ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that the relationship between the political field of the city, communal violence, and Muslim women impacts the nature of these women’s activism in Mumbai. The argument is that the persisting matrix of communal violence and socio-economic vulnerabilities creates the new forms of marginalisation and also opens up new avenues for their mobilisations. The following sections highlight the complicated scenario of the city violence, ghettoisation, and the growing Islamisation within the community and its impact on Muslim women. The narratives of the founding members of Muslim women’s organisations and other civil activists further substantiate their experiences. This chapter elaborates the emergence of Muslim women’s platforms like the Majlis (platform for legal aid by Flavia Agnes), Women’s Research and Action Group (WRAG), and Mohalla Committees and the issues espoused by these platforms in Mumbai; it also explains how these platforms have given a concrete shape to these women’s activism. In an atmosphere of rising Hindu and Islamic fundamentalisms, these women’s activism have remained community-centric and reformist in approach to grapple with the contradictory challenges of the public.
