Muzaffarnagar: When Jat bonding helped 4,000 Muslims return home // Tales of tragedy & destruction unfold in refugee camps
Asara village in Baghpat is marked by ripe green sugarcane fields. It is the season when discussions are usually about the price the government will announce. This time, elders have been negotiating the repatriation of relatives and other families who have arrived from elsewhere for shelter in the largest Muley Jat village in western UP. The unease here is not about "Jat vs Muslims" but about "Hindu Jats and Muley Jats". And Asara has been working on a solution, even as the government struggles to find one for thousands others displaced in the region.
Friday the 13th saw the return home of nearly 4,000 people, also Muley Jats, who had come from villages such as Kirthal. The Chaprauli MLA, Veerpal Rathi, and four-time MLA Kawkab Hamid got down to aggressive peacemaking. The fact that these Jats — Hindus and Muslims living cheek by jowl for centuries — could recall some old rishteydaari helped break the ice. The meeting was held at the home of Master Akram, a respected former teacher at Asara Inter College, a school that dates back before Partition. Rathi and Hamid got together the men among the runaways, together with 30-odd zimmedars or responsible persons from Kirthal and Allam — Hindu pradhans, teachers and former headmen, and during their discussions over two hours convinced people to return.
"The Hindu and Muley (Muslim) Jats spoke in their common dialect and the brief initial lines made the point," says a witness. "The runaways asked, 'Tu hamara tau na lage hai? Kya hum tere bhanje-bhatije nahin? Tere kisi bete ne kaha ki tu apni gaal mein soyiyo, yahan nahin, kya yeh sahi hai? (Aren't you our uncles and we your nephews? Your sons said we should sleep in our lanes, not yours. Was that right?' " That was answered with a few lines of apology, and: "Tere saare bhains, dangar hain, humne 4, 5 roz se ghaas pani diyo hai, ab aa kar sambhal le (We have been feeding your cattle and herds for four or five days. Now come back and take charge."
Says Hamid, "It was one of the few things that brought smiles to our faces as we watched the deep-rooted camaraderie come back. We are shocked that a concerted attempt was made to draw a wedge." Mohammed Aslam, Shakil's brother who lives in the house where the agreement was reached, says it was thought best that the return be effected as soon as possible, before the distances became unbridgeable. Baghpat, just on Delhi's outskirts, is known best for its greenery, watermelons and assertive farmers, and as the hometown of one of India's tallest agricultural leaders and India's first Jat prime minister, Charan Singh, whose son and grandson, MPs Ajit Singh and Jayant Chowdhry, are active in today's politics. Despite having switched allegiances frequently, Ajit Singh has managed to hold together a broad social coalition of Jats and Muslims.
Friday the 13th saw the return home of nearly 4,000 people, also Muley Jats, who had come from villages such as Kirthal. The Chaprauli MLA, Veerpal Rathi, and four-time MLA Kawkab Hamid got down to aggressive peacemaking. The fact that these Jats — Hindus and Muslims living cheek by jowl for centuries — could recall some old rishteydaari helped break the ice. The meeting was held at the home of Master Akram, a respected former teacher at Asara Inter College, a school that dates back before Partition. Rathi and Hamid got together the men among the runaways, together with 30-odd zimmedars or responsible persons from Kirthal and Allam — Hindu pradhans, teachers and former headmen, and during their discussions over two hours convinced people to return.
"The Hindu and Muley (Muslim) Jats spoke in their common dialect and the brief initial lines made the point," says a witness. "The runaways asked, 'Tu hamara tau na lage hai? Kya hum tere bhanje-bhatije nahin? Tere kisi bete ne kaha ki tu apni gaal mein soyiyo, yahan nahin, kya yeh sahi hai? (Aren't you our uncles and we your nephews? Your sons said we should sleep in our lanes, not yours. Was that right?' " That was answered with a few lines of apology, and: "Tere saare bhains, dangar hain, humne 4, 5 roz se ghaas pani diyo hai, ab aa kar sambhal le (We have been feeding your cattle and herds for four or five days. Now come back and take charge."
Says Hamid, "It was one of the few things that brought smiles to our faces as we watched the deep-rooted camaraderie come back. We are shocked that a concerted attempt was made to draw a wedge." Mohammed Aslam, Shakil's brother who lives in the house where the agreement was reached, says it was thought best that the return be effected as soon as possible, before the distances became unbridgeable. Baghpat, just on Delhi's outskirts, is known best for its greenery, watermelons and assertive farmers, and as the hometown of one of India's tallest agricultural leaders and India's first Jat prime minister, Charan Singh, whose son and grandson, MPs Ajit Singh and Jayant Chowdhry, are active in today's politics. Despite having switched allegiances frequently, Ajit Singh has managed to hold together a broad social coalition of Jats and Muslims.
Elders here who recall 1987, when the Congress's rainbow coalition in UP was crumbling, say that despite the BJP trying to get a foothold, farmer leader Mahender Singh Tikait "got Jats and Muslims to raise slogans of 'Har har Mahadev' and 'Allah o Akbar' from the same platform, and it cemented the bond." Says Abbas Ali, old enough to recall 1947, "The Muley Jats of Haryana went off to Pakistan, but we never even thought about it. Here it was never weighed as an option."
Mohammed Aslam proudly talks of Muley Jats studying in schools in Delhi and Dehradun, going to university in Aligarh and having several lawyers, engineers and doctors amidst them. Says Parvez, a doctor, "Even marriages here are strictly with other Muley Jat families, not with Muslims of other sects." The Muley Jats share their dialect and practices with Hindu Jats, and say they share the same food, and break bread with them on "Id and Diwali". Asara residents say they understand who are instigating trouble and why — "badmashes" and "election dhandha". Haji Israel, an elderly farmer, says, "Those who instigate riots are those who sit in AC homes, move around in AC cars, and public hai bewakuf that they start following instructions and riot. Those people have returned to their AC homes for now."
