Young Muslim Women in India: Bollywood, Identity and Changing Youth Culture

The reality for marginalized Muslim girls in the city of Kolkata (formerly Calcutta) in India is far more complex than the one that is often constructed during discussions that view the lives of Muslim girls through a lens of repression and poverty within the patriarchal Islamic community. Based on extensive, original research, this book portrays a different and an under-represented perspective of young Muslim girls in the bustees (shanty towns) of Kolkata. Through a series of personal narratives, photos and artwork, it demonstrates that in spite of the dominant discourse surrounding their lives, the consumption and behaviour patterns of young women in these bustees challenge the monolithic representations of what it means to be a Muslim girl in Indian society. It explores the ways in which the young Muslim women live, manipulate, and resist the stereotypes of Islamic femininity by carefully negotiating the risks and performing multiple identities inspired by modernity, globalization and, most of all, Bollywood culture.