While it is argued that Muslims are concentrated in self-employment activities, apart from noting discrimination in salaried work resulting in a push into self-employment, research has not explored additional reasons contributing to this choice. This paper employs a mixed-methods approach and through an empirically grounded work, explores the reasons given by Muslim male and female youth, primarily living in the segregated neighbourhood of Jamia Nagar in New Delhi, India, for the choice of self-employment among Muslim youth. The paper notes that while discrimination in salaried work featured as a significant reason for the choice of self-employment, it was not the overwhelming one. The choice for self-employment, rather, was attributed to a number of reasons, the salient ones being the presence of social networks in self-employment in Jamia Nagar, and the social respect earned through ownership of self-employment ( apna kaam ). In the narratives of the women youth, safety and respectability offered by self-employment in Jamia Nagar were highlighted as critical reasons attracting them to such occupations.

This article aims to understand the reasons and experiences which contribute to dropout among Muslims in India at the secondary school level (grades IX–XII). The focus of this article is low-income Muslim men, who have left school at the secondary level, in a predominantly Muslim neighbourhood of Jamia Nagar, Delhi. The context of this article is set by the seminal Sachar Committee Report which highlights the educational disadvantages of Muslims, categorising their school dropout rates as ‘worrisome’. The findings of this article are partially consistent with previous research. In the final instance, the Muslim men in Jamia Nagar linked their school leaving to their personal failure: in terms of their inability to maintain interest in studies/failing to clear a grade. There was a strong value attached to hard work, which men felt they lacked, and this was cited as the reason for their personal failure in school. In the process of constructing this narrative, family experiences were downplayed. School experiences were singled out by men as not affecting their decision to drop out. Another striking finding of this study is the relationship between self-employment and the decision to drop out.

No abstract

This article is a note on the research methods employed during the author’s doctoral research on the topic of aspirations and social mobility in north-India. Looking into the question of employment based aspirations of youth from the minority Muslim community in Delhi, the article employs a mixed-methods approach. The research relies on an older qualitative work by the author in a segregated area in Delhi, on the same themes, to inform the questions of a quantitative study, based on the survey method. The results of the survey are enriched by adding depth and nuance through a follow up qualitative round, employing the life-history method. This article uses the concept ‘frustrated freedom’ developed in the context of Mozambique and Guatemala to analyse the results obtained from the mixed- methods design. The article argues that while aspirations and claims for upward mobility (or agency) of Muslim youth are high, despite consistent socio-economic and political marginalization of the community in India, their ability to achieve these aspirations remains low. This is primarily due to the limited opportunity structures available for them, particularly for the youth living in segregated spaces in Delhi.

No abstract