This is an excerpt from the upcoming sixth edition of the India Exclusion Report, a collaborative effort involving institutions and individ...
This is an excerpt from the upcoming sixth edition of the India Exclusion Report, a collaborative effort involving institutions and individuals working with a shared notion of social and economic equity, justice and rights. The report seeks to inform public opinion around exclusion and the role of the state and to influence policy-making towards creating a more inclusive, equitable and just society. The annual publication is anchored by the Centre for Equity Studies and edited by its director, Harsh Mander.
As India’s political trajectory consolidates towards majoritarianism, the physical place of Indian Muslims acquires increasing prominence in the Hindu nationalist discourse.
The cause-and-effect explanation of Muslim ghettoisation – which includes the insurgence of Hindu nationalism, societal stigmatisation of Muslims, political violence, among others – has found decent media attention. However, the media discussion on Muslim-dominated geographies often uses a simplistic characterisation of Muslim-dominated geographies as slums.
In our India Exclusion Report study on Juhapura – a ghetto of over 3 lakh Muslims on Ahmedabad city’s western periphery – intriguing paradoxes of Muslim ghettoisation emerge. Juhapura’s trajectory showcases that India’s Muslim localities are spaces with fierce internal contestations, socio-economic differentiations, and also offer lucrative investment opportunities to the Muslim elite.
In Ahmedabad, elite and upper-middle-class migration to Juhapura began as early...
