BETWIXT KIN AND COMMUNITY

Abstract

Based on ethnographic accounts of Muslim survivors of ethnic strife in three cities of western India, and in particular on the voices of women, this paper draws attention to the impacts of such violence on the domains of kinship and family. It explores the implications of violence for the dislocation and dismembering of families, and the fracturing of educational and occupational aspirations of family members. While the kin group forms the first circle of support for survivors, there are also clashes of interest that must be handled. Muslim women in India, in particular, face some specific problems. Their skill levels are generally low and their capacity for mobility, because of community constraints, is hindered. The increasing ghettoization of Muslims in urban India, due to the threat of violence, further confines women survivors and their families to certain spaces and specific neighbourhoods. Women need to access state support and find new avenues of livelihood to support their families. At this very juncture, they may feel the weight of community norms more sharply. As the paper shows, the demands of family and community may be at odds and women have to tread a wary path in the battle to survive and retrieve a life for themselves and their children in the aftermath of violence.

Keywords:

• Muslims
• women
• kinship
• livelihood
• ethnic violence

Notes

1. The Babri Masjid is a mosque in the town of Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh. The site has been long disputed between Hindus and Muslims with leaders of each community claiming it belongs to them. Muslims appeal to inscriptions in the mosque to show that the site is theirs; Hindus claim that there was a temple at the site built in 4 ce. They use various religious texts to claim that the site was the birthplace of the deity Ram (Ramjanambhoomi). The temple, according to Hindus, was destroyed by the Islamic invader Babar, who built the mosque on the site. In the 1980s, the dispute escalated after various Hindu religious and political organizations including the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) made it the focus of struggle. As the conflict assumed centrality in Indian politics, violence between Hindus and Muslims across the country increased. The destruction of the mosque by Hindu activists on the 6 December 1992 was responsible for ethnic strife in several places, including Mumbai.

2. In Bangladesh, however, the scholarship has looked more particularly at the consequences of recurring natural disasters such as floods, which increase the vulnerability of women and compel households to come up with alternative coping strategies and mechanisms of survival. See, for instance, Haque and Zaman (1989), Ikeda (1995), Nasreen (1999), Del Ninno et al. (2001), Ahsan and Khatun (2004). While there are many obvious similarities in the social crises generated by recurrent violence and periodic natural disasters, there are also some crucial differences. In ethnic violence, men are usually the targets of killings by each community involved; women may be subjected to sexual assault and, sometimes, killed. Apart from the destruction of homes and property, violence of this kind tears neighbourhoods apart and ranges communities against each other. This paper focuses only on situations arising out of ethnic conflict. My material relates to Muslims in western India, who have been the targets of increasing violence over the last decade or more.

3. There are many studies, including some general works such as that by Byrne (1996). Some studies are mentioned here from ethnic and strife-torn areas. See Olmsted (1997) on Palestine, Nnaemeka (1997) on Nigeria, Newbury and Baldwin (2000) on Rwanda, Clark (1994) on West Africa, and Ogden (2000) on Kosovo.

4. See Human Rights Watch (2003) report and the Youth for Unity and Voluntary Action (1996) report for a brief discussion of these kinds of concerns.

5. The data in the next few paragraphs is based on the Social, Economic and Educational Status of the Muslim Community of India (Sachar Committee Report) (Government of India 2006). See also Razzack and Gumber (2002).

6. As Aminaben in the Muslim-dominated area of Ahmedabad's Juhapura said to me:

[W]e are safe here. But how is this? They [Hindus] close off all our options to move out from here. We are confined here, but within two or three months of the riots, they started coming here. They bring their carts and park them here, and bring their goods into our area to sell. But [we] are not allowed to go out and cannot venture into their areas.

7. Though one cannot reach a strong conclusion on this complex issue I mention it here because it helps us to understand that the expectation of violence can influence the desire for sons in opposing ways. One of the women I spoke to in Ahmedabad mentioned, a little coyly, about wanting to have more than one son because ‘who knows what will happen? We will need them to protect us’.

8. For a more elaborate discussion of the targeting of Indian Muslim men during ethnic conflicts or after a terror attack, see Robinson (2005) and Dayal (2002).

9. Other scholars have argued similarly, based on research in different contexts. See, for instance, Sweetman (1999), Maria (1995), Lebra (1984), Folbre (1994) and Uberoi (1996).

10. By purdah I am referring to the norms of seclusion for Muslim women. These include restrictions on mobility outside the home and on interacting with unrelated men. They also include, importantly, norms of dress. For most of the women referred to in this paper, the purdah is usually a full black outer-garment worn over the clothes with a separate veil covering the face. Some of the older women, though, may only cover their heads.

11. SEWA is a trade union of self-employed women working in the unorganized sector. It was started in Ahmedabad in 1971 and registered as a trade union in 1972. It has now spread its work to different parts of the country.

12. However, there are also indications that the experience of this kind of violence has been a wake-up call for many Muslims, particularly in western India. Muslims were strongly struck by their own invisibility at levels of power and influence after the ferocious Mumbai violence of 1992–1993. The realization has given rise to several efforts at the grassroots to draw Muslims of capability out of poverty into education, and so prepare them for the professions and various levels of government and public sector employment. Similar efforts are now coming to light in Gujarat as well.