In keeping with Nirantar's mandate of exploring the impact of education on the lives of women, especially those on the margins, this new area of our work tries to build an understanding of how Muslim women experience education, and the multiple factors (the state, community, region, class, gender and communal politics) that influence their perspective and access to education. Do women accept the notions of education that they are presented with by the community, state, media and so on or are they fashioning their own ideas of education?

Our work centres on 12 -13 life stories of women from across UP and Bihar, which have been written based on extensive interviews and primary and secondary research to create a larger backdrop against which they can be read. The narratives from four different sites will form a publication on Muslim Women's Education.

The kind and history of Muslim demographics, rural and urban settings, and the presence of long-standing educational institutions for girls in the area, have influenced the final selection sites of inquiry - namely Kishanganj, Moradabad, Patna and Lucknow.

Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidhalaya, Moradabad

Listed as a MCD (Minority Concentrated District), Moradabad in Uttar Pradesh is also the site for government initiatives like the KGBV for girls from minority groups. From its large working class population to its small but extremely wealthy exporter class, there is a universal acceptance that education, especially for girls, is the path to development.

Lucknow's roots in nawabi adab and the early twentieth century reform movement for Muslim women's education create a landscape rich in stories. From writers and educators to mobilisers at the grassroots, the city is home to diverse voices that seek to understand and negotiate their identities as women and Muslim in a changing city.

Karamat Husain Girls College, Lucknow

Patna's government schools form an interesting backdrop against which to analysis the issue of language: Urdu is a second language in Bihar, unlike in UP. Patna has a significant communal history, and is also home to marginalised communities like the Bakhho.

A rural border district with several languages in use, Kishanganj is an interesting context for the interplay of linguistic, regional and religious identities. Kishanganj is on the MCD list and has among the lowest literacy rates in the country: it has been the focus of several state initiatives for the purpose of 'mainstreaming'.

Reader on Muslim Women's Writings
The project on Muslims Women's Education also involves editing and publishing a reader on Muslim women's writings. The Jamia Milia Library in Delhi and the Khuda Baksh Library in Patna were scoured for women's journals and magazines. The sheer diversity of issues and topics in magazines like Tahzeeb-e-Niswan, Khatoon, Ismat, Payam-e-Umeed, Ustani, Aawaz-e-Niswan (dating as far back as the 1920s and '30s) is quite astounding. Selecting articles and transliterating the articles from formal nineteenth-century Urdu has been challenging work. The reader on Muslim women's writing will be available by September 2010.