India has seen several monumental economic and political developments in the three decades since the 1990s. Several key facets of these have been documented, examined, or commented upon. Government agencies, academics, journalists, and activists have approached these from different perspectives and towards varying ends. India is a growth story of an emerging economy poised for global dominance, we are told. India’s economic liberalisation has given rise to rapid urbanisation with thousands migrating daily to cities leaving their villages and traditional livelihoods behind. The majority of ordinary Indians are employed in the informal sector with abysmally low wages and without social security. They are forced to live in urban poverty and squalor at the margins in big cities such as New Delhi. Rising communalism and the politics of religious division have made matters worse for India’s plural society and particularly for Muslims.
The Many Lives of Syeda X: The Story of an Unknown Indian
Juggernaut
Pages: 320
Price: Rs.799
Neha Dixit’s book is uniquely authentic and eye-opening. It is a first-hand account of the life of a working-class Muslim woman from a weaver family in Benaras (Varanasi). Syeda has to migrate, live, and work in Delhi’s slums after losing her meagre belongings in communal riots following the demolition of the Babri Masjid. But how should Syeda be described? She cannot simply be categorised as a Muslim woman. Like most working-class women from marginalised backgrounds, she has multiple identities and manifold burdens. She is a mother, a homemaker, a daily wager, a diligent worker with vast experience, a strategist, the glue holding her family together, a survivor, and an ant-like creature whose life is signified by incessant drudgery and the absence of hope. She toils on unrecognised and uncared for in a male-dominated world both inside and outside the cramped room that is her home. She deals daily with subcontractors who provide piecemeal home-based work to women like her. She has to negotiate with the police when her husband, Akmal, and later on her sons are routinely picked up and tortured merely for being Muslims. And while doing all this, she must not ever forget that she is just a woman. Is Syeda an everywoman?
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Syeda had an average life of a girl in a weaver family until crisis hit the handloom sector, and small businesses began to close down by the early 1990s. Matters were compounded by the Sangh Parivar’s growing communal campaigns, which led to animosities between Muslim weavers and the Hindu traders of Banarasi silk sarees. Syeda was used to being treated as second-class and less important than her brothers. She was hopeful about a positive change once she went to “her own home” after marrying Akmal. But Akmal turned out to be unmindful of his responsibilities and would not give up his erratic behaviour and habits even during economic need or communally charged situations.
One day, Syeda’s brother Kashif was attacked by a murderous mob in a cinema; he was identified as Muslim by his beard and clothes. He paid the price of the new Momin Ansari identity that was mandated by Abbaji. Although Momin Ansaris had opposed the Partition of India, they had now become rigid, shunning music, offering namaz five times a day, and segregating men and women with greater care under the influence of growing Islamisation. The incident shook Syeda: “Till then we had known hunger, grief, sorrow, frustration like everyone else. But this was the first time we experienced terror because of our religion.”
Her thatched-roof marital home and adjacent pucca room housing the loom were burnt down by men from the Pradeshik Armed Constabulary in uniform in front of her. She had no option but to leave Benaras for good if she wanted safety, food, and education for her children. She arrived in Delhi with Akmal and three small children in 1995 without any inkling of what awaited them. The vicious cycle of communal violence comes alive for Syeda with yet another displacement thanks to the north-east Delhi riots of 2020. She is made to suffer the loss of her son Shazeb, who is forced to run away with Babli and live permanently in hiding thanks to a vindictive “love jehad” campaign by local vigilantes.
Appalling universe of subcontracted production
Most readers may be unaware of how people live in economically deprived neighbourhoods of Delhi-NCR. The book provides a vivid account of living conditions in the localities inhabited by Syeda and millions like her. Between Sabhapur where she lived and worked initially to Karawal Nagar, she is an invisible worker in a complex web of entities manufacturing goods on an outsourced basis. She toils for 15 to 16 hours a day but cannot dream of a living wage. She does not bother about laws on minimum wages or sexual harassment at workplaces. Women like her are grateful to be somehow included in the appalling universe of subcontracted production without which they must go hungry. They eke out a living working in dingy one-room factories in subhuman conditions.
After a 12- to 14-hour day shift, most women carry work home where their children join them. Syeda, Lalita, Nisha, Khushboo may not be classified as bonded labour, but their lives come close to modern-day slavery. They are at the mercy of subcontractors who are often themselves poor and exploited. Together they constitute the bottom of a ruthless economic system of supply chains and unethical sourcing of goods with multinational companies at the helm. Over the years, Syeda has helped manufacture or package or repair or clean a range of items. The list is mind-boggling: food, snacks, spices, cosmetics, stationery, garments, automobile parts, books, prints, spare parts, decoration pieces, toys, kitchen appliances, hardware, carpentry tools, plumbing material, and dozens of items more. A rare ray of hope momentarily appears in the lives of these women when they form a union with the help of an NGO. Eventually, they successfully organise one of the biggest and longest strikes by unorganised workers in Delhi demanding better wages for peeling almonds.
“But how should Syeda be described? Like most working-class women from marginalised backgrounds, she has multiple identities and manifold burdens.”
Syeda’s story busts several myths about women in general and Muslim women in particular. It opens our eyes to industrial growth and development, smart cities, labour laws, government policies, and welfare programmes. The rise of Hindutva has brought mainstream focus to Muslim women as victims. But Syeda is a resilient fighter. Her lived realities are varied and complex. In her own words: “I don’t get up daily to think about how to defeat the Hindu supremacists. I think about how my family and I will survive this day.” Efforts towards curbing communalism and upholding secularism must account for these nuances without which secularism will become an elite club.
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Dixit modestly admits that she is just a reporter and not a historian, economist, or political scientist. Her work is a comprehensive treatise for anyone interested in the lives of working-class womenfolk in large cities across South Asia. It is marked by an honesty and sincerity of purpose that is unmissable.
The style is engaging and rooted in empathy. Dixit is perturbed by the male-dominated universe of the Indian media. “Is there a she?” she asks at the outset. She wants to present an intersectional gender lens where all women are “legitimate and equal” global citizens. Her book reveals that not only is there a she but in quite a few ways the world rests on the shoulders of many Syedas.
Zakia Soman, activist and columnist, is co-founder of the Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan and the founder of Centre for Peace Studies. She is on the India Core Committee of the South Asian Alliance for Poverty Eradication and has authored two books.
