In Bihar’s Muzzafarpur, people from a Muslim dominated village have split the mohalla road into two. One side of the road belongs to Sheikhs who are considered upper caste while the other half falls in the share of the Ansaris, considered lower in the caste order among Muslims.
The road which already used to be narrow has been divided by the wall separating the two sides. The wall has made the road more congested for the passage. The movement of four-wheeler vehicles has become almost impossible.
Damodarpuri Tola in Panapur Haveli panchayat in Muzaffarpur’s Kanti village is a Muslim dominated area with 70 houses. It is said that the Ansaris are trying to challenge the conventional dominance of the Sheikhs.
On November 18, the whole case came up after a wedding in an Ansari household led to a scuffle between both the communities. The Sheikhs of the village didn’t like Ansaris organizing a program that was equivalent to their (Sheikhs’) standards. The whole event then turned into a war of words and finally into the brawl.
After things became normal as discussions were carried out between both the communities. Both Ansaris and Sheikhs finally agreed to construct a wall in between the road that would prohibit entry into each other’s turf.
Naseeruddin Ansari from the Ansari community said that the Sheikhs have been ill-treating them and he was happy with the fact that a wall has been drawn in between. He added, “We don’t want to do anything with them.”
The Sheikh community on the other side is of the view that there isn’t anything as such between the two communities and it is just being portrayed out of proportion. Mohammed Salim from the Sheikh community told India Today reporters that the brawl led to the erection of wall with mosque going to the side of Ansaris.
“We cannot go to offer namaz to that side. It’s an irony that people who follow one religion and one book have erected a wall that divides them into two. What can be worse than this?” he further added.
It is ironical that the media which goes on to demonize the Hindu community for being allegedly driven by caste hierarchy isn’t giving any heed to this development. It seems that there are reservations in the media houses that give them the license to do selective reporting. If there comes a similar news pertaining to the Hindu community, media would have given it ample time and prominence.
Moreover, both the communities despite exacerbating the situation and increasing troubles for themselves should have reached a constructive conclusion. Erecting a partition on the road gives no solution to the problem while it only makes things tough for the commuters and those who have nothing to do with the dispute between both the communities.
In the whole case, there is no presence of Hindu community otherwise; it would have been covered with different angles. It’s high time for the left-liberal media to adopt an unbiased approach and start cover issues in a more pragmatic way.