The Long History of Religious Segregation in Delhi | Dr. Nazima Parveen

Indian cities are segregated along caste and religious lines. A recent research based on government data from 15 lakh residential neighbourhoods suggest that residential segregation in India’s urban areas is as bad as racial segregation in the United States.

Dr. Nazima Parveen is the author of Contested Homelands: Politics of Space and Identity. In her work, she traces the relationship between the identity of a minority community and space. She argues that Muslim ghettoisation in Delhi is a product of historical processes. It is the discourse of homeland and the realities of Partition, she contends, that established the notion of 'Muslim-dominated areas' as 'exclusionary' and 'contested' zones.

Nazima raises two fundamental questions:

How did community and space relation come to be defined on religious lines?
In what ways were 'Muslim-dominated' areas perceived as contested zones?