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 Chandigarh: Barely 25 km from the bustling township of Karnal is village Mundogari, where people do not buy television sets, do not get themselves photographed, or even listen to Hindi film music.
It is not because they do not have the financial wherewithal to do so; it is because the 5,000-strong Muslim population of the village is under the near-total sway of retrograde maulvis whose edicts have barred the folk from any form of recreation.
With just one Hindu Dalit family in Mundogari, the village has more or less been reduced to a Talibanised relic. It is not the rule of law that enshrines personal freedoms that prevails here; it is the fatwas from maulvis, who interpret the Koran according to their blinkered vision that calls the shots, preventing people from exerting their right to freedom in a country that celebrated its 60th year of independence in August this year.
The only connection of villagers — who do not travel out — with the outside world is the radio on which the only programme they are allowed to listen to is the news. Says Raj Singh Chaudhary, a Karnal-based social worker: "When one family bought a TV set, it was severely ostracised." What adds to the problem, he says, is the literacy rate at an abysmal 3 per cent, with just one person reaching college. And since no one is even 10th pass, there is not a single person in the village employed with the government.
Dilshad Ali (20) would be seen as a villain in this village if his secret was out, for he has defied the maulvis' fatwa and took admission in BA second year. Asked whether he follows any other proclamation, he says: "I have to paste photographs on the admission form, have to read newspapers and I watch TV regularly whenever I am outside the village." How does he do all this? "I have to keep these things a secret," he says.
Shadaqat Ali (18), who owns an STD/PCO outlet, says Koran does not allow us to watch TV and listen to music in any form. On being asked who informed him about it, he says: "Maulvis have informed the entire village time and again and about TV’s ill-effects."
Another woman, who refuses to be named, says: "The women folk are not allowed to come out of their house. Many have not travelled more than 25 km ever in their lives." "My first outing as a child was to a hospital and ever since I have mostly gone to hospitals as do other women, most of whom are married at the age of 14-15."
Maulana Ajmal Khan, the imam at Sector 20 Masjid, Chandigarh, says: "If you want a photograph clicked for the passport, or on the admission form, you can have it, since it is out of necessity. But you cannot have it hanging on the wall." Islam also does not allow singing and dancing or any such form of entertainment, he adds.
(Source: The Times of India dated 8 October 2007) |
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