Negotiating Gender Norms and Reimagining Citizenship: An Ethnographic Study in a Minority School in Delhi India

Abstract

In a globalised world where urban spaces are fast changing to make way for burgeoning mega
cities with rising inequalities, multiple layers of contestations unfold not only over access to
shrinking resources and disappearing civic amenities but over identities and citizenship. Such
contestations are visible in developing countries like India especially in sprawling cities like
Delhi, with substantial disenfranchised population who are forced to resort to diverse forms of
negotiations to exist. The Muslims, the largest religious minority in India, and one of the most
socio-economically marginalised communities, have been historically stereotyped as the
ultimate ‘other’ in the national imagination. Repeated experiences of social ostracization
coupled with increasing concerns regarding personal safety against the backdrop of rising
instances of targeted persecution since the coming to power of the Hindu right have resulted in
their forced migration to urban ghettos. This has not only restricted economic opportunities and
hindered social mobility but have adversely affected access to quality education for children,
especially young Muslim girls for whom fulfilling their educational aspirations have been
challenging against enforced gendered norms of the community. Based on an ethnographic
study situated within a minority non-aided private co-educational school in Delhi this study
examines how a group of young Muslim girls navigated between the boundaries set by their
community and the progressive, liberal education provided by their school to exercise agency.
Holding the larger society and the government responsible for the community’s marginalisation
they attempted to reclaim their citizenship without compromising on their identity as Muslims.