Muslim apartments highlight housing segregation in India

Rasa - Gulistaan Golf View Heights, a planned apartment compound on the outskirts of New Delhi, promises all the amenities middle-class Indian homebuyers typically seek in a property development.

News ID: 1326

Date: 06 October 2014 - 17:19

RNA - Gulistaan Golf View Heights, a planned apartment compound on the outskirts of New Delhi, promises all the amenities middle-class Indian homebuyers typically seek in a property development: swimming pool, back-up power, security, children’s play area and ample parking.

But touted as “Dream Homes for Elite Muslim Brotherhood”, the property also promises something more unusual: a place where affluent members of India’s Muslim minority can easily acquire a home, without the hurdles they often confront elsewhere.

“There are several clusters of the Muslim community who are well off but could not get proper social and educational environment for their children,” The Financial Times quoted the project’s publicity material as explaining. “We thought to bring those who can afford . . . buying flats/houses . . . into a better environment.”

But the plan has angered many rightwing Hindus, who have called on the authorities to block the proposed development. They say the 368-unit compound, with an accompanying mosque, will foment divisions between India’s Hindu majority and its Muslim minority, thought to account for 18 per cent of the population. Some have even called for the developer’s arrest.

Muslim academics and researchers say such protests ring hollow given the realities of most Indian cities, which are already highly segregated along religious lines. The majority of Muslims, whether affluent or poor, already live together cheek-by-jowl in crowded ghettos, usually without proper amenities or planning.

Some Muslims are able to rent or buy homes in Hindu-dominated areas or buildings. But the obstacles faced by many is encouraging housing developments specifically targeting well-off Muslims seeking to escape the overcrowding and squalor of older, neglected Muslim neighbourhoods.

India has no law against discrimination in housing, and in fact protects people’s rights to form societies or associations for common purposes, including building houses exclusively for members of religious faiths. But housing discrimination in Indian cities takes many forms.

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