By Kashif-ul-Huda, TwoCircles.net
UP close UP series: Part 5
63% of UP Muslims live in the villages. Even though half of them are involved in agriculture not much attention is paid to the Muslim farmers. 33% of rural Muslims are cultivators i.e. they own the land which they do farming or employ others to farm for them while 14% of rural Muslims are agricultural labourer without any land holding.
Occupational breakdown of Muslim households in Uttar Pradesh, based on 61st round of the National Sample Survey (Employment-Unemployment) conducted in 2004-2005:
Rural areas:
self-employed in agriculture- 32.9%
agricultural labour – 13.9%
self-employed in non-agriculture – 37.9%
other labour – 6.9%
others – 8.4%
Muslim farmers living in rural areas face problems of accessing government services like schools and hospitals. Even in areas where they are lucky to have schools there are children who “even after ten years of education, don’t know how to write their name properly.”
A Muslim farmer in Rampur, UP. [TCN Photo]
Living in villages, Muslims not only do not get service from the apathetic government but also become target of communal activities that do not get reported beyond the local newspapers. Many incidents of stopping construction of new Masjids or expansion of an old one has run into violent opposition from communal Hindutva groups. In Dhannideeh village of Shravasti district, in 2007, seventeen Muslim women were sexually assaulted when a Brahmin girl eloped with a Muslim boy.
Image of UP Muslims as living in Urban areas and involved in traditional work like weaving and brass-work may be one of the image of the Muslims but then there are other image of mostly rural Muslims toiling the land.