Inquilab at the edge of the city: encountering capital and citizenship in Seelampur

This paper represents an advancement of literature on cities in the Global South by undertaking a case study of the locality of Seelampur in New Delhi, its historical context, and the geographic reconfigurations precipitated by the anti-CAA-NRC-NPR agitation. It attempts to build on the literature surrounding gender and production relations undergirding a city in the Global South, and focuses on the women of Seelampur for their defiance of the boundaries imposed by the logic of accumulation and the patriarchal purview of the state. Throughout their life, the women of Seelampur have precariously inhabited the margins of the city. Just as they are deemed encroachers in the city, they are also cast as encroachers upon citizenship. Seelampur has been subject to underdevelopment to serve the needs of capital through the exploitation of its Muslim population and the confinement of their labour. The locality of Seelampur is compelled to converse with the disciplining face of the state, while the residents are deprived of welfare entitlements owed to them. Seelampur as the site of protest constituted an instance of resistance to the continued privatisation of city space and represented a reclamation of the city-scape. The social production of space by the women protestors re-ordered the sense of time, place and gender within the locality—and hence reorganised priorities of the women towards kinship and family. The praxis of care feminised resistance and extended the socio-spatial boundaries such that the protest site became the home of homes. Challenging and subverting given notions of the public, Seelampur redefined Muslim women’s political participation and public identity.