153 I present a Muslim-feminist perspective from urban Maharashtra (Mumbai) in this chapter, by framing my arguments within larger debates on Islamic feminism and experiences of everyday and systemic violence. I will first begin by defining Muslim feminism, and subsequently discuss links between Muslim women’s activism and the larger debates about Islamic feminism. By outlining two prominent Muslim-feminist perspectives from Maharashtra, I will demonstrate the conceptual applicability of Muslim feminism and femi- nist research methods to an analysis of systemic violence against Muslims and women within Hindu nationalist politics. I present Muslim feminism and its discourses as a palimpsest here, characterised by various overlapping interpretive layers, neither similar nor dissimilar to debates on Islamic femi- nism. In fact, I suggest that the Muslim feminist struggle coincides with the larger feminist resistance to patriarchal violence in Maharashtra, remaining configured to Muslim-minority politics at the same time. In other words, Muslim women seek gender equality within Islamic parameters and their activism intersects questions of gender, Islam and the local history of politi- cal movements. Drawing on the definition of tactics and strategy provided by de Cer- teau (pp. xvii–xix), I define Muslim feminism in urban Maharashtra as an everyday strategy characterised by daily negotiations between Muslims, the female body, and religious, economic, spatial, linguistic, regionally preva- lent, familial, and ideological patriarchies. 1 Muslim feminism is part of an everyday, collective struggle and activism that spans various minority inter- ests in Mumbai toresist patriarchal and systemic violence. Muslim feminist activism is therefore specific to Muslim women’s unjust treatment within Islamic and non-Islamic patriarchy, and their role against hegemonic post- colonial identity-politics that produces a massively disadvantaged position 8 A GENEALOGY OF MUSLIM FEMINISM IN MAHARASHTRA Systems and violence Deepra Dandekar 15040-3022-PIII-008.indd 153 15040-3022-PIII-008.indd 153 7/1/2019 7:27:48 AM 7/1/2019 7:27:48 AM