Muslim Women in India by Seema Kazi

This Report locates the political, socio-economic and legal position of Muslim women within a historical framework beginning with the evolution of Islam in India and its subsequent interaction with Indian society. It emphasizes the complex diversity of women in Muslim communities and the range of factors influencing their status. The author Seema Kazi traces the developments in discourses of gender vis-à-vis Muslim women from the late nineteenth century to the present day, and describes Muslim women’s transition from being British subjects to Indian citizens. Muslim women’s contributions, successes and failures within the women’s movement are outlined, as well as the formidable challenges they face as members of India’s largest religious minority community five decades after independence. The environment in which they have to confront these challenges is an unenviable one for reasons which are essentially twofold.