Farah Farooqi Understanding Life and Education in an Urban 'Gheto': Shafq Memorial and Bara Hindu Rao, Delhi Max Weber Stiftung India Branch Office Educaton & the Urban in India I Working Paper Series Farah Farooqi Understanding Life and Education in an Urban ‘Ghetto’ Education and the Urban in India | Working Paper Series 2019/3 Farah Farooqi Understanding Life and Education in an Urban ‘Ghetto’: Shafiq Memorial and Bara Hindu Rao, Delhi Farah Farooqi Understanding Life and Education in an Urban ‘Ghetto’ Abstract: This paper examines the running of an ‘(extra)ordinary’ school in a Delhi locality by sociologically situating it in its dense neighbourhood to revisit the category, ‘ghetto’. It traces processes of stigmatisation and stereotyping, relates these to the desperate but resilient efforts of residents to stand on their own two feet and probes the vexed relationship between the school, the locality and the children. The attempt is to grasp the impact of the sociology of the ‘ghetto’ on the children’s education, their mobility, and their ‘standing’ as emerging adults. This is achieved by showing the interconnections between the ebb and flow of employment, market-swings, the socio-economic and cultural structures of impoverishment, intercommunity conflicts, stereotyping and violence and the resultant reconfiguration of residences on sectarian lines. In so doing, the paper describes, analyses, even questions the production and reproduction of the new urban.1 Keywords: Urban Education, Delhi, Ghetto, Muslims, Marginalisation Farah Farooqi teaches at Jamia Millia Islamia. Her areas of interest are curriculum and pedagogic studies, school and community ethnographies, marginalisation and inclusion practices in communities, understanding schools as organisations and environmental studies. She has published widely in these areas. She served as an advisor on the textbook committee of the National Council for Educational Research and Training (NCERT) and was associated with the formulation and conceptualisation of the B.Ed programme in University of Delhi. 1 This paper has been written in the present form for the first time. Some parts were serialised earlier in the nineteen articles titled ‘Ek School Manager ki Diary ke Kuch Panney’ in Shiksha Vimarsh (from 2012 to 2016). A glossary at the end of the paper explicates specific terms used. 2 Farah Farooqi Understanding Life and Education in an Urban ‘Ghetto’ 1. Introduction Delhi can be regarded as an epicentre of political and economic power. It is not a homogenous community sharing a common identity or public culture. The socio-cultural and economic heterogeneity of Delhi is the hallmark of contemporary metropolitan experience almost anywhere in the world. It is also a city of contradictions! The segregation of citizens - into those living in Lutyen’s bungalows, in gated colonies, villas, unauthorised areas, slums, unsheltered on the streets – has become starker over the years owing to the economic liberalisation that has piloted social, political and cultural changes. Apart from this, repression, violence and consequential alienation have shaped relations in the public sphere, resulting in religious segregation of citizens. Muslims have been forced to live in ‘ghettos’ such as Jamia Nagar, Seelampur, Jaffrabad and many areas of the walled city. This chapter focuses on areas lying on the fringes of the Walled City – Qasabpura, Bara Hindu Rao, Ahata Kidara, Nabi Kareem and Nae Basti. It is common knowledge that Muslims find it increasingly difficult to buy or rent houses in mixed localities.2 The areas I have mentioned above have undergone many demographic changes since 1947. The Muslim population in these areas grew after Partition riots in Old Delhi and Karol Bagh. The enrolment registers of the 1950s of the Shafiq Memorial School that I discuss in the following pages show that about 35% Hindu children studied in the school at that time. The areas housed many refugees after Partition, who slowly migrated to neighbourhoods where they were given plots for houses. Others moved out as their businesses grew. After the 1984 anti-Sikh pogrom, the Muslims were shaken, if not as much as the Sikhs. Many people from adjoining areas bought houses in these areas at that time. The pulling down of the Babri Masjid in 1992, and later the Gujarat genocide of 2002, gradually resulted in the present state of these neighbourhoods. The areas I have mentioned now have more than 95% Muslim population, leading to an illusion of security. Muslim consciousness, vulnerability and insecurity are overwhelmingly palpable in these areas since the advent of the right-wing, BJP-led government at the Centre in 2014. This is evident from everyday discourses and lives of residents of the areas. When the rising tide of hate and violence is surging against Muslims and other vulnerable groups throughout India, it is 2 Bajinder P Singh, “Delhi Home Owners Shut Doors on Muslim Tenants: UN Varsity Study”, The Indian Express, 18 May 2016 https://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-news-india/muslim-delhi-rooms-on-rent-for-muslim-muslims-tenents- united-nation-ncr-homeowners-2805994/; Rakhi Bose, “I know I am Muslim as Others Don’t Let me Forget: When House Hunting in Metros turn into Nightmare”, News 18.com, 13 November 2018 https://www.news18.com/news/buzz/i-know-i- am-muslim-as-others-dont-let-me-forget-when-house-hunting-in-indian-metros-turns-into-nightmare-1937325.html accessed 1 January 2019 3 Farah Farooqi Understanding Life and Education in an Urban ‘Ghetto’ important to understand the new urban and its relationship with the education of the marginalised. I was the manager of the Shafiq Memorial School situated in Bara Hindu Rao near the Walled City in Delhi from 2009 to 2014. Later, I remained associated with the school as a member of its managing committee and continued to work with the children. Our school and two others were run by a society called the Delhi Education Society (DES) which was set up in 1951. A group of visionaries led by Dr. Zakir Husain, the erstwhile President of India, formed DES. It was to work for the cause of education in the Walled City of Delhi. Along with Dr. Husain, Prof. M. Mujeeb, Mr. Shafiqur Rehman Kidwai and Mr. M. M. Begg, among others, were the founding members of the society. Dr. Husain was also the Vice- Chancellor of Jamia Millia Islamia, a central university founded in the 1920s. The Vice- Chancellor of Jamia Millia Islamia also serves as the President of the Society in an ex-officio capacity. The Society envisages empowering the children and the youth of the community by providing an enabling environment and access to opportunities to grow as enlightened citizens of the nation. The school was run as a ‘madrasa’ much before the Society was born and is more than a hundred-year-old educational institution. The local people, many of whom are the alumni of the school, feel a sense of belonging to it. In various ways, the school reflects the demographic composition, culture and ethos of the surrounding mohullas3. The school has deep connections with the mohullas. This provided me a rare window to understand its social, political and cultural life and of the area in which it is located. My conception of my role as a manager required me to interact with students, parents and teachers, both formally and informally. I also visited the students’ homes and karkhanas (factories), took classes, helped them prepare skits, conducted workshops and officially communicated with the Department of Education, Delhi and the DES. I met members of the community, police officials and politicians residing in the locality. A glimpse of my journey with Shafiq is contained in my diary, published in the form of nineteen articles, as ‘School Manager ki Diary ke Kuchh Panney’ in Shiksha Vimarsh, a journal published by Digantar, Jaipur, between 2012 and 2016, and also in other journals.4 In order to understand the 3 Mohullas refer to neighbourhoods surrounding the school, as mentioned above. 4 Farah Farooqi, “Ek School Manager Ki Diary ke Kuch Panne: IV: Mazdooron ke Bachhey, Mazdoor Bachhey aur Bazaar,” Shiksha Vimarsh, ank 1, varsh 15 (January-February 2013): 20-30; “Ek School Manager Ki Diary ke Kuch Panne: School, Ilaqa, Biradri aur Rajya: Ranjishein aur Gardishein-I,” Shiksha Vimarsh, ank 1, varsh 17 (January- February 2015): 35-45; “A School in a Ghetto: Some Reflections,” India International Centre Quarterly 42, no.3/4 (2016): 232-244; “Silenced and Marginalised: Voices from an Ordinary Sarkari-Aided School of Delhi,” Economic and Political Weekly 3, no. 38 (September 2017): 76-81. 4 Farah Farooqi Understanding Life and Education in an Urban ‘Ghetto’ challenges faced by the students of the school, I look at the lived socio-cultural practices and livelihood opportunities in the surrounding mohullas. I begin by describing the inhabitants of the localities. The heterogeneity between different caste groups of Muslims gets masked by outward appearances such as the burqa, projecting them as a homogenous group. While focusing on the production of stereotypes, I raise the following questions: • Do the caste-groups differ in beliefs towards Islam, rituals and trade patterns etc.? • What is the reality of the stereotypes such as Muslims are unclean, ghettoised, dirty and dangerous? • Do the processes of stigmatisation and labeling result in the community being forcefully imprisoned in ghetto-like spaces? • Does this lead to the social and educational marginalisation of the community? I produce for you, in this paper, the new urban comprising dense Muslim localities, deprived of basic civic amenities and hygiene and inhabited by people from various socio-economic strata. I show how electoral politics of vote are practised around identity and deprivation. A high percentage of residents of the area comprise first and second-generation migrants who have to constantly engage with uncertainties, income shocks and the vicissitudes of the market.