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By Shiv Kumar Ramesh Patel, sarpanch of Ognej village near Ahmedabad ominously says that Muslims are welcome to return home "at their own risk". Ognej is one of several villages in Gujarat where Muslims are not allowed to return to their native villages
More than three years after her three-storeyed house was attacked and burned down during the post-Godhra riots, Niyazbanu Bhanumiya is afraid to return to her home in Ognej village, 20 km from Ahmedabad. Leaving her house and one-bigha farm, Niyazbanu and her family are squeezed into a 180-sq-ft room constructed by the Islami Relief Committee (IRC) in Ahmedabad’s Juhapura ghetto.
“My old neighbours do not want me back. We don’t even go there to harvest crops,” says Niyazbanu. Her husband, Bhanumiya, plies an autorickshaw while their two adult sons are unemployed. “Earlier, they used to work at companies owned by Hindus, but they were sacked after the 2002 riots,” says Niyazbanu.
Niyazbanu’s neighbours are all fellow Muslims from Ognej who fled the post-Godhra fury. “All the 19 Muslim families were resettled in this building,” says Hydermia Syed, 45, who also plies an autorickshaw. “NGOs did not want to rebuild houses of Muslims in the village, as the money would have been wasted in case of similar attacks in the future,” says Dr Shakeel Ahmed, head of the IRC’s legal cell.
The local mosque’s fallen minarets greet visitors to Ognej. “They brought in tractors to pull them down,” says Hydermia. Adjacent to the mosque is the gutted shell of his house, remnants of hay and straw used as tinder still inside. “It cost me Rs 3.5 lakh to build,” says Hydermia.
Next door is the newly painted house of Tanaji Thakur. “I bought it from Hydermia’s uncle Noora Kaka for Rs 2.25 lakh,” says Thakur. According to Hydermia, his uncle sold the house in distress, as he needed the money. “Now he wants to buy my gutted house for Rs 1.5 lakh,” says Hydermia. Thakur insists that he is only helping his old neighbours in need. “The Muslims can of course come back and live peacefully,” he says.
Other Hindus in the village disagree. “The sarpanch decides on whether the Muslims will return,” says Bamaji Thakur, Hydermia’s friend. Sarpanch Ramesh Patel, a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party, insists that the Muslims are welcome to return home “at their own risk”. “If some rioters choose to attack them again, there is no way we can protect them,” says Patel.
Ognej’s Muslims allege that outsiders willing to pay more are not allowed to buy land from them. “Potential buyers are driven away by Bajrang Dal activists,” alleges Niyazbanu.
Meanwhile, land prices in Ognej have begun to rise after it was brought under the Ahmedabad Urban Development Authority, following the post-Godhra riots. “One bigha of land, which cost Rs 3.5 lakh earlier, costs Rs 25 lakh now,” admits Patel, the sarpanch.
Only, the Muslims who collectively own land worth nearly Rs 2.5 crore can’t wait for the right buyer. “I will sell my bigha of land for even Rs 2 lakh as I need the money to survive,” says Niyazbanu.
Activists say more than 15,000 Muslim families across Gujarat are still not being allowed to return to their native villages. Many of them have been forced to sell their property at throwaway prices.
(This article was part of the series ‘Communal Polarisation and Threat to Shared Traditions in India’, supported by the National Foundation for India. It first appeared in the Tribune) InfoChange News & Features, May 2006
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