Fw: Invitation to Bebaak Collective's three-day training programme from 1st May to 3rd May, 2026, Mumbai
hasina khan
Over the course of three days, the training will include interactive sessions, discussions, and collaborative exercises designed to create a space for learning, reflection, and solidarity. The programme will also provide an opportunity for participants to share experiences from their own contexts and build networks for future collective action.
We would be delighted to have you join us for this learning and dialogue. Your participation will greatly enrich the conversations and the collective spirit of the programme.
Kindly confirm your availability by filling this Google Form.
Looking forward to your presence.
CONCEPT NOTE
Muslim Women’s Movement: A Feminist Perspective on Life, Rights and Struggle
Organised by: Bebaak Collective, Mumbai
Dates: 1st- 3rd May, 2026.
Venue: Bombay YMCA International House, Mumbai Central, Mumbai
Background
From the Shah Bano movement to the Shaheen Bagh protests, from local resistance to communal violence to the quiet daily organizing of grassroots groups across the country, Muslim women have consistently asserted their rights, their dignity, and their political voice. Bebaak Collective has worked for over more than a decade in bringing a feminist lens to community realities and a community lens to feminist politics. Our work is grounded in the conviction that Muslim women must be the authors of their own struggles, and that any meaningful engagement with gender justice in India is incomplete without taking seriously the specific textures of their lives.
This perspective building workshop grows from that commitment and from a recognition that this moment demands it. As the ground shifts beneath Muslim communities politically, legally and socially, the need for a clear, grounded, feminist perspective on Muslim women’s lives has never been more urgent. This is a workshop about building the analytical foundations that allow us to act with clarity, solidarity and purpose. It is designed for those who want to deepen their understanding, develop a shared way of seeing that they can carry back into their own organizing and practice.
Themes
Dignity, Equality and the Struggle for Rights
The struggle for equal citizenship rights culminated in the Muslim women led Shaheen Bagh movement which is a historic milestone in post-independent India. Delhi pogrom in 2020 orchestrated by Hindutva groups was used to vilify and tarnish the movement. In its aftermath, the State unleashed a brutal repression campaign against activists from the community who led the citizenship rights movements. This campaign of intense vilification continued during the COVID-19 pandemic where Muslim community was labelled as “super-spreaders”. Muslim women activists and leaders were targeted also through Sulli and Bulli Bai apps, these hate campaigns aimed not only to stifle Muslim women voices but also to overturn the gains that had been made during the citizenship rights movement.
Bebaak Collective has documented the experiences of Muslim women in our report “Behind the Pixel: Social Silencing and Isolation of Indian Muslims in the Online Public”. A film “Nafrat ke Bhawar Mein” was also produced which focused on the experiences of Muslim community, navigating the hateful atmosphere on social media and in their day-to-day life. The struggle for equal rights have only intensified with the State introducing moves like Special Intensive Review (SIR), and discriminatory campaigns against street vendors especially Muslims.
Tarakki Kiske Liye : Development and Marginalization
Two decades after the Sachar Committee documented the scale of Muslim marginalization, the situation has not improved. Muslim women face compounded exclusion from education, employment, health systems, government schemes and public institutions. Building perspective here means learning to see these not as individual failures or community deficits but as structural outcomes and to ask what justice would actually require.
Hinsa ka Silsila : Violence as a Continuum
In the last decade lynching of Muslims have been a recurring phenomenon which are carried by Hindutva groups. To understand lynching as a form of violence that merely targets individuals from the community would be to take a myopic view of the situation. In a patriarchal society, men function as providers of the family. At times they also shoulder the responsibility of providing for parents and vulnerable members of the family. In their killing, an emotional and psychological vacuum is created, the weight of which is solely carried by the family members. In the reportage of these incidents often these complexities are not highlighted.
In Assam, government backed campaigns of ethnic cleansing are now in full force. Across different parts of India, religious places of worship, houses, shops belonging to Muslim community are being demolished in the name of bulldozer justice. Anti-Muslim violence impacts women’s bodies in particular ways, leaving long shadows of trauma, impunity and silence. Building perspective means learning to see these not as separate incidents but as a continuum connected in their logic and demanding a connected response.
Biradari, Gairbarabari aur Haq: Pasmanda, Caste, and Intersectionality within the Community
The category “Muslim” is not homogeneous. Caste operates inside Muslim communities shaping access, opportunity and dignity and Pasmanda Muslim women navigate this alongside gender-based exclusion in ways that mainstream discourse, both feminist and Muslim, has largely failed to see. Building perspective here means learning to hold caste and gender together, inside the community without flattening either.
Objectives of the Workshop
To introduce participants to Bebaak Collective’s feminist framework and its grounding in Muslim women’s lived experiences
To build a shared analytical lens across four interconnected areas: history and law, development and marginalization, violence and caste within the community. Muslim women’s stories of challenge.
To enable participants to see the structural connections between these issues and carry this perspective back into their own work and organizing
To create a space of solidarity and exchange among people already committed to gender justice and willing to deepen their engagement with Muslim women’s specific realities
Workshop Details
This is a residential training programme. It is mandatory for the participants to attend all three days of the training programme. Accommodation and all meals will be provided by Bebaak Collective. The accommodation facilities have been made at Methodist Home, opposite our conference venue YMCA International House, Mumbai Central. Participants are expected to arrange and bear their own travel to Mumbai. The workshop will be conducted in Hindi, Urdu and English. This training programme is open to all.
Bebaak Collective