Accusations, ‘Wise Planning’ and the Making of ‘Responsible’ Citizens: Family Planning Narratives from the Margins in Delhi

Population policies in India have been rebranded as family planning with an emphasis on reproductive and child health. The current policy aims to advance autonomy and choice to women and couples to make decisions about their family constitution. However, there exists a disjuncture between the policy discourse and on-the-ground lived reality. Drawing on 20 months of ethnographic research between 2011–2012 and 2023–2024 with Muslim women and their families in a low-income mixed neighbourhood in Delhi, I analyse the interplay of religious, class and gender discriminations that influence women’s everyday reproductive experiences and navigation of state policy. Although policymakers and healthcare service providers assume that low-income Muslim women are irresponsible, resist contraception and lack agency to plan their families, I argue that they employ ‘wise planning’ ( samajhdari ki yojana ) to seek suitable forms of contraception and child healthcare services in the context of precarious work responsibilities, gendered familial arrangements and state-imposed programmes. The matrix of ‘wise planning’ intimately captures Muslim women’s experiences and navigations of institutional and infrastructural disparities in resource-poor settings.