Abstract
There has been a growing scholarly interest in the issue of Muslim marginalisation in Indian cities over the past decade. While previous studies have tended to focus on the macro level, recent studies have taken a more grounded approach, highlighting the specificity of marginalisation among Muslims in particular contexts. However, most of this work has focused on the northern and western parts of India—the areas which have seen the most severe episodes of communal violence. Hence, a city like Kolkata, with a population of almost 4.5 million (of which 20% are Muslim) has till now remained largely neglected. There has also been an assumption that Kolkata was somehow less communal than other Indian cities. However, Muslims in Kolkata are also subject to spatial segregation, and the vast majority are economically marginalised. Hence, Anasua Chatterjee’s Margins of Citizenship: Muslim Experiences in Urban India, which focuses on the area of Park Circus in Kolkata, is a welcome contribution to the literature.
In Chapter One, Chatterjee documents the drastic demographic shift that took place in the city in the decades preceding and following the Partition. As was the case with Delhi, the Muslims who remained in Kolkata were mostly those who could not afford to migrate across the border. This was followed by decades of in-migration of poor Muslims from the surrounding states in search of livelihoods. This partially explains the overall marginalised status of Muslims in Kolkata today. Park Circus is described as one of the oldest and most diverse parts of the city. While it is unclear what the total population of the area is, the area has about 70 per cent Muslim, and it is this group that forms the focus of the research. However, Chatterjee also includes interviews with some of the Hindu residents about their perception of their Muslim neighbours. The chapter describes the gradual hardening of religious boundaries that took place in the decades following the Partition, with memories of religion-based violence affecting the organisation of urban space—a process with parallels in many cities across the country.
The following two chapters describe the rich heterogeneity of Park Circus. Chatterjee divides Park Circus into four distinct zones and describes the demographic makeup of each. (A detailed map of the area would have been helpful at this point.) She describes the evolution of Park Circus from a relatively affluent Muslim area to one that is highly mixed in terms of class, caste and ethnicity. Her findings reveal the anxieties of the middle-class residents with regards to the influx of poor migrants in the area. She also discusses the relations between the Hindu minority that remains within Park Circus and the Muslim majority, which as might be expected, are neither completely cordial nor completely adversarial.
Chapter Four explores the operation of politics on the ground. Chatterjee highlights the role of ‘social workers’ who mediate between local citizens and parties. These local powerbrokers are common in cities across South Asia, but they are rarely given due attention in academic work. She describes how low-income residents make strategic political decisions in order to secure the well-being of their families, with different family members affiliating with different parties in order to maximise their access to power. Chatterjee touches on some of the issues around which low-income residents have organised, but unfortunately, she does not go into detail about these cases. One would have liked to have seen this chapter perhaps expanded into two in order to explore the operation of local politics in greater depth and the possible reasons for the differences between the political approaches of lower and middle-class Muslims.
The author explores the economic aspirations of the residents in Chapter Five. She paints a picture of great economic insecurity amongst residents who are increasingly being squeezed by a changing economy. Most of the lower-class residents of Park Circus occupy extremely precarious positions in the informal economy as contract workers, daily wage earners, or in the case of women, home-based workers. Religion-based discrimination exacerbates their insecurity to the point where many actually masque their religious identity in order to gain employment. While education provides a possibility for social mobility, little support is available from the government, and even that is difficult to access for the vast majority. Overall, there seem to be few opportunities for advancement available particularly to lower-class Muslims who are victims of both class- and religion-based marginalisations.
Finally, Chapter Six discusses the sense of insecurity amongst residents of Park Circus. The author begins by looking at how Muslim areas such as Park Circus are described as ‘dirty’ and ‘backwards’ in the narratives of Hindu residents. This helps contextualise the sense of otherness experiences by Muslim residents and their desire to live amongst co-religionists in order to feel safe. Chatterjee highlights the growing insecurity felt by Muslims as a result of various episodes of communal violence, which reinforces the desire to live in a Muslim area. This insecurity is experienced differently depending on one’s economic class.
While the book provides a much-needed account of a culturally and historically rich area of Kolkata, there were several problems in terms of the author’s theorisation and approach. First, there was little acknowledgment of the effect of her own positionality as an upper-caste Hindu woman on the findings apart from a brief mention in the ‘Introduction’. Rather, she frames herself as an ‘unencumbered outsider’ who was well-received by the residents. This borders on a claim to objectivity, an idea which has been heavily critiqued particularly in the field of anthropology. While one can never overcome the limitations of one’s own social position, an honest acknowledgment of this would have enriched the analysis.
Furthermore, Chatterjee establishes several problematic binaries throughout the book, including ‘cosmopolitan’, ‘urban’, ‘modern’ and ‘secular’ on the one hand and ‘community’, ‘communal’, ‘traditional’ and ‘identity-based’ on the other hand. For example, when describing people displaying religious markers such as wearing a burqa or a skullcap, this is associated with ‘the community’. When these markers are shed, this is identified as ‘cosmopolitan’, with the underlying assumption that this is step towards becoming ‘modern’. Similar claims are not made about Hindu residents or Hindu-majority areas. There is also a tension presented with wanting to be ‘modern’ by sending one’s children to English-medium schools, for example, while holding onto one’s identity by giving them a religious education. This assumes that these two desires are opposed, and that being religious is somehow akin to being more ‘traditional’. Chatterjee also uses the term ‘ghetto’ without context throughout the book, and it often seemed that it was only being used for those parts of Park Circus which were visibly Muslim. It is surprising that these kinds of assumptions would be made in a book that is otherwise aiming to complicate mainstream understandings of Indian Muslims through a contextualised ethnographic approach.
Chatterjee concludes her account of Park Circus with a recommendation that the state should adopt a policy of ‘inclusive citizenship’ rather than one that is based on ideas of community. However, this seems to contradict her findings, which demonstrate that despite the promises of secular democracy, India is increasingly divided along community lines. She argues that offering particular communities formal means of overcoming their disadvantage is not a solution, but this hardly applies to Indian Muslims who have for the most part not been given reservations and hence are grossly under-represented in government jobs—a fact that Chatterjee points out. If anything, the state has maintained the illusion of equality while allowing and even encouraging the Hindutva ideology to flourish. This has only increased Muslim marginalisation and insecurity, which is documented clearly in the book. Hence, it is odd that the author would end with a call for ‘universalism’ rather than advocating for an approach that actively seeks to reverse the growing experiences of marginalisation and discrimination faced by Muslims—particularly those at the bottom of the socio-economic ladder.
In summation, Margins of Citizenship provides some important insights regarding the experiences of Muslims living in Kolkata. Chatterjee’s research further complicates the notion of a homogenous ‘Muslim community’ in India. She also highlights the specific types of discrimination and insecurities faced by a cross-section of Muslims living in Park Circus. While there were some shortcomings in terms of theorisation and approach, overall, this book is an important read for urban sociologists, anthropologists and anyone interested in the issue religious discrimination and polarisation in India today.