Script, Voice over and Video Editor: Zijah Sherwani
''We believe that the Harni area is a Hindu-dominated, peaceful area. It is like setting fire to the peaceful life of 461 families... It is the general consensus that all of us have booked homes in this colony because it is a Hindu neighbourhood and we would not like persons from other religious and cultural backgrounds to live in our colony.''
This is an excerpt from the note signed by 33 residents of a housing complex in Vadodara who are protesting against the allotment of a flat to a 44-year-old Muslim single mother. The woman works at the Ministry of Entrepreneurship and Skill Development and was allotted the flat in 2017 under the Mukhyamantri Awas Yojana.
But before she could move in, 33 residents of the housing complex objected to it, and since 2020, they have written multiple complaints to authorities seeking her allotment to be invalidated and requesting her to be shifted to another housing complex. According to The Indian Express, the complaint was closed after statements were recorded at Harni Police Station. However, on 10 June 2024, the residents of the housing complex staged a protest regarding the same issue.
Various videos of the protest show people chanting 'Jai Shree Ram' and voicing their demand to cancel the allotment to a Muslim person and questioning Vadodara Municipal Corporation's decision to issue the flat to a Muslim person in a Hindu-majority neighbourhood.
According to the protesting residents, the presence of a Muslim family is a 'possible threat', and it will cause disturbance to the milieu, among other reasons why they aren't comfortable having a minority family living next door.
Imagine a housing complex comprising 461 Hindu families, and just 33 of them feel threatened by the presence of a Muslim woman—so much so that they have been protesting on and off for the last five years to drive her out.
This is a classic example of discrimination and islamophobia.
'Silence is complicity'
A resident told The Indian Express, "It is unfair because she is a beneficiary of a government scheme and has been allotted the flat as per the legal provisions… The concerns of the residents could be valid, but we are judging people without even interacting with them."
This makes one realise:
How different would be the situation if the rest of the families in the colony stood up for the Muslim woman?
It is a known phenomenon that the majoritarian practices of excluding people based on their religion and caste cause minority communities to live in ghettos.
This isn't an isolated episode. From meat bans to incidents of caste privilege, it is alarming to see the layers of systemic discrimination in Gujarat.
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