A Sense of Radiance: Gender, Conviviality and Poetics in India's Muslim Communities

Abstract

This dissertation chronicles an incredibly charged moment in the lives of young, Muslim women from poor backgrounds at a time of great flux for their generation and a moment of profound political insecurity for Muslim communities in India. Drawing on 24 months of ethnographic fieldwork in low-income, Muslim neighborhoods of Delhi, India, this dissertation traces the aspirations of young, Muslim women to a vibrant and radiant life in both their personal and collective lives. I argue that these women were experiencing a new, prolonged window of youth and exploration before marriage, during which they pursued college degrees, had premarital romances, and worked in beauty salons and office jobs. The expansive openness of their worlds was overshadowed, however, by rising anti-Muslim sentiment and violence, as Hindu nationalist government politics threatened the rights and safety of Indian Muslims. As these events darkened their horizons, figuratively and literally circumscribing their lives and futures, this ethnography documents how my interlocutors continued to seek out moments of effervescence, radiance, open-ness, variety, refreshment, and love (mohabbat), fighting to preserve the vibrancy of their communities.