so much that homes are needed but that
financial opportunity is created by this need. Such market being profit driven
caters to consumption of those who can afford it either through purchase for
their own use or for earning steady rents from tenants.
fits our purposes aptly:
It would be difficult to argue that during this period the surplus of capital
arose out of the tendency to overaccumulate as we have specified it. The
latter is, strictly speaking, a phenomenon which arises only in the context
of the capitalist mode of production or in capitalist social formations which
credit and money supply system has always been fundamental in

relationship to the various waves of speculative investment in the built
environment.
Even though speculation is frowned upon under Islamic principles of economics,

the investment in the built environment in Jamia Nagar is largely speculative in
nature, and like everywhere else in the city of Delhi, fuelled by over-
accumulation. Just as Harvey (1978) indicates for developing economies in
transition from feudalism to capitalism, investment in the built environment was
Page 10 of 18

for the urban renovation of Paris in 1853.
The overall logic of capitalist investment in built environments in Delhi is also a

result of a search for secure investment of capital accrued by over accumulation,
rather than any interest of either the (p.82) state or private developers in the
use value of the buildings. Speculative activity undergoes almost periodic and
cyclic crises which ensure that most investment will take place in building
infrastructure that have productive use like malls, office spaces, freeways, and
airports, among others, rather than housing units that only have a use value.
Harvey (2009) further argues that often the working class is made to bear this
burden but big investors are not totally immune from this process. Built
environment as devalued capital actually leaves the city often with physical
environments that have greatly reduced earning capacity but still some use
value.
In an ideal capitalist analysis, the finance circuit should not be interested in the
nature and location of the buildings; financial institutions should fund these
and builders should sell their housing units to people without bothering what
have to be set aside. The identity issue in housing and segregation does not
simply stop at the issue of intolerance and prejudice, but has a material
consequence. The owners of property want their investments to multiply and
would not favour anything devaluing their investment. This is the reason why
Muslims cannot buy a property in certain neighbourhoods that would like to
maintain Hindu exclusivity. This, in turn, is the reason why developers and
builders in Muslim areas are doing roaring business, because it provides them
an excellent opportunity to sell their wares at increased profits to a niche
market that has little choice. But developers and builders in these areas are also
Muslims who must manoeuvre in the limited segregated spaces because they
cannot operate in non-Muslim areas largely because of a prejudiced market
environment, and also because they are small players whose economic worth is
of no real consequence in the larger order of things. In some cases, it was found
that the Muslim builders had Hindu Gujjars as their partners, who are still
connected to and interested in this niche market because they continue to own
large landholdings even now. This is also because of their rootedness in the area
and already existing social relationships. Their familiarity with (p.83) the area
and its people makes them confident of building and maintaining business
studied in Jamia, they are most likely to be classmates and good friends with
their Muslim partners. But these partnerships remain tacit, informal, and largely
unacknowledged publicly.
Page 11 of 18

The mechanisms of making profits in construction projects in Muslim

neighbourhoods are also fraught with numerous other constraints and
peculiarities. Being self-employed, or in services in the unorganized sector,3
Muslims also usually do not have such large disposable incomes (NCEUS 2006,
2007). Financial institutions would not either give them credit per se because of
prejudice and discrimination, or because properties in these neighbourhoods are
ineligible for home loans due to unofficial redlining policy, and special assistance
schemes for housing loans are inaccessible due to difficult rules (PMHLC 2006).
To add to this, many Muslim localities in Jamia Nagar and elsewhere are not
regularized for housing. Interestingly, all this combined proves to be an
opportunity for developers to make profit, if they have the capacity to take risks.
Innovative collaborations with landowners are the order of the day. A builder
enters into collaboration with an individual who owns a property but lacks the
means to develop it. The agreement between the two involves typically cash
payment by the developer and a share in the housing units developed on the
property. After making an initial and only partial investment in the property, the
developer proceeds to enter agreements to sell with various prospective buyers,
who are required to pay in instalments. The size and frequency of the
(p.84)
There are two ways to scrutinize these processes, which are not contradictory
explanations but are rather complimentary. This informal solidarity economy
works not just because it helps Muslim families to avail decent housing and own
flats that they would otherwise not be able to procure given their position in the
market economy, but more importantly, also because it enables the developers to
raise money that entails no tax liabilities, and from that part of market, that is
utterly at their mercy. They are required to reinvest a very small portion of their
surplus, mostly for short periods of time, and whether the property values in the
area appreciate or depreciate, the developer never stands to lose. Even when
business is down, the speculative activity on the built properties keeps the
profit-making enterprise of investing in real estate in Muslim neighbourhoods
lucrative.
Nizamuddin
Nizamuddin is among the oldest continued settlements of Muslims in Delhi as a
basti
khanqah (a place for Sufi gathering) of the Sufi Saint Hazrat Nizamuddin. Many
of the old residents are attached to the Dargah (mausoleum) for their livelihood
and can trace their lineage for centuries, living in the same area. The place has
an immense religious importance for Muslims, both due to the dargah of Sufi
Saint Nizamuddin and many others Sufis of lower order. Nizamuddin being in
the same Sufi order as Moinuddin Chishti of Ajmer, all pilgrims to Ajmer must
come here to pay their obeisance first to the disciple before they go to his
master in Ajmer. Interestingly, the Basti also houses the international
Page 12 of 18

headquarters of the Tablighi Jamaat,4 (p.85) popularly called the Markaz

(literally, centre). Between the Dargah and the Markaz, Nizamuddin Basti
probably receives more Muslim visitors through the year than any other Muslim
5
this is also where lots of other visitors also come to see and experience
publishers and book shops of Islamic books. The Basti, similar to the walled city
this, they also have a community development and welfare initiative, which takes
up interventions for children, adolescents, and women on issues such as life
skills and health, among others. One of the initiatives was, for example, to
develop a park which was reserved for women and children only. It received a lot
of coverage and attention in the print news media and online forums
(Ramachandran 2012, April 12; Kumar 2012, June 13;
Nizamuddin Urban Renewal Initiative 2016
health, and youth development projects in the area, and the small locality is
seeing their busy activity with alternating interest and apathy, depending on the
frame and limits of their agenda. A resident of Basti Hazrat Nizamuddin told me
dotted with other small monuments, the residents of this area are not subjected
Urban Renewal Initiative was (p.86) signed in 2007 between the Aga Khan
Trust for Culture (AKTC) and Aga Khan Foundation (AKF); and the
Archaeological Survey of India, Central Public Works Department and the
Municipal Corporation of Delhi. While the AKTC is an expert agency in heritage
renewal with experience of working in various historic heritage cities, AKF is
responsible for community co-operation. AKF has an especially crucial role in
Basti Hazrat Nizamuddin because the neighbourhood sits cheek by jowl with the
monuments in the vicinity. From the very beginning some residents, researchers
and culture enthusiasts have been suspecting displacements (http://
mail.mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list_mail.sarai.net/2007-April/009041.html).
In 2008, when a wall adjacent to a step-well (Nizamuddin baoli) collapsed, the

trust and the foundation cajoled 18 families with their houses next to the baoli to
relocate. They were able to relocate 17 of these (Mathur and Ray 2014). The
Page 13 of 18

of sympathy to housing rights of the poorer inhabitants of the city who are
aware of being referred to as blight on the city. Aga Khan Trust has had a
substantial, regular and positive media coverage of their work in which the
neighbourhood is repeatedly invoked as dirty and backward. For example, one
poetry. Yet, to an ordinary visitor in Delhi, this is just another minority

community ghetto seeped in poverty, dirt, filth, crime, drug peddling and so
Basu 2016
an improved space will necessarily be an exclusionary space. In this light, it may
neighbourhood.
My study area, Nizamuddin, is also peculiar in the clearly polarized contrast that
one sees in its two distinct parts. The Basti is a very old settlement with winding
lanes made narrower by the businesses and households spilling out of the shops
and houses, respectively, while the contiguous Nizamuddin West has
comparatively much larger houses, broader roads, and more affluent residents.
While the Basti (p.87) is exclusively Muslim, the west is now predominantly
Muslim but still has many Hindu residents who are old owners. Since the Muslim
population became sizeable, the Hindus have been selling off their properties
and moving out.
Mr Qamar, whose daughter is a newsreader on a TV channel and lives in

Nizamuddin West, says that now the locality does not have any Hindu families
moving in or purchasing houses. This trend is worth noting, because
Nizamuddin is an illustration that spatialization of discrimination depends
largely on where people can buy and rent property over and above the factor of
whether they can afford it. A Hindu locality that has proximity to some poor and/
or Muslim area has a higher probability of slowly being sold out to Muslims, if
they desire the purchase and are willing to pay higher prices than the going
market rates in the area. The first few purchases will be the toughest to bring
about, but subsequent transactions will be easier as the speculation would have
pushed up the prices in the vicinity to an extremely profitable level, and
readiness to leave the area to Muslims would increase because their numbers
would have reached some arbitrarily perceived but crucial threshold of
tolerance. In other areas such as Seelampur, Jaffarabad, Ahata Kedara, and Beri
Wala Bagh, where there was or is a sizable Hindu population the trend is of
Hindu families moving out to better areas. Since Muslims cannot operate from
other spaces, they pay attractive prices for space needed for their businesses.
This is an analysis that finds credence in many observable instances in the

experience of the participants of this study. As mentioned in the previous
chapter, after Partition, many Punjabi and some Sindhi refugees from the
Pakistani side were given properties in areas like Karol Bagh, Ajmal Khan Road,
Bada Hindu Rao, Beri Wala Bagh, and Model Basti, among others. Okhla had a
Page 14 of 18

sizeable population of local landowning Hindu Jat, Gujjar, and Yadav residents.
Seelampur had many poor non-Muslims who were resettled there along with the
Muslims who were displaced from their original houses in the aftermath of
Emergency. In most of the areas, where fieldwork was conducted for this study,
and where people reported there were many (p.88) Hindu families residing
along with Muslims, the Hindus sold off their houses and bought properties in
maintain)
their exclusivity by refusing to sell to Muslims. Mr Azeem Akhtar mentions the
experience of his neighbour, who was a well-to-do publisher who lived on the
day she mentioned that she may not come to teach the children after a couple of
months because her father-in-law had decided to sell their house. Mr Azeem
that he would pay INR 200,000 more than whatever was the highest price that
he was getting in the market. She promised that she would let him know. After
that day, the tutor never came back. A few weeks later, they happened to meet
by chance in Chandni Chowk market. The woman was embarrassed. She said
that when she told her father-in-law about the offer, he was very angry with her
for not even knowing better than asking him to consider the offer. He said he
would gladly give the house away in charity than sell it to a Muslim, and from
then onwards forbade her from giving tuitions.
Taj Enclave
While some more affluent among the residents of the segregated enclaves
sought to make their surroundings more to their likeness, many affluent Muslims
separated gated community for themselves. Taj Enclave and a few other such
gated housing societies of affluent and elite Muslims are interesting spaces
because they are microcosms that are fraught with all kinds of contradictory
processes that Muslims are subject to in the global urban. Taj Enclave is near
Gandhi Nagar in Trans-Yamuna about 4 kilometres away from Seelampur metro
station on Geeta Colony road, but its residents virtually eschew any contact with
welfare association (RWA), the society was (p.89) registered in 1972 but the
allotment of around 6 acres of land took place only in 1988; by 1992, the
members of the society were given possession of the flats. The residents are
The heavy tall gate is guarded by private guards, the lawns are well manicured,
and generators are available for power backup. The RWA is responsible for all
kinds of maintenance in the premises. There is a mosque, a general store, and a
elite ones vehemently deny ever feeling any threat of violence. They feel, as Mr
Page 15 of 18

The participants here all report that they have spent 20 years, 30 years, in
government colonies being the only Muslims, but were never made to feel as if
they were any different. They assert that communal violence and discrimination
is a thing of the past and perpetrated only by illiterates. There is an apparent
Among these assertions, the family interview with Mohd Naim and Nisha is an
anomaly. The couple with their two children shifted here in 2003, from Sarai
Khalil near Sadar Bazaar. Naim has a shop in Gandhi Nagar. The flat has been
renovated recently, and is decidedly more lavishly decorated than the other flats
I have visited in Taj Enclave. They now have four children, who, Nisha says do
not have many friends as other parents do not want their children to mix with
children from Delhi-6. A housewife, Nisha does not feel welcome among the
women in the neighbourhood, most of whom are working women. Naim says that
though the neighbours do not say anything openly, he is aware that his family is
thought of as uneducated and uncouth. He still wants to live here, because he
come out to play in the lawns for a fixed limited time and ride their bicycles (p.
90)
older people retired from government services. Now, most occupants are young
families of doctors and engineers. Naim effectively sums up when he says,
Branding does happen.) He is also the only resident who does not seem as
confident as to the threat of violence, and says it is a real possibility. He tells me
6
In the end, it can be said that contemporary processes of segregation are

variable, but durable. Notwithstanding the homogenizing tone and tenor of
hegemonic discourses, not all Muslims are discriminated against in the same
manner; they are not all segregated in the same way. As a result, everyone
aspires more to become the kind of Muslim who would be less discriminated
against. Like a chimera, segregation is a strange animal. It buys complicity of its
subjects by discriminating between them. The degree and effects of the
segregation varies according to its material purpose. These material purposes
are defined with a cool and calm capitalist rationale but infused with deep
vitriolic prejudice and hatred. The seemingly increased flexibility of the
Page 16 of 18

boundaries may enable people to push these, but the same flexibility and
elasticity ensures that the confinement cannot be shattered. (p.91)
In the next chapter, this exploration continues by shifting the focus of enquiry
and analysis to the issues of globalization and urban governance. While in this
chapter, we saw how capitalism impacts production of space, in the next, I
explore how practices of governmentality aid and abet accumulation of not just
capital, but also of political clout by the already affluent. This clearly results in
claim to space and to an equal footing in the political community. (p.92)
Notes:
(1) Literally, the birth place of Ram. A long-standing controversy exists over a
mosque in the holy town of Ayodhya in UP which is alleged to be the birthplace
of the Hindu god Ram. The controversy is mired in numerous legal disputes, but
more importantly, is at the epicentre of anti-Muslim mobilization in the country
by the Hindu right.
(2) Interview conducted in English.
(3) Ninety-five per cent of all working Muslims are engaged in occupations in the
(Sengupta et al. 2008).
(4) Tablighi Jamaat is a revivalist movement of the Deobandi stream that stresses
on proselytising trips and gatherings among Muslims, with a professed aim to
bring them closer to the practice of Islam. Tablighi ideology draws eclectically
from diverse Islamic theological schools, and especially renounces any local
customs that do not have the sanction of the religious scriptures (Hasan 1997).
(5
(6) A former Congress member of parliament (MP) and resident of Gulbarg

Society in Ahmedabad, which was devastated by murderous mobs in the 2002
Gujarat pogrom. In an investigative report in Tehelka, Khaitan (2007) reports,
For over five hours, about 30 Muslim families in the society prayed and
hoped that they would be rescued. Along with them were many Muslims
from the adjoining slums who had taken shelter in Gulbarg, thinking that a
society housing a Congress leader would be an unassailable refuge. Finally,
at around 2:30 pm, the mob stormed into the society and killed whoever
they could lay their hands on. The official death toll was 39. But the
Page 17 of 18

survivors claimed that a far greater number were killed. Jafri himself was
burnt alive. The remains of his body were never found.
Page 18 of 18

Muslims in Delhi

in Delhi
Ghazala Jamil

Print ISBN-13: 9780199470655
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780199470655.001.0001
Muslims in Delhi
The Normative Non-Citizens of the Global Urban
Ghazala Jamil
DOI:10.1093/oso/9780199470655.003.0004

Delhi is conceived as part of the global urban where the global processes are
citizenship. As citizenship becomes a function of power for contestation and

capacity for claim-making the governance mechanisms become more and more
privy to elites and corporate lobbying, and the major task of the state becomes
that of a manager of inequalities. In such a situation the Muslims find
themselves to experiencing an acute deficit in citizenship. Because of their
discursive subalternity they are rendered incapable of expressing any concerns
that relate to their other identities such as being part of unorganized workforce
in the country. This discussion is placed within the realm of state power and
governmentality directing a closer examination of how these manifest in a
segregated locality of Muslims.
Keywords: Citizenship, global urban, urban governance, subalternity, governmentality, UID, Delhi
sealings, homo sacer
I have established thus far that the city is not a cauldron that brings all the
constituent ingredients together; it is rather a multilayered sieve segregating
people in a process that is, paradoxically, at once quite subtle and also coarse. I
have also shown that the roots of the processes that have an important role to
play in maintaining and reproducing this segregation lie in material causes, and
that these processes are geared towards capital accumulation. In this chapter, I
Page 1 of 24

Muslims in Delhi
turn my attention to the multiple discourse-weaving processes that are
apply to whom. I contend that there are important and devastating
mainly that the spatial relegation of all-of-a-kind is based on the worth of the
(p.96) lumped up identity
labels, and activated by various facets of the sovereignty of the state as
exercised upon the Muslim subject.
capitalist structure alienate workers from their own produce. In other words,
surplus in one place is bound to produce deficit in another. It would be
interesting to scrutinize other similar processes that permeate everything in a
given social structure and alienate some people within it. For example, gender
relations in a patriarchal structure disempower women. I propose that it is the
systems and institutions of governance, in which the Muslim experiences a
deficit in citizenship and alienation in the political community. A state relates to
its people by a social contract which is operationalized in the citizenship granted
to its subjects. The Indian reality as experienced by Muslims falls far short of the
makes a legal promise of equality and full integration in the political community.
Habermas (1994) opines that this promise is to be realized via writing a
based on some objective, decontextualized, and universalized notions, it is not
focus on the study of how a constitution is interpreted and practiced in

institutions in reality, and emphasizes transgressing the view of writing a
constitution as an effective way to empower a citizen (Flyvbjerg 1998). In reality,
citizenship as experienced by all the legal citizens is not an equalizing status
commonly
cited old definition by T.H. Marshall (1992 [1950]). It is rather an asset that is
deficit in citizenship, and others enjoying citizenship in surplus.
legally
but normatively by Muslims, through a close examination of the history of their
relations with the state, and contemporary (p.97) contestations and
negotiations of Muslims with the mechanisms of governance in Delhi through
the practice of everyday.
Page 2 of 24

Muslims in Delhi
Delhi: A Brief History of the Relations of Muslim Citizens with the State
In this part of the chapter, I argue that the citizenship deficit that confronts
Muslims in Delhi at present has at its foundation, a long history and the colonial
Gramsci (1971: 52) asserts that the state

is a realization of historical unity of the ruling classes, and it is their history that
history is therefore intertwined with civil society, and thereby with the history of
Gramsci 1971: 72). Gramsci then goes on to lay
down methodological criteria for a subaltern reading of this history, which
include among other things looking beyond the immediate in the story of
domination, covering all repercussions of domination, conceptualizing the
subaltern globally, and studying the development of parties that include
elements of the hegemonic group. It is in this spirit of Gramsci that I move
forward with my analysis in this part and those subsequent to it.
Spivak (cf. De Kock 1992
structurally written out of the capitalist bourgeois narrative. She asserts that in
postcolonial terms, subaltern is not just a fashionable synonym of deprived or
oppressed. It signifies the space inhabited by those who have limited or no
bureaucrats and missionaries, presented a convenient image of the Muslim rule,

to legitimize the British seizure of India from the remnants (p.98) of the
Mughal Empire. Indian historians and writers uncritically borrowed these
Bharucha 2003).
This discourse weaving can be traced back to the events that took place during
especially artisans, during the revolt (Chandra 1979). As I have discussed earlier
in the book, after the British crushed the revolt and regained control of Delhi,
they judged all Muslims to be rebels and went after them ruthlessly. The distrust
of the state meant that Muslims were edged out of both land and employment. In
fact, all Muslims were evicted from the walled city in Delhi and their properties
confiscated (Khalidi 2006). During the course of my study, many old residents of
the walled city recount hearing stories from the elders in their families about
Muslims having been required to get a permit issued from their Hindu
employers in order to gain entry into the city to work in those days. This
obviously took a huge toll on the community, from which it took a long time to
recover. When the anti-Muslim sentiment in the British colonial state ebbed, the
walled city slowly became home again to a sizable community of Muslim small
Page 3 of 24

Muslims in Delhi
manufacturers, shopkeepers, and artisans (Gupta 1981). At the turn of twentieth

century, Muslims constituted 32.5 per cent of the total population of Delhi
(Khalidi 2006), but the distrust and suspicion remained. Distrust between the
colonial Indian state and its Muslim subjects, as also between Hindu and Muslim
communities marked all negotiations for a standing in social and political space
in the country. This continued even after the British rule in India ended with the
division of India and Pakistan in 1947 (Hasan 1990). In fact, it was this distrust
on which the foundation stone of the Muslim state of Pakistan was laid.
Muslims in Delhi experienced independence as rioting, looting, and stabbings.

By September 1947, 60 per cent of the Muslims of Old Delhi and 90 per cent of
those in New Delhi had fled their homes. Between 20,000 and 25,000 were said
500,000 Muslims remained (p.99) (Pandey 2001). From the other side of the
newly crafted border, Delhi received the highest number of refugees for a single
city. The population of Delhi grew from under 1 million (917,939) to a little less
Census of India 1941, 1951).
The creation of Pakistan reaffirmed in many complicated ways a concept rooted
in the colonial discourse and highly embroiled with the politics of communalism
independence of India, classifications and exceptions have been introduced to

the conception and definition of citizenship, which reflected the communal fault
lines (Jayal 2013). Tracing the history of construction of Indian citizenship as a
legal status, Jayal (2013)
ground for the idea that Indian Muslims are less inclined players in the cause of
the nation and nationalism and, by the extension of the deductive logic,
inadequately committed to the value of participation in the Indian polity.
And thus begins a new chapter of Muslims in India as lesser citizens which still
Post partition, the affluent and educated Muslims had almost all left Delhi for
ever. Such was the fear and threat perception that many participants of this
study report that it appeared unthinkable in the days immediately following
Partition that Muslim youth could visit Connaught Place at leisure while that was
the common activity among the youth in pre-Partition Delhi. People report being
afraid to move about anywhere in the city freely, except the walled city. Mr
Qamar says,
Page 4 of 24

Muslims in Delhi
A Muslim boy or a man, especially a bearded man dared not venture to

(p.100)
What would a person do, if not be confined to only their own

neighbourhood?
Having lost lives, property, livelihoods, and being suspected of being disloyal,
many among those who had remained began wanting to leave the country, if
they could afford to. The Indo-Pak war of 1965 hit some of these aspirations but
only after the creation of Bangladesh in 1971 did the last ones hoping to go to
Pakistan settle down finally to the status of normative unequal citizenship in
India.
The next brush of Delhi Muslims with the state came during the period of
Emergency, in 1975, when many parts of the walled city were bulldozed after
forced evictions of mostly Muslim and poor residents. This has been charted in
detail in the earlier chapters. In the present analysis, this episode is important
because it presents itself as the first mention of areas where a predominantly
Muslim population resided as dirty blotches in the urban landscape. Post
Emergency, the Muslim population was living scattered in pockets in and around
Old Delhi, Okhla, Basti Hazrat Nizamuddin, Mehrauli, and Seelampur. These
pockets got consolidated into segregated Muslim areas.
demographic profile. To be fair, segregation per se (on class or regional identity

lines) is a characteristic of Delhi, but I argue that involuntary segregation poses
serious challenges in front of anyone concerned with the notion of citizenship as
membership of a political community. Independent India extended a legal
citizenship to all in its vast multitude through constitution writing with only a
behind in India after the partition for various reasons have found that
mainstream discourses continually equate them to Pakistan. The representative
democracy required them (like other citizens) to be participative in actual
processes of political governance in a limited sense of electing their
representatives only. While formal inclusiveness was guaranteed, their marginal
status in the hierarchy of Indian (p.101) polity was pronounced and continued
to be that way by way of denial of equal normative citizenship, which was not
just a formal status but an enabling condition. In whatever limited way, the
activity. People are thus liable to be judged for their worth as citizens based on
derived from the Latin virtus, which means manliness in the sense of performing
military duty, patriotism, and devotion to duty and law). Apart from other social
Page 5 of 24

Muslims in Delhi
disadvantages, from the point of my interest in this inquiry, segregation of

Muslims away from largely Hindu-only city neighbourhoods prevents optimal
collective participation and spins off into a vicious cycle of decreased
participation and consequent representations of Muslims as a community of
people with devalued civic virtue as contributing, willing, and loyal citizens.
This, in turn, becomes one of the covert justifications of segregation.
L.K. Advani, Leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party, began his motorized rath yatra
from Somnath on 15 September 1990, which was to reach now demolished Babri
Masjid in Ayodhya on 30 October. In the towns all along the route of the yatra,
and in many other locations across the country anti-Muslim violence was
enacted for over two months even as Advani was arrested in Samastipur, Bihar,
on 23 September. Beginning with this event, the decade of the 1990s saw a
relentless, violent, onslaught on Muslims in India culminating in arguably the
of Muslim population got consolidated (some even expanded) after each

communal riot in the country, especially the post-Babri-Masjid-demolition riots in
1992 and Gujarat pogrom in 2002.
This part of the history of communal violence coincided almost perfectly with the
Chatterjee 2009). It is
also interesting to note that both these processes show a good congruence with
the trends of global Islamophobia in the post-9/11 world, and the swiftly
opportunity (p.102)
Delhi as a city in the Global Urban. Saskia Sassen (2010) cajoles us to engage
with sociological methods, concepts, and data on a global analytical landscape,
even though they may not have been chosen or created to address a global
phenomenon. One of the ways this can be done, she further argues, is by
conducting research, especially ethnographies, of the multiple processes that
may be operating within national boundaries, but are most often either global in
nature or at least are engaged by the global processes. She emphasizes that
such processes may be embodied and experienced in the local, but they
accommodate and enable global dynamics.
What exactly are the factors in Muslim marginalization in Delhi (indeed, in India)
is a complex question that has been answered variously. We have seen in the
exploration in the Introduction, of how the overarching allegations of Muslims as
their predicament. Yet, there can be little denying that large-scale poverty, the
activities of the far right, and Islamophobia have impacted the way the word
1990s in Delhi, as the Global Urban. And, since the trajectories of the neoliberal
Page 6 of 24

Muslims in Delhi
policies of the state and communal politics gaining legitimacy are intricately
intertwined, I direct this examination now at the subsequent fortunes of the
insights into the issue of citizenship.
Delhi: A City in the Global Urban

The way globalization is often spoken about in mainstream discourses makes it
appear a fuzzy (and warm) concept, engaging with which we may find it easy to
forget that it is simply the name of a process within which large corporations
make quick profits because they have now an enhanced freedom to move their
operations from one location to another in a quest for cheap labour, raw
materials, markets, and (p.103) concessions from national governments and
local administrations. Finance capital moves easily from one national economy to
another, unencumbered by any state and societal regulations, but movement of
people chasing capital flows across national boundaries is tightly regulated
(Stiglitz 2002). And often, the movement of labour even within national
boundaries can be fraught with extreme distress and disadvantages, and be
circumscribed by markers of identity and class. Increased communications of
people, cultures, and ideas across boundaries (especially the boundaries of
nation states) is definitely also a feature, but this freedom is limited and
available only to a small minority on the right side of the economic and digital
divide (Sassen 1998
The globalization project clearly leaves out the agendas of the people, while
catering to the warm and fuzzy wishes of the elite.
From amongst the various much-discussed and well-documented features of

globalization, I turn my attention towards one of its core premises, which is that
the state cannot deliver and must not intervene in market-driven processes. The
the ailments that plague the masses in developing economies. In the first decade
Renewal Mission (JNNURM). This essentially envisaged expansion of the

neoliberal agenda to many more sectors of engagement of the government in
urban India. One of these is privatization of public utilities and welfare services
(electricity, water, education, among others), along with deregulation of markets.
In substantive terms, the Government of the National Capital Territory (NCT) of
and Samajik Suvidha Sangam (SSS or Mission Convergence), that are a part of
the JNNURM Memorandum of Association (JNNURM Delhi, Checklist for
Page 7 of 24

Muslims in Delhi
Mandatory Reforms (p.104) Agenda,

Checklist.doc?MOD=AJPERES&CACHEID.).
The RWAs of the Bhagidari programme are associations of people that are
already segregated on the well-charted topography of identity and class, and the
pressure groups to make claim to benefits exclusively for their members, who
are also members of the powerful economic elite (Ghertner 2011). They
influence the government and bureaucracy at the cost of the welfare of less
active citizens, who do not have the time or the funding at their disposal to
sustain such pressure group tactics. Solomon Benjamin (2010), investigating
similar tendencies in the city of Bangalore, explains that the trajectory of
corporate-funded, and sometimes even explicitly corporate-governed civil
society is on the upsurge, in view of the consuming potential of this active citizen
confused urban progressive activists and many academics who cling to the idea
Benjamin 2010: 94). Benjamin
points out that while marginalized groups have traditionally mobilized local
corporators, and members of the legislative assembly (MLAs), among others, for
attaining and accessing services, these are the very realms that elite circuits of
NGOs, self-professed activists, and progressive academics shun from their vision
of participation. Benjamin further argues that considerable influence of urban
elites is exercised outside the confines of the mainstream political contests,
which may be the only arena where masses can disrupt neoliberalizing
influences that have financial power, media hype, and corporate influence.
Ghertner (2011: 523)
and giving them privileged access to upper- and lower-level state workers,
(p.105)
Convergence are being run either with funding and directives from international
monetary and trade agencies like the World Bank and the World Trade
Organization (WTO), among others, or are being run in conjunction and
corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives and corporate-funded NGOs.

Thus, the phenomenon extends itself to governance by corporations or those
entities that are being controlled by corporate capitalism. The government is
downsizing in the name of modernization and efficiency, and creating an illusion
Page 8 of 24

Muslims in Delhi
government and erosion of democratic citizenship.
In such a scenario, the state seems more concerned with the management of
inequalities rather than endeavouring towards progressive attainment of
equality for all its subjects. Urban governance in India includes no attempts at
spatial and social integration, and on the contrary, as a diversionary tactic,
encourages segregation. It need not require much elaboration then, how this
would impact the already marginalized and lesser citizens, Muslims.
Despite this kind of citizenship deficit, it would be fallacious to say that the state
is absent from within these segregated Muslim localities. In Delhi, the state has
in fact a deep presence and penetration in these marginalized localities via
NGOs that are co-opted into garnering complicity of the masses towards the
receding welfare state, and collecting data ostensibly for disbursing public
welfare services and programmes through administering and monitoring the
Gender Resource Centres (GRCs) of Mission Convergence. The harvesting of
biometric data for Aadhaar cards was pursued most aggressively in slums,
resettlement colonies, and Muslim localities by agencies that are not answerable
to any democratically elected representative body. During the course of my
research in Muslim areas of Delhi, photocopies of the Aadhaar registration form
were selling for as much as INR 50. I could see the (p.106) scramble of poor
and rich Muslims alike to get themselves registered for Aadhar cards because
the public campaign mounted it almost as the last opportunity for them to claim
citizenship. The contradiction inherent in these processes is that governance
functions in the city are being fragmented territorially, while on the other hand,
political concerns of unequal groups that need to be addressed differentially are
that this is contributing to fortifying the segregation and surveillance regimes,

instead of integration and inclusion. The state receding from its welfare
functions but stealthily strengthening its surveillance functions, both impact the
citizenship experiences of Muslims in the city, as they constitute what is the
the neoliberal state making a deliberate attempt to not only slowly erode
democratic citizenship but also to push the discourse of hiding disparity. This is
in line with assertion that citizenship in the global city is
legal
useful viewpoint in this regard is that of Arjun Appadurai (2006) who says that
the violence that minorities are facing across the globe is intrinsically linked to
and is a manifestation of the processes of globalization. He opines that the
exploitative relationships that manifest in globalization when coupled with its
Using illustrative examples from India and abroad, Appadurai says that even
though there may not be clear-cut patterns regarding which communities are
Page 9 of 24

Muslims in Delhi
minorities produce violence, we could better say that violence, especially at the
Citizenship as Claim-Making and Politics of Solidarities

Another example that illustrates this point is the civil society initiative by a
network of NGOs called India against Corruption (IAC). (p.107) The supporters
of IAC and those mobilized in its protest gatherings were predominantly the
middle class that vehemently painted all political parties in the same hue,
corruption being defined in strictly monetary terms and not as a moral

prerogative (Chatterjee 2012; Shah 2012
shown to be tinged with authoritarian ideas, which were criticized on the one
hand for their implicit links with the Hindutva groups and trying to give a clean
chit to Narendra Modi for his developmental work in Gujarat; on the other hand,
it was also critiqued by many for its views, ideology, methods, and demands
(Sharma 2011). The leaders of the mobilization made their contempt of
democratic processes public and were supported by people who were equally
the
progressive circles that the passionate sentiment of a large number of people by
itself sufficiently justified whatever demands they were making. This implicitly
would amount to justifying the large mobilizations of anti-Mandal campaigns, the
Ram Janmabhoomi campaign and, the passionate and violent Bajrang Dal and
Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarti Parishad (ABVP) mobs imposing their version of
Jha 2011).
Extending this Hobbesian logic would also mean that it would be possible to
justify (as there have been not entirely unsuccessful attempts) the 2002 Gujarat
pogrom, which saw the majority organize in large attacking brigades and kill
Muslims to punish them in a state-legitimized twisted version of communal
relations. In subsequent elections, Gujaratis have turned out in large numbers to
reward Modi and vote him to power.
Clearly, the implication of this vision was that the space for Muslim participation
in IAC mobilization was fairly limited. The saffron tinge was obvious in the non-
bureaucracy, police, and judiciary literally not doing anything for the victims of
Gujarat 2002, and other earlier pogroms against the Muslim (p.108)
community. In addition, the IAC rhetoric that all political parties are the same,
rung hollow to the Muslims. As any minority that has been under attack from a
political ideology in power knows, Muslims too, know the difference between the
BJP and other political parties in India. Quite simply put, it can be the difference
between life and death.
Page 10 of 24

Muslims in Delhi
The mobilization also brought forth an extremely important aspect of power that
a community can muster to launch a contestation of rights for its members in the
public sphere. It is that historically Muslims are required to leave their own
issues and questions behind when their participation is solicited by any
movement. Movements, political parties, and NGOs often resort to the
symbolism of including Muslims, but only to add numbers. A real or even
strategic solidarity is never sought to be built. The burden of building
solidarities always lies with the most marginalized within the margins. In her
book Recovering Subversion, Nivedita Menon (2004) discusses how the
Menon 2009). Muslim and OBC women have never been afforded
asked to jettison their fears, suspicion, and issues which are never addressed
beyond the personal laws discourse vis-à-vis them. This is not to say that there
contest their right to go freely to pubs and wear whatever they want to wear
feel obliged to support them, but the feminist movement in India has never
raised the issues that confront Muslim women in their daily lives that do not
invoke their Muslimness explicitly. (p.109)
Interestingly many other bills, apart from the Lokpal Bill, have also been delayed
in the parliamentary procedures because of being mired in controversy such as
the bill against communal violence, and the one on social security for the
unorganized sector workers. These have failed to find comparable support
among the elite circuits. The elite circuits and their new found candlelight
political activism has shifted the scale of political contestations in the public
sphere. Maverick ideas, skills, and competence to attract the media gaze ensure
that certain groups are needed only to pad up the protesting crowds, if at all.
thus any critical engagement is disallowed. For the elite, security of their
person, property, and their lifestyles is the major preoccupation.
Politics of Lifestyle and Biopolitics of State
symptom of the postmodern age and end of modernity. Rather, he proposes that
the practice of reflexivity in modern practices actually opens the possibility of
change and improvement, but, he claims, that it also leaves a gap that may
Page 11 of 24

Muslims in Delhi
potentially house the fear of change, scepticism, and feelings of insecurity. It is

also as if to a modern, liberal, reflexive individual, everything is changeable,
interim, and anything is possible. The challenge to tradition presents itself as a
human problem and late modernity exacerbates this insecurity to all-pervasive
levels. Giddens actually claims that this reflexivity pervades even institutions
and the conceptions of knowledge and possibilities of intervention by institutions
in conceptions of the human body and life. Giddens juxtaposes the
is more familiar to us social workers as that politics which aims at freedom from
(p.110) that is geared towards

fashioning and expressing a self-identity and self-actualization, and is based
more on personal ethics. We can see the operationalization of this kind of politics
in that of the new social movements such as the feminist movement and LGBT
(lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) movement. Giddens further asserts that
he means that even the human body is no longer seen as an unalterable
The central insight offered here is explosive. The marginalization of class

discourses by identity laden discourses is a phenomenon that does not need
much elaboration. But it bears pointing out that identity discourses of the
reflexive late modernity are severely limited to the articulation of aspirations
regarding lifestyle choices, and find it difficult to intertwine within their
discourse, a concern for emancipation from systems of power and dominance,
especially class. Although it is possible to discern the strains of what Giddens
disappointingly centred only on individual self-actualization and does not

adequately lend itself to enabling a comprehensive understanding of the
interplay of power relationships in a larger social canvas. To comprehend those,
I turn to Foucault (1990 [1976]) and Agamben.
In classical philosophy, the Greek words bios and zoe are used to distinguish
between two conceptions of life. While the meaning attached to the word bios
refers to human life circumscribed by notions of good and bad, proper, and
zoe refers to the simple fact of a human
being existing just like any other animal. Thus, bios
zoe stands for what Agamben (1998)
political philosophy, the ultimate end of politics is to ensure a just and good life
for human beings. Foucault recognized in his work the History of Sexuality
(1990), the conception of a new and distinct form of political rationality of state
that centred on viewing its population as resources to be managed in the pursuit
of power rather than the utilization of power in pursuit of freedom and a good
life for the citizen. This (p.111) wish for management required that the state
developed knowledge about its subjects as human bodies whose capacities can
Page 12 of 24

Muslims in Delhi
be developed and who can be disciplined. This then is the purpose towards
which, for example, the GRCs of Mission Convergence are geared. The state
relates to its subjects not in terms of their specifically human life but in an
abstract aggregated statistical way. Foucault termed this political rationality
biopower which, when exercised, reduced bios to zoe for all practical purposes.
The conception of biopower also includes the use of technology to exercise
power over bodies. Agamben further elucidated the concept of bare life as that
which has been exposed to a state of exception. In simple terms, it takes
exceptional circumstances to collapse the difference between bios and zoe. For a
human being, his or her life to be reduced to bare life effectively means that
though the biological existence is given, there is no concern for the humanity in
existence. Needless to say, the consequences for a population to find themselves
in these circumstances can be alarming. Agamben, in fact, uses an analytical
homo sacer
extermination camps. These were those populations (mostly Jewish) that the
sovereign state created only to strip them of all political rights and discard them
to the margins, while they were simultaneously being included in spheres of
state power that wielded control over their right to life.
A useful starting point for my purpose in using this framework appears to be

assertion that a close scrutiny of the figure of homo sacer of
archaic Roman law is valuable in any attempt to unravel the codes of political
power and sovereignty in modern times, in which life itself has become the
principle object of state power. Talking of Nazi concentration camps, Agamben
96), and the fact that those excluded by the sovereign into the camp are taken
into account (included) by the very act of exclusion. What they are included into
extreme form of relation by which something is included solely through its

(p.112) parallel analysis but one in
war. In his book, Discipline and Punish (1979), Foucault expanded the conceptual
exercised within the modern political arena. One of the things he proposes be
done is to introduce historicism (archaeology) to achieve an alternative reading
of the history of, what he insists is, a secret discursive war that operates in
societies. This may be the pathway that leads to a better view of a continuous
coding and recoding of power relations that do not follow any unitary order but
are haphazard.
When the state wills to exercise its sovereignty and doles out death summarily to
homicide (and that is, like homo sacer

Foucault 1979:
Page 13 of 24

Muslims in Delhi
94), it does so in a new juridico-political paradigm in which exceptions (extra-

legal killings) become normalized. The normalization of exceptions ensures that
they are never questioned. Agamben (1998) persuasively argues that in a camp-
like situation, the sovereign power does not limit itself to defining the situations
produces the
situation of exceptions, which is the reason why raising the question of what is
legal and what is illegal in a concentration camp makes no sense whatsoever. At
this point, Agamben credits Hannah Arendt (1951) with the insight that
totalitarianism exists on this very principle that people suspend their common
sense to believe that anything is possible. To understand how Agamben uses the
nomos
Insofar as its inhabitants were stripped of every political status and wholly
reduced to bare life, the camp was also the most absolute biopolitical
space ever to have been realized, in which power confronts nothing but
pure life, without any mediation. This is why the camp is the very paradigm
of political space at the point at which politics becomes biopolitics and
homo sacer is virtually confused with the citizen. The correct question to
pose concerning the horrors committed (p.113) in the camps is,
therefore, not the hypocritical one of how crimes of such atrocity could be
committed against human beings. It would be more honest and, above all,
more useful to investigate carefully the juridical procedures and
deployments of power by which human beings could be so completely
deprived of their rights and prerogatives that no act committed against
them could appear any longer as a crime. (At this point, in fact, everything
had truly become possible.) (1998: 97)
Technologies of governmentality produce inequalities and the state is not

oblivious to its role in the same. In fact, as stated earlier, the state also equips
itself with those technologies that enable it to possess deep knowledge of these
inequalities. Foucault (1990 [1976]) clearly identifies that biopolitics can be said
to be operationalized in situations when biological features of individual persons
are measured and recorded, such that population profiles may be aggregated
it possible for the state to establish standards and norms in the public sphere
according to which human lives are valued differentially. Life, then, can be
treated as a mathematical entity that can be measured, compared, added,
that contribute to or form part of the biopolitical processes do not exist

autonomously and inform the governmental action or practices but rather
depend upon the practices of the state itself. Census surveys, research
may subsequently be managed.
Page 14 of 24

Muslims in Delhi
framework in which he conceived it. Agamben takes it that when Foucault (1990
[1976]
Tagma (2009)
(p.114) point out that Foucault does not mean that these are two forms of
rather that they coexist.
The question that occupies most authors is whether biopolitics is different or can
be distinguished from more familiar or traditional forms of political activity. For
this study, I also examine how this difference is important for explicating on
contemporary experiences of political representation and political articulation.
world to manoeuvre legitimately in the matters of the life and death of their
subjects. The 9/11 attacks mark many landmarks in recent history, and it does
seem to several authors such as Butler (2004) and that among other
things, it gave the state a new leash over the life and death of all kinds of
homines sacri. For example, police in various states of India felt free to go about
rights ostensibly to protect the rule of law.
Re-Imagining Political Contestation and Death

In the case of Muslims in India, the findings of the state-sponsored Sachar
Committee report are being continuously used to legitimize the (seemingly
benign) reasoning that acute deprivation and communal attacks/violence are
causes enough to turn Muslims into terrorists. It is then only reasonable that all
Muslims are suspected as potential terrorists. Even those Muslims who are not
poor and/or do not live in Muslim neighbourhoods believe that poverty,
Nomani (2008)
which appeared in the Los Angeles Times. But those who are directly impacted
(p.115) such as that of Ishrat Jahan, or more recent killings in Bhopal of SIMI
members who had allegedly escaped prison, also plant suspicion regarding the
http://www.firstpost.com/politics/
ishrat-jahan-the-inconvenient-story-no-one-wants-to-tell-867173.html; http://
www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/Seeking-truth-victim-number-two-in-Ishrat-
Page 15 of 24

Muslims in Delhi
Jahan-case/article14140187.ece.; http://www.dailyo.in/politics/simi-bhopal-jail-
break-encounter-inspector-yogesh-chowdhary-bhupendra-singh/story/
1/13750.html
which the prevalent Muslim belief is that it was pure fabrication by the Delhi
I contend that the extra-judicial killing of students of Jamia in Batla House

rewrote the profile of Muslims as potential suspects for acts of terrorism. Not
only the Muslim, who had experienced communal violence or structural violence
of poverty and discrimination was a potential terrorist, but so was a young
student, or educated professional resident of middle-class Muslim
neighbourhoods. Jamia Nagar and Jamia Millia Islamia were labelled in the
public sphere as spaces that gave birth to and harboured these cold-blooded,
scheming terrorists who had the technical knowhow and resources to be well
connected with global Islamist terror networks. Being made to feel guilty for the
partition of the country, represented as irrational fundamentalist fiends,
loathsome and polluted, disloyal normative non-citizens, and potentially
dangerous terrorists, Indian Muslims were thus fashioned as homines sacri in
the public sphere.
As the thesis, on which this book is based, was being finalized, Mumbai saw a
protest organized by a Muslim group against killings of Muslims in violence
between Muslims and Bodos in Assam and Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar. A
section of the crowd went on a rampage targeting media OB (outside
broadcasting) vans and the police. Police Commissioner Arup Patnaik, who has
showed in not giving shooting orders to his subordinates on duty at the site. But
(p.116) allegation is
telling not of just what was at play on that fateful day when despite his
entire aim was to stop my people from firing because I had handled the 1992
Outlook India
2012).
In an article about political pressures on police officers handling riot situations,
officer, B. Raman (2012)

not because of the violent mobs, but because of over-reaction by the police in
another opinion piece carried by the news daily, The Hindu, Jyoti Punwani (2012)
raised questions regarding the lack of action by the state government and
Page 16 of 24

Muslims in Delhi
Mumbai Police against blatant violence and rioting by the Shiv Sena and the
violent
posturing and the lack of will of the state to bring them to book has become an
accepted part of the city, and that the Muslim youth that protested violently
probably took it that they can expect the same treatment from the state.
Punwani opines that not only were the Muslim rioters mistaken that anyone can
get away with violence in Mumbai, but the entire Muslim community in Mumbai
and elsewhere in India was left apologizing copiously for a protest that was ill
conceived.
An important example that effectively illustrates the preceding analysis is the
also performances of citizenship status and claims. While enactment of violence

by protesting publics with non-Muslim identity markers are considered routine
and normalized, an (p.117) assembly of protesting Muslims is potentially just
another site of their fatal targeting. Another important example that effectively
2006. The importance of this instance in the recent history of Delhi unveils
complex dynamics of the political economy of built environments, the material
logic of segregation, contestations, and negotiations of elite circuits with the
unorganized sector in claiming their vision of the city, and biopolitics of the
state.
The case exemplifies a tussle between big capital and elite networks represented
by RWAs on the one hand, and traders and small manufacturers on the other.
Elite RWAs insisted in getting this case filed at the High Court of Delhi that their
sense of security, peace of mind, tranquillity, and aesthetic sensibilities were
being offended by business establishments within residential areas (Ghertner
2011; Bhuwania 2016). An appeal for preventing mixed land use was in line with
the vision of the Delhi Master Plan, and on the agenda of previous Delhi state
governments headed by the BJP and the Congress. The judge presiding over the
case, Justice Sabharwal showing keen interest in the case passed a verdict
which effectively read as a mass eviction notice to lakhs of establishments which
Mehra 2012). Allegations of misconduct on the part of Justice
Sabharwal came to light later, illuminating the nexus between big capital and
the judiciary (Mid-day 2006; Roy 2007
estate firm that gained substantially from an instance of demolitions as a result
of the implementation of the court order by civic bodies.
traders and small manufacturers belong to various diverse social backgrounds

too. Diya Mehra (2012)
Page 17 of 24

Muslims in Delhi
association employed Partition rhetoric profusely. While on the other hand, they
used the daily wage workers associated with their businesses to pitch up the
protest against a judicial order which was anti-poor, anti-worker, and anti-
unorganized sector.
During protracted protests, in which the traders associations were reluctant to

go to the Supreme Court because it could have also given (p.118) a judgement
with the state and Central Governments, the municipal corporation, as well as
the Delhi Development Authority (DDA). Violence and rioting was also used
strategically as a final device of pressurizing the state and elite networks. There
were many incidents of rioting and damage to public property such as state
transport buses. Eventually the government informed the court of its inability to
implement the order as it would give rise to a law and order situation.
Ovais Sultan Khan, a participant of this study gave me an account of the

occurrences that led to the shooting. This foretold law and order problem took
place when the police opened fire at a protesting crowd in Seelampur on 20
September 2006.
(OSK) I was in the twelfth standard then. Like many other boys in the
neighbourhood, I went out to see what would transpire. The call for
demonstration against sealing was given by Mr Masood Ali Khan, who has
crowd over which neither Mr Masood nor anyone else had any control.
Most of them were labourers and even rickshaw pullers. There were no
(OSK) It is impossible to say with any certainty. But apparently someone
lathi charge and immediately started using tear-gas also on the crowd
it
happen. Police did not even let the family members of the dead bring the
bodies to Seelampur, citing further violence.
(GJ) Are you sure about that? Because I read in a news article that police
graveyard near Shahdara under police bandobast. No one from Seelampur

even went for the janaza (funeral).
(GJ) Then what happened? (p.119)
Page 18 of 24

Muslims in Delhi
a delegation to give him the memorandum. Abdul Kalam was the President
empty handed. Nothing happened. At least in the Batla House encounter,
used the Seelampur shootings to bolster their protest, but not once did
they, or for that matter anyone else, demand a judicial enquiry into the
incident.
their argument that the issue could escalate into large-scale violence, the
violence. Mehra (2012) marks the death of Muslim men as the final turning point
in settling the deal with the state. The government passed a bill in Parliament
conceding to the demands of overturning the High Court judgement, and the
Delhi Master Plan 2021 came into force allowing mixed land use in certain areas
of Delhi.1
Mehra 2012: 87). She says,
In Seelampur, local retailers-cum-manufacturers reacted by stone pelting

to what they saw as yet another attempt at their closure, having already
experienced eviction in the case of small-scale industries. After relentless
trader and the large wholesale Baniya trader seemed to know, despite their
vast sociological and physical distance, that what was required was a
politics of irrational excess or urban violence. (2012: 87, emphasis mine)
At the end even Mehra, who effectively established the frequent recourse that
the irrational, violent Muslim and fails to recognize why the spectre of the final
violent turning point (p.120) in the culmination and success of the movement
would be located in Seelampur. This is the only logical explanation to why when
violence and rioting had happened elsewhere too in the city by protestors, firing
and killings took place only in Seelampur. The logic from within the mainstream
discourses makes it seem but natural that the irrational excess or urban violence
would take place in a space that was already and conveniently stigmatized for
the same. Even though the issue at hand, around which the crowd had been
the neoliberal India, where citizenship is increasingly a function of the capacity

of a people to collectively make claims, Muslims find that their capacity to claim
equal normative standing as citizens of this country is severely limited by their
effective normative status of non-citizen, homo sacer. Every act of criticism of
Page 19 of 24

Muslims in Delhi
and consequent stigma. The only form of public voice that was still available to
them collectively could be put to use only to claim that their sentiments and
sensibilities as Muslims had been hurt by some act, or speech, or text, because
this was the only claim that fitted their image of irrational, infantile, backward
people. Thus, their critical speech and their right to protest also stood forfeited
de facto.
Judith Butler concurs in contending that public sphere is not defined only by the
what cannot be shown. The limits of the sayable, the limits of what can appear,
circumscribe the domain in which political speech operates and certain kinds of
Butler 2004: xvii). Butler (2004) further argues
that this limit of what can be seen or not seen (in terms of acknowledgement of
its existence) in the public sphere has implications for perpetuation of violence
Butler (2004) concedes that

not getting any acknowledgement of their grief in the public sphere, some
people may turn to political (p.121) rage and get trapped into a never ending
nuanced point that all forms of mourning may not lead to the inevitable
conclusion of justifying violence. In the case of Muslims in Delhi, the frequent
vicitimization by the police (read state) and condoning of the patterns in
processes of representation has largely lead to a feeling of despair and a
suspicion of all forms of discourses about them emanating from the state as well
as other discursive practices such as journalism and even social science
effectively precluding any possibility of expressing meaningful critical dissent.
The matter that bears serious consideration in the final analysis is asking, would
live in a state of exception are strangely most often to be included in the political
community as an equal. In so many instances around the world, a large number
of people alienated by the state aspire to citizenship of the same state. It cannot
be overstated that alienation by the state is not a sufficient condition for people
to turn against it. It is a paradox of modern democracy that the people who
extend the nuanced, informed, albeit qualified support without succumbing to
blind nationalist rhetoric, are actually those who are at its periphery and do
realize that the state and its machinery are frequently anti-people regardless of
the political hue of the party in power. Those who have suffered the oppressive
and exploitative functioning of the state do recognize that often the last recourse
political set-up of the state.
Page 20 of 24

Muslims in Delhi
Further, we should recognize that though Indian people, media, and even
intellectuals, often find it easy to blame political parties for playing caste
politics, abetting communalism and communal violence, and preserving
communal, casteist, and corrupt. Foucault (1979) constantly alludes to the local
and diffused nature of disciplinary power, which is embedded in the entire
society as opposed to (p.122) this
diffused disciplinary power which makes people believe that the state of
exception is the norm. An account of state power may begin to read like an
exercise in conspiracy theory, only if we do not realize that the decision
decision. For Deleuze and Guattari (cf. Tagma 2009: 416):
[S]overeignty is not a force operating at the top level but is supplemented
in the actions of soccer hooligans, nationalist militias, trigger-happy

Blackwater mercenaries, racist bartenders, and bigoted party leaders.
What goes on in prison camps, understood in this sense, is not just the
product of a pure and simple Schmittian decision; instead, prison camps
are spaces that are constructed and maintained at the micro level. Prison
biopower, which provides petty bureaucrats, border patrol agents,

intelligence interrogators, and so on, with the authority to implement
sovereign violence on physical bodies.
Pakistanis. It is the people who discriminate with prejudice or with rational

calculations against Muslims in opportunities at policy formulation,
opportunities in education, jobs, and welfare services. Too often elite
mobilizations form a symbiotic relationship with forces that go on passionately in
their relentless persecution projects in different parts of India, while youngsters
are growing up in segregated enclaves feeling that they are second-class citizens
of the country.
As for the earlier mentioned confusion of the progressive intellectuals who fail to
acknowledge the contradictory role of the state and people, both acting their
part in enforcing disciplinary and affinities to authoritarianism within
democracies. They often resort to the essentialist binary of state as
(p.123)
parts of a system of dominance itself. Much of the brutality, injustice, and

oppression in this country happens because of the laws, and the fact that state
Page 21 of 24

Muslims in Delhi
machinery tends to be more concerned about protecting private capital; and

much of it happens not only because of the absence/presence or strength/
weakness of laws. It happens because prejudice, discrimination, and oppression
are deeply and intricately woven into our social fabric. The onslaught is so
aggressive and violent that it incapacitates people from even coming together to
voice their interests and opinions.
The above reasons put together form the narrative of why Muslims in India have
no movement to articulate and contest for equality, despite such acute levels of
marginalization, oppression, and poverty. At the ground level, Muslims do
participate in other movements (including the IAC campaign) but all these
movements have accorded the issues of Muslims in India a secondary status, if
they are considering them at all. The leaders and the participants both in fact
are told that they have a problem of dragging religion into everything. Yet the
probability of raising general issues of livelihood and class dominance, among
others, are silenced, when the issues of Muslim are frequently reduced in
research and journalistic writing to issues of personal law, fundamentalism, and
be appeasement. In fact, Muslims have all but been told to forget about it.
Salman Khurshid who owes his career to being a Muslim leader in the Congress
be followed (Chishti 2011).
Though within dalit and feminist movements, Muslims have still negotiated for
and have been accorded relatively more space, the violence of caricaturing and
stereotyping of issues goes on at differing degrees in all progressive movements,
which solicit Muslim participation to pad up their crowds but never highlight the
priorities of Muslims, never address them directly, and make no attempt to
provide (p.124)
must prove that they are dalits, and treated discriminatorily as dalits. In the
In such a situation, laws are often (whenever they are available and usable) the
only tools of accessing protection and justice. The process is not flawless but it is
the only one that allows for any hope of safeguards to a fully human existence.
memory from elsewhere in the world where some people have been reduced
constitutionally to a second-class citizenship. I shudder to imagine that such
demands are made by elites and justified by the legitimacy of large numbers
through media-hyped, self-styled mobilizations. Of course, following Agamben
and Arendt, we know that such events are entirely possible in democracy as it is
a system that is obliged to override its basic postulates in order to legitimize
Page 22 of 24

Muslims in Delhi
them. It is not then an entirely unbelievable contradiction that the most
their faith in its supremacy. They are only defending what may be the last straw
that will break their back that is already overburdened not by the abstraction
that is the state, but by the atrocities of those who exercise the diffused
disciplinary power in working the state mechanisms, institutions, and processes
to reduce people to bare life.
I quote at length, an extremely ominous and captivating discussion by Agamben

while discussing the limits of exceptions within the Nazi concentration camps.
Now imagine the most extreme figure of the camp inhabitant. Primo Levi
der
Muselmann
away all consciousness and all personality as to make him absolutely
apathetic (hence the ironical name given to him). He was not only, like his
companions, excluded from the political and social context to which he
once belonged; he was not only, as Jewish life that does not deserve to live,
destined to a future more or less close to death. He no longer belongs to
the world of men in any way; he does not even (p.125) belong to the
threatened and precarious world of the camp inhabitants who have
forgotten him from the very beginning. Mute and absolutely alone, he has
passed into another world without memory and without grief. For him,
What is the life of the Muselmann? Can one say that it is pure ? Nothing
remains in his life. All his instincts are cancelled along with his reason.
Antelme tells us that the camp inhabitant was no longer capable of
distinguishing between pangs of cold and the ferocity of the SS. If we apply
this statement to the Muselmann can
say that he moves in an absolute indistinction of fact and law, of life and
juridical rule, and of nature and politics. Because of this, the guard
suddenly seems powerless before him, as if struck by the thought that the
law that seeks to transform itself entirely into life finds itself confronted
with a life that is absolutely indistinguishable from law, and it is precisely
this indiscernibility that threatens the lex animata
4).
Finally, I contend that we may conceptualize the residents of Muslim

neighbourhoods (of Delhi) as subjects of a governmentality that solicits their
political participation only through communal polarization, and who are treated
Page 23 of 24

Muslims in Delhi
normatively as non-citizens at the minimum, and as homines sacri in the

extreme. The process that fashions Muslim subjects in contemporary India
unfolds via, first, a very real threat of violence by communal forces and
segregation that the state seems not to do much about and often directly abets;
second, via an intense activity of the state to collect information that seeks to
identify Muslims minutely, but, this deep knowledge acquired by the state rarely
controlling life and death directly with the constant threat of Muslim young men
(p.126) process to
spend several years in jails contesting lawsuits that have no substance in a
2011; Ramachandran 2016).
In the next chapter, I direct the enquiry towards one of the domains, where
The news media and Bollywood cinema in India carry representations of

Muslims for consumption of the wider society, and in their function of mass
communication, these are the most prevalent form of constantly refashioning
and forging these stereotyped representations that serve the purposes detailed
in the earlier discussions. The narratives of media regarding Muslim identity and
Muslim spaces are put through a discursive scrutiny for hegemonic texts and
subtexts.
Notes:
(1) Delhi Laws (Special Provisions) Bill 2006.
Page 24 of 24

Media Representations

in Delhi
Ghazala Jamil

Print ISBN-13: 9780199470655
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780199470655.001.0001
Providing the Discursive Logic
Ghazala Jamil
DOI:10.1093/oso/9780199470655.003.0005

Chapter five is an attempt to further develop the discussion on discursive
subalterneity of Muslims. Although media practices generally and Bollywood
cinema specifically have been an arena for analysis pertaining to stereotyping of
Muslims, I claim in this chapter that this analysis itself has got mired in
stereotypical ways of seeing and analysing. Focusing on representation as a
regarding Muslim localities. In second section of this chapter the role of news
media in spawning the representation of Muslims and Muslim spaces as dens of
criminal and terrorist activities. The reportage of various police action against
Muslim publics and persons (such as the extra-judicial killings of terror suspects
in Batla House) are discussed to discern the earlier noted trend of
representation of space such that segregation is provided a discursive
reinforcement.
Keywords: cinema and Muslims, Media representation, News media, essentializing identity,
stereotypes, Batla House, encounter killings, subalternity
Representation of Space and Identity Formation

This chapter explores the issue of representation of Muslims and urban
segregated spaces. At the outset, one very simple way to understand
representations is to see them as allegorical or metaphorical presentations of
things, people, processes, and spaces. They may also be understood as models of
Page 1 of 31

what they represent. They make it easy for people to understand what they seek
to represent by scaling down (architectural models of buildings, among others),
presenting them as codes, symbols (images, music, or other kinds of texts), or by
converting them to a different but more tame and tangible form (such as a globe
or maps). But in scaling down or coding, distortions or caricaturing are bound to
occur. In this process, it is also perhaps inevitable that certain features of the
represented will be highlighted, and others will be downplayed, depending on
the use or consumption (p.128) of the outcome of representation. If we see a
human being as a whole, her identity may be seen as a representational model
that presents her by highlighting certain of her features. Different identities of a
identity pieces. Social relationships, interactions, and experiences form the very
substantial and critical glue that holds the whole together, the lifeblood that
Within the layers of identity formation, there are people who have the power to
compose identities more or less at will. For example, at a given instant of time,
a candlelight protest, but in the next instant they exercise their choice and can
be devil-may-care party hoppers. Bauman has captured accurately the
the other end are crowded those whose access to identity choice has been
barred, people who are given no say in deciding their preferences and who
in the end are burdened with identities enforced and imposed by others;
identities which they themselves resent but are not allowed to shed and
cannot manage to get rid of. Stereotyping, humiliating, dehumanizing,
identities has a material function. I contend that an understanding of identity
help us to complete this examination of the roots of discrimination and

prejudice. An aspersed identity has a distinctly oppressive and exploitative
material function. The tangible and intangible benefits to be accrued out of
discriminatory behaviour make it worthwhile for a system of dominance to resist
any changes and maintain itself. This fits very well in the Althusserian account of
the ideological state apparatus in which individuals work on their own to
reproduce class relations, which may not have any immediate consequence for
themselves, but in the long run maintain (p.129) the relationships which they
have come to see as the actual, natural condition of their existence. In his book
For Marx, Althusser (1969 [1965]) asserted that while in the last analysis,
economic relations determined the political and ideological levels of the society,
Page 2 of 31

that the process of defining, redefining, and forging new identities is always
carried on differentially, it is almost an aphorism now that people have multiple
identities. One identity may be operationalized in a given context over others,
while in a different context some other identity of the same person may prevail.
The process is quite dynamic and often it may be so that the individual herself
has no control over which of her identities is interpellated (Althusser 1969
[1965]) or called into action at a particular moment. People exercise agency in
whatever limited scope available to them in proportion to their power through a
play of comparisons, contrasts, and identifications. It would be a travesty to
consider any one identity as the original or foundational identity of the person,
constraints of society. This is why lumping together of people because they are
Muslims does not make them stick together as Muslims only.
For example, in a hostile situation, people sometimes may try to activate those of
act of exercising agency in determining our identity in most cases is constrained
socio-political agency) of the Muslim as reflected in the gaze of those who are
capable of branding this person with an aspersed identity. This is what Muslims
we
have seen in the preceding chapters. (p.130)
It is in this framework of ideological obfuscation of distortions that I see identity

and representation of Muslims while analysing media discourses (Van Dijk 1985,
1993). It would also be prudent to remind myself at this moment that Althusser
does not see ideology as insubstantial and imaginary, but as existing in material
and real actions of individuals even though these actions may not reflect the real
nature of relationships. Since ideology is eternal, analysis may not take us to
understand
the dynamics of the exercise of power and the means people employ to make
sense of the world around them.
Portrayal of Muslims in films and news media is a much-explored aspect in

academia (Benegal 2007; Chakravarty 2011; Farouqui 2009). In this chapter, I
take a fresh look at understanding the portrayal and representation of Muslims
in congruence with the methodological choices in the rest of this work. I attempt
what is called in the Marxist tradition an engaged
analysis that aims at emancipation and not just describing. Continuing from the
conclusions drawn from the analytical discussion of observations in the
Page 3 of 31

preceding chapters, I stress that uncovering discourses and their ideological

content can have emancipatory impact. This is done in consonance with the
thread of concern that runs through the entirety of this book, which is space and
Muslims, while also exploring the content of some of the prominent identity
constructs prevalent in mainstream media including the aspersed identities. It is
in this light that I shall undertake, in this chapter, a semiotic approach to
analyse the mainstream media discourses. Thus, the concern here is not just
with the contents of a text, but also the meanings and implications that readers
derive from the signs appearing in a text, so as to discern the conventions that
direct the discourse in media texts (Chandler 2002). What is being studied is not
whether an article appears in a text and how frequently, but, what is the
meaning of its appearance or non-appearance, and how do these meanings get
shaped. One of the central concerns is to discern what are the assumptions in
the given text, and how do these (p.131) influence the narrative in the text.
The issues of assumption directly relate to perceptions, and thus to identities.
the modern technologies of material culture and cultural reproduction are but
alienated. Thus, cultural theory largely aims at emancipation or freedom, which

is understood as escape from reification. How is this possible? If all ideas of a
time are contingent upon the relationships of production characterizing that
society at that time, then, reification of the material, and alienation of life are
inevitable in our times. Terry Eagleton (1989) explains that this is a case of much
prevalent understanding based on a misreading of Marx. He contends that
Marxian understanding actually sees the counter-hegemonic processes as an
intrinsic part of the hegemonic processes. Marx himself spoke of the potential in
hence also to the material foundation, the skeletal structure, as it were, of its
Eagleton 1989: 9) and thus, art has the potential too, to
act as a vehicle of counter hegemony. However, Eagleton cautions us lest we
veer towards the other extreme, that art can transcend ideology, completely.
Here he brings in Althusser who argued that while art is neither mere ideology
nor completely free of it, it actually has a particular relationship to ideology.
Eagleton(1989) contends that ideology is often mistaken as amorphous,
unconnected free-floating ideas; he asserts, instead, that ideology of a time has a
certain structural coherence, which is also what makes it suitable to be
subjected to systematic analysis to discern the principles which bind it together,
and point where these principles falter.
For my purpose, the preceding discussion of the uniqueness of art and artistic
texts points towards a direction where we can get to a closer understanding of
how ideology functions, and how it may possibly be transcended. Literary
criticism has actually contributed (p.132) much to the social scientific
Page 4 of 31

understanding of these discursive processes. Semiotic tradition in this context is
semiotic framework (2017[1913]), language is the basic structure which orders,
structural analysis was that language is not a system of signs whose meaning is
structures of difference. In other words, it is our language that enables us to see
Building on , Lévi-Strauss showed that structural

analysis is applicable to not only written texts but to myriad other textual
practices. He stressed that even though the various forms of social life such as
language, art, law, and religion seem to be different from each other, it is
possible to see a basic similarity between all these forms by extricating and
analysing the structures which communities use to constitute themselves, such
Lévi-Strauss 1963).
Roland Barthes (1993) contends that in a narrative the codes1 that enable its
coherence are also the very codes that divulge its limits. It is by analysing the
very structure or ordering of these codes that they can be transcended. In this
context, for example, if the discourses regarding Muslims rely and revolve
around the figure of violent, irrational being, then the structural analysis of this
narrative would not (p.133) just confirm the structure of meaning that the
narrative gives rise to, but would also challenge these codes. The practice of
emancipatory reading of the discourses which aims at discerning and divulging
the meanings behind a hegemonic discourse must then focus on the
contradictions, the inconsistencies within the meaning which produce a conflict
in the narrative between a central figure confirming the codes, and a figure of
harmonize the conflict but to display it.
important because he conceives it both as an approach to enquiry and a political
the point of view of the philosophical tasks the two verbs involve. By his own
reading that demonstrates inherent elements of a position that undermine the

very position that contains them. Derrida said that deconstructionist reading is a
system in which the hierarchy operates. This kind of reading requires a

readiness to give full attention to the complexities of all the elements of a text,
or an idea. It requires a special eye for contradictions and paradoxes. Derrida
Page 5 of 31

own absence. If it signifies deference to its own meaning, it also signifies its
difference from that idea. It is this state of affairs in the use of language that
combination of ideas that are similar in form and are universal. Myths, according
to Lévi-Strauss are ahistoric but also claim historicity. In his book Imagined
Communities (1991)
of exactly such a (p.134) myth. The way national communities are imagined
across cultures and the tropes that are used to prop up these imaginations in
a recent invention. Finally, like all good myths, discourses of a Nation are
nationalism performed. The performative nature of myths is what renders it the
strength of a political position and also a political strategy.
Barthes (1993) further worked on the idea of myth as something so widely
because it is so well understood and widely accepted. He further elucidates that

this happens through well-orchestrated ideological stage-management.
because according to him, the core competency of myth is to transform history

into nature. He theorizes myth as a coded form of communication; it is a form of
signification that is subject to history. Thus, myth again is performative and
processual rather than an object, or an idea. The claim to historicity of myths
requires that they depend upon rehashing old material and recycling it, and
Barthes claims that while myths may be universal in form, they are specific in
content.
In his conception of myth, Barthes was aided by his engagement with the theatre
of Bertolt Brecht (Jameson 1998). Brecht used a technique called estrangement-
effect in which he would deliberately stage his plays in such a manner that the
experience of the audience is frequently interrupted by techniques that remind
them that they are watching a performance rather than experience the
cinema screenings in theatres today actually use strategies exactly opposite to
dark proscenium and surround sound, among others, are used to draw the
natural experience but a performance. In this sense, media stands in the modern
society as a powerful tool of myth making. In fact, Frederic Jameson (1992) goes
Page 6 of 31

(p.135)
In his book titled The Political Unconscious: Narrative as a Socially Symbolic

Act, Jameson (1981)
political and social assumptions in all cultural works and texts, including of
course, popular cinema, but also architecture, space, and economics. As
mentioned earlier, according to Jameson, cultural texts contain symbolic
solutions to real historical problems. He further asserts that in the cultural texts
of its time, each society is confronted with an image of the society that it has no
vision to see. Extending this understanding further, Jameson (1991) refutes the
idea that inherent contradictions of capitalism have been harmonized in the
contemporary. He also rejects that postmodernity heralds the exhausting of the
capitalism.
In other words, what is explained as the postmodern situation of the post-

industrialist society, is merely a cultural explanation for a situation when
capitalism has deeply permeated all aspects of life including consciousness
(Jameson 1991). Understandably, it is an explosive argument that has altered the
manner in which the humanities were charting the course to find ways to grasp
the present realities. Jameson elucidates certain features that are symptomatic
of the social shift to late capitalism or full-blown postmodernity (1991). Among
according to which, representations of people and communities now have to

contend with their linkages to the interrelationships between nation states, and
ability to produce a cognitive map of situations they are in.
Muslims and Muslim Spaces in Cinema
representation of the same, have been the cause of much of the fascination
surrounding it. Representation and interpretation, (p.136) like the broader
culture, arise in specific historical contexts to serve specific social functions and
economic interests. In this way, it is easy to see how films are performative
political events, and form part of the superstructure in the Marxist materialist
theory. Critical theorists alerted media analysts to the impact of consumer
capitalism (Horkheimer and Adorno 2007 [1972]) and global or late capitalism
(Jameson 1991) on mass society and culture, connecting culture and media to
the political economy. Because no representation is absolutely accurate, it needs
to be understood by a conceptual framework that orders the impressions and
assumptions of individuals. As such, cinema is also a myth in the sense used by
Claude Lévi-Strauss and Roland Barthes (Nichols 1976).
Page 7 of 31

A key question in any act of representation is with regard to who is representing

and who is getting represented. The first question is in fact the question that
forms the foundation of film theory. Auteur theory sees a film as a work of art,
authored by a writer, and suggests that we look into the stylistic sensibilities of
the author of the work in order to understand what he or she may be attempting
to state (Wollen 1976[1972]). In genre criticism, recurrent themes in a genre are
discerned and analysed (Tudor 1976[1974]). My efforts in analysis in this part of
the work are a combination of Marxist criticism and semiology in film theory.
These are characterized by a study of the ideological nature of interceding social
Nichols
1976: 1).
Studies of Hindi films are mostly marked by genre criticisms, which have also
paid some attention to signs and symbols that are recurrently used in a genre. A
genre that has had a major presence and significance in Hindi cinema is the
nationalist film, within which not only the content but the practice of filmmaking
was deemed to be a nationalist enterprise (Rajadhyaksha 1987). The other
themes that are often studied and invoked are the portrayal of women, families,
mental illness, and Muslims and other minorities. M. Madhava Prasad (1998)
contends that the journey of Indian cinema in the international history of
theorization of films began only in the study of realist cinema of the masters like
Satyajit Ray. The cinema of fantasy (p.137) or religious themes was regarded
only as the brilliant auteurs begin representing and being lauded for
points out that some theorists even went so far as to utilize the psychoanalytical
conventions of Sudhir Kakkar and Ashis Nandy to associate popular Hindi
cinema with the general masses, and thus equivalent to trash in artistic terms.
In both cases, it was thought to be possible to say something meaningful about
Indian society and culture (both high and low/popular culture) by studying its
audience that was capable of analysis and enjoying realism, and the mass
and assessing the capacity of different kinds of viewers are not static. They are
being frequently redrawn and repositioned.
Another framework pertains to the development of aesthetics of Hindi cinema,

whose co-ordinates are frontality and, again, realism. Both frontality and realism
are a function of the relationship of the performers to the spectator. There is a
face the performers and the performers also face the spectators, just as in
theatre performances. In frontality as a mode of representation, the cinematic
addressed to the spectator and offered to them as an object for their gaze.
Page 8 of 31

Interpretation of the representation by spectators involves a complex interplay

of aesthetics, technology, narrative forms, and conventions such as framing,
editing, and mise-en-scène2 (Prasad 1998).
Bollywood filmmakers like Vishal Bhardwaj, Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra, and

Madhur Bhandarkar have been actually lauded for presenting versions of
(p.138) their accurate portrayal, but for the
analysis of reality that is not cryptically hidden in the narrative but quite frontal.
kind of cinema provides a more nuanced motivation to the audience to suspend
points
out that no one believing in an ideological position considers that they are being
the Marxist notion of ideology stands compromised today because everyone

agrees that there cannot be a singular truth that is obscured by the hegemony of
the powerful. But, he says further, that this understanding does not mean that
we have seen the end of ideology; rather, this feeds into a situation he calls
Sharpe and Boucher 2010: 44), which refers to a
situation when we know that a portrayal is not true but we pretend that we do
not know. Archideology is more effective than ideology, because it means that
people do not believe an idea to be a representation of truth but behave as if it
was anyway.
Laura Mulvey
(1975)
portrayal of women in Hollywood cinema and the male gaze. She drew her
and employed psychoanalytical techniques to discern the ways in which it

shapes representation. My interest here is in the Lacanian conception which,
unlike the all seeing, collective, internalized, and anonymized panopticon gaze,
is hinged at an object which does not see you at all and therefore, induces shame
Krips 2010: 93). In this
the conception of gaze that is really relevant to the representation of Muslims in

Bollywood cinema. It is not so much an all-seeing eye that deliberately
misrepresents, but (p.139) a point of collapse in sensory faculties that does not
see Muslims at all in its portrayal of their image, and thus deeply humiliates
We suspect that this might not be true but we lose nothing in behaving as if this
Page 9 of 31

was the truth. This is a position which is obviously more effective than the
not know their own position and they define it as opposed to the position of what
Even when the representation is subject to political contestations and calls by

minority and marginal groups which are routinely represented negatively, to be
The Sublime Object of Ideology, claims that this process is also not
perfect. When the person who is being called out responds by turning, he is not
turned into a perfect subject inside of ideology. There is always a leftover, a
Althusser speaks only of the process of ideological interpellation through
always a residue, a leftover, a stain of traumatic irrationality and

senselessness sticking to it, and that this left over, far from hindering the
full submission of the subject to the ideological command, is the very
condition of it: it is precisely this non-integrated surplus of senseless
traumatism which confers on the Law its unconditional authority: in other
might call the ideological jouis-sense, enjoyment-in-sense (enjoy-meant),

proper to ideology. ( (p.140)
These are the discursive considerations that frame my analysis of the film
narratives and content for representation of Muslims. The questions being asked
here pertain to assumptions regarding the attributes of society that are
supposed to define the collective identity norms, the conventions and devices
changing nature of the discourse regarding identities itself in relation to the

political economy of culture.
Film Narratives Regarding Muslim Identity

Films included in this section of the chapter are popular Hindi films from among
those that were released in a period of roughly two years between 2008 and
2010. This period is interesting because it saw many mainstream Hindi films
with themes that spoke of Muslims and/or terrorism. For an easy categorization,
I differentiated between the films that had the theme of terrorism woven into the
Page 10 of 31

plot, and other films in which there were Muslim protagonists but no references
to terrorism. I selected films with their narratives placed in the contemporary
context and times. Therefore, even though Jodha Akbar was also released in this
historical context, I decided to exclude it.
Among the films with terrorism references, Aagey Se Right (Nattoji 2009) is
unique in having a narrative that has a satirical and comedic take on various
contemporary realities. For example, it makes a very astute and amusing
interesting comments on several other issues, such as corruption in the

corporate world, police, and bureaucracy. Aagey Se Right is a comedy of errors
of a new Mumbai police recruit and a terrorist who lands on the Mumbai
shoreline from Pakistan with a plan to engineer a bomb blast at a Mumbai Police
function. Because the plot makes a fervent attempt at humour, it (p.141)
succumbs to exaggerated and stereotyped stock situations and stock
characters.3 The Pakistani terrorist and his bosses in Pakistan keep talking about
jang-e-azadi (war for freedom), but never elaborate whose freedom (azadi), and
how they zeroed in on a Mumbai Police event as the target which will ensure the
collaborate in the blast is clear that it will help him establish his supremacy in
the Mumbai underworld. While there is a parallel of Jai Singh inviting Babar to
underworld to tutor the terrorist on how best to pursue his love interest.
not know where exactly in South India he is from, but he speaks in a Bollywood
version of Mumbai tapori,4
he delivers funny one-liners. His mission undergoes a change, but not his
language. For the terrorist, on the other hand, only a change of heart is not
enough. He must undergo many more changes. He begins by vocalizing the
ferocious mission in chaste Persianized Urdu, and when caught staring at the
bar dancer, he touches his ears in a gesture of reparation (tauba) jang-
e-azadi mein ye sab haraam hai (p.142) forbidden in the war for
haraam ke bad harem bhi kartey
hein Harem can be done after the forbidden). The Don is punning on the words
haraam (forbidden) and harem alluding to the orientalist stereotype. Within the
another spectator and then an early closure by a police raid, the terrorist has
undergone a complete change of heart. When everyone runs from the police, he
miraculously acquires a burqa for disguise! In a scene resonating with
Page 11 of 31

reminiscences from tawaif

ask her what were the next lines of the interrupted song she was singing.
Bhaskar and Allen (2009: 46) opine that,
[T]he Islamicate idioms of the Muslim Courtesan film locate[s] the tawaif
and her art forms and values in the historical imaginary of nawabi
Lakhnawi culture, and conceive[s] the figure of the tawaif as a repository
of social and cultural forms and values of this imagined world as they are
expressed, and also transformed, in spaces other than Lucknow and in
times other than [the] nineteenth century.
Thus, the narrative partially inhabits this imaginary space, and it is not
surfaces.
Later he requests the Don to help him with winning his love who retorts at the
Tum to maar kaat karo, tumko wahi shobha deta
hai
the transition from a terrorist to a lover, he must lose Urdu. This is a curious
statement for a Mumbai film to make, where Urdu has long been the primary
language for the expression of love. The identification of Urdu poetry with the
expression of love is reiterated by the mastermind of the terror group in
argue that even though Hindi and Urdu are identified as different languages
with distinct scripts, it is still difficult to ascertain where one language starts
and the other ends. The basic structure, (p.143) the grammatical sensibilities,
and even the vocabulary are shared to such an extent that a boundary between
Urdu and Hindi is virtually non-existent. This fact is apparent even in this film
which tries hard to label Urdu as the language only of Pakistan and the language
of antiquity, and anti-modern, if not the language of terrorists. In one of the
opening scenes, when the terrorist lands on the Mumbai shores, he asks the Don
if the people accompanying him are loyal, using the word wafadaar, and the Don
apparently not understanding the word because it is in Urdu replies in the
Wafadaar nahin bharose ke hein bharosa
for trustworthiness. It would be difficult to argue which of these words,
wafadaar and bharosa belongs more to Urdu and which to Hindi. Later, when the
Hifazat ka waastey
protection), which is again an expression which traverses the non-existent
An important aspect in the film is that even though it indicates that terrorists
are made not born, it articulates a hierarchy of intent behind acts of terror. If the
Page 12 of 31

makeup, and costume. On the other hand, the intent of the South Indian Mafia
portrayed as if it is a project of a bumbling fool.
The Muslim practice of purdah is represented as being rooted in an essentially
is derided and resented, at once. Kay Kay, playing the terrorist, falls in love with
possessive patriarchal role. Mixing patriarchy with terrorist violence, the
Kapoor in Mughal-E-Azam
his boss, the mastermind of the impending terror attack, vows to kill the bar girl
Jang-e-azadi ki zamin par ek laundi ko naachne nahin denge
not let a servant girl dance on the (p.144) land of war for freedom). Laundi, of
course, is the epithet with which Akbar had derided Anarkali in Mughal-E-Azam.
Mumbai Meri Jaan (Kamat 2008) is a collage of stories of seven protagonists

living their lives in different milieus in the aftermath of the 2006 bomb blasts in
Mumbai. The film narrative reads like a complex comment on the impact of
terror on everyday lives of people. It details how terror becomes almost a part of
modern contemporary urban life. It also highlights the sensationalization and
commodification of news, and its increasing inability to say anything meaningful
about human existence. Rupali, a TV news reporter played by Soha Ali Khan
realizes this only when her life is the one that is being commodified for the
character becomes aware of the increasing futility of his youthful nationalistic
environment and the phenomenon of the so-called brain drain, but by the end of
the film when he is ready to revise his utopia, he must also confront his yearning
What comes through the dialogues of Paresh Rawal, who plays a police
inactive spectator because little else makes any sense. To a rookie police officer
dekhne ka
Page 13 of 31

in the late capitalist consumerist society,

acquires the features of a staged fake, with our neighbors behaving in
capitalist utilitarian de-spiritualized universe is the de-materialization of

(p.145)
of Hindu nationalism, which is portrayed as being reproduced in the life of

Suresh, a computer hardware seller by bigoted narratives of a primordial
Akhand Bharat (Unified India), and expressed in the everyday domestic sphere.
This proactive inaction is also seen to be complimented by global capitalism.
While the disruption of everyday life arouses in the police officer and Suresh the
hysteria of impotence and paranoid scapegoating, respectively, it is the need for
money to continue consumptive life that keeps them both from tipping over.
Wads of notes are received by both with gratitude, and concerns of legality are
bribes for letting illegal businesses operate or to use pirated software because
these are making a lot of money in any case, and would continue regardless of
In a very interesting sequence in the film, Suresh and his friends are hanging
out near a roadside tea stall. They are recounting the horrific scenes and
devastation they witnessed in the aftermath of the bomb blast. While the friends
talk, the camera focuses on Suresh who seems to be getting angrier with each
description and stares ahead towards the deserted road. As if in answer to his
prayer, an old man appears pulling his bicycle. He is wearing a Lakhnavi cap and
kya
ho raha hai Dekho saab
kaun hai
haan, toh
imagine that a Muslim could also be considered a citizen by a policeman who

would actually act to protect him; rather Suresh assumed the complicity of the
police in his harassment of a stranger for no reason but that he is a Muslim. In
his surprise, Suresh forgets his (p.146) original victim. He gets into a scuffle
with Rawal and has to flee the scene after pushing him to the ground.
In another sequence, Suresh is convinced that Yusuf, who is also a regular at a

restaurant where Suresh usually hangs out with his friends, is somehow involved
in the bomb blasts. He decides to investigate himself and forces one of his
Page 14 of 31

Suresh is from except that he sells computers and is not doing well in his
occupation. At some point in their walk, the two friends reach a place where
Suresh visibly winces, and hesitates to continue walking. Clearly, Suresh does
not belong to the Mumbai slums. The camera zooms out and pans low,
foregrounding a cage full of chickens presumably to signal that they have
reached a Muslim neighbourhood. As they continue, the lanes become narrower
and Suresh looks up and notices a minaret, but the area is so congested that the
mosque itself is not visible. This, of course, is a sure shot sign that they are
indeed inside a Muslim locality. Along the way, they hear the wafting lyrics of the
Kar chale hum fida jano tan saathiyon/ab tumhare hawale
watan saathiyon
nation is in your custody, comrades) sung by Mohd Rafi. The song and exchange
of words regarding the religious identity of the singer is fully frontal, and is
they are met by his mother who is a warm and talkative woman. The way she is
azaan is playing in
the background.
Suresh and his friend manage to find Yusuf and follow him. They find that he
meets a burqa clad figure and rides away on his motorbike. Suresh is convinced
evidenced from the gait of the person. Suresh says in a totalizing sort of way,
Woh log sarey seekh kar aatey hein
clandestinely and (p.147) taking to Haji Ali dargah. Here too the hatred and
envy of the Hindu patriarchal viewpoint on considering Muslim patriarchy
evidences itself. The friend is given the task of keeping an eye on the lovers, but
gets bored soon because he cannot see much of the woman because of her
Ye log aise hi hein sab kuchh
Yusuf and his girlfriend go to the dargah is not clear. Probably the filmmaker
cinema, lives of Muslim people are spent in spaces that are characterized by
spaces in Bollywood formulation are where everyone else conducts their

everyday lives and Muslims just pass through, standing out and being noticed
for their Muslimness. This act of passing through is meant to bring discomfort
and aversion to everyone, while, by standing out Muslims bring anxiety and
humiliation unto themselves.
Page 15 of 31

In the film Amir (Gupta 2008), the protagonist is a young Muslim doctor
returning from London. The film makes an explicit statement that he is
inconvenienced and harassed at the customs solely because of his name which is
a marker of his Muslim identity. When he exits the airport, for inexplicable
reasons, he is informed over the phone that he must follow the orders of a
even he is completely
unfamiliar with. The film is extremely fast paced like one in the thriller genre,
and moves from one space to another in quick succession. Somehow the logic of
this imposed tour of Muslim areas is to convince Dr Amir of the legitimacy of the
terror project because of the socio-economic positioning of Muslims in these
dark, dense, and derelict spaces. While in Aagey Se Right the binary between
good Muslim and bad Muslim was internalized into the metamorphosis within an
individual, Amir makes it more a real world contestation between two categories
of people. But there is a third category of Muslims whom everyone talks of but
who themselves are only pawns in carrying the story forward. (p.148) The Bad-
Terrorist Muslim and the Good-Progressive Muslim are in a tight faceoff with
each other in Amir, but the silent multitudes are represented to be inhabiting
hagne ki jagah
), as told to Amir by his mysterious caller. It is these people and
their existence that is portrayed as making the terrorists want to unleash their
terror over the innocent world, but these people and their situation only makes
the progressive Muslim throw up in disgust. Amir tries hard, he empathizes but
inconveniences (at airports, for example), may be the only forms of

discrimination that he faces. In an extremely tragic end to the film, while Amir
chooses to kill himself rather than become part of perpetration of violence on
others, he dies not as a sensitive, caring, responsible citizen, but as a failed
suicide bomber because as a Muslim of any hue, he has no option or opportunity
to redeem his image in the face of such predicament.
looking like a Muslim. S/he does not

invoke her/his Muslim identity in casual conversations. S/he must display that
Islam plays no role whatsoever in her/his everyday life or even in major
decisions. In fact, if they renounce Islam totally or some key (but arbitrarily
decided) feature of it, that is even better. But s/he must be ready to serve up
sivaiyan on Eid,
biryani and qorma on other festivals, and recite Urdu poetry, among others. They
must appear very keen to castigate Muslim fundamentalism and especially move
5
placard in their hands all the time to be put up
a
Muslim is a Muslim. (p.149) The Muslimness represented by symbolic costume
Page 16 of 31

or signifiers of space may be discarded by people in their quest for more

convenient lives, free from day-to-day discrimination. This may earn them a label
at all, but when the chips are down, these things are of little relevance. I connect
this discussion to the one in the earlier chapters, and I contend that the notion of
space, but is a function of being understood and portrayed in the mainstream

discourses as a distinctive political community with common political interests
and aims. Mushirul Hasan (2008), in his recent work titled Moderate or Militant:
, investigates these discourses regarding the
Put briefly, a decidedly elitist discourse should not be seen as reflective of

Indian Muslims or their so-called communal consciousness. Nor can the
politics of Muslim identity be reduced to a mere rationalization of
normative Islamic discourse. There is much variation even within this
elitist discourse, not all of which is focused on electoral representation,
and still [shows] greater evidence of Muslim willingness to differ from
rather than defer to the consensus of the community, however construed,
in the rough and tumble of practical politics. (Hasan 2008: 73)
be seen in other films such as A Wednesday, New York, Kurbaan, and My Name
Is Khan. In A Wednesday (Pandey 2008), the protagonist played by Naseeruddin
Shah is portrayed for the most part of the film as a Muslim terrorist working to
secure the release of four dreaded criminals involved in various cases of terror.
In the end, it is revealed that his real motive was to kill them rather than to get
them released. It is in this moment that the film takes a frontal position of not
constitutional killings) in Hindi films, (p.150) Anustup Basu (2010: 185)
receiving end in an encounter is that of a Muslim, the narratives are often

careful in stating that this is not an all out undeclared war by the Indian state
against Muslims. The killing of a Muslim by the state is always represented as a
stray, isolated incident. According to him, this feat is achieved by the presence of
a Muslim assistant to the Hindu encounter specialist. In A Wednesday, the last
aam aadmi, but shot
simultaneously by a Hindu cop and a Muslim cop. Casting of these characters is
interesting as the Hindu cop is portrayed by a Muslim actor Aamir Basheer, and
the Muslim cop is played by Jimmy Shergill. The curious thing here is that the
Page 17 of 31

portrayed as an overzealous cop, who is not averse to illegal and extra-

constitutional methods to punish those whom he deems to be in the wrong. A lot
of footage in film is used to establish this representation of his character
through his modus operandi in other unrelated cases. This is also noted in
several reviews of the film. Several blogs called him ruthless, violent. He is
Taran Adarsh (2008). In another
reviewer Rajiv Masand (2008)
loyal
patriot. My contention is that this is actually a fallacious situation in which while
the patriotic sentiment can be proved by the Muslim cop with his involvement in
a concrete act of extra-constitutional killing, but the killing itself proves the
Muslim character true to the stereotype of Muslims bearing volatile and
impulsive personas, and not being averse to violence and killings. (p.151)
In a long speech regarding his aims and motivations, Shah claims that he is an
aam aadmi (common man) who is simply fed up of living a life constantly
must be killed. The fascist analogy is tellingly similar to the one employed by the
present-day anti-Muslim right and Neo-Nazis all over Europe, and by Sangh
groups in India. The seamless collusion of everyone involved in the extra-
constitutional killing of the last terrorist is a reminder of the discussion of
Muslims as homines sacri earlier in this book.
New York (Khan 2009

is an FBI agent, he targets Omar for his friendship in the past with Sameer, who
New
York
student on the New York State University campus he has hardly any markers of
religious identity on his person or in his outlook. The narrative in fact has a
clichéd college life track of the protagonists, which serves to establish that
which is also ambiguous to identity naming goes great lengths to establish this.
In Kurbaan (
he does not find it too difficult to shoot to kill
comes to proving his goodness. The message clearly is that all Muslims are
prone to violence, and it is just a matter of when, and what triggers it. The
My Name Is Khan
(Johar 2010
Page 18 of 31

everyday Muslim is, somehow, always complicit and thus, cannot be completely
innocent.
I argue that Rizwan Khan having Asperger syndrome is part of the larger
(p.152) a Muslim are not completely disconnected. When

Foucault (1973)
was essentially challenging the use of this formulation as a legitimate reason for
persons
that was contingent upon acceptance of inexact and non-uniform language rules.
language has been taken away from them, and we are left with only what
of difference, but strikes at the logic of difference as moral error and unreason.
The social forces that see the reason to confine the unreason of madness in
order to control it are the same, in view, as those seeking to
these.
Rizwan Khan is a curious character also because of his unmistakable
which he frequently recites unabashedly in situations where most Muslims
and at a memorial service for 9/11 victims. He possesses a deep understanding
a hatemongering cleric in a mosque, just as devout Muslims hit Satan with three
pebbles in a symbolic ritual during Haj. And he is able to challenge being tagged
a Muslim but
not a terrorist (literally, with US President Obama in the film). What makes this
film a fantasy is that this cannot be done in reality within the original precepts of
Khan is able to claim liberty in the film as an autistic person with his wife and
with the State is a fantasy which can be made believable, only if Rizwan Khan is
portrayed as having some extraordinary capacity (p.153) that makes him
unaware of the normalizing discourse (Tortured in an extremely cold room, he
My Name Is Khan does not make him strip off or dilute his identity. Because his
Page 19 of 31

Muslim identity includes a pre-enacted judgement, autism or Asperger syndrome

has to be added to it.
Among the films that were selected for this analysis because they had a Muslim
protagonist but no reference to terrorism, I begin with Aaloo Chaat (Grewal
2009). In the film, Nikhil (played by Aftab Shivdasani) has just returned from
America, and loves a Muslim girl Aamna. His Punjabi family lives in Lajpat
Nagar, and came to Delhi as refugees after Partition. Right in beginning of the
Batware ke zakhm
(the wounds of Partition have not healed). He dare not tell
anyone in the family that he wants to marry a Muslim girl. Nikhil can only tell
a hakeem, who treats persons with sexual dysfunctions and is thus, privy to
numerous confessions regarding another taboo topic. The film employs the
character of the hakeem to present jokes with double meaning alluding to sex.
stereotypes, even though on the issue of religious communalism it tries hard to
his intensions, they set up a match-making meeting, with a girl and her parents.
The families are obviously well acquainted with each other because when
chachaji se koi
larki se shadi karta to ek darja upar to chadh jaata (p.

154)
would have climbed one step up in status).
Inspired by Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (Chopra 1995), Nikhil and his uncle
hatch a plan of telling his parents that he wants to marry a white American girl,
parents, by her supposed cultural superiority compared to an American girl. The

narrative constantly runs into and gets entangled in a complex matrix of
superiority and inferiority. A white-skinned person is claimed superior to a
brown and Indian person, but Indian culture is proclaimed as superior to
Western culture. Still, for the family, marrying a white girl is seen as a symbol of
social advancement. There is also an underlying anxiety regarding the changes
in contemporary Indian society and the world, but the family does not wish to
identity in the everyday life of the family is dealt with by her willingness to be
assimilated into the culture of the Hindu Punjabi family of Nikhil. Cooking their
perfect potential daughter-in-law bearing no reference to her real identity,

Page 20 of 31

on the match. It is eminently convenient that Aamna is without a place and

family.
This is typical of the patriarchal norms of Indian society where in interreligious

marriages, the rarity that they are, it is the woman who invariably converts
because of her subordinated position. While in reality there is enough reason to
believe that interreligious marriages in which Hindu women marry Muslim men
also exist just as vice versa, in Hindi cinema interreligious marriages are always
between Hindu men and Muslim women. Sunil Menon (2012)
of idealised Indian types on screen, thus, came about through exogamous
(p.155)
marriage is not addressed directly but resolved in a strange hierarchy of all

kinds of crises posited in front of this family by modern times. Alluding to the
aaj
kal ki duniya mein isse achchhi khabar hi samjho se ladka bhi laa
sakta tha
brought a boy from America).
3 Idiots (Hirani 2009) is a comment on the education system, attitudes towards

learning, and factors determining career choices. The protagonists are three
friends who are classmates in an engineering college, college each contesting
his own demons of the past, family expectations and responsibilities. Of interest
in this analysis is the fact that like Aamna in Aaloo Chaat, Farhan Qureshi is also
in the film. Neither does the film raise any questions or issues that are of special
or specific interest to Muslims. When the three friends visit his house twice, we
prospects vis-à-vis their identity. 3 Idiots is probably one of the few films, one of
whose key characters is a Muslim, yet only happens to be a Muslim. This is a
deviation from the normal course of things in Hindi cinema, where a character is
Muslim only when his/her Muslimness is of some consequence to the narrative.
Alternatively, a Muslim character is sometimes inserted as a tokenism for
diversity, even when he/she is not required to take the narrative forward. But
this tokenism is also centred on the Muslim identity as a marker of difference.
Since Farhan is neither in this film, his character pays by not being fleshed out
as well as that of the third friend Raju. The film narrative contains a lot of
Page 21 of 31

acquaintance with Farhan at this (p.156) level could not have been achieved
Delhi-6 (Mehra 2009) is another film that engages in some fantasizing just like
My Name Is Khan, though it is not so much about Muslim identity per se. Delhi-6
in India. It is essentially an optimistic romanticized look at an imagined
binaries without taking sides. Roshan, played by Abhishek Bachchan, is both

Hindu and Muslim, he is both traditionalist and modern, and he is an Indian and
an American. Delhi-6 portrays the Old Delhi in contemporary times that is
lurching towards a modern consumptive milieu, yet is held back by its
rootedness in the old. The tussle is bound to give rise to trauma. An important
feature of the film is that its narrative upsets the stereotype of Old Delhi as a
Muslim locality. It meticulously shows the culture of the Hindu Dilliwallahs but
portrays at least two generations of both Muslim and Hindu residents of the
Kala Bandar (black
film (but also in reality, a couple of years before the release of the film), Kala
a hysterical reaction of people, caught in the demands of modernity but living in

antiquity, who do not quite know which is which (Singh 2001). The film builds up
to tension between Hindus and Muslims in the walled city that in reality has not
seen any riots since after the partition of the country, and the horrific killings
and looting in its wake. The appearance of the black monkey from the imaginary
desire which is brought forth by naming it (Lacan 1991). Roshan, who chastised
because, the myth of the Kala Bandar needed to acquire a material persona to
be destroyed. (p.157)
Whether in their portrayal of Muslims as terrorists, as loyal cops, or progressive
in the dominant discourse. This is true when the film narrative just echoes the
dominant monologue. But even when the characters genuinely try to break the
mould, they either end up being impetuous, interrupted, or mere apparitions.
This is a reflective of the shatter-proof nature of the limits that form boundaries
of the segregated spaces. While the nature of segregated spaces may change or
Page 22 of 31

vary between spaces, the logic and fact of segregation does not. Segregation is
The Industrialized Mass Media

One way to see the preceding discussion is to understand how Bollywood cinema
Muslims have been an intrinsic part of Hindi (Hindustani and Urdu included)
cinema. This is also the cinema that hardly ever breaks the mould of dominant
discourses, and gives expression to these. Fredrick Jameson (1979)
acknowledges a tendency in academia to study popular and mass media as an
exalted form of media, because it is thought to be the one that speaks to and is
especially Horkheimer and Adorno (2007 [1972]) also advocate the study of
all forms of occupations which used to have different and distinct end uses are
now suspended into different activities which are geared towards one end only,
which is to become more and more effective (1979: 130). Thus, journalism or
filmmaking, like agriculture or pottery or any other activity, are no longer about
their unique end, rather all of these activities are now (p.158) just means for a
universal valuation in terms of money. He poignantly puts an example
illustrating this process thus:
The objects of the commodity world of capitalism also shed their
instruments of commodity satisfaction: the familiar example is that of
as Heidegger would have said, but takes a snapshot of it, thereby

graphically transforming space into its own material image. The concrete
bewilderment with the activity itself, the anxiety that must arise when
human beings, confronting the non-human, wonder what they are doing
there and what the point or purpose of such a confrontation might be in
possession of it and converting it into a form of personal property.

(Jameson 1979: 131)
(1983, cf. Jameson 1979), is the ultimate form of commodity reification. As

discussed earlier, we consume not so much a commodity but of us
consuming the said commodity conveyed to us by advertising. Jameson (1979)
uses the example of consuming popular pulp literature like detective stories that
Page 23 of 31

that were culturally specific like peasants or a medieval city, among others. It
has been replaced by a new commodified industrial mass culture.
As far as the representation of Muslims is concerned, cinema and news media
quantitatively by the box (p.159) office collection, is ultimately about profit.

The formulaic films that were loath to experiment, and the present day
measured by the money the film makes. Efficiency may demand different means
but the instrumental end remains the same. Similarly, a TV show continues to be
judged for its popularity by its TRP (television rating point) and a newspaper by
its circulation, and so on. This is also because as a discourse gains currency, its
hegemonizing potential also increases. Hegemonic discourses that fall out of
have to rehash themselves so as to appear to have undergone a transformation.

While Bollywood cinema is understood to be only a re-presentation of reality,
people trust the news media to give them truthful accounts of events.
I alert myself to cautionary discussion of orientalism, and

how media images distorted by it continue to be presented as authentic and
believed by the viewers also to be the same. In this regard, continuing from the
story of built spaces in Jamia Nagar in Chapter 2, and drawing on the discussion
on the representation of Muslim identity and Muslim localities, I take up an
example of reportage in the print news media to analyse and illustrate the
instrumentality of representation in the media. Within this frame of reference, I
invoke the usefulness of conceptual frameworks in media studies, such as the
agenda-setting theory and cultivation theory (West and Turner 2007). Both these
frameworks point to repeated news coverage so that an issue assumes
importance; also that the repeated messages within an agenda cultivate in
Severin and Tankard 2000). Van Dijk (1991)
also discusses the role of the media in prioritizing which news is worthy of
must adopt in discussions so propped up. George Gerbner, who along with his
team of researchers pioneered the development of the cultivation theory, found
the more time people were exposed to a particular view on television, the more
their perceptions and attitudes were affected (Gerbner et al. 1994). The agenda-
Page 24 of 31

decide what finally makes (p.160) the news, in what sequence, and with how
much priority (McCombs and Shaw 1972).
Print News Media: Reportage on Terror

On the evening of 13 September 2008, five bomb blasts at different locations
rocked Delhi. The death toll reported by the police was 20, though some
injuries later. On the morning of 19 September 2008, the Delhi police raided a
flat in a building numbered L-18 in Batla House, Jamia Nagar. Two boys alleged
died later in hospital due to a heart attack induced by excessive bleeding.

Sharma who had killed 35 terror suspects in his career, was hailed by the media
Singh 2008 Sengupta et
al. 2008
in his 150 medals and four gallantry awards.
The boys who were killed or arrested were students of Jamia Millia Islamia,
almost all aspiring to be computer professionals, and studying or getting trained
for the same. More arrests followed and the same trend was seen. Newspapers
went agog with stories with details of the courses they were studying, their
hometowns, and conditions in which they lived (Hindustan Times, 21 and 22
September 2008). Prominent space was given to minute details of the
jokes they allegedly cracked amongst themselves. The Times of India and
Hindustan Times (22 September 2008) printed photographs of the arrested
suspects with their faces covered in red kafiyeh scarves that were originally used
by Arab men to cover their head and are popular among Muslims all over the
world.
The newspapers also carried many stories giving details of an intricate network
of spaces from different neighbourhoods within Jamia (p.161) Nagar and
Sangam Vihar in Delhi to Mumbra and Cheetah Camp in Mumbai, and Sanjarpur
village in Azamgarh (Hindustan Times, 24 September 2008; Times of India, 25
and 29 September 2008). The group was linked to blasts in Mumbai, Hyderabad,
mentioning Western Union transfers from Riyadh. There were also many reports
savvy individuals (Tripathy 2008). They were represented as consciously

creating and being affected by their own history. Their connection with larger
political processes and the material logic of their condition was often brought
into the picture to legitimize prejudice against all Muslims. Their religiosity was
Page 25 of 31

The contradiction here is that detrimental material socio-economic conditions

and violent oppression of Muslims in various parts of the country was invoked as
why, if such deep rooted oppression is being faced by Muslims, there are no
stories in the media reporting the same. Both the cautious educated progressive
Muslim and the supposedly more volatile, orthodox backward illiterate Muslim
were portrayed in the media as drifting into terrorism, as an act of resistance to
this oppression, which had gone largely unreported. There were also sporadic
stories (Khan 2008) regarding the Muslim discomfort and dismay at being
portrayed thus but these were also written in a way that made their discomfort
also sound suspicious. Broadly, the contemporary media discourses ascribe to
the entire community conscious complicity with acts of terrorism of some
Muslims.
Findings of the Sachar Committee report were also used to legitimize the
(seemingly benign) reasoning that acute deprivation and communal attacks/
violence are potentially potent enough causes to turn Muslims into terrorists.
Following this logic, it was thus only (p.162) reasonable that we suspect all
Muslims as potential terrorists. This logic was bought by even those Muslims
who are well-to-do, are not poor, do not live in ghettos. They found it easy to
believe that poverty, deprivation, and ghetto living are conditions enough to turn
Nomani
2008) that appeared in the Los Angeles Times and has been quoted in numerous
academic and journalistic writings since then.
The Sachar committee report recommended creating a commission to

remedy the systemic discrimination and promote affirmative-action
programs. So far, very few of the recommendations have been put in place.
Since reading the report, I have feared that Islamic militancy would be
outside India, a cycle of sectarian violence could break out in the country
and push some disenfranchised Muslim youth to join militant groups using
hot-button issues like Israel and Kashmir as inspiration.
What has irked me these last years is how the world has glossed over
William Cohen, whose Cohen Group invests heavily in India, said the U.S.
condition of Muslims, his public relations staffer said that conversation was
Page 26 of 31

open discussion if there is to be any hope of stemming Islamic radicalism

and realizing true secular democracy in the country.
population of Arab Muslims, which numbers about 140 million. U.S.

intelligence reports continually warn that economic, social and political
discontent are catalysts for radicalism, so we would be naive to continue to
ignore this potential threat to the national security of not just India but the
United States.
danger unavoidable. On one leg, my son tucked safely in bed with (p.163)
my mother in our Taj hotel room, I went out to watch the filming of A
Mighty Heart, the movie about the murder of Wall Street Journal reporter
Daniel Pearl by Muslim militants in Pakistan. When the location scouts
needed to replicate the treacherous streets of Karachi's militant Islamist
Muslim neighborhood of Mumbai.
I also reproduce extracts from other articles that attempt to understand the root
any one country, but to the global Islamic community. Their lives were
ruled not by the Indian Constitution, but by the Quran. The fact that they
lived in a country overwhelmingly populated by non-Muslims only
strengthened their resolve to convert it into an Islamic State. Living in
harmony with the non-Muslim majority, as their community had for
centuries, meant abdicating their religious duty as Muslims. If, in working
towards an Islamic state, they offended the sensibilities of the majority
community or broke a law or two, so be it. The latter were kafirs anyway.
(Punwani 2008)
In another article about Azamgarh, the writer refers to Shibli College as being
Anil Gaur, a lawyer in Azamgarh district court, traces the spiralling crime
to the administrative neglect. Muslims are vulnerable due to their
economic and educational backwardness, despite the presence of Shibli
College run by the minority community, which had secular credentials.
Terror outfits are now trying to cash in on their ambitions and energy that
lie largely untapped. (Mishra 2008)
Page 27 of 31

Yet another article combines the techno-savvy image of the terrorist with the
Since terrorists are increasingly becoming tech-savvy and writing emails in

perfect English, the theory that deprivation alone breeds terror does not
apply any longer. Eminent journalist M J Akbar, in a recent column,
(p.
164) sent a few hours before the Ahmedabad blasts) destroys the
subliminal connect we make between terror and deprivation. This is the
The
sense of victimhood among a section of the educated youth. Scholars point

out that this alienation has steadily taken place owing to a stream of
political events, beginning with the destruction of the Babri masjid and the
witnessed the rape and murder of their relatives in the post-Godhra

pogrom have now grown up. They are seething with anger and want to
avenge the riots. Some of them could have been recruited by the
appealing to the Hindus of Gujarat to publicly apologise for the genocide.

Wajihuddin 2008)
These articles get space not for their incisive journalism on discrimination and
violence faced by Muslims, but for using the fact of this discrimination to imply
that all Muslims are either potential terrorists or sympathizers. In my
discussions with Muslim individuals from different classes and localities in Delhi,
I observed that the sense of persecution that Muslims feel is more like a burden
that they are keen to get rid of. The truth is that Muslims have far too much at
deplorable conditions of existence. As shown in the earlier chapters, the

conditions are made bearable by the efforts and contestations of people
themselves.
The reproduction of the image of the Muslim community as an entirety, complicit

in the terrorizing designs of the extremist outfits, is also a reproduction of an
orientalist image of Muslims across the world. Like all other hegemonizing
orientalist images, it is nothing but a part of the simulacrum in which the images
are reproduced mechanically and repeatedly, while no original of the image
itself become a simulacrum, in which situations devoid of meaning (p.165) are
Page 28 of 31

homo sacer in a process that voids and profanes other realities too. In such a
commodified media, all reality is reified and no one can be sure what a thing
means. After the Western world had watched 24×7 footage of the Gulf war, when
Baudrillard (1995)
was not deluded as much as he was questioning the meaning of the concept
name. It is rather a case of truth being replaced by appearances repeatedly till
I assert that while the Sachar Committee report becomes useful to justify the
allegation of complicity of all Muslims in the so-called Islamic Terrorism, it is
reduced to a pataphysical document (Bök 2001), because it is never used for
purposes towards amelioration of Muslims; rather in an absurd (sinister?) twist
to its intended meaning, it is used to eliminate the very need for amelioration of
the Muslim population.
The stigmatization of Muslim neighbourhoods in Delhi as harbouring criminals
Muslim youth that was finding space in computer-related professions. Jamia

Nagar neighbourhoods that were being gentrified as middle-class
neighbourhoods that gathered their own resources wherever possible, especially
housing, were painted as hubs of illegal activities and irrational people. This is
evidenced in an affidavit filed by an SHO (Station House Officer) of Jamia Nagar
Police station during hearings of a case on unauthorized construction in June
2012.
Highly sensitive from the point of view of law and order; residents have
scant regard for the government and especially police; tendency to
overreact and indulge in confrontation after getting united on communal
people are illiterate or semi-literate and they have scant regard for (p.
166) the government, particularly the police. They have tendency to over-
react and indulge in confrontation with government agencies even on petty
issues.
The incident and the contents of the affidavit were reported in the Indian
Express (Anand 2012). The article further reports that,
This affidavit left Justice Kohli incensed. She described the comments
Page 29 of 31

Govindpuri, Seelampur where residents belong to one community. How can
As this last report demonstrates there was, in 2012, a beginning in some parts of
the news media (both print and electronic) to enthusiastically report and
question some instances of discrimination against Muslims, especially their
persecution by law enforcement agencies. I posit that it is the material
conditions of the positioning of the specialized workforce in the Muslim areas
exploitative positioning of Muslim neighbourhoods in the network of

relationships of production, it was hoped by scholars that that the communal
conflict may not play out in future as was possible in the not so distant past, and
that would prevent the kind of open instances of violence and riots that have
destroyed trades that flourished among Muslims in Meerut, Moradabad, Aligarh,
and Bhagalpur. We have seen in the last chapter that the most recent threat that
happened was actually in Delhi at Seelampur, during the sealing drive against
businesses and industrial units in residential areas by the Delhi government, in
keeping with its urban plan vision of no mixed land use. I contend that,
unfortunately, since these exploitative relationships of production are
maintained to a great extent by the threat of communal and state violence, it
would be wishful thinking that the outcome of the process would automatically
root out its own foundation. It would be also useful in future (p.167) enquiries
to consider whether it also because of the onset of this curious change in the
relationships of production, that we are encountering in academia the discourses
that explain segregation of Muslims in certain neighbourhoods as being
practiced voluntarily in an attempt to maintain their cultural distinction.
This chapter may be brought to a close by reiterating that Muslims are

continually represented such that their own voices are silenced by the most
outrageous claims handed out as the truth by industrialized media in the age of
commodified culture and global capitalism. Indeed, what the entire discussion in
this chapter clears is that the assertion that identities have a material function is
not just an abstract theoretical position. In the context of the media industry,
Jameson (1992)
the Muslims to re-imagine a form of resistance that will allow them to break the
confines of their status as the new sub-proletariat of the urban.
In the last chapter, I charted out the traditional forms of resistance and claim-
making that are available to other oppressed classes, but have been made
unavailable to Muslims because of their unique positionality in the global
capitalist economy and the practices of governmentality. In this chapter, I
explored how the dominant discourses not only essentialize the aspersed
Page 30 of 31

identity, but also utilize this to rationalize the oppressive material conditions,
and thereby accumulate more capital. In the next chapter, I take up an exercise
in faith and optimism and explore how Muslims in Delhi have created spaces
from which they may draw hope for emancipation. (p.168)
Notes:
(1) Codes are points that define a network of meaning that shapes a narrative.
Barthes defines them rather ambiguously but the definition could be discerned
from his typology of codes. He says that codes may take the shape of voices,
characters, events that take the narrative forward, sometimes giving it an
on the possibility of multiple readings of the texts. It is the specific, unique,

combination of codes in a text that a reader reaches that makes an alternative
reading possible.
(2
and costumes, sets, positions, and entry and exits, among others.
(3
those that involve using stereotypes as a short hand to move the story forward in
a cinematic narrative. Stock characters are remarkable for their lack of nuance
and depth. Stock situations move the story forward because they can be read by
the audience as a general comment characterizing a type of thing that happens
in a type of situation to a kind of people, rather than a particular experience of a
specific individual.
(4) Tapori: A Hindi dialect with Marathi words and slang, typically spoken in
Hindi popular cinema by the Mumbai working class and underworld.
(5) This is a pacifist political slogan usually used against their elected
representatives/governments to protest justification of wars and acts of
aggression against other sovereign states in the name of security of their
citizens.
Page 31 of 31

Avenues of Hope and Optimism

in Delhi
Ghazala Jamil

Print ISBN-13: 9780199470655
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780199470655.001.0001

Ghazala Jamil
DOI:10.1093/oso/9780199470655.003.0006

This chapter attempts to capture and present an account of social spaces of
counter-hegemony. These are actual places and institutions inside or connected
to the Muslim localities in Delhi where hope and optimism is carefully being
fostered. Also included are ideational spaces that encourage hope among the
collective consciousness though they are rarely heard in the din of dominant
discourses. I try hard in this chapter not to fall prey to insipid optimism and
attempt to capture some of the trials and tribulations of these spaces too.
Keywords: Counter-hegemony, hope, memory, resistance, reimagination, Muslim education, Muslim

professionals, citizenship, alternatives
So far, I have described the material conditions that perpetuate and sustain
prejudice against Muslims in Delhi, and how cultural industrialization as well as
Muslim neighbourhoods. I have also discussed how the familiar methods of

resistance, protest, and claim-making that are accessed by other marginalized
and subaltern groups like tribals, dalits, and LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and
transgender) are unavailable to Muslims due to their peculiar and precarious
position in globalized capitalist urban spaces. As normative non-citizens, and
homines sacri, they find themselves included in the political community only for
exclusion and elimination. Their representation in dominant discourses of mass
media as vessels of irrational, anti-modern, aggressive/violent ideology, plague
and haunt almost all their endeavours. Admittedly, this does look like a picture
where Muslims are doomed to flounder from one faux pas
Page 1 of 15

fatal, some humiliating, and others just gaffes of (p.172) people caught in an
absurdist modern conjecture. Clearly, there is a need to look for those spaces
where, somehow, the contradictory logic of total dominance and the willingness
of people to let them be defined by the symbolic markers of the same give way.
Towards the end of the book, I employ the overarching framework in this
chapter to explicitly examine the avenues that are sources of hope and optimism
for the people who participated in this study.
Orthodox readings of Marxism have often charged that it is a unified position

that aims at totalizing explanations. There has not been a worse misreading of
any concept which has been as prevalent as this. Marxism is not above the
historical processes that it seeks to understand, and it can hardly be accused to
be a framework that has been static. From Foucault, Derrida, Gramsci,
influence of Marxism and its own metamorphosis has been phenomenal (Daly
2006). On its own, but even when it infuses any other perspective, Marxism has
a way of filling the view with deep insights, passion, and hope. Critical theory
enters at a point when finding ways to resist the complete commodification by
late capitalism becomes an imperative. With an insight into their experiences, I
deep prevalence of capitalist commodification of all forms of life. Be that as it

may, this section has been not written as if there are some spaces that are
immune to or even unrelated to the logic of capital accumulation. What is being
Marx 1978
[1856]: 577). What gives hope is that the hegemonic narratives are not seamless
and that within them, people spawn their own counter narratives. They interpret
their realities and respond to them in a way that may not amount to total
liberation from all forms of subjugation and prejudice, but signal anticipation of
definite amelioration.
Later in this chapter, I also deliberate on those avenues that have not yet been
explored, but have an immense theoretical potential to assume such a position.
(p.173)
Education and Solidarity: A Community Helps Itself

Throughout my ethnographic fieldwork, a most striking attitudinal change that I
observed was that every single participant of this study, without any exceptions,
stressed that it is important for Muslims to get educated. This is a far cry from
recount in this section are representative of the intent and aspiration for
education among Muslims in Delhi. These must be read with a caveat that these
are avenues that help people keep their hope up in a larger reality, where the
provision for education for Muslims made by the government educational
Page 2 of 15

institutions, and arrangements made by the members of the community

themselves fall woefully short of the need. In most circumstances, it was a
scenario in which the system made it easier for the young students to fail in
their quest for education. The purpose of this exercise would be achieved if it
can serve as an inspiration for improvement within the existing institutions, and
initiation of new spaces where education can be fostered.
Mr Mohd Sadiq is an autorickshaw driver who lives in Jaffarabad. He can barely

write his own name when a signature is required, and works all day long to
two sons in their late teens and a daughter. All of them go to school. I asked him
if his sons are also apprenticing in some trade or skill together with their
hamne to kisi tarah zindagi
(we spent our
lives somehow but nowadays, an uneducated man is as if he does not even exist),
and proceeded to ask me what kind of job his eldest son can get after he passes
his class twelfth exams, and if it would be better to let him study further.
Ms Parveen Bano came to Jamia Nagar, Delhi in her early teens with her mother
and seven other siblings, escaping starvation, from Dhanbad in Jharkhand
(erstwhile Bihar). Her mother, she, and her four sisters have worked as domestic
workers for the past 15 years, (p.174) while her brothers have largely
remained oscillating between periods of unemployment and underemployment
husband is a cycle-rickshaw puller, and together they spend almost half of their
medium school. Till last year, she lived with her mother in a shack put-up on a
plot of land of a builder right next to the river Yamuna behind Batla House.
During the rains, or when the concerned authorities decided to release more
water in the river, her entire family would sometimes live in knee deep waters.
For the most part of the rest of the year, this would leave the kuchcha floor
Aisi haalat
mein kai saal nikal diya baaji, ke chaar paisa bach jaega to bachhon ko
padhaenge. Magar jab Seema aur Saima log badi ho rahi, to padhai mein
pareshani hoti hai. Sab kharcha ke liye mushkil se bachta hai par kiraya ka
some money can be saved and the children can be educated. But now Seema and
Saima are growing up, it was inconvenient for studies. For other expenses there
I met Dr Mohammad Kamran in a clinic attached to a madrasa in Jaffrabad. He

has a BSc from Zakir Husain Delhi College and a BUMS (Bachelor of Unani
Medicine and Surgery) from Tibbia College. He comes from family of darzis
(tailors) originally from Bijnor. His grandfather and two brothers were taken
from Bijnor as children to work with reputed tailors in Lahore before Partition.
Page 3 of 15

Interestingly, immediately after the partition, the brothers came back to Delhi to
live in the walled city, and started working for some tailors in Connaught Place.
They later established their own shop called Iqbal and Brothers. Mr Iqbal was
interested in education and always encouraged his children to pursue his dream.
While Dr Kamran was still studying, he started teaching children in the vicinity
wishing to study in the science stream. This effort grew so much that today he
has coaching classes running for over 300 students of secondary and senior
secondary classes. The coaching classes run (p.175) on two floors of his small
INR 100 per subject every month, which also Dr Kamran is amenable to waiving
off partially or fully, when petitioned by needy parents. The centre makes no
profit and barely breaks even, though Dr Kamran does not have to pay rent for
the space and teaches several classes himself without drawing any payment. The
sight of teenagers studying in this coaching centre is moving. There are many
more girls than boys. They sit on simple wooden benches. There are no desks to
keep books or to write, and the students must make do with their bags on their
engrossed in studying. With the knees of children in one row touching the backs
of children in the next, there is barely room for the teacher to stand. I visited the
centre twice in the winter but found myself imagining what it must be like
during summers. Dr Kamran says it gets pretty impossible sometimes with the
power outages, but the children and the students carry on as best as they can.
The coaching centre invited me again to their annual career counseling cum
felicitation ceremony for its students who had passed board exams of the tenth
and twelfth classes. The children are keenly aware of the stigma their identity
and their locality carries. They are also extremely upbeat about getting
education, and dream of professions. None of the parents of the children in the
ninth standard whom I spoke to had ever been to a university. No one had a
working mother. When I asked them about what their father did, most said
a small manufacturing unit. He said that in the last seven years that he has been
studies. So many come each year that he can barely accommodate them. Among
the parents, he complains, the change is there, but not as much as he would like
to see.
(p.176) toh parents

pressure ,
support karte hein.
Page 4 of 15

From what I learned about jobs in information-technology (IT)-enabled

industries, it is no surprise that many children want to become computer
most girls wishing to be teachers and doctors, and most boys, engineers.
The Anglo-Arabic school is an old institution that has provided education to boys
for generations in Old Delhi. One of my respondents, Mr Azeem Akhtar, who is
an alumnus of the school and has been very active for years in the Old
started three hundred years ago in the 1696. It is in this madarsa that even
Zakir Husain Delhi College had its genesis. In 2012, the Anglo-Arabic school
started to admit girls as its students and is now a co-educational school. Other
schools such as the Fatehpuri Senior Secondary School, attached to the
Fatehpuri Masjid, and Shafiq Memorial School are also important in this regard.
Boys from Seelampur localities also come and study in these schools. Rabia
Presentation Convent schools are among other schools popular among parents
who can afford to, and wish to send their children to these. In Old Delhi, there is
also a school that is at once the symbol of the tragic and valiant state of
Quraish Nagar. Qaumi Senior Secondary School was originally located at Sarai
Khalil, where its building was demolished during Emergency. The school was not
given any land to rehabilitate but was asked to temporarily store their furniture
and records, among others at the Eidgah. Later the (p.177) school started its
regular teaching at the same site, and continues even today in a makeshift state.
Between all these schools and the several government schools in and around
Muslim localities, the Muslim people strive hard to educate themselves.
Mr Azeem Akhtar told me that Hakim Abdul Hameed, who turned the entire
Hamdard operations into a Waqf1
Syed) for his love of education and his keen interest that Muslims receive
education. Even today, apart from the much respected Hamdard Public School,
the Hamdard Waqf through the Hamdard Educational Society makes an
important contribution in the management and running of many of these
schools. The role of the Hamdard Educational Society to a large extent, and the
involvement of functionaries of Jamia Millia Islamia in the schools run by Muslim
bodies and societies are commendable, and must increase exponentially.
Early mornings near Zakir Nagar auto stand, and Ghaffar Manzil, Batla House,
Okhla, and Abul Fazal bus stands look very busy with school buses and vans
picking up children for school. Most children from middle-class families go to
Page 5 of 15

schools such as Hamdard Public School, Crescent Public School, New Horizon
School, and MAF Academy, even though these are quite a distance away from
the neighbourhood. These schools are being run by Muslim managements. Many
also go to schools like Dev Samaj Modern School, Fr. Agnel School, and Mayoor
School, which are in the neighbourhood, and open their doors to Muslim
children. The upper-class Muslim families can manage to get their children into
schools like Delhi Public School, and Sardar Patel Vidhyalaya, among others,
only if they have any influence with a central government minister or cabinet
secretary level bureaucrats. In addition, they have to pay exorbitant amount of
schools more difficult is that even when a Muslim can and is (p.178) willing to
the very rich and politically powerful can even get information regarding how to
pay such donations/bribes. Amir Ahmed is a travel agent whose father retired
from a senior position in Air India. He was able to get his son admitted in a
after they had rejected his application and the admissions had officially closed.
Aap donation dene ke liye tayyar bhi ho, to yeh kaise maloom hoga ke
kisko kya dena hai? Paise bhi woh log har kisi se nahin lete. Koi source ho, to hi
batate hein ke bhai itne de do to admission ho jaaega
tell you that if you pay so much, the admission will come through).
The lower middle class sends their children mostly either to numerous Jamia
schools or to the government schools in the vicinity. Like everywhere else,
about their quality of education. Jamia is preferred because of the quality

education it offers, and also the chance for students to become a Jamia Internal
student which is a category that has reserved quota in seats in all the university
courses. Once a child gets into Jamia, access to even higher education is
assured. Also, the scale at which Jamia services the educational needs of the
locality cannot be matched by any other institution. Jamia runs many schools
inside its sprawling campus in shifts, catering to different needs. There is a very
large and well-conceived, well-equipped, and staffed nursery school. There is a
main Urdu-medium primary and middle school that also turns into English
medium after the eighth standard; there is a second shift English medium self-
finance school (but the fee is still much less than the public schools); and there
is a school for girls who may have dropped out of school at some earlier stage
and wish to study again.
A very large number of girls are also enrolled as private candidates, who cannot
or do not wish to attend regular school and come to write only their
examination. The option for women to study as (p.179) private students
continues well into undergraduate and postgraduate courses, which is often
Page 6 of 15

utilized by women who want to resume studying after their families move from
other parts of India to Jamia Nagar. Ms Ranam is young mother of three
children, whose two sons are now studying in Mayoor School in the second
standard and nursery. Her youngest, a girl, has yet to start school. Her husband
is a software engineer working with TCS. When their first son was born, they
worried that in the point system2 their son would lose out because Ms Ranam
was only a graduate. She enrolled in Jamia as a private candidate to study for a
postgraduate degree in Public Administration and by the time her son was three
and half, and eligible for school she was also a postgraduate mustering a few
more but precious points.
Mr Khalid Javed was a small vendor in Saharanpur, where he used to service the
hardware needs of the local BSNL. When BSNL, as a matter of policy shifted
from engaging with small vendors, and centralized the process with larger firms,
he was unemployed for two years. He shifted to Delhi, and found a low-paying
job as a hardware and networking engineer. His wife Ms Asma Javed shifted a
year later with their three-year-old son. It was difficult to make ends meet. She
started giving tuitions and enrolled in a post-graduate degree programme in
Jamia as a private candidate. Today she has finished her masters in education
planning and administration. She is enrolled in the B.Ed. programme of the
professional courses. She also teaches during the morning in a neighbourhood

private school, and continues to give tuitions in the evening. (p.180)
Ms Sabiha Ahmed is a software engineer who works in a small private firm that
provides custom-made software to clients. The firm is located in one of the posh
colonies near the Jamia Nagar neighbourhood, and the list of their clients reads
owner of the firm is a Hindu but the employees are mostly Muslims. Ms Ahmed
has been working there for the last 12 years, and is the senior most employee,
who is trusted by the owner with managing all the operations of the firm. She
does not want to change her job because the daily commute is convenient, and it
is important for her that she is available at short notice in case her two young
children need it. Ms Sabiha says that the employee turnover at her office is high
because they pay miniscule salaries. The business model of her boss is to
provide cutting-edge software, and support for the same to his clients at very
competitive prices. This he is able to do because he routinely hires employees
freshers find it difficult to get jobs partially because of, sometimes subtle,
sometimes explicit, discrimination, and partially because their backgrounds have
not allowed them to pick up the requisite communication skills and confidence.
They are paid salaries that are sometimes less than even the minimum wages for
skilled workers, but they are happy and grateful for the opportunity, because for
them it is a rare opportunity to break into this industry, get on-the-job training,
and precious experience with reputed clients. When they leave after a couple of
Page 7 of 15

years, their resumés are impressive with the names of firms that are leaders in
their industry, and the jobs that they get pay them exponentially more. In the
last 12 years, Ms Ahmed has trained so many of these youngsters that she has
lost count. Her ability and willingness to perform this role as a mentor serves
her employer well, and he compensates her comparably to industry standards in
order to retain her. It is a situation that everyone involved sees as a win-win. But
not everyone is this fortunate. There are many other firms that exist which hire
freshers as trainees and do not pay them at all for a year, sometimes even for
two years if they are still unable (p.181) to find jobs elsewhere. It is a situation
that gives us deep insight into the condition of capitalist accumulation and its
conjunction with communal prejudice and discrimination, but it is also a process
that enables people to escape worse forms of subjugation. It has to be
recognized that these are the situations that make it worthwhile for youngsters
and parents to make an effort towards education.
Similar to this situation is that of a large number of youth working in call

centres. Just as one can see a crowd of school children going to school in the
morning and coming back in the afternoon, one can also see a steady stream of
cabs picking up and dropping smartly dressed call centre executives through the
day, as well as late at night at various Jamia Nagar exit and entry points. Most of
these youngsters are students studying for their undergraduate or postgraduate
degrees and excited about making decent money alongside. The parents are
happy too, to see their children earn money in a manner and at an age which
was unimaginable even ten years ago. Some call-centre executives are also
MCAs and MBAs, who are waiting to get more appropriate jobs. Although I did
not meet any such person myself, but some of the call-centre employees told me
within the call centre industry.
The manufacturers in Seelampur and Old Delhi extend credit to each other on
the basis of little else but trust and solidarity. We have seen in Chapter 2 how
this solidarity networking also enables capitalist entrepreneurs among Muslims
to make profits in housing, but the process does allow people to possess
affordable housing in the absence of any housing finance services from private
or public financial institutions. Just as they are expending effort to educate
themselves and their children, people are also investing energies in creating
mostly informal networks for jobs, businesses, education, housing, and much
else. In the hegemonic din of the market economy, an economy of solidarity is a
humane but decidedly counter-hegemonic response. These processes and
changed attitudes are not isolated from the larger structural scheme, but well
within the logic of the globalized, neoliberal set-up. Muslims (who had lost their
(p.182) old-traditional skills which had become redundant) are gaining new
skills that are saleable and required by the market. They are buoyed by the
changed atmosphere that may not be just and inclusive, but is marked by a
Page 8 of 15

breathing space and a hint at dignified sustenance that has eluded them for
long.
Countering Epistemological Islamophobia

Another avenue for hope consists of works such as the one being presented in
to give tongue to the language of the marginalized, and through this new
articulation aim to give rise to a new political consciousness that brings change
and creates new realities. Efforts must be made to study society from the
perspectives of the periphery, and to strive to present these to the larger society.
This is a task that would entail an exploration by people of their identity, and
must end in the creation of a new altered identity for those who engage with the
process. The primary aim here must be to support knowledge creation by people
about themselves and the world they co-inhabit with other people and
communities, and bring it to the fore, to the space where it can be used. Here
language (or articulation) and the socio-political conditions shaped by it are the
central theme since, through communication or an inability to communicate,
specific ideas and interpretations of the world and how people behave in it are
formulated.
We are confronting a moment of global proportions when merely bearing a
the orientalist tradition, Muslims have been portrayed in the present epoch as
people who not only face a deficit in development, but also have no sense of the
engage briefly with an understanding of Islamophobia explored in more detail in

the introduction. This relates not only to a broad fear of Islam and Muslims, but
a phobic position that extends itself into the epistemology of Muslims, both
(p.183)
socio-economic status, representation in various sectors of the economy and
public service, and their attitudes to issues such as encounters and terrorism,
among others. While these studies have their utility, it is pertinent to point out
that what is also needed are studies from the perspectives of Muslims and
studies that are useful for Muslims to understand their own situatedness in the
urban studies, and labour studies, etc. have barely begun to make a mention of
Muslims. This is a major impediment in the way of any genuine effort to
processes and outcomes. This book sees itself as claiming the epistemological
value of perspectives of Muslims per se, as well as the importance of putting
forward this claim as a political strategy in the movement for justice and
equality for Muslims.
Page 9 of 15

As an illustration of the foregoing theoretical argument, I narrow my focus to

Jasani 2008;
Susewind 2017) to spawn research and popular imagination of Muslim localities
in Delhi as dense, congested hubs of criminal activity. Observations from within
the Muslim clusters in Delhi show that these are contiguous or discontinuous but
segregated areas that may or may not be poor and decrepit. But because all
expression of the existing reality of these spaces. These limits are rarely, if ever,
contested by researchers, journalists, or documentary filmmakers who are often
Muslim themselves, but whose intended audience/readers are rarely Muslim
marker, this work has provided thick descriptions of these localities and
interactions with the residents that in turn challenge the view that involuntary
segregation is an undesigned, uncontrolled, and ecological process as
understood by the Chicago school, and shows that people clearly perceive it to
occur with full complicity of the neoliberal structures (Wacquant 2011).
(p.184) device that employs

space to unleash an oppressive process aimed at maximizing the material profits
extracted out of the discriminated category, while at the same time minimizing
intimate contact with its members to avoid an alleged defiling and contagion the
segregated are believed to carry.
certain way by the discursive practices. For example, while only a small area of
Seelampur constituency comprises of squatter hutments/jhuggis, but this is the
part of Seelampur that captures the imagination of the social workers, urban
their myopic view. In another instance, during the course of my research, I was
asked by a development consultant to meet a group of planning students and
professionals from Barcelona, Spain, because of my familiarity with and work in
Jamia Nagar localities. These students are working in a collaborative
engagement with the School of Architecture and Ekistics, and the Sarojini Naidu
by the consultant who, incidentally, is not a resident of this area. They had been
horticulture programme for livelihood and income generation for Muslim women
of Shaheen Bagh and Abul Fazal Enclave. Considering that these are the most
might bring the women to their centre to buy the vegetables. For actually
working in the fields, they would have to maybe get the women who are
Page 10 of 15

employed as domestic workers in the area and live in Taimur Nagar rather than
in Jamia Nagar. The other parts of the project were also full of assumptions
When I said that Jamia Nagar is a hub of educated, professional, and white-collar
workers, the consultant disagreed with me. But confronted with the same
opinion by an ecological scientist (and male, I must point out), who is a resident
of Shaheen Bagh, she relented. Later she told me that she had thought the area
residents to be poor because she had found out (p.185) that it had no drinking
water supply by the Delhi Jal Board. She based her opinion entirely on this,
having little clue that the residents of the area are serviced by private pumps for
drawing out groundwater, and huge overhead tanks to store it just like other
posh areas of Delhi. For their drinking water, there is an elaborate network of
private players supplying bottled water to each individual household according
to their requirement and collecting payments from them.
For example, the discourses that paint Muslims as reluctant and disloyal
citizens, prone to violent behaviour and irrational outlooks, as dirty and polluted,
etc. are efficient because they generate the possibility of occurrence of events
that fit to these self-fulfilling prophesies (fantasies), thus maintaining
with the state. In the Muslim clusters, the state appears so eager to deliver
penal justice without due process and paint the people criminal, but when it
comes to the delivery of welfare services and facilitating integration with the
rest of the society, polity, and economy, it marks a naught. Even the most
progressive and sympathetic groups and people succumbed to the
epistemological Islamophobia that has permeated deeply into all public space
discussions relating to according Jamia, the status of minority educational
institution. These mostly point out to an understanding of all Muslims as
fundamentalist and parochial, whose presence in larger numbers enforced
In the analysis drawn from the narrative of this study, I am not merely claiming
that residents of Muslim enclaves in Delhi are experiencing a deficit in welfare
benefits and governance in the urban set-up. The making of the normative non-
citizen is a much more complex process that has historical content related to the
material forces and relationships of production, as well as content stemming
from contemporary discourse-weaving practices such as the news media and
films. In Delhi, apart from the mainstream media, social science researchers,
urban planners, social work field trainees and supervisors, historians and/or
(p.186) discourses on Muslim

areas. These numerous and diverse disciplines or practices nourish on spatial
segregation and churn out all kinds of representations of Muslims as a spectacle
Page 11 of 15

these representations discursively feed the logic of othering and segregation,

fortifying around the marginalized people a sort of discursive fencing or trap
which is tough to escape from.
Traditional activities that seek equal status for Muslim citizens are located in the
processes which influence public policy on issues concerning the Muslim

community. Nancy Fraser (1997)
and it involves, for example, demanding legislative support or affirmative policy
measures regarding development and welfare allocations and equal presence in
the social, economic, and political arena by way of reservations, among others.
Countering epistemological Islamophobia would entail changes in the other
everyday life. Activities belonging to this sphere, she explains further, involve
Re-Imagining Resistance
I have now amply demonstrated in the preceding chapters why we need to re-
imagine resistance by Muslims from their constraining, subjugating, and
degrading position. In order to be able to do this, let us revisit the earlier
discussion briefly. As discussed earlier in the book, identity has a material
exchange, any bartering between various facets of identity may seem to be an

individual, internal, symbolic act, but it is never uninformed by the surrounding
(p.187)
many negative aspersed characteristics, it becomes difficult for a person to
exchange it with any of their other identities that has equivalent value in this
arbitrary system of valuing or devaluing identities over one another. The
subjective internal and social agency of a Muslim person is almost always
subordinated to the communal codes located in relation to the gaze of the
Hindus, which reflects those ideas that paradoxically produce Muslims as
for itself by virtue of the fact that it is in and for itself for another. That is, it
Rauch and Sharman 1999: 20).
dominance of co-opting and, indeed, drawing legitimacy from acts of resistance

and transgression. I am reminded of the reaction of Barack Obama to protestors
outside the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) summit in Chicago in
). points out that the ideological

limits of a system of domination are around the edges of the questions that are
Page 12 of 15

never asked. Indeed these limits themselves must not ever be revealed or
articulated so that a notion of the fantasy as reality is sustained. Just as in the
movie Truman Show, teenaged Truman theoretically has a choice (which even he
made.
can only be through making those choices that are theoretically available
(fantasies) but are forever unavailable through unwritten limits. How are these
choices to be made? One of the characteristic ways these choices are made is
truly subversive thing is not to disregard the explicit letter of Law on behalf of
the underlying fantasies, but to stick to this letter against the fantasy which
sustains it.
itself is grounded in the very system of caste domination that it aims to oppose.
We know historically that this (p.188) can be an effective political strategy.
Gyanendra Pandey suggested, in answer to a question at a lecture3 I attended,
that in a movement for equality, there is a political moment when those who
have been victimized must defensively assert their subordinated position and say
of a woman whose right to equality and liberty a state professes to protect such
that she legally has a choice regarding who to marry, whether to work, and what
to wear, among others. But the unwritten rules of a patriarchal society limit for
individual women the choices that may be made. It is through demanding that
the state stick to the letter of its promise precisely in each of the circumstances,
the woman who chooses to don any form of hijab is asserting symbolically, just as
woman to resist the unwritten rules that seek to regulate her body and clothing
choices. I speculate theoretically that this may also be the essence of exercising
assertion of a subordinate identity may possibly be a powerful political strategy,

I contend that it addresses the system of dominance only partially, and never
effectively challenges the limits of pre-existing suppositions regarding these
identities.
But clearly, in the case of Muslims in Delhi, the resistance that can be provided
to the spatial fantasmic unwritten law which states that Muslims must not live
identification is grossly inadequate in challenging the structures that reproduce

segregated, representational spaces. Why may that be so? For example, Muslims
as reluctant and disloyal citizens, prone to violent behaviour and irrational
outlooks, as dirty and polluted, among others. These discourses are efficient
because they generate the possibility of events that fit to a (p.189) T as self-
Page 13 of 15

fulfilling prophesies (fantasies?) that maintain themselves. In the last analysis, it

appears that identities may indeed be used as a tool for subjugation in
maintaining and reproducing the oppressive relationships of production
lucratively. This normalizing power of identity calls for a relook at both methods
of juridico-legal resistance and resistance-through-identification. It seems logical
to resist identification as this or that per se, but this may not be enough. The
requirement is to foster a new kind of subjectivity which is empowered to
transform the very content of self-representation.
Because some individuals manage to avoid experiencing one form of dominance,

say being targets of communal violence or prejudiced and discriminatory
behaviour, they may easily be deluded into thinking that they have attained true
liberty. But to individually avoid subjugation, many Muslims abrogate the power
to craft a new critical subjectivity that problematizes the prevailing identity
stereotypes of Muslims. Foucault calls into question this tendency of the
contemporary systems of domination to simultaneously individualize and
totalize. He points out that,
are. We have to imagine and to build up what we could be to get rid of this
and totalization of modern power structures... We have to promote new

forms of subjectivity through the refusal of this kind of individuality which
Foucault 1982: 216).
The moment of problematizing a prevailing discursive content of an identity is

defined not by some altruistic or divine intervention, but is indicated by a
combination of events or social, political, and economic processes occurring
together to throw light upon the system of subjugation and enabling people to
see it as unjust. This is not to say that some kind of final unveiling and toppling
of injustice would take place as a consequence, but that in the Foucauldian
sense freedom is something that is exercised, rather than achieved, in a process
that must run in tandem with the careful and creative exercise of power. This is
the way in which we can effectively hope for the emergence of a (p.190)
capacity in people positioned adversely within a system of domination to seize
the moment and draw the power to re-imagine themselves. Instead of seeing
In the next chapter, I bring this book to a close by engaging in a critical exercise
of recounting a complex web of problems which get into the very way of
imagining Delhi as a city that may include all its residents as equals. The
exercise, though critical, is not meant to be an exercise in cynicism. It is
conceived in a way, however inadequate, to regard the problems of Delhi as a
global urban and the Muslim residents of Delhi in a philosophical thread. The
Page 14 of 15

last chapter thus closes off with a brief statement of the core inferences drawn
in the book in an attempt to respond to the problem of research that Horkheimer
posed in his 1931 (1993: 14)
Notes:
(1) Waqf is an Islamic concept of charitable trust that holds donated property or
assets, income or profit from which is to be spent on welfare and charity while
the asset itself cannot be sold.
(2) The admissions to school in the nursery class are governed by certain
there is a sibling already enrolled in the school, whether the parent have been
alumni of the school, if the child is a single child or a girl child, and the
education levels of the parents and any such criterion that the school and state
education administration may decide. Each of these can get a child some points
that are then added-up for a score. This score is used for short-listing for
admission.
(3
Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, 19 December 2011.
Page 15 of 15

Coda

in Delhi
Ghazala Jamil

Print ISBN-13: 9780199470655
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780199470655.001.0001
Coda
The Problématique of Envisioning the Ideal Delhi
Ghazala Jamil
DOI:10.1093/oso/9780199470655.003.0007

This brief chapter is an exercise in critical conjecture and is also meant to be an
exercise in intellectual pessimism following Gramsci. I attempt to argue that
inequality and segregation in the city not only frustrate the possibility of it
becoming an ideal place, but also obstruct the vision for an alternative image of
the city. The chapter traverses the difficulties of imagining the city as a truly
inclusive space when it is riddled with contradictions arising out of alienating
forces of commodification, fetishization, and consumption on the one hand; and
impulse for survival, justice, collectivities, realization of dreams, and pursuit of
happiness on the other.
Keywords: coda, scepticism, Ideal city, inequality, alienation, inclusion, consumption, justice,
happiness
aim to be a gesture at closure. Since the entire discussion brings to light so
base and the discursive content of the processes), the coda seeks to recapitulate
the structure of the argument with a closing comment that is not merely a
repetition. In order to absorb and grasp the full thrust of the work, I attempt to
reframe the discussion in terms of articulating a set of obstacles that arise in
academic enquiries begin with a statement of problems that they aim to

investigate, here I pose an additional but an inventive relook at un ensemble des
Page 1 of 8

Coda
problèmes (p.
192)
The much prevalent view of a city as an evolutionary stage in the process of

development leads to a difficulty in grasping contemporary globalized urban
urban problems. In his book Material Culture and Mass Consumption, Miller
managed to evade the focus of academic gaze, and remains the least understood
This was mainly because of academic anxiety to produce explanations of

urbanization that show consonance between processes and practices. In this
work, the task of envisioning the ideal Delhi actually involves highlighting and
amplifying the tensions at the interface of the problems, rather than to deduce
use vision. In this chapter the task of envisioning ideal Delhi actually involves
highlighting and amplifying the tensions at the interface of problems, rather
and ready to use vision. This approach fits well also with the Marxist Urbanist
analytical framework in this work. This view accommodates complexities and
contradictions inherent in the processes of urbanization, because it understands
the urban as a manifestation of capitalism.
From the discussion in the preceding chapters, it is clear that in the city, much
has gone awry with the way spaces are produced and used. But, because of the
rate at which urbanization of humanity is occurring1 we shall have to consider
that if we conceive urbanization as a progressive move for human societies, then
urban spaces must contribute to realization of the human potential for creative
existence and happiness. Horkheimer (1982 [1968]) asserts that in order to fully
comprehend human reality, social philosophy must understand that life is
marked by suffering and also the effort to surmount suffering. He says that
(p.193) fact requiring
Horkheimer 1982: 44). An ideal Delhi then must give all its
inhabitants space to build their happiness. But can a city bring people
happiness? While the instinct for survival needs no selling, the desire for a
lifestyle needs an elaborate market where it is sold sometimes aggressively and
and/or rural parochialism, they probably do so with the belief that in the city
they would be able to alter their lives. Between the two extremes, perhaps the
lowest common denominator is the human conception of a good life. Whatever
to lead this good life, he or she can be happy. In an ideal city, people may be able
to build a good life for themselves and pursue their own happiness. This includes
the ability and freedom to build a city in the image of their own happiness, not in
Page 2 of 8

Coda
the image of transplanted conceptions from someplace else. It is in this task of

conceptualizing an image of adequate happiness that the problem in imagining
Value considerations form a backdrop for the formulation and experience of

happiness. I can be happy when I can pursue what I think makes me happy. But
this enterprise is not as centred on the individual self as it might seem.
Horkheimer (1982) suggests that personal happiness is connected to a moral
sentiment of compassion. Human happiness is also an extension of self and a
desire for happiness for others. For theorists of cities, a conception of a city that
all must want has to be rooted in an implicit understanding of prioritizing what
Muslims. From the perspective of segregated and marginalized Muslims, I begin

by asking, on what values should be based the conceptualization of the ideal
Delhi? Susan Fainstein (1999) indicates that various urban theorists have
considered equality, diversity, and democracy to be the values that govern the
urban condition.
The treatment of minorities in democracies is of course, by far better than the

treatment of minorities in autocratic states. Having said that, ample evidence
exists indicating that experiences of Muslims as (p.194) a minority in
democratic India are far from perfect. Democracies are unfortunately often
marked by a belligerent majority and populist tendencies in the state policy.
it has not been sufficient. Advocates of diversity as the most important value are
right in asserting that acceptance of diversity and difference is a prerogative or
composed of different men; similar people cannot bring a city into

Balshaw and Kennedy 2000: 12). I assert that the
burdened with identities or expressions of identities that are not of their

choosing. The space to overcome or outgrow aspersed identities and labelling
must be available to people. Diversity and difference, while desirable and
unreservedly human conditions, are not to be espoused without any riders or
qualifiers. Many scholars such as Varshney (2002) have suggested that diversity
coupled with proximity fosters tolerance and harmony, but ample evidence and
experiences also exist to show that diversity per se without equality ends up as a
dealing with this kind of hierarchy may be state response. I am tempted to

engage in what might seem (within the limited ambit of this study) a speculative
exercise of imagining that instead of being concerned so much with
categorizing, labelling, targeting, and eliminating various types of citizens from
basic needs and services such as food security and housing to all its subjects,
Page 3 of 8

Coda
probably they in turn would be more tolerant of each other. Be that as it may, it
is ultimately justice that comes up at the top of my list (as it does in other
Marxist approaches to understanding urban), when we prioritize from amongst
these three values. This is not to say that democracy and diversity are not
important, but that practices of electoral democracy and mere existence of
difference and diversity, devoid of political and economic justice ring hollow to
minorities. (p.195)
At this juncture, I put out three interfaces in which I have framed a

problématique involved in envisioning the ideal Delhi. These have not been
chosen for any verifiable importance and may appear arbitrary, but I chose these
because while undertaking this research and writing it, these are the tensions
that I found most challenging. In the following sections, I explore the tensions at
Harvey (2003) insists that this cannot be done by just claiming rights and
demanding a different ordering of rights, but by insisting upon different
Charles Correa
(2010) says that cities are the spatial embodiment of the dreams and aspirations
of a society. This is so today and it was thus even in pre-modern times. Correa
Charbagh, and Vedic
Mandala
cities are mired in everyday realities. The stuff that dreams are made of may not
the city as an image in the mind of its inhabitants. Like all images, this image
has also succumbed to being a mythical image. Correa mentions how Kolkata
attempt to survive and become more human. It is this dream that brought Balraj
Do Bigha Zamin (Roy 1953) to the city of Calcutta.
The dream of making enough money to go back to a piece of land they (p.196)
utter dehumanization convey to them that their dream of becoming more human
can never be fully realized in the city. Then there are people who are caught not
so much in the struggle to survive but to become more like the image of the
person who is in their dreams. The dream of a fresh Muslim BTech or MBA in
Delhi is one of acquiring urbanity, modernity, and liberty. The everyday reality of
their homes without ventilation and natural light, long commutes, and long
Page 4 of 8

Coda
working hours are disregarded in the pursuit of this image which is a mythical
promise communicated to them from the advertisements and hoardings. The
latter are also characterized by oblivion to their membership of the exploited
working class. Boxed in the partition of their workstation in a corporate office
chasing daylight timings of another time zone in the world, traversing the length
of cities in cabs and cars, they too chase an image which they will never fully
become.
In any case, it would be unfair to say that all these dreams are unreal. To a
woman whose lot was slow starvation, a belly full of food for her children is the
immediate dream. Once that is taken care of, procuring other requisites
becomes the next dream. Many dreams are very real, at least to the one
dreaming them. Only, the tragedy here is that what people see as their own
dreams are only conjured up by the ideology implicit in media practices, urban
And, the fulfillment of some of their dreams is the ideological lure to continue to
dream of the unattainable because all of it appears so near and so clearly visible.
Thus, the city becomes the site where the dreams are continually nurtured, but
the everyday thwarts the realization of these dreams. The communal politics of
industrializing India in the decades of the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s shook up
Indian Muslims such that this kind of dreaming was not available to them. The
slow turning up of modernist heat by the globalization of capital, spaces, and
prejudice has put urban Muslims (p.197) in a situation where slumber full of
consumerist dreams induced by ideology is therapeutic by comparison.
Consumption
urban spaces and built environment as if these have nothing to do with the
relationships of production, thereby giving a peek into the fact that the dominant
conception of development of a city is all about the development of productive
infrastructure and not about people. The role of human beings is limited in so far
as their capacity to consume. The city is geared towards a new mode of
still has a robust continuity in Delhi), nor is it the service industry (very much
evidenced by the advances in technology); it is rather, the culture industry which
is geared towards creating a culture of new needs and then providing for the
needs thus created. The paradox of this culture industry is that no one is left out
of its ambit, everyone is included. Reality shows, daily soaps, crime news shows,
downloadable ringtones, and innumerable other examples abound for the ways
everyone is recruited into the city of consumption. For those of us in social work
exclusion of groups and communities, the task now is to comprehend this new
Page 5 of 8

Coda
form of exclusion by inclusion. Just as states have biopower over bodies, the
culture industry has power over consciousness. This hegemonic thought-power
working parallel to biopower, is advancing in the everyday life of Delhi residents
by leaps and bounds. It has made people believe that they are not entitled to any
welfare or security from the state, that welfare and security can only be claimed
by those who can pay the price
form of taxes). Dwelling as a prerequisite to human dignity does not even find an
(p.198) official narratives of the city. The
this inclusion is leveraged to exclude them into segregated neighbourhoods,

harijan bastis,2 resettlement colonies on the edges of the city, and shelter homes
for the homeless, such that the rest of the city may lose any cognition of their
exclusion.
As it stands, the issue of happiness too is mired in the issue of consumption, and
therefore, is completely entangled in the issue of relationships of production. It
is the positionality of people in this entangled thread (web?) of production,
consumption, and accumulation that becomes the function of happiness. A
the prized few, and everyone else is included in the state of exclusion. Premium
spaces in the city are those where only a select few live, or in which no one lives
spaces of exception. It is then easy for those who can buy and consume to think
that the product they are buying and consuming is happiness itself. When
practices such as urban planning and governance functions. These practices are
spaces. And contestations are all about power and politics. The spaces that are
required by the select few for their accumulative purposes become central
spaces of the city, and the undesirables get thrown to spaces of exceptions. It is
futile to hope that continuing on the same trajectory that it is being traversed
(p.199) now, Delhi can become an inclusive space where all its inhabitants can
freely construct a true image of their happiness and live in it.
Right to the City: Individual Needs Versus Collective Rights

In the wake of the global spread of capitalism, Western liberal democracy and its
intrinsic values have gained an unprecedented hegemony. This fact has been
discussed in detail earlier in this book in the discussion of ideas proclaiming the
end of history, and so on. I take the opportunity in this coda to reiterate that
discourses asserting that there is no alternative to Western liberal ideas on
Page 6 of 8

Coda
economy, systems of governance, and rights of individuals, among others, which
Harvey
2000: 17) to describe the contestations that function within the discursive
emphasize following Marx that the notion of individual as a locus of claim-

making in the Western liberal ideas, has been undermining the rights of
communities. Various unlimited rights are being asserted by the liberals for
individuals, which are testing the increasingly precarious conditions for co-
people. Car owners claimed right of way when confronted with a BRT (bus rapid
transit)-dedicated corridor for mass public transport (http://www.cseindia.org/
content/brt-missed-bus-cars; http://www.citylab.com/cityfixer/2016/12/why-did-
bus-rapid-transit-go-bust-in-delhi/510431/;http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/
Delhi/trying-to-run-delhis-brts-off-the-road/article3728091.ece). Liberals assert
that the right of a community not to be offended does not exist, but the right of
an individual to offend must be unlimited. Entire slum localities are dubbed as
illegal squatters and denied the right to shelter, but maverick individuals get
unlimited media attention when they assert their right to gratify their lifestyle
choices that are in congruence with liberal values. It does not need another
repetition in this book (p.200) how Muslims fare in such a scenario. Designated
official misfits in the Western liberal scheme of things, Muslims, as a community,
are pitted in direct opposition to the liberal, modern individual. In a race where
(whether this is the case on the ground is another debate). The Islamophobes
transferred their hatred, and asked about Muslims in the language of fake
When the politics of lifestyle choices and individual rights is appearing to gain
strength, Muslim individuals too are attempting to articulate their resistance in
this language. A closer reading of the text of everyday is required to read what is
actually not written in the transcript. Embracing a slur and claiming loudly what
one is being ridiculed for, needs to be understood as a weapon of the weak. It
Scott
1990) by Muslims are only a matter of lifestyle choices. Muslim people who
language that is allowed to them. How do queers contest that they are no
different than any human being, and must not to be treated differently by
society? Paradoxically, by proclaiming and expressing their difference more
loudly in events like gay parades. It is a situation that is symptomatic of
Page 7 of 8

Coda
fragmentation and individualization of collective and class-based politics.
choices peculiar to them as much as they want in limited spheres, but any
collective effort by Muslims is doomed to be reduced to a farce or a tragedy.
Even in this case, the individual assertions are only a manifestation of the
community losing ground in society.
Some More Questions Left Unexplored

This study raises a plethora of questions and makes assertions regarding issues
that were explored. Almost all of these merit an (p.201) exploration of a much
bigger magnitude on their own. Apart from this, I encountered several questions
regarding Muslims in Delhi, or more broadly urban Muslims in India which were
not explored for paucity of time and limits of this endeavour, which was geared
towards the award of a doctoral degree. A fresh concerted research effort is
required to explore the existing prevalence of caste markers and their
expression among Muslims. More concerted studies are also required of urban
Muslim women, of the experiences of Muslims with the state agencies with
special reference to the officially appointed commissions for enquiries and status
reports, and of the conceptions mired in epistemological Islamophobia among
civil society organizations and the academia. These are but a few indicators for
an entire field of research that has been afflicted with the same ailment that has
inundated the subjects of research. Research pertaining to Muslim people and
localities has long been in a state of stagnation. If this book sparks off fresh
frames of reference, that in itself would be a worthwhile contribution to
countering the prejudice, discrimination, and violence experienced by Muslims
in India.
Notes:
(1
population crossed the halfway mark (UN Habitat 2008).
(2) Harijan Bastis: Settlement of dalits. Harijan (literally, people of God) was the
Page 8 of 8

Closing Gesture

in Delhi
Ghazala Jamil

Print ISBN-13: 9780199470655
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780199470655.001.0001
Closing Gesture
A Vision for the Ideal City
Ghazala Jamil
DOI:10.1093/oso/9780199470655.003.0008

The Ideal City is made up of the stuff of dreams. All its residents can dream of a
city which they can create in their own image of happiness, and live in everyday.
In the Ideal City, the worth of human life is not measured by how much an
individual being can consume. In the Ideal City, the residents are aware that
they do not merely consume, but they also can and do create. The Ideal City
comprises of persons and collectivities who share an inalienable humanity, and
differences do not need insularity and each dweller ...
The Ideal City is made up of the stuff of dreams. All its residents can dream of a
city which they can create in their own image of happiness, and live in everyday.
In the Ideal City, the worth of human life is not measured by how much an
individual being can consume. In the Ideal City, the residents are aware that
they do not merely consume, but they also can and do create. The Ideal City
comprises of persons and collectivities who share an inalienable humanity, and
differences do not need insularity and each dweller belongs.
Page 1 of 1

Annexure

in Delhi
Ghazala Jamil

Print ISBN-13: 9780199470655
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780199470655.001.0001
(p.203) Annexure
Brief Profiles of Key Participants
Ghazala Jamil
Azeem Akhtar
Azeem sahab was a senior officer in the Delhi Police. He has also served as
the secretary of the Delhi Waqf Board, and the president of the Anglo-Arabic
in Urdu. Azeem sahab walked with me in Daryaganj and Chandni Chowk. He

took me to meet several of his friends and acquaintances including his
publisher in Kucha Tarachand. He now lives in Zakir Nagar after his
retirement.
Dr Mohammad Kamran
A Unani doctor trained at Tibbia College, Dr Kamran attends patients in a
charitable OPD clinic attached to a Madarsa in Jaffarabad. In addition, he also
owns and runs a coaching centre for school children from his home in
Jaffarabad on a not-for-profit basis. Conversations with him took place at the
OPD clinic and his coaching centre. Sometimes his teachers would also be
present and participate in the discussions. I was also invited for the (p.204)
declared.
Haji Umar
Jaffarabad. He is an old resident of the Seelampur area, having shifted here

even before the emergency forced others to be relocated here. He is
intimately familiar with the contemporary history of the area. I met him at his
office in a group discussion with community leaders from Jaffarabad and
Chauhan Bangar.
Page 1 of 5

Annexure
Jamshed Khan
Despite not being educated, he set up his workshop from scratch and now
Javed Khan
Javed has an MBA degree and (around the time the interviews took place) had
with their studies for years. He is looked at as a role model by many of them.
Conversations with him took place at his home and while walking through J
and K blocks, New Seelampur.
Khalid Javed and Asma Javed (names changed)

Khalid and Asma are a couple from Saharanpur. First generation migrants,
they had to come to Delhi when Khalid lost his contract with BSNL
Saharanpur for hardware and networking work. Asma is also pursuing studies
in Jamia. They live in Zakir Nagar. Khalid works in a reputed IT firm, and
Asma is teaching in a neighbourhood primary school.
Khalid Zafar and Zafar Iqbal

Khalid is a 23-year-old chartered accountant. His father has a workshop
sahab stayed back in Delhi during Partition, while his entire extended family
left. They are residents of Chitli Qabar, Jama Masjid. My conversations with
participated in the conversations; her parental family had also left for
Pakistan. Khalid also accompanied me in walking through Chitli Qabar,
Bazaar Sita Ram, and Bawarchi Khana, among others. (p.205)
Mohd Mohsin
Mohd Mohsin is a 21-year-old resident of J-Block New Seelampur, pursuing a
Masters degree. His father buys insulated wire and subcontracts the work of
wire stripping to middle men, who distribute it to home-based labour
stripping copper wire of its plastic/rubber insulation. Apart from his studies,
his major engagement is helping his father in this work. Mohsin is preparing
for the UGC-NET (University Grants Commission-National Eligibility Test) and
aspires to become an academician. The conversation with him took place in a
group discussion with youth from J and K blocks, New Seelampur. Most of
these young men are involved in the scrap business.
Mohd Sultan
Small manufacturer of electronic goods, originally from Amroha, as a young
bachelor, Mohd Sultan worked in a workshop in Old Delhi, where he learnt
the trade. He shifted to Chauhan Bangar in Seelampur, where he brought his
family and now owns a small manufacturing workshop himself. My
Page 2 of 5

Annexure
conversation with him took place at his home. His children and wife also
contributed to the discussion occasionally.
Monis Siddiqui
Monis Siddiqui is a manufacturer of metal sheet cabinets from Chauhan
Bangar. My conversation with him took place in his workshop office. Mr
Sultan and two other manufacturers from the garment industry also
participated in this discussion.
Moin Ahmed and Ranam Ahmed

Moin is a software engineer originally from Ranchi, Jharkhand. His education
and training is from Aligarh Muslim University. After coming to Delhi for
work, he lived briefly in Malviya Nagar. He shifted to Zakir Nagar to a rented
flat upon his marriage with Ranam. Ranam is from Patna, and was a graduate
now live in their own flat in Shaheen Bagh in Jamia Nagar. The interview with
them took place at their home.
Mr Jaffry
Eighty-year-old Mr Jaffry is a senior member of the Taj Enclave society. At
present he is the president of the society, and actively looks after all its
affairs. The conversation with him took place in the flat of another resident.
(p.206)
Mr Merajuddin Qureshi and family

A worker on lathe machine in Bara Hindu Rao, Merajuddin has a very small
workshop with a single lathe that he owns and operates himself fashioning
metal parts for various machines. My conversation with him took place at his
workshop. Later, I was invited to his home, where I met his wife, daughters,
daughter-in-law, and grandchildren.
Naghma Begum
Thirty-year-old Naghma is a housewife and mother of two. She is originally
from a village in Bulandshahr. The interactions took place at her home.
Sumaiya
Basti Hazrat Nizamuddin since her marriage. She has researched Urdu
programming on All India Radio for her doctoral degree. The conversation
with her took place at her home in Basti Hazrat Nizamuddin. Her mother-in-
law is a Punjabi Muslim from Malerkotla. She was also present for part of the
interaction.
Mohd Naim
Thirty-five-year-old Naim is a resident of Taj Enclave, having shifted there
from Sarai Khalil. He has been living there with his family for the last 10
present and participated in the conversation.

Page 3 of 5

Annexure
Qamar Akhtar
Sixty-seven-year-old Qamar sahab owns a bridal garments shop in Chandni
moved to Zakir Nagar only a few years ago. He is deeply familiar with the
dynamics in Old Delhi, Nizamuddin, as well as Jamia Nagar. He was used as
1
of the study from the point of view of
theoretical (p.207) exploration. Qamar sahab also helped me meet his
brother who has written extensively on Old Delhi.
Ovais Sultan Khan

A 22-year-old resident of Chauhan Bangar, Ovais Sultan Khan was placed as a
social work student trainee for fieldwork in Seelampur K-Block. A student
activist, Ovais is intimately familiar with many community-based
organizations and activists, as well as organizations that engage with issues
related to communalism. Conversations with him took place at his home and
while walking in Seelampur and the walled city.
Rizwan Alam (name changed)

Rizwan is a 45-year-old researcher and content writer in a PR firm in
Gurgaon. Trained as a journalist, Rizwan is originally from Aurangabad,
Maharashtra. He lived in Hauz Rani before moving to Zakir Nagar right
before his marriage. Conversations with him took place at my house.
Sabiha Ahmed (name changed)

A 40-year-old software engineer originally from Moradabad, Sabiha came to
training in computers and software. She works with a small consultancy firm
located near Jamia Nagar. She is now married and has two children.
Shaheena Begum
Shaheena is a 62-year-old housewife. Shaheena is a widow and shifted from
Moradabad only after all her children settled in Delhi after studying in Jamia
and having gotten jobs and/or being married in Delhi. Conversations with her
present.
Shakeel Malik
Thirty-seven years Shakeel and his family originally came from a village in
Aligarh district and invested in land. He has dabbled in several businesses in
among others. Presently he is engaged as a builder and developer in real

estate. He is my neighbour in Jamia Nagar. Conversations with him took place
at my house.
Sibghat Ullah Siddiqui
Page 4 of 5

Annexure
Principal of Shafiq Memorial School, Sibghat Ullah was valuable in helping

me frame my enquiries into educational and professional aspirations in
(p.208)
Focus Group Discussions

Youth from J Block and K Block of New Seelampur, mostly working in the scrap
recycling business (only men).
Community elders and local political activists in Seelampur (only men).
Employees of Call Centres and other IT professionals in Jamia (Both men and
women).
centre.
Notes:
(1) I have borrowed sampling method for the ethnographic fieldwork in this
which the process of data collection is determined by the development of theory

as it emerges. Decision related to thus recruitment for participants are crucial.
have an experience of the subject matter of the enquiry but are able to comment
articulately and reflexively. Excellent participants must be willing to spend
considerable amount of time on the research.
Page 5 of 5

References

in Delhi
Ghazala Jamil

Print ISBN-13: 9780199470655
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780199470655.001.0001
(p.209) References
Ghazala Jamil
Bibliography references:
A Wednesday), Bollywood
Hungama, 2 September, available at http://www.bollywoodhungama.com/movie/
a-wednesday/critic-review/.
Agamben, G. (trans. D. Heller-Roazen). 1998. Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and

Bare Life. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press.
Althusser, L. 1969[1965]. For Marx. London: Verso Books.
. Indian Express.
Anderson, B. 1991. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread

of Nationalism. London: Verso.
Appadurai, A. 1996. Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization.

Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Fear of Small Numbers: An Essay on the Geography of Anger.

Durham: Duke University Press.
Arad, Y. 1980. Ghetto in Flames: The Struggle and Destruction of the Jews in
Vilna in the Holocaust. Jerusalem: Ktav Publications.
Arendt, H. 1951. The Origins of Totalitarianism. Prague: Schocken Books.
Page 1 of 19

References
The Hindu,
8 July, available at http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/housing-apartheid-
flourishes-in-delhi/article3613994.ece.
Balshaw, M. and L. Kennedy. 2000. Urban Space and Representation. London:

Pluto Press. (p.210)
Banerjee-Guha, S. (ed.). 2010. Accumulation by Dispossession: Transformative

Cities in the New Global Order. New Delhi: Sage.
Barthes, R. 1993. Mythologies. London: Vintage.
Journal of Human Rights
Firstpost.com, available at
http://www.firstpost.com/living/the-women-of-nizamuddin-basti-aga-khan-trust-
for-culture-brings-a-new-light-into-their-lives-3090938.html.
Baudrillard, J. 1995. The Gulf War Did Not Take Place. Bloomington: Indiana
University Press.
Bauman, Z. 2004. Identity: Conversations with Benedetto Vecci. Cambridge:

Polity Press.
International Social Science Journal, 55(175):
Mute
Magazine, 5 September.
R.E. Frykenberg (ed.), Delhi through the Ages: Selected Essays in Urban History,
Culture, and Society
R.S. Rajan (eds), The Crisis of Secularism in India

Press.
in Swapna Banerjee-Guha (ed.), Accumulation by Dispossession: Transformative

Cities in the New Global Order
M.G. Durham and D.M. Kellner (eds), Media and Cultural Studies: Keyworks, pp.
Page 2 of 19

References
Bennett, T. 1995. The Birth of a Museum: History, Theory, Politics. London:

Routledge.
American Law and Economics Review
Economic and Political Weekly
Bhaskar, I. and R. Allen. 2009. Islamicate Cultures of Bombay Cinema. New

Delhi: Tulika Books. (p.211)
Bök C. 2001. Pataphysics: The Poetics of an Imaginary Science. Evanston,

Illinois: Northwestern University Press.
Publications of the American Sociological Society
Butler, J. 2004. Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence. London:
Verso Books.
Urban
Sociology
The Informational City: Information Technology, Economic

. Oxford: Blackwell.
The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture

Cambridge: Blackwell.
Census of India. 1941. Vol 1. Government of India Press: Shimla.
Census of India. 1951[1953]. Vol. 1, Part 1-A. Government of India Press: Delhi.
Centre for Equity Studies: New Delhi, available at http://www.unescogym.org/

wp-content/uploads/2015/06/MANDER_SAHGAL_Internal-Migration_Distress-
Opportunities.pdf.
Chakravarty, S.S. 2011.

University of Texas Press.
Chandler, D. 2002. Semiotics: The Basics. London: Routledge.
Chandra, B. 1979. Nationalism and Colonialism in Modern India. New Delhi:

Orient Longman.
Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers,
Page 3 of 19

References
Chatterjee, P. 1993. The Nation and Its Fragments: Colonial and Postcolonial
Histories. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Cultural Critique
The Indian Express, 28 June, available at http://

archive.indianexpress.com/news/khursheed-says-sachar-report-not-quran-sparks-
off-war-of-words/809657/.
Chopra, A. (Director). 1995. Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (Film). Mumbai:

Yashraj Films.
Urban Studies
Population Research and Policy Review (p.212)
Correa, C. 2010. A Place in the Shade: The New Landscape and Other Essays.
New Delhi: Penguin India Books.
Coser, L.A. 1977. Masters of Sociological Thought: Ideas in Historical and Social
Context. New York: Harcourt.
Cosgrove, Denis. 1998[1984]. Symbolic Formation and Symbolic Landscape.

Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
Dalrymple, W. 2003. City of Djinns: A Year in Delhi. New Delhi: Penguin.
The Routledge
Companion to Critical Theory
DDA (Delhi Development Authority) 2007. Master Plan for Delhi 2021. New
Delhi: Delhi Development Authority.
Debord, G. 1983. Society of the Spectacle. Detroit: Black & Red.
Debray, R. 1967. Revolution in Revolution? Armed Struggle and Political

Struggle in Latin America. New York: Monthly Review Press.
Ariel: A
Review of International English Literature
Derrida, J. 1994. Spectres of Marx: The State of the Debt, the Work of Mourning,
and the New International. New York: Routledge.
Dodds, K. 2007. Geopolitics: A Very Short Introduction. New York: Oxford

University Press.
Page 4 of 19

References
Douglas, Mary. 1966. Purity and Danger: An Analysis of the Concepts of Pollution
and Taboo. London and New York: Routledge.
Kurbaan (Film). Mumbai: Dharma Productions.
Dupont, V. 2004. Socio-Spatial Differentiation and Residential Segregation in

Geoforum
2003.08.003.
Dupont, V., E. Tarlo, and D. Vidal (eds). 2000. Delhi: Urban Space and Human
Destinies. New Delhi: Manohar.
Eagleton, T. 1989. Marxism and Literary Criticism. London: Routledge.
Occasional Paper, No. 5, Vol. 7, May, Institute of Islamic Studies, Bombay.
Gujarat: Laboratory of Hindutva, available at http://www.dawoodi-

bohras.com/spotlight/riots.htm.
Body-Gendrot, and L. Beauregard (eds), The Urban Moment

Thousand Oaks: Sage.
Social Problems (p.213)
Urban Studies
Faridi, F.R. and M.M. Siddiqi (eds.) 1992. The Social Structure of Indian
Muslims. Institute of Objective Studies, New Delhi.
Fazal, T. 2013. Millennium Development Goals and Muslims in India. Oxfam India
The
American Economic Review
British
Journal of Sociology
Foucault, M. (trans. Richard Howard). 1973. Madness and Civilization: A History

of Insanity in the Age of Reason. New York: Vintage.
Page 5 of 19

References
Discipline and Punish: The Birth of a Prison.

New York: Vintage.
Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics

Chicago University Press.
Bernauer and D. Rasmussen (eds), The Final Foucault. MIT Press: Cambridge,
Massachusetts.
The History of Sexuality, Vol. 1: An

Introduction. New York: Vintage.
Fraser, N. 1997.
Condition. New York: Routledge.
International Journal of Urban and Regional Research,
Frykenberg, R.E. (ed.). 1986. Delhi Through the Ages: Selected Essays in Urban
History, Culture, and Society. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Population Research and Policy Review
Gans, H.J. 1982. Urban Villagers: Group and Class in the Life of Italian-
Americans. New York: Free Press.
Gayer, L. and C. Jaffrelot (eds). 2012. Muslims in Indian Cities: Trajectories of

Marginalisation. New York: Columbia University Press.
Media
Effects: Advances in Theory and Research
Associates. (p.214)
International Journal of Urban and Regional

Research
Giddens, A. 1991. Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late
Modern Age. California: Stanford University Press.
Regional Review
Page 6 of 19

References
Goffman, E. 2010 [1971]. Relations in Public: Microstudies of the Public Order.

New Jersey: Transaction Publishers.
Government of India. 2001. Census of India 2001. New Delhi: Office of the
Registrar General and Census Commissioner, India, Ministry of Home Affairs.
Gramsci, A. 1971. Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci.

New York: International Publishers.
Grewal, R. (Director). 2009. Aaloo Chaat (Film). Mumbai: Mirchi Movies Ltd.
Gupta, N. 1981. Delhi between Two Empires. Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Gupta, R. (Director). 2008. Amir (Film). Mumbai: UTV Spotboy Productions.
Habermas, J. 1984. The Theory of Communicative Action, Vol. I. Boston: Beacon.
Dissent
Halbwachs, M. 1992. On Collective Memory. Chicago: University of Chicago

Press.
Harriss-White, B. 2005.
Economy. Gurgaon: Three Essays Collective.
Antipode
in
Politics & Society
International Journal of Urban and Regional Research
The Urbanization of Capital. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Antipode
Justice, Nature and Geography of Difference. Oxford: Blackwell.
Spaces of Hope. Berkeley: University of California Press.
International Journal of Urban and Regional

Research (p.215)
International Journal of Urban and Regional Research
Page 7 of 19

References
Social Scientist
.
New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
. New Delhi:
Oxford University Press.
Hetherington, K. 2006. .
London: Routledge.
Hindustan Times.
Hillier, B. and J. Hanson. 1984. The Social Logic of Space, Vol. 1. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
in Sh. Macdonald (ed.), A Companion to Museum Studies

Blackwell Publishing.
Hirani, R. (Director). 2009. 3 Idiots (Film). Mumbai: Vidhu Vinod Chopra

Productions.
Ranger (eds), The Invention of Tradition

University Press.
Hodgson, M.G. 1974. The Venture of Islam: Conscience and History in a World
Civilization, vol. 1. The Classical Age of Islam, Chicago: University of Chicago
Press.
Horkheimer, M. 1982[1968]. Critical Theory: Selected Essays. New York:

Continuum.
in Between Philosophy and Social Science: Selected Early Writings

Cambridge: MIT Press.
Page 8 of 19

References
Dialectic of Enlightenment: Philosophical

Fragments
HRW (Human Rights Watch). 2011.

Torture of Terrorism Suspects in India. New York, available at https:// (p.216)
www.hrw.org/report/2011/02/01/anti-nationals/arbitrary-detention-and-torture-
terrorism-suspects-india.
Mother and Child Park in Hazrat Nizamuddin Basti, available at https://

www.facebook.com/NizamuddinRenewal/photos/a.
341896242527742.95440.180959275288107/1253089021408455/?type=3.
Journal of Urban Economics
Jackson, K. 1985. Crab Grass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United

States. New York: Oxford University Press.
Urban
Studies
Social Text
48.
The Political Unconscious: Narrative as a Socially Symbolic Act.

Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Postmodernism, or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. Durham:

Duke University Press.
Signatures of the Visible. New York: Routledge.
1998. London: Verso Books.
New Left Review
Modern Asian Studies
Jayal, N.G. 2013. Citizenship and Its Discontents: An Indian History. Ranikhet:
Permanent Black.
Page 9 of 19

References
Unanswered Questions, available at https://archive.org/stream/

encounterAtBatlaHouseUnansweredQuestions/
Batla_House_encounter_report_djvu.txt.
International Social Science Journal
Hardnews,
www.hardnewsmedia.com.
Johar, K. (Director). 2010. My Name Is Khan (Film). Mumbai: Dharma

Productions.
Some Unanswered Questions. New Delhi: JTSA, available at https://archive. (p.

217) org/stream/FramedDamnedAndAcquittedDossiersOfAVerySpecialCell/
JTSA-Report-Framed-Damned-and-Acquitted-Dossiers-of-a-Very-Special-
Cell_djvu.txt.
Framed, Damned, Acquitted: Dossiers of a Very Special Cell. New

Delhi: JTSA, http://www.kafila.org/.
Kamat, N. (Director). 2008. Mumbai Meri Jaan (Film). Mumbai: UTV Spotboy
Productions.
Katz, M.B. 1990. The Undeserving Poor: From the War on Poverty to the War on
Welfare. New York: Pantheon Books.
Urban Schools as History. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
The Price of Citizenship: Redefining the American Welfare State.

New York: Metropolitan Books.
Forging Identities: Gender, Communities, and the

State
Tehelka Magazine, 3
November, http://www.tehelka.com.
Khalidi, O. 1995. Indian Muslims since Independence. Chicago: South Asia

Books.
Muslims in Indian Economy. New Delhi: Three Essays Collective.
Khan, K. (Director). 2009. New York (Film). Mumbai: Yashraj Films.
Page 10 of 19

References
The Hindu.
Culture
Unbound: Journal of Current Cultural Research
Kumar, R. (13 June 2012). For Muslim Women in Delhi, a Breath of Fresh Air.
New York Times, available at https://india.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/13/for-
muslim-women-in-delhi-a-breath-of-fresh-air/?_r=0.
Lacan, J. 1991. The Seminar of Jacques Lacan: Book II:

Theory and in the Technique of Psychoanalysis. New York: WW Norton &
Company.
Lefebvre, H. 1991. The Production of Space. Oxford: Blackwell.
The Journal of American

Folklore
Structural Anthropology, pp.
Low, S.M. (ed.). 1999. Theorizing the City: The New Urban Anthropology Reader.
New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.
Anthropological Quarterly, 66(3):

(p.218)
Mamdani, M. 2005. Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: Islam, the USA, and the Global
War against Terror. Delhi: Permanent Black.
Mander, H. and G. Sehgal. 2012. Internal Migration in India: Distress and

Opportunities. A Study of Internal Migrants to Vulnerable Occupations in Delhi.
T. Bottomore, Citizenship and Social Class
Tucker (ed.),
A
Wednesday), available at http://www.rajeevmasand.com/uncategorized/masands-
verdict-any-day-watch-a-wednesday/.
New Left Review
Space, Place and Gender. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Page 11 of 19

References
Social Forces
American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of the

Underclass. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Mathur, S and Ray, D. 2014. Nizamuddin urban renewal initiative. Seminar. No:
657 (May), available at http://www.india-seminar.com/
2014/657/657_shveta_&_deeti.htm#top.
Public Opinion Quarterly
Economic and Political

Weekly
Mehra, R.O. (Director and Producer). 2009. Delhi-6 (Film). Mumbai: UTV Motion
Pictures.
Mail Today, 20 July,

www.indiatoday.intoday.in, available at http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/spicejet-
communal-slur-ex-major-mohammed-ali-shah/1/209245.html
Menon, N. 2004. Recovering Subversion: Feminist Politics beyond the Law.

Ranikhet: Permanent Black.
https://kafila.online/
2009/06/07/and-arent-obc-women-women-loud-thinking-on-the-womens-
reservation-bill/. (p.219)
Outlook Magazine, 4 June, available

at https://www.outlookindia.com/magazine/story/which-way-to-ramgarh/281004.
Merrifield, A. 2002. Metromarxism: A Marxist Tale of the City. New York:

Routledge.
Mid-day Mid-day, http://

judicialreforms.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Shock%20anger%20midday.pdf.
Miller, D. 1987. Material Culture and Mass Consumption. Oxford: Basil

Blackwell.
Mills, C.W. 1970. The Sociological Imagination. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Page 12 of 19

References
The Times of India

(Ahmedabad edn), 17 August, available at http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/
city/ahmedabad/Azamgarh-A-breeding-ground-for-terror/articleshow/
3372589.cms.
Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs
Journal of the Indian

Anthropological Society
Screen
Politics and Practice in Economic Geography
Huffington Post, 21
May, available at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/21/nato-summit-
obama-speech_n_1533353.html.
Nattoji, I. (Director). 2009. Aagey se Right (Film). Mumbai: UTV Motion Pictures
& Spring Films.
NCEUS. 2006. Report on Social Security for Unorganised Workers, National

Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganised Sector. New Delhi: Government
of India, available at http://nceuis.nic.in/Social%20Security%20-
%20Cover%20and%20index.htm.
Report on Conditions of Work and Promotion of Livelihoods in the

Unorganised Sector, National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganised
Sector. New Delhi: Government of India, available at http://nceuis.nic.in/
Condition_of_workers_sep_2007.pdf.
NCRB (National Crime Records Bureau). 2016. .

Government of India.
Nichols, B. 1976. Movies and Methods, Vol. I. Kolkata: Seagull Books. (p.220)
Los Angeles Times,

http://www.latimes.com, available at http://www.latimes.com/la-oe-
nomani1-2008dec01-story.html.
Noorani, A.G. 2003. The Muslims of India: A Documentary Record. New Delhi:
Page 13 of 19

References
Noordegraaf, J. 2004. Strategies of Display: Museum Presentation in Nineteenth-

and Twentieth-Century Visual Culture. Rotterdam: Museum Boijmans Van
Beuningen: NAi Publishers.
Oakes, J.P., S.A. Haslam, and J.C. Turner. 1994. Stereotyping and Social Reality.
Wiley-Blackwell.
and
Latin American Perspectives
August, available at https://www.outlookindia.com/newswire/story/mumbai-

police-commissioner-transferred-home-min/772888.
Urban Studies
Pandey, G. 2001. Remembering Partition: Violence, Nationalism, and History in

India. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Pandey, N. (Director). 2008. A Wednesday (Film). Mumbai: UTV Motion Pictures.
The Urban Sociology Reader. London: Routledge.
American Journal of Sociology
The Urban Community. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Park, R.E. and E. Burgess. 1921. Introduction to the Science of Sociology.

Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Urban Studies Reader. New

Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Patel, S. and K. Deb. 2009. Urban Studies Reader. New Delhi: Oxford University
Press.
The Hindu, 18 March, available at http://

www.thehindu.com/news/national/in-delhis-nursery-classes-muslim-children-are-
a-rarity/article3009826.ece.
Perlman, J. 2009. Favela: Four Decades of Living on the Edge of Rio de Janeiro.
New York: Oxford University Press. (p.221)
Page 14 of 19

References
University-WIDER.
Social, Economic and

Educational Status of the Muslim Community of India: A Report. New Delhi:
Cabinet Secretariat, Government of India, available at http://
www.minorityaffairs.gov.in/sites/default/files/sachar_comm.pdf.
Prasad, M.M. 1998. Ideology of the Hindi Film: A Historical Construction. New
Delhi: Oxford University Press.
The Times of India, 10 August,

available at http://www.newageislam.com/radical-islamism-and-jihad/india-
rendezvous-with-simi/d/512.
The Hindu
http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-opinion/so-whats-new-about-mumbai-
burning-our-response/article3773557.ece.
Rajadhyaksha, A. (ed.). 1987. Indian Cinema. New Delhi: Directorate of Film

Festivals.
Ramachandran, R. 1989. Urbanization and Urban Systems in India. New Delhi:

The Hindu, available at http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Delhi/

zenana-bagh-gives-women-a-space-of-their-own/article3306719.ece.
Eurasia Review, 23 August, available at http://

www.eurasiareview.com/23082012-a-second-look-at-police-handling-of-
rampaging-muslim-mob-in-mumbai-oped/.
Rauch, L. and D. Sherman. 1999.

Text and Commentary. New York: State University of New York Press.
Ritzer, G. and D.J. Goodman. 2004. Classical Sociological Theory. New York:
McGraw-Hill.
Roberts, B. 2006. Micro Social Theory. Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillian.
http://www.outlookindia.com/magazine/story/scandal-in-the-palace/235689.
Planning Theory
Page 15 of 19

References
Roy, B. (Director and Producer). 1953. Do Bigha Zamin (Film). Bombay: Bimal
Roy Productions.
Said, E.W. 1998 [1981]. Covering Islam: How the Media and the Experts
Determine How We See the Rest of the World. New York: Vintage Books. (p.
222)
Sassen, S. 1991. The Global City: New York, London, Tokyo. Princeton: Princeton
University Press.
Globalization and Its Discontents: Essays on the New Mobility of

People and Money. New York: New Press.
Current
Sociology
sociopedia.isa
Land
and Life: A Selection from the Writings of Carl Ortwin Sauer
Berkeley: University of California Press.
Saunders, P. 1981. Social Theory and the Urban Question. London: Hutchinson.
Literary Theory: An Anthology,
Scott, J. 1990. Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts. New
Haven: Yale University Press.
Economic and
Political Weekly
Severin W.J. and J.W. Tankard. 2000. Communication Theories: Origins, Methods,
and Uses in the Mass Media, 5th edn. New York: Longman.
Development
Mail Today, 17
October, available at http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/anna-hazare-hindutva-rss-
vhp-bjp/1/155206.html.
Sharpe, M. and G. Boucher. 2010. .

Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Page 16 of 19

References
Indian Express, available at http://indianexpress.com/article/explained/muslims-

polpulation-in-india-muslims-beggar-unemployment-census-data-muslim-
economic-survey-2941228/.
Economic Geography
Lessons from Gujarat. Mumbai: Vikas Adhyayan

Kendra.
Singh, U. 1999. Ancient Delhi. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. (p.223)
NDTV.com, available at https://web.archive.org/web/20080921002031/http://

www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/story.aspx?id=NEWEN20080066025.
Smith, D.E. 1988. The Chicago School: A Liberal Critique of Capitalism.

Basingstoke: Macmillian.
Spear, T.G.P. 1937. Delhi: A Historical Sketch. Bombay; Chicago: H. Milford;

Modern Asian Studies
Statistical Abstract of Delhi. 2014. Government of NCT Delhi, available at http://

www.delhi.gov.in/wps/wcm/connect/f508bc8046667b0e9cf6bcf5a4ed47e7/
Stattistical+Abstract+of+Delhi+2014.pdf?
MOD=AJPERES&lmod=66436406&CACHEID=f508bc8046667b0e9cf6bcf5a4ed47e7.
Stiglitz, J. 2002. Globalization and Its Discontents. London: Penguin.
Environment and Planning Asia, 0308518X17696071.
Alternatives: Global, Local, Political

35.
Tarlo, E. 2003. Unsettling Memories: Narratives of the Emergency in Delhi. New

Delhi: Permanent Black.
Taylor, L. 1973. Deviance and Society. London: Nelson.
The Polish Peasant in Europe

and America, 2 vols. New York: Dover Press.
Page 17 of 19

References
Times of India
Times of India.
Movies and Methods. Volume 1
Social
Identity: Context, Commitment, Content
U.N. Habitat. 2008. .

London: Earthscan.
Urbanisation and Development: Emerging Futures. World Cities

Report 2016. United Nations.
Van Dijk, T. 1985. Discourse and Communication. Berlin: Walter De Gruyter.
Racism and the Press. London: Sage. (p.224)
Discourse & Society,
Varshney, A. 2002. Ethnic Conflict and Civic Life: Hindus and Muslims in India.
New Haven: Yale University Press.
Wacquant, L. 2008. Urban Outcasts: A Comparative Sociology of Advanced

Marginality. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Punishing the Poor: The Neoliberal Government of Social

Insecurity. Durham: Duke University Press.
The Ghetto:
Contemporary Global Issues and Controversies
Press.
The Times of India, 7

September, available at http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/sunday-times/
Terrors-secular-roots/articleshow/3453605.cms.
Page 18 of 19

References
Max Weber: Essays in

. London: Routledge.
West, R.L. and L.H. Turner. 2007. Introducing Communication Theory: Analysis
and Application. McGraw-Hill.
Whyte, W.F. 1943. Street Corner Society: The Social Structure of an Italian Slum.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Wirth, L. 1928. The Ghetto. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
American Journal of Sociology, 44(1):
World Bank. 2001. Cities in Transition: World Bank Urban and Local Government
Strategy. World Bank: Washington, DC.
Movies and
Methods. Volume 1
Zieleniec, A.J. 2007. Space and Social Theory. London: SAGE.
The Sublime Object of Ideology. London: Verso.
The Plague of Fantasies. London: Verso.
Welcome to the Desert of the Real. London: Verso.
First as Tragedy, Then as Farce. London: Verso.
Page 19 of 19

Index

in Delhi
Ghazala Jamil

Print ISBN-13: 9780199470655
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780199470655.001.0001
(p.225) Index
Aadhar registration 106
Aagey Se Right film , 147
Aaloo Chaat
aam aadmi (common man) 151
Abul Fazal Enclave 79, 177, 184
academic anxiety 192
adult franchise, doctrine of 100
Advani, Lal Krishna 7, 73, 101
Aga Khan Foundation (AKF) 86
Aga Khan Trust 52n2,
Aga Khan Trust for Culture (AKTC) 86
agenda-setting theory
Ahata Kedara 87
Air India 178
Ajmal Khan Road 87
Akbar, M J 163
Akhand Bharat (Unified India) 145
Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarti Parishad (ABVP) 107
Alexander the Great 3
alienation
-effect 134
of life 131
of Muslims 96
Aligarh 7
Althusser, L. , 139, 172
Ambedkar colonies 36
Amir
Anderson, Benedict 133
Anglo-Arabic school 176
anti-Mandal campaigns 107
apartheid practice in South Africa
Page 1 of 21

Index
Appadurai, Arjun 17, 106

appeasement of Muslims 7, 9
Arab Muslims 162
Archaeological Survey of India 52n2, 86
archideological fantasy 138
Arendt, Hannah 112
Asperger syndrome 151
Auteur theory 136
Babri Masjid demolition in 1992 7, 101, 164 (p.226)
backwardness among Muslims 163
Bada Hindu Rao 87
bad-terrorist Muslim 148, 151
Bajrang Dal 107
Bandukwala, J S 164
bare life
Barthes, Roland 132, 132n1, 136
basti (settlement) 84
Basu, Anustup 150
Batla House 71, 174, 177
bomb blasts (2008) 12, , 165
extra-judicial killing of students in Jamia 115
small business operation in
Bawana industrial area 64
Benjamin, Solomon 104
Benjamin, Walter 48
Beri Wala Bagh 44, 87
Bhagalpur 7
Bhagidari scheme
Bhandarkar, Madhur 137
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) 73, 101, 108, 117, 119
Bhardwaj, Vishal 137
Bhopal 4
big capital 117
bigoted party leaders 122
big other 139
Bihar 36, 60, 73
biopolitics of state
biopower 113
Black families in US 19
Black people, segregation of 20
Bodos in Assam 115
Bollywood cinema 126
filmmakers 137
Muslims representations in
representation of reality 157, 159
secular spaces in 147
bomb blast(s)
Ahmedabad blasts 164
Bangalore 161
Page 2 of 21

Index
in Delhi (2008)
Hyderabad 161
in Mumbai (2006) 144, 161
Surat 161
Varanasi 161
border patrol agents 122
bourgeois public sphere 56
brain drain 144
Brecht, Bertolt 134
British colonial state, anti-Muslim sentiment in 98
built environment
bureaucracy 104, 107, 140
Burgess, E.W. 15
business process outsourcing (BPO)
bus rapid transit (BRT)-dedicated corridor transport system 199
Butler, Judith 120
camp-like situation 112
capital accumulation 68, 70, 95, 172
capitalism 25, 69
global 136, 145
late
objects of commodity 158
capitalist accumulation 11
capitalist analysis 82
capitalist globalization 27
capitalist investment in built environments 81
capitalist structure, relationships of production impact on workers 96
caste(s) 13
-based segregation 36
domination 187
identities 13
lower 99 (p.227)
markers 201
politics 121
upper 108
Census of India
2001
Delhi population 2n1
migration over India
2011
Delhi population 2n1
reported migrants 2n1
centralization 19
centralized sovereign 122
Central Public Works Department (CPWD) 52n2, 86
Chandni Chowk , 88
Chauhan Bangar 68
chawls 3
Chicago school , 39, 183
Page 3 of 21

Index
Christian cities 37
cinema/films
audience, types of 137
of fantasy
Hindi attention to sign and symbols 136
Indian
frontality and realism as functions of 137
journey of 136
on Muslims identities
portray of reality
women portrayal in Hollywood 138
performative political events 136
popularity of, measurement
potential for reproduction of human experiences 135
screenings 134
on terrorism 140
citizenship
as claim-making
deficit 97
Indian, history of construction 99
inequitable distribution among legal citizens
second-class 124
city(ies) 193
American, racism in 39
classification of 37
composition of 194
contemporary 195
embodiment of dreams and society aspirations 195
individual needs vs collective rights
medium-sized 38
mythical city of God 195
nurturing of dreams 196
premium spaces in 198
religious minorities in 37
as a site for dwelling and consumption
types of 37
civil society/civil society organizations 8, 97, 105
class(es) 13, , 110
backward 108
-based politics 200
differences 3
dominance 123
marginalization of 110
middle and lower class Muslims
neighbourhoods 13
oppressed 167
service class professionals 8
upper middle 128
working migrants 36
Page 4 of 21

Index
clustering 19
codes, definition of 132, 132n1
cognitive map 135
Cohen, William 162 (p.228)
commodified culture 53
commodity culture 53
commodity images of Muslims 158
communal conflict 38
communal consciousness 149
communal divides 13
communal fault lines 99
communal forces 125
communal harmony 51
communalism 9, 156
abetting 121
politics of 99
religious 153
communal politics of industrializing India 196
communal prejudice 27, 68
communal riots 38, 63, 101
communal segregation 68, 70
communal spatial segregation 67
communal violence , 11, 33, 35, 37, 101, 109
communication, coded form of 134
community cohesion 3
concentration
concentration camps of Nazi 112, 124
concentric zone model 15
Congress party 117
Connaught Place 99, 174
consciousness
consumer capitalism 136
convergence entrepreneurial management 106
corporate influence 104
corporate jobs 73
corporate social responsibility (CSR) 105
Correa, Charles 195
corruption 107, 121, 140
counter-hegemonic process 131
Crescent Public School 177
criminal disloyalty 6
critical theory , 27, , 172
cultural distinction 167
cultural heritage 51, 53
cultural industrialization 171
cultural logic of late capitalism 135
culturally loaded geography 53
cultural marketization 8
cultural reproduction 131
Page 5 of 21

Index
cultural texts 135

cultural tolerance 51
Dagh 3
Dalit
movements
Muslims 124
dangerous behaviour 161
Dargah (mausoleum)
Daryaganj 58, 88
Debord, Guy 158
deconstruction 133
deconstructionist reading 133
Dehli ki tehzeeb (culture of Delhi) 40
dehumanization 196
de jure segregation 18
Delhi
Aadhar registration fees 106
demolition drive by DDA 7
infrastructure and facilities, transformation in
labour movement in 103
missionary spirit
population as per Census 2001 and 2011 2n1
segregation on religious identity 7
urban elites influence in 104
Delhi-6 156
Delhi Cantonment Board 52n2
Delhi Development Act, 1957 52 (p.229)
Delhi Development Authority (DDA) 7, 52n2, 118
Delhi Heritage Committee (2005) 52
Delhi Jal Board 185
Delhi Laws (Special Provisions) Bill 2006 119n2
Delhi Master Plan
2001 51
2021 51, 119
Delhi Muslims. See Muslims in Delhi
Delhi Public School 177
Delhi State Archaeological Department 52n2
Delhi Urban Heritage Conservation Foundation Regulations (1999)
Delhi Waqf Board
democracy(ies) 124
authoritarianism within 122
marked as majority and populist tendencies 194
treatment of minorities in 193
as a value 194
deprivation 10n9, 114, 161,
Derrida, J. 133, 172
destruction 133, 164
developing economies 81
Dev Samaj Modern School 177
Page 6 of 21

Index
différance 133
Dilli Gate 58
Dilliwallah
Hindu 156
Muslims 71
Dilliwalley 5
Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge 154
Discipline and Punish (M. Foucault) 112
discrimination 5, 27, 83, 89, 115, 123, 128, 148, 162, 164, 166,
against African-Americans 19
differentiated
driving segregation 20
geographies of , 191
overt 13
private 20
racial 20
discursive-political 186
discursive subalternity 29
diversity 27, 72, 155, 194
Do Bigha Zamin 195
Eagleton, Terry 131
ecological fallacy 14
economic relations 129
editing 137
education of Muslims
electoral democracy 194
electoral representation 140
elite
mobilizations 122
Muslims 12
networks 117
women mobilizations 108
emancipatory
politics 109
reading 133
Emergency period (1975) 7, 47, 100
employed psychoanalytical technique 138
encounter(s) 114
Batla House in 2008 12, , 165
fake
writing in Hindi films
estrangement-effect technique 134
ethnographic studies 18 (p.230)
ethno-racial identity 22
evenness 19
excluded people 128
executive 107
exposure 19
extra-constitutional killing 150
Page 7 of 21

Index
extra-judicial encounters 126

fact 137
Fainstein, Susan 193
fake encounter of Ishrat Jahan
family values 21
fantasmic 156, 188
Fascism 122
Fatehpuri Masjid 176
Fatehpuri Senior Secondary School 176
fear of small number 106
feminist movements 110, 123
fetishism, Marxist conception of 25
filmmaking 157
finance circuit 82
financial institutions 82
financial power 104
food walks 52
For Marx (L. Althusser) 129
Foucauldian sense freedom 189
Foucault, M. 96, , 121, 152, 172, 189
Fr. Agnel School 177
framing 137
full-blown postmodernity 135
Gaddis 71
Gandhi, Indira 7
Gandhi Nagar 67, 89
Gandhi, Sanjay 7
Gans, Herbert 15
Gaur, Anil 163
gay parades 200
gaze, concept of 138
gender relations, in patriarchal structure 96
Gender Resource Centres (GRCs) of Mission Convergence 105
geographical
mobility 68
space 23
geopolitical aesthetic 135
Gerbner, George 159
ghadar (mutiny) against British 5
Ghaffar Manzil 177
Ghafoor Nagar 71
Ghalib, Mirza , 53
ghetto(s), concept of 114
Black ghetto
classical 34
French ghetto 22
history of dehumanization of communities 34
Jewish
neighbourhood as branded 184
Page 8 of 21

Index
obvious role in formation of 39

origin of 34
targets of anti-Jewish pogroms 34
Ghetto, The (Louis Wirth) 15, 18
Giddens, Anthony
global Islamophobia, in post-9/11 world 102
globalization process 17, , 35, 69
profits made by large corporations
globalized economy 8
global urban
good citizenship 104
good life, notion of 193
11, 147
good myths 134
good-progressive Muslim 148 (p.231)
governmentality, technologies impact on 113
government institutions 10, 10n5
government service 10, 10n6
Gramsci, Antonio 16, 30, 97, 172, 199
GRCs of Mission Convergence 111
Greater Kailash 66
gross domestic product (GDP), Muslim population contribution towards 10
Gujarat pogrom (2002) 8, 73, 90n6, 108, 164
Gupta, Narayani
Haji Ali dargah 147
Hali 3
Hamdard Educational Society 177
Hamdard Public School 177
Hamdard Waqf 177, 177n1
Harijan (people of God) 198n2
harijan bastis 198, 198n2
Harijan colonies 36
Harvey, David , , 28, 39, 69, , 172, 195, 199
Hasan, Mushirul 149
Hazrat Nizamuddin (Sufi Saint) 84
heritage conservation 86
Heritage Conservation Committee (HCC) 52n2
heritage walks 52
high modernity 23
hijab 188
Hindu Gujjars 71, 82
Hinduism 99
Hindu Jat 87
155
Hindu nationalism 145
Hindu refugees 44
Hindu, The 116
Hindutva rhetoric 119
historicism (archaeology) 112
Page 9 of 21

Index
History of Sexuality (M. Foucault) 110

Hollywood cinema/films , 138, 144
homogenous slums 34
Horkheimer, Max 136, 157, 172, 190,
emphasis on emancipatory aim of research 23
human society, emphasis on 22
speech at Frankfurt school inauguration in 1931 22
human ecology, notion of 14
human happiness 193
human reality 192
human society 22
Humayun Tomb 85
Hyderabad 4
Ibn-e-Batuta 3
ideal city 30, 193, 195, 198, 202
ideal Delhi 195
building of good life and happiness 193
highlighting and amplifying tensions 192
provision of space for happiness 193
identity formation
identity markers 140
identity of Muslim 124
negative aspersed characteristics
as a political position 182
ideological state, Althusserian
ideology
Marxist notion of 138 (p.232)
pejorative connotations 138
of time 131
3 Idiots 155
Imagined Communities (Benedict Anderson) 133
imagined community 57
India Against Corruption (IAC)
movement 123
middle class support 107
Muslims participation in 107
vision of 107
Indian Administrative Service (IAS) 10n6
Indian Express 166
Indian Foreign Service (IFS) 10n6
Indian Mujahideen
Indian Muslims 196, 201
identity 23
live in qasbah towns 3
normative non-citizens 27
political interests 149
poverty and backwardness among 9
socio-economic backwardness 9, 12
Page 10 of 21

Index
Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH) 52n2
Indianness 156
Indian Police Service (IPS) 10n6
individuals, Foucauldian notion of 24
Indo-Pak war of 1965 100
industrial capitalism 14
industrialized mass media
inferior objects of suspicion, Muslims as 187
information technology (IT) 176
intelligence interrogators 122
interactions 128
interpellation, Althusser idea of 139
interreligious marriages 154
irrational
attitudes 161
excess 120
Isfahan 3
Islam 9, 99, 182
good follower 150
patriarchal 143
Islamicate cultures in India 4, 4n2
Islamic Charbagh 195
Islamic/Islamist terrorists 12, 35, 114, 162
Islamic radicalism 162
Islamic terrorism 165
Islamophobes 200
Islamophobia, epistemological 102,
Israel 162
Jaffarabad 6, 68, 87
Jahan, Ishrat 115
Jama Masjid 7, 56
cultural marketization 51
historical significance 47
walled city, emergence as 51
Jameson, Frederic , , 167, 172
Jamia Millia Islamia , 63, 72, , 177, 184
Jamia Nagar 6, 159, 173, 181, 184
educational institution in 73
gentrified as middle-class neighbourhoods 165
in-migrants from UP and Bihar 73,
investments in real estate business (p.233)
land purchase by Old Delhi residents 71
relative affluence, experience of 75
self-categorization of people 74
Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM)
Jerusalem 195
Jewish immigrants 18
Jodha Akbar 140
Jogabai Extension 74
Page 11 of 21

Index
Johari Farm 74
journalism 121, 157, 164
judiciary 107, 117
Kakkar, Sudhir 137
Kapoor, Prithviraj 143
karigars (artisans or skilled workers) 6
Karim restaurant 50
karkhana 6, 45
karkhandaars (workshop owners) 6
Karol Bagh 44, 87
Kashmir 162
Kashmiri Gate 44
khanqah (a place for Sufi gathering) 84
Khan, Shah Rukh 151
Khan, Soha Ali 144
Khurshid, Salman 123
knowledge creation by people 182
Kolkata 195
Kurbaan 151
Laboratory of Hindutva discourse 8
labour market segmentation 67
labour mobility 67
Lajpat Nagar 44
landscape 28
culturally loaded geography 53
discursive quality
urban 2
Lang, John 4
language 132, 182
of antiquity 143
late modernity 109
Lefebvre, H. 16, , 30, 38, 48, 57, 172
lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) movement 110, 171
Levi, Primo 124
Lévi-Strauss, Claude , 136
liberalization 35, 69
lifestyle, politics of , 200
Lokpal Bill 109
Los Angeles Times 114, 162
lower-class Muslims 13
Lucknow 4
Hindus domination in urban slums of 37
madness 152
Madrasas
MAF Academy 177
Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) 116
Mahatma Gandhi 198n2
male gaze, concept of 138
Malhotra, Jag Mohan 7
Page 12 of 21

Index
mandis 67
marginalized people 128
marginal man 18
Markaz (centre) 85
Marshall, T.H. 96
Marxism 22, 131, 133, 172
Marxist urbanism 16, 27
Marx, K. 14, 48, 131, 172, 199
mass audience 137
mass society 136
material culture 192
Material Culture and Mass Consumption (D. Miller) 192 (p.234)
material culture, modern technologies of 131
Mayoor School 177, 179
media culture 157
media hype 104
Meena Bazaar 7, 46
Meerut 7
Mehra, Diya 117, 119
Mehra, Rakeysh Omprakash 137
Member of Parliament (MP) 90n6
members of the legislative assembly (MLAs) 104
Menon, Sunil 154
mental illness 152
Metromarxism (A. Merrifield) 16
Mewati Muslims 72
middle-class Muslims, global recession impact on business of
Mighty Heart, A movie 163
migration of Muslims, after partition 5
militants, Muslim 163
Mills, C. Wright 15
mini-Pakistan 57
Ministry of Urban Development 52n2
mise-en-scène 137, 137n2
Model Basti 87
(Mushirul Hasan) 149
modernity 156, 182, 192, 196
Modi, Narendra 107
Moffusilite newspaper 5
Mohammedan violence 119
Moinuddin Chishti of Ajmer 84
Moradabad 7
Mughal-E-Azam
multiethnic democracy 162
Mulvey, Laura 138
Mumbai Meri Jaan 144
Mumbai riots 164
Mumbai tapori 141, 141n4
Municipal Corporation of Delhi 52n2, 86
Page 13 of 21

Index
Muselmann 125
museumifies 70
museumized neighbourhood 54
museums
contemporary 52
good layout guide for visitors 55
modern day 53
pathways of movement for visitors 56
science terminology 54
Muslim neighbourhoods 115
capitalist project of accumulation 69
in Delhi
commodification of space
Old Delhi
Seelampur as mini-Japan
stigmatization 165
subjects of governmentality 125
Trans-Yamuna cluster
as a human resource 70
166
illusion of choice 27
normalizes segregation 34
Muslimness 35, 48, 109, , 152, 155, 182, 200
symbolic costume or signifiers of space 149
Muslim parents children, school enrolment and drop out ratio 9n4
Muslim rule 98
Muslims cities 37 (p.235)
Muslims in Delhi 23, 26, 83, 167, 190, 201
colonial legacy 97
fall and re-conquest by Britishers 4
forced evictions during Emergency 100
heterogeneity among 3
independence experience faced by 99
marginalization, factors of 102
origin of 3
partition of India
and its aftermath impact 99
violence and killings during
resistance provision through spatial fantasmic unwritten law 188
spatial segregation 13
Uttar Pradesh 6
Muslims in films, portrayal of 130
Muslims in Priority Sector Advances 9n4
Muslims segregation 2
mutation in built space 135
Muzaffarnagar 44
My Name Is Khan , 156
myth(s) 137
Barthes idea of 134
Page 14 of 21

Index
good 134
performative 134
processual 134
structural study of (Claude Lévi-Strauss) 133
Nandy, Ashis 137
nation
national boundaries 102
National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, Government 54
national communities 134
nationalist militias 122
Nazi Party in Germany 22, 34
neoliberal reforms 7
Neo-Nazis 151
New Friends Colony community centre 70
New Horizon School 177
New Jaffarabad 68, 75
New Seelampur 57,
news media 12, 27, 30, 126
churn out commodity images of Muslims 158
Muslims portray 130
print 85,
representation of Muslims 126
Nizamuddin
non-governmental organizations (NGOs) 52, 105
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Chicago summit (2012) 187
not in our name slogan 148, 148n5
Obama, Barack 152, 187
Okhla 7, 87, 177
Old Delhi (or Purani Dilli) 6, 8, , 69, 176
degradation of living conditions 70
livelihood from tourism industry 70
online forums 85
orientalism 159
other backward classes (OBCs)
Muslims and Hindu-OBCs, comparison between 10
women 108
outside broadcasting (OB) 115
overrepresented Muslims 13
Pakistan , , 142
Muslims population 162
(p.236)
Pandey, Gyanendra 188, 188n3
paranoid scapegoating 145
Park, Robert Ezra 14, 18
participatory planning 104
partition of India ,
Patnaik, Arup
Pearl, Daniel 163
personal happiness 193
Page 15 of 21

Index
physical distance 18
playful reading 133
police 107
police control room (PCR) patrol van 63
Polish Peasant in Europe and America, The (W.I. Thomas, W.I. F. Znaniecki) 18
political activism 109
political contestation
political double bind 189
political life
political rationality of state 110
political unconscious 135
Political Unconscious: Narrative as a Socially Symbolic Act, The (Frederic Jameson)
134
positionality
within global economy 24
of Muslims 29
post-industrialist society 135
poverty among Muslims 6, 9, 11, 114
decline in urban and rural areas 10n9
Prasad, M. Madhava
prejudice 5, 123, 128
Prime Minister High Level Committee (PMHLC 2006) 9
prison camps 122
private discrimination 20
Production of Space, The (H. Lefebvre) 25
progressive good Muslims , 157, 161
progressive intellectuals 122
progressive-liberal Muslims
public housing policy 19
public museums 56
public space 56
Public Works Department 4
pulp literature 158
Punjabi refugees 87
Punjabi refugees in Delhi 36
Punwani, Jyoti 116
purdah practice of Muslims 143
qasbah towns 3
Quran 123, 163
176
racial discrimination, in favelas of Rio de Janeiro
racial identities 20, 22
racist bartenders 122
Raman, B. 116
Ram Janmabhoomi movement in 1990 72, 72n1, 107
Ramzan 185
Rath Yatra in 1990 7, , 101
Rawal, Paresh
Ray, Satyajit 136
Page 16 of 21

Index
real estate business, Muslims experience of 81

Recovering Subversion (Nivedita Menon) 108
refined audience 137
reflexive modernity 23,
refugees 42
in Delhi city 99, 153
Hindu 44
middle-class 44
Punjabi 36
Sikh 44 (p.237)
Sindhi 87
working-class 44
regimes of curiosity 52
religious identities 56
religious scriptures 84n4
representational cities approach 18
representational space 26
representation of Muslims 2, 10, 10n5, 30, 126, 140, 186
in Bollywood cinema/films 138,
as community of people 101
in media 159
media discourse analysis 130
in public services 73
representation of space 26, 57,
representative democracy 101
Reserve Bank of India 9
resettlement colonies 36
residential segregation 3, 36
dimensions of 19
by race and class 20
residential structure of city 24
residents welfare association (RWA) , 104
resistance by Muslims 28, 125, 161, 171
re-imagine 167,
responsible citizens, upper-middle-class youth represent as 128
retributive violence 11
Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar 115
rural Muslims 10n9
Sachar Committee Report 114
recommendations of 9, 11, 37, 123, , 165
Sachar, Rajinder 9
Sadar Bazaar 89
Sahni, Balraj 195
Said, Edward 159
Samajik Suvidha Sangam (SSS or Mission Convergence) 103, 105
Sangam Vihar 161
Sangh Parivar 7
San sentalis 42
Sardar Patel Vidhyalaya 177
Page 17 of 21

Index
Sarojini Naidu Women Studies Centre 184

Sassen, Saskia 102, 106
scheduled castes (SCs) 9, 11, 36
scheduled tribes (STs) 9, 11
sealing drive in Delhi (2006)
sectarian violence 162
secular democracy 162
secular feminists
Seelampur , 44, 59, 87, 120, 166
lower-class Bihari migrants in 76
as mini-Japan
poor non-Muslims resettled in 87
squatter hutments/jhuggis 184
segregated enclaves 27, 80
segregation 95, 157
African-American people, history of
caste-based 36
determinants of 18
ideological discourses 38
Israeli state policy 19
of Muslims 37, 100
Hindu-only city neighbourhoods 101
population in neighbourhoods 70
residential 19
spatial 186
state role in 18
self-avowed 187
self-segregation 20 (p.238)
sepoy mutiny of 1857 (ghadar) 4, 40, 54
98
Shafiq Memorial School 176
Shaheen Bagh 184
Shahjahanabad 51
Sharma, Mohan Chandra 160
shehr (the city) 5
Sheila cinema theatre in Paharganj 40n1
Sheppard, Eric 24
Shergill, Jimmy 150
Shibli College 163
Shivdasani, Aftab 153
Shiv Sena 116
Sikh cities 37
Sikh refugees 44
SIMI 115, 163
Sindhi refugees 87
situational approach 15
slum(s) 13, , 68, 90n6, 106, 184, 199
colonies 36
dwellers 12, 105
Page 18 of 21

Index
homogenous 34
Mumbai 146
urban 37
Small, Albion 14
soccer hooligans 122
social control 2
social distance 18
social interaction 19
social organism 14
social philosophy 192
social relationships 128
social reproduction 2
social shift 135
social situatedness of researcher 24
sociological absurdity 22
socio-political agency 129
socio-religious communities (SRCs) 10n9
socio-spatial inequalities 36
solidarity(ies)
burden of building 108
politics of
sovereign power
sovereignty 96, , 122
absolute 114
sovereign violence, on physical bodies 122
Soviet Bolsheviks 16
space(s) 28
commodification
cultural records 53
form material spatial axis 57
instrumental view of 25
organization of 24
production of
representational 26
representation of 26, 57,
Spain 184
spatial decoding 25
spatialization of inequality in Delhi, in slum and resettlement colonies 36
spatial practices, definition of 26
spectacle 48, 186
Sriniwaspuri 44
state sovereignty (Nazi) 111
Station House Officer (SHO) 165
stock
characters 141, 141n3
situations 141, 141n3
Street Corner Society (W. Whyte) 15
structural adjustment programme 7, 13, 17
structural analysis 132
Page 19 of 21

Index
subaltern classes, definition of 97 (p.239)

Sublime Object of Ideology, The 139
suspicion 5
symbolic solutions 167
Tablighi ideology 84n4
Tablighi Jamaat movement 84, 84n4
Taimur Nagar 184
Taj Enclave 75,
TCS 179
Tehelka 90n6
television rating point (TRP) 159
terror/terrorism/terrorist(s) 12, 35, 114, 123, 140, , , 153
attacks 35
communal attacks and violence turn Muslims into 114
as infiltrators 151
Muslim 163
community reproduced image 164
outfits 164
Pakistani 141
potential 8, 115, 125
reporting on attack
tech-savvy 163
Theorizing the City (Setha Low) 17
theory-building project 18
transatlantic smuggling of American concepts 22
Trans-Yamuna cluster in Delhi
trigger-happy Blackwater mercenaries 122
true resistance 187
Truman Show movie 187
Turkman Gate 7, 46, 58
unadulterated evil, state as
United States (US)
European Jewish immigrants in 34
11
housing loans for white families 19
race conflicts in 14
war against terror 8
universal commodification of labour power 157
unorganized sector, Muslims employed in 83n3
untouchable castes 187, 198n2
urban beautification 7
urban condition 2
urban development 197
urban ecology 14
urban governance 105
urbanism 15
Urbanization and Urban Systems in India (R. Ramachandran) 37
urbanization of humanity 192
urban Muslims in India 10n9, 27, 33, , 201
Page 20 of 21

Index
urban neighbourhoods 15
urban planners 197
urban planning 36, 196, 198
urban population 192n1
urban renewal 86, 196, 198
urban renovation of Paris (1853) 81
urban sociology
urban spaces 197
urban transition
urban undesirables 198
urban villages 15
urban violence 120
urban world 195
Urdu Academy 54
Urdu poetry 142
Uttar Pradesh (UP) 36, 60, 71, 73
violence and hostilities in western 6 (p.240)
Valmiki colonies 36
Varshney, Ashutosh 37
Vedic Mandala 195
visibility 54
Wacquant, Loic
Wall Street Journal 163
war, scope of 112
Weber, M. 14
Wednesday, A 150
welfare cover 194
white-collar workers 184
white families in US 19
women movement, in India 108
work participation rate, Hindu and Muslims OBC 10n8
World Bank 105
World Trade Organization (WTO) 105
xenophobia 39
Yadavs 71
Yamuna Bazar 58
Yamuna river 71
young Muslim men, labelled as potential terrorists
Zakir Husain Delhi College 63, 174
Zakir Nagar 29, 74, 78, 90, 177
zamindari system 6
zamindars 6
114, , 144, 172,
zoning 196
Page 21 of 21

About the Author

in Delhi
Ghazala Jamil

Print ISBN-13: 9780199470655
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780199470655.001.0001
(p.241) About the Author

Ghazala Jamil
Ghazala Jamil
is Assistant Professor at the Centre for the Study of Law and
Governance, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Her core
research interests are urbanization, social movements, minority
rights, and materiality and spatiality of culture.
She has earlier taught at the Department of Social Work, University
of Delhi, as an adjunct faculty, and at the School of Planning and
Architecture (SPA), New Delhi, as a visiting faculty. Jamil has a
and PhD from University of Delhi.

She is associated with several grassroots collectives working in the
areas of social justice and communal amity. Jamil is interested in
poetry of protest and has translated works from Hindi/Urdu and
Punjabi to English. She has co-translated an Urdu book on popular
history of Delhi by Intizar Hussain, titled Once There Was a City
Named Dilli (Yoda Press, 2017).
Page 1 of 1

Ghazala Jamil - Accumulation by Segregation - Muslim Localities in Delhi-OUP India (2017)

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Ghazala Jamil - Accumulation by Segregation - Muslim Localities in Delhi-OUP India (2017)

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Ghazala Jamil - Accumulation by Segregation - Muslim Localities in Delhi-OUP India (2017)

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Title Pages

Accumulation by Segregation: Muslim Localities

Print publication date: 2017

(p.i) Accumulation by Segregation

(p.iii) Accumulation by Segregation

Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford.

Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 18 October 2020

© Oxford University Press 2017

The moral rights of the author have been asserted.

First Edition published in 2017

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,

You must not circulate this work in any other form

Typeset in Minion Pro 10.5/14

Access brought to you by:

Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 18 October 2020

Accumulation by Segregation: Muslim Localities

Print publication date: 2017

(p.ii) Map 1 Study Areas

Access brought to you by:

Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 18 October 2020

Accumulation by Segregation: Muslim Localities

Print publication date: 2017

Access brought to you by:

Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 18 October 2020

Accumulation by Segregation: Muslim Localities

Print publication date: 2017

Tell us what it is to be a woman so that we may know what it is to be a

Nobel Lecture: 7 December 1993

Access brought to you by:

Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 18 October 2020

Accumulation by Segregation: Muslim Localities

Print publication date: 2017

Kaun jae Zauq par Dilli ki galiyan chhor kar

(Who wishes to leave, Zauq, wandering the streets of Delhi)

me. The entire process is marked by moments of serendipity followed up with

I was extremely fortunate in having Professor Manoj K. Jha as my doctoral

Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 18 October 2020

perhaps) challenged me to see familiar concepts with a critical perspective, and

It was in the work of Professor N. Sridharan that I first encountered spatiality of

The discussions and feedback received in two conferences gave my work an

Committee for Urban and Regional Studies of the International Sociological

Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 18 October 2020

Governance, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.

Access brought to you by:

Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 18 October 2020

Accumulation by Segregation: Muslim Localities

Print publication date: 2017

Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 18 October 2020

Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission

Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 18 October 2020

Access brought to you by:

Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 18 October 2020

Accumulation by Segregation: Muslim Localities

Print publication date: 2017

Abstract and Keywords

immense transformation in terms of infrastructure and facilities for those who

Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 18 October 2020

socio-political positionality of Muslims in the urban social fabric and public

Delhi and Its Muslims