(wl-6475)-Identity, Citizenship and the Gender Question: Locating the Muslim Women of Assam

Muslim Women in India continue to be studied as passive subjects and a minority within a minority. The focus on these women is dominated by the social aspect of their lives and revolve around purdah and their oppression under an ‘oppressive’ personal law. State also colludes in maintaining this image of Muslim women as it conveniently helps in forwarding its own agenda of ‘disciplining’ the Muslim man. With the help of the ongoing citizenship debate in India, this paper tried to understand the nature of Muslim woman’s presence/absence in the discourse. How did they figure in this entire debate and what has been their role? Taking a closer look at the condition of Muslim women in Assam, the only state which has already gone through the process of updating the National Register of Citizens, this paper will try to locate Muslim women often relegated to the private sphere in the politico-legal discourse of citizenship. This paper will further try to understand how the position of Muslim women within their own communities have impacted their identity as a civic citizen.