Within cities across the world, communal violence has often led to the formation of neighbourhoods segregated on religious lines. Colonies identified by the religion of its residents are now found in Indian metropolises such as Ahmedabad, Mumbai and New Delhi, occupied mainly by the Muslims who were pushed involuntarily to these spaces after decades of sociopolitical marginalisation and targeted communal violence. Due to their identification with the religious identity of its residents, these colonies faced systematic state neglect and lack of infrastructural development pushing them further towards spatial stigmatisation and social segregation (Gayer and Jaffrelot 2012; Mahadevia 2002). Given their specific context, these spaces are identified in both academic literature and policy papers as ‘ghettos’, pointing in turn to the many stigmas attached to them. These neighbourhoods are part of a city but ‘insulated’ and ‘do not benefit from the same kind of attention from the state as other parts of the city’ (Jaffrelot and Thomas 2012: 70). Tellingly, they lack state-run schools, colleges, technical institutions, healthcare amenities and other basic facilities like sanitation and water (Jaffrelot and Thomas 2012: 70).

This chapter examines the many exclusions and marginalities faced by residents of one such neighbourhood in New Delhi called Tilak Vihar. The context of this West Delhi space is distinct from other neighbourhoods that are formed as a result of communal violence. Tilak Vihar is a Sikh neighbourhood of nearly 1,000 families headed by the widows of those men who were killed in the 1984 anti-Sikh violence in Delhi. It is important to emphasise here that Tilak Vihar is not a self-segregated space. Tilak Vihar was demarcated by the state in order to rehabilitate women who lost their husbands in the 1984 violence and were hence displaced.