“God Gives Hope”: Navigating Marginality, Health and Gender through Religious Infrastructure in Delhi’s Informal Settlement”

Abstract

This paper examines how women in Kusumpur Pahari, an informal settlement in South Delhi, navigate urban spaces shaped by marginality, with a focus on religious infrastructure, health, and gender. Temples serve as critical spaces where women—often migrants—construct community ties and negotiate their identities in a new urban environment. These spaces are not merely sites of worship but also arenas for asserting agency highlighting how religious infrastructure reinforces and challenges social hierarchies in urban settlements. Health, particularly menstrual health, remains a neglected dimension of urban life for these women. Inadequate access to specialized gynaecological care, compounded by overburdened government hospitals and insufficient NGO services. Religious organizations, such as Arya Samaj and the Church, attempt to bridge these gaps by offering health services. Such interventions are limited and reflect broader systemic neglect. For some women, conversion to Christianity offers new forms of solidarity and health support but also alienates them from the dominant community structures tied to Hindu religious practices. Through ethnographic insights, this paper highlights how religious infrastructure and health intersect with gendered labour and social hierarchies. It underscores the need for inclusive urban policies that integrate health services into religious and community infrastructures, addressing the interconnected challenges of gender, faith, and marginality.