Cities, bringing people together from different walks of life, are considered to be inclusive spaces offering endless opportunities. But on closer inspection, they often reveal layers of exclusion with regard to class, profession, and gender. For instance, the fact that Delhi is one of the most unsafe cities for women is evident in spaces within the city that are openly hostile towards women. The project “Safe Cities” conducted by UN Women and the International Center for Research on Women soon after the 2012 Delhi rape case showed how 95 per cent of women feel unsafe in public spaces. Here considerations of “respectability” are used to judge women’s behaviour and appearance in public, circumscribing their freedom.

The implicit sense of censure and threat means that women often feel safer in gender-segregated spaces. Over the years, exclusive “Women Only” spaces have increased in all metropolitan cities, including Delhi. Women too engage with these spaces more often these days, whether by studying in women’s colleges or by commuting in Metro coaches reserved for them. At the same time, the concept of reserved spaces for women is not new in Delhi. It is rooted in the city’s history.

An illustration of the walled city of Shahjahanabad.
| Photo Credit:
The Illustrated London News

The walled city of Shahjahanabad, where most Muslim women observed the purdah, had quite a few monuments and gardens meant exclusively for women. Princess Jahanara, emperor Shahjahan’s daughter, commissioned three Purdah Baghs in the mid-17th century, one in Chandni Chowk, one near Jama Masjid, and the other in Daryaganj. While the Chandni Chowk and Jama Masjid gardens have closed their gates to the general public now, the Daryaganj Purdah Bagh remains active. It is the last surviving zenana bagh in Old Delhi. Once reserved for royal and noble women, the park is now open to women of all social classes.

An oasis of serenity

The garden offers a place of calmness amidst the chaotic streets of Daryaganj. Entering the garden through the narrow entrance, one is immediately struck by the contrast with the hustle and bustle of the streets outside. When I visited the park on a chilly December morning, it was buzzing with the chatter and laughter of women, who sat on rugs spread on the grass and shared stories over moongfalis (peanuts). Some elderly women walked in clusters while their grandchildren played.

The narrow gateway to Purdah Bagh, Daryaganj.
| Photo Credit:
Rhea Kapoor

The addition of an open gym has drawn more women to the park. Here they can exercise freely without being bothered by male scrutiny. Aliya, a Daryaganj resident, spends almost every afternoon here with her friend Noor Jahan. The two have been visiting the garden since childhood and now bring their own children along. “We enjoy sitting in the winter sun with friends. This park has been our picnic spot since we were kids. The streets outside don’t feel safe. But here we can relax without any worries. Ekdum bindaas ho kar,” Aliya said, cracking open a peanut.

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Vimlesh (61) and Samina Alvi (65) have been the caretakers of the Daryaganj Purdah Bagh for 24 years now. “This is a Muslim neighbourhood. Muslim women feel comfortable taking their burqas off within the walls of this garden,” said Vimlesh. However, maintaining the space is not easy. The municipal corporation has largely left the park to its own devices, with the elderly caretakers working well past their retirement age. Samina gestured at the padlocked community centre, which housed a school and hosted a skill training programme until its closure in 2008. “There was so much more raunaq [hubbub] in those days. After classes, children would stay back to play. The park felt alive until sunset. These days, by late afternoon, the park starts emptying,” she said.

The open gym at Purdah Bagh.
| Photo Credit:
Rhea Kapoor

Vimlesh and Samina also serve as security guards. “We are on duty from 9 am to 5 pm, ensuring no men enter the park during those hours. After that, the security is in god’s hands,” said Samina. “In the mornings, we sometimes find drunk men lying here. Young boys threaten to stab us when we stop them from entering the park. We used to get scared earlier, but now we have grown accustomed to it,” she added. For Vimlesh and Samina, guarding the garden is more than a job. It is a daily stand against the erosion of spaces meant to offer respite and freedom to women.

A space to reclaim agency

The importance of exclusive women’s spaces like Purdah Bagh lies not only in the security they provide but also in their ability to foster community and self-expression. Within the garden’s walls, women can be themselves, support one another, and navigate their lives with a freedom absent in the streets outside. These places thus become a space for women to reclaim agency.

The first coach of every Delhi Metro train is reserved for women.
| Photo Credit:
Delhi Metro Rail Corporation

The Municipal Corporation of Delhi launched an initiative in April 2023 to create “pink parks” in each of the city’s 250 municipal wards. The project remains stalled due to a lack of political commitment. But can secluded gardens or parks alone create a city that feels safe for all women? The sociologist Henri Lefebvre highlights the contradictions inherent in such spaces in his book, The Production of Space (translated by Donald Nicholson-Smith). He argues that by conceptualising space as a social product shaped by power and exclusion, spaces like Purdah Bagh reflect widespread social inequities. While they offer sanctuary, they also perpetuate the idea of segregation as the primary response to women’s safety, reinforcing urban exclusion rather than dismantling it.

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Feminist geographer Jane Darke writes: “Any settlement is an inscription in space of the social relations in the society that built it. Our cities are patriarchy written in stone, brick, glass, and concrete” (quoted in Feminist City by Leslie Kern). The systemic biases ingrained in the construction of a city mean that it is never a welcoming space for women, gender minorities, and other marginalised groups. In a society unwilling to accept women as legitimate users of public spaces, segregation further handicaps women’s ability to negotiate their rights.

The problem can be solved not by planning more safe spaces but by reimagining our cities. A truly modern city should invite us to visualise urban landscapes not as fixed territories, but as dynamic, breathing entities, constantly changing as communities connect and relationships deepen. Instead of upholding existing power imbalances, they should underline every citizen’s right to their identity. Each street, park, and ward should be a site of transformation where peripheries move to the centre, where vulnerability is met with compassion, and where diversity is encouraged.

Rhea Kapoor is a Delhi-based writer and a student of multimedia and mass communication at Indraprastha College for Women. She writes on gender, culture, and films.