Professor K. Chakraborty's new book "Young Muslim Women in India: Bollywood, Identity and Changing Youth Culture" has just been published by Routledge.
The book details the changing lives of youth, particularly young women, living in slum communities (bustees) in Kolkata, India. Using young people’s own photos, art and narratives, the book explores how Muslim girls and young women are contributing to, and impacted by, changing youth culture in India. We are invited into the risky world of mixed-sex dance taking place in clandestine spaces in the slums. We join young people on their journeys to find premarital romance and witness their strategic and savvy risk taking when participating in transgressive aspects of consumer culture.
The book reveals how social changes in India, including greater education and employment opportunities, as well as powerful middle class Muslim reform discourses, are impacting youth the very local level. More than just fantasy we see that Bollywood is an important role model which young people consult. By carefully negotiating risks young people actively participate in a changing India and disrupt dominant discourses about slum youth as poor victims who are excluded from social change.