Are Muslims Deserting RJD and Laloo: Profile of a Bihar Village

By Mohammad Sajjad

That the Laloo- led Rashtriy Janata Dal (RJD) has its almost unflinching support base among the Muslims of Bihar is so much strongly non-disputable fact that it becomes quite incredible if one is told otherwise.

The village Turkaulia (Police stations Paroo-Saraiya, District- Muzaffarpur) has a story which exactly goes against the essentialization about the RJD-Muslim relations.

This village is inhabited mainly by Rayeen and Shaikh Muslims, besides few Hindu castes like Dhobis and Halwais (locally known as Kaanus).This is a 'highway' village densely populated along both sides of the road, but surprisingly divided into three panchayats(viz.Kamalpura, BasantpurPatti and Madhaul) and two thanas/ Blocks( viz.Paroo and Saraiya. The Muslims of this village believe that they have been sliced into so many administrative units only to render their electoral strength ineffective.(They held one Late Babu Rameshwari, a Bhumihar, petty Zamindar of Basantpur Patti, who was a Congress activist during late colonial period in the locality, responsible for the village being divided into 3 parts).

A section of the Shaikh Muslims of the village, forming a portion of Madhaul Panchayat, have their polling booth located in Bhumihar dominated Madhaul and they are allowed to cast their votes only when their choice coincides with the political choice of the Bhumihars. Few years earlier, these Muslims had their booth located 2 kms away in Rajput dominated village, Paterhi, and were hardly allowed to cast their votes.

Similarly, the Rayeen (contemptuously addressed as kunjras or kabaaris) Muslim voters of this village, falling in Basantpur Patti Panchayat, have their polling booth located not in the Govt. Urdu Primary School of Turkaulia but in the Bhumihar dominated village of Basaitha, therefore, hardly allowed to cast their votes.

The majority of the voters of Turkaulia fall in the Bhumihar dominated Kamalpura Panchayat, and their polling booth is located in the Govt. Hindi Primary School of Turkaulia. Even then, most of the time the Bhumihars of Kamalpura rig the polls on this booth. Nevertheless, since 1995 Assembly elections, at least this particular booth has started witnessing Muslim assertion and till the year 2004, they could vote largely in accordance with their own preferences and therefore expected to get some governmental facilities through the political influences of their representatives in the Assembly and the Parliament. But their MLA, Mithilesh Yadav (of RJD) and MP, Raghuvansh Pd. Singh, Rajput (of RJD and the Union Minister of Rural Development) have shattered their expectations. The village is yet to get a telephone connection, even when they deposited the security money and application forms 5 years ago.They are still waiting the cable lines to be laid from the Telephone Exchange at Basantpur Patti to Turkaulia.Needless to say, Kamalpura and Basantpur Patti has got the cable and telephone connections. In other words, in the Laloo-Raj of secularism and social justice, it is not the Bhumihars but the Muslims who are deprived. The villages of Kamalpura, Basantpur Patti and Madhaul were electrified in early 1960s,bypassing the Muslims of Turkaulia,and it could be electrified only in late 1980s, that too when the Executive Engineer of the Electricity (BSEB) happened to have been a Muslim and who had his distant relatives in Turkaulia, hence took special interest in this.

It happened that the then Chief Minister of Bihar, Shri Krishna Sinha (d. 1967) had to attend a marriage ceremony of a daughter of Babu Rameshwari at Basantpur and it was this occasion that these villages were electrified on a war footing basis, as it had to be done before the marriage ceremony.The three Bhumihar populated villages encircling Turkaulia were electrified leaving the Muslims of Turkaulia in dark.Perhaps the Muslims were less than citizens, therefore did not deserve electricity.

Thus the pre-Laloo and the Laloo-Rabri eras have not made any big difference for the Muslims of Turkaulia, in terms of getting state's infrastructural facilities.

But now, when the Assembly elections of February, 2005 are round the corner, their anger against RJD led coalition govt. in Bihar has increased manifold.The anger has been piling up since last several years.