{"id":2991,"date":"2017-02-11T04:34:37","date_gmt":"2017-02-11T04:34:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nehadixit.in\/?p=2991"},"modified":"2023-09-08T09:12:36","modified_gmt":"2023-09-08T09:12:36","slug":"a-year-after-thakurs-block-road-to-village-struggle-continues-in-muslim-hamlet-in-bundelkhand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nehadixit.in\/a-year-after-thakurs-block-road-to-village-struggle-continues-in-muslim-hamlet-in-bundelkhand\/","title":{"rendered":"A Year After Thakurs Block Road to Village, Struggle Continues in Muslim Hamlet in Bundelkhand"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Sulkhan ka Purwa, Uttar Pradesh:<\/strong>\u00a0\u201cIf they want votes, they need to walk on foot for 2\u00a0km to come to us. Which leader does that now?\u201d asks 35-year-old Mumtaz. She lives in Sulkhan ka Purwa, a village in Naraini block of Banda district in Uttar Pradesh.<\/div>\n
A year ago, Pacchaiyan Singh, the Thakur landlord who owns close to 200\u00a0bighas<\/em>\u00a0(about 33 acres) of land surrounding the village, put up barbed wires in the middle of the 2-km mud pathway that connects Sulkhan ka Purwa with the metalled main road. The hamlet was set up by the two brothers, Sulkhan and Malkhan, 60 years ago\u00a0when they moved to work as farm labourers in Singh\u2019s fields. Sulkhan was the elder brother and so the village was named after him. The 300 inhabitants of the village, all Muslims, are mostly family members and acquaintances of the two brothers. All of them belong to the Mansoori caste, an OBC category among Muslims, and are landless. For years, the inhabitants have continued to work as farm labourers in the fields of Singh. The pathway has existed since 1960s. Singh is commonly known as \u2018Dadu\u2019. Dadu is a common term for feudal landlords in the region who exercise great influence and control. Since the pathway was through his land, no one can do a thing to remove it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Bundelkhand, the hilly region divided between Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, is notorious for bonded labour. The five districts from UP in this region are Banda, Jhansi, Lalitpur, Chitrakoot and Hamirpur. \u201cWe worked for free year after year for some small loan our elders apparently took from them at some point. We were never given any accounts. The only time in the year when we were paid was during harvest months. Two and a half kg of wheat per day,\u201d says Shazeb, Mumtaz\u2019s brother in law.<\/div>\n
When Ali Jaan, Shazeb\u2019s younger brother and Mumtaz\u2019s husband, left for Mumbai three years\u00a0ago\u00a0to work as a painter, it was seen as the first sign of rebellion. Ali\u2019s father Ghulam Jaan had taken a loan from 30 years ago \u2013 two sacks of wheat and Rs 10,000. To repay that, Ali, a \u2018bandhak<\/em>\u2019 (a common term for bonded labor) had been taking care of Singh\u2019s cattle for 15\u00a0years. \u201cEach time I would ask for money, Dadu\u2019s men would thrash me. How could I have taken care of my family with no money?\u201d Ali says.<\/div>\n
When Ali left, Shoaib, Saquib, Fazlu and Aftab and many other bandhaks followed. Soon enough, most young people started migrating to Pune, Surat, Delhi, Bombay, Ahmedabad and Chennai.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cIt is not very easy to work in Bombay. But I absorb all the\u00a0zehar<\/em>\u00a0that is thrown at me, shut my mouth and quietly continue to do my work. Because I don\u2019t want my children to suffer the way I did,\u201d says Ali.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Within a year of Ali\u2019s migration, Ali\u2019s son Shariq and\u00a015\u00a0other children was enrolled in the government school in Nagwara. One day, on their way to school, Shariq and two other\u00a0boys were thrashed by two men who worked for Dadu. \u201cThey said, \u2018you want to become\u00a0sahib<\/em>?\u2019\u201d Mumtaz recalls. With most men working as migrant labourers in other cities, the village is only occupied by the old and women. On hearing the thrashing, the women got together, hurled stones and chased the two men away. The next day, the pathway was blocked and barbed wires were installed. \u201cThey are upset that we have stopped working as agricultural labourers in their fields. And when we do, we ask for wages. That is why they are punishing us,\u201d says Shakeela, Sulkhan\u2019s daughter-in-law.<\/div>\n
In the past one year, since the pathway has been blocked, the village has seen five deaths. Shakeela\u2019s 13-year-old daughter Shabnam was bitten by a scorpion but they couldn\u2019t reach the hospital on time. \u201cThe other route in five km longer,\u201d says her mother. Ghufran\u2019s two-year-old son was sick with pneumonia. \u201cHe needed oxygen immediately but the ambulance couldn\u2019t reach him,\u201d he says. Badami, an 83-year-old widow of Malkhan, fell and broke her hip bone. \u201cWe carried her on the cot to take her to the main road but the other route was flooded with water. She died next morning,\u201d says her son Mushtaq. Five-year-old Asma fell into a borewell and by the time the fire department rescue team could navigate their way in she was dead.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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\"Ghufran<\/p>\n

Ghufran carrying his cycle in his hand to cross the barbed wire. Credit: Neha Dixit<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Last year, Nagwara became a fully electrified village in Banda. \u201cBut the electricity has reached only the houses of Brahmins and Thakurs in the area,\u201d Ali says, pointing to the lone field of a Brahmin, a few hundred metres from the village. \u201cAn electric pole can be put on his field for a tubewell, but not one in our village which could help 300 people,\u201d Shakeela says.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
The village neither has an\u00a0anganwadi<\/em>\u00a0nor has ever been visited by an Asha worker. \u201cEven the MNREGA work never came our way because the\u00a0pradhan<\/em>\u00a0only recruited Thakurs from the Nagwara village,\u201d says Shazeb. Last year, when the village pradhans across the country were given funds to distribute Rs 12,000 to each household to construct toilets, Shakeela appealed to Gudia Thakur, Singh\u2019s grand-niece-in-law, who is at present the pradhan of Nagwara village. Begum Arfa, her mother-in-law who is Sulkhan\u2019s widow and now in her late 80s, could not go to the fields any longer to defecate. \u201cWe needed a toilet desperately but after months of waiting nothing came our way,\u201d she says. Shakeela then took money from her father to construct one at her place. \u201cBut look at their brazenness. They came and clicked pictures of the toilet and told the collector that it was constructed under the Swacch Bharat Abhiyaan,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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Shakeela with Begum Arfa.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
In the past 60\u00a0years, they have not been allowed to construct a mosque in the area. They use an Idgah as a place to come together and worship. \u201cBut that bothers them too. They have cut the trees in the Idgah compound, often go and defecate and urinate there. Thakur women go and make cowdung cakes there. When we remove them, they come and fight with us,\u201d says Faiza.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
The nearest police station is in Naraini block,\u00a020\u00a0km away. \u201cThe police never responds to our complaints. To add to it, they go and inform the pradhan,\u201d says Ghufran. In October this year, after a lot of convincing, Suresh Kumar, the district magistrate of Banda and Venkateswar Lu, the commissioner of Banda division paid a visit to the hamlet.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cIt is not like the government is unaware of our situation.\u00a0 They had come just after Asma\u2019s death.\u00a0 They assured action but nothing happened since then. Instead, the hostility for the village increased all the more,\u201d Ghufran says.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
On February 1, the carcass of a cow was found next to Sulkhan ka Purwa. The village was preparing to celebrate Mirza ki Urs, the birth anniversary of Mirza baba. Tension spread all over the area and three suspects from Sulkhan ka Purwa were taken into custody. \u201cIt is a veiled message for us to not raise a voice or we will be taught a lesson,\u201d says Ali.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n