This entry received 2nd prize in an AY2025/2026 op-ed competition by Bridging GAP (Gender and Policy), a student group at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy which aims to enhance awareness of the importance of gender among public policy students.
In October 2023, the Uttar Pradesh government announced digital literacy and coding modules for all madrasas. By 2025, many Muslim women had landed IT jobs after completing coding courses, many working remotely. Success stories proliferated: Shadan Women's College partnering with tech firms, Kerala madrasas teaching Python, the SAFA Foundation placing graduates in freelance careers. These stories are real. But they obscure an uncomfortable truth: remote work is creating a two-tier system among Muslim women, benefiting an educated minority while leaving millions behind and potentially validating the very restrictions that keep Muslim women out of public life.
According to the National Family Health Survey-5, only 42% of Muslim women in India have ever used the internet, compared to 57% of Hindu women. Before Muslim women can consider remote work, nearly 60% lack internet access itself. Infrastructure barriers are formidable: reliable broadband, devices capable of running development software (₹40,000+), private space, uninterrupted electricity. The madrasa coding programs reach students in urban centers like Hyderabad, Kerala's cities, Lucknow, who already had education, English instruction, and family resources. Muslim women in informal settlements or villages without electricity aren't enrolling in Python courses. For them, remote work remains theoretical.
Technology risks widening these gaps. The 15-percentage-point internet access gap between Muslim and Hindu women could translate into a permanent economic stratification, where Muslim women with resources leverage remote work for advancement while others fall further behind.
The emphasis on coding bootcamps treats Muslim women's exclusion as a skills problem. But the real barrier is algorithmic discrimination at scale. AI hiring systems, used by 99% of Fortune 500 companies and increasingly by Indian firms, systematically filter out Muslim applicants. University of Washington research found that AI systems consistently ranked resumes with Muslim-associated names lower than identical resumes with Hindu names.
Discrimination goes deeper through "neutral" proxy variables. Geographic location: Muslim-majority neighborhoods are flagged as "high-risk zones." A 2025 study in The Print found AI credit scoring systems tag Muslim-majority districts as economically unreliable due to historical poverty data. Hiring algorithms using addresses or pin codes systematically downgrade candidates from these areas. Educational institutions: AI systems penalize madrasa graduates while favoring IIT credentials, regardless of actual skills. Social media: AI tools scrape profiles and flag Muslim religious content more frequently than Hindu religious expression, treating Islamic terminology as problematic.
The insidious nature of algorithmic discrimination is its invisibility. Recruiters outsource responsibility to machines while prejudice is legitimized by mathematical authority. Teaching a woman Python doesn't solve the problem if her resume is filtered out because her name is Fatima, her address is in a Muslim-majority neighborhood, and she graduated from a Muslim-minority institution.
Remote work is celebrated for allowing Muslim women to work "without compromising cultural values." But when we celebrate enabling women to avoid public spaces and male colleagues, are we challenging restrictive norms or accommodating them? Research on work-from-home during COVID-19 found Indian women professionals experienced increased burden, managing both full-time remote work and all household responsibilities since they were "home anyway." Remote work doesn't dismantle expectations around domestic labor; it makes that labor invisible while adding paid work on top.
More troubling is how remote work strengthens family control. When women work from home, family members can monitor work, control earnings, restrict hours, and limit professional relationships. Office environments provide autonomy and privacy that home-based work eliminates entirely. Should the solution to discrimination be keeping women home? Or should we demand that public spaces become safe and inclusive regardless of religious identity?
Much remote work available to newly trained Muslim women comes through gig economy arrangements lacking employment benefits, job security, legal protections, or advancement pathways. A woman earning ₹15,000 monthly through freelance coding with no health insurance, paid leave, or retirement benefits hasn't achieved economic dignity, she's been incorporated into precarious labor. The tech industry's enthusiasm for remote work among Muslim women may reflect not progressive values but economic calculation: an educated workforce willing to work for lower wages without demanding office space, benefits, or employee protections. Remote work risks becoming digital piecework, exploiting limited options rather than expanding opportunities.
Without physical office presence, remote workers report being passed over for promotions, excluded from mentorship networks, and missing professional development. Research shows Muslim women are already concentrated in areas of low economic activity. Remote work may cement rather than challenge this marginalization. Meanwhile, madrasa coding programs typically lack long-term funding, quality teacher training, or systematic evaluation, remaining isolated exceptions rather than scalable solutions.
Remote work is not inherently problematic. For many, it genuinely expands possibilities. But celebrating it as the solution to Muslim women's economic exclusion is premature and potentially dangerous. Real progress would require:
Massive infrastructure investment to provide internet access, devices, and digital literacy to the 58% of Muslim women currently offline. This isn't about individual training programs, it requires treating digital access as public infrastructure, like roads or electricity.
Enforcement of anti-discrimination laws in hiring, with penalties for companies that filter out Muslim applicants. Technology enables discrimination at scale through algorithmic bias, it should also enable monitoring and accountability at scale.
Labor protections for gig and remote workers that guarantee minimum wages, benefits, and job security. Remote work shouldn't mean second-class employment status.
Cultural transformation that makes offices, public transport, and public spaces safe and welcoming for hijab-wearing Muslim women. Technology should supplement, not replace, the harder work of building inclusive institutions.
Prime Minister Modi stated in 2022 that remote work would be crucial for women's workforce participation. But without addressing deeper structural issues, remote work risks becoming another mechanism for keeping Muslim women on economic margins, just with laptops instead of silence.
The revolution from purdah to programming is not yet a revolution. Whether it becomes transformative depends on confronting uncomfortable questions: Why should women work from home to avoid discrimination rather than demanding discrimination end? Why celebrate segregated training rather than integrated workplaces? Why train women in skills that algorithmic systems will systematically filter out? Until we answer honestly, remote work remains a compromise, not a solution.