For the final 15 years now, Zahid Ansari, a 45-year-old second-generation muezzin from Sarbahdi village in Nalanda’s Bihar Sharif block, has had a set routine – 5 occasions a day, he steps into the village mosque for the customary azaan. However there’s a catch: he is aware of absolutely properly that there’s nobody to listen to him, since he’s the one Muslim within the village.
“My Hindu neighbours have accepted me (as their very own),” Zahid says, sitting contained in the village’s 11-decimal mosque (1 decimal is 435.56 sq. ft). “I’m dedicated to staying right here till my final breath. All I would like is to be buried on the mosque grounds like my father.”
Born in 1980, Zahid Ansari is the village muezzin, identical to his father Abdul Samad Ansari. A humanities graduate, he additionally gives tuition for college students as much as Class 10 in a vacant area subsequent to the mosque.
Till 1981, the Ansaris have been among the many 90 Muslim households that lived in Sarbahdi, now a village of 350 – largely Hindu – households, he says. The 1981 riots in Bihar Sharif – the district headquarters of Nalanda – was a pivotal second within the state’s historical past. Nonetheless thought-about one of many worst communal riots to hit the state, second solely to the one in Bhagalpur eight years later, the Bihar Sharif violence left 100 folks lifeless.
Though Sarbahdi was by no means instantly affected by the violence, the incident spooked many within the space, resulting in an exodus of Muslims to areas resembling Bihar Sharif city and even West Bengal.
“Most of the Muslims have been landed, with 5-20 bighas of land,” Zahid says. “The realm the place the mosque stands had a thriving Muslim inhabitants with landholdings of about 300 bighas. However by the mid-Eighties, misery gross sales began, and by 2005, all besides my father and I had left.”
Some Muslim households would come again as soon as to examine on their land, however finally, even that stopped, he says.
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Sitting subsequent to Zahid, fellow village resident Dilip Mahto echoes this: “I’ve witnessed situations of misery land sale by some Muslim households. Some merely deserted their houses and land, and a few bought it to their neighbours for peanuts.”
Along with his father’s loss of life in 2013, Zahid grew to become the one Muslim within the village. However the azaan calls continued diligently.
There’s one more reason Zahid cites for wanting to stay within the village: the Waqf (Modification) Act of 2025. Handed by Parliament earlier this yr, the brand new legislation sparked protests due to the modification to the idea of “Waqf by person” — whereas the sooner provision said that Waqf properties will stay Waqf even when the person doesn’t exist, the modification removes the idea, prompting fears of how it will have an effect on properties with out legitimate paperwork.
“The Waqf (Modification) Invoice has given me all of the extra causes to remain put on the village to observe Waqf by person property, together with the mosque,” he says.
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Sitting contained in the mosque, Zahid takes a slip of paper out of his pocket to learn out the village’s “Waqf by person” land: aside from the mosque, there are two cemeteries of a complete of 120 decimal, one mazaar measuring 79 decimal and an Imam Bara of 10 decimal.
“I had heard concerning the Waqf (Modification) Invoice and thought there was a have to maintain a file of the village’s Waqf by person land,” he says. “Of the 2 cemeteries, one is getting used as a cowshed and the opposite as an open discipline used to retailer hay.”
After the Waqf legislation was handed, he was requested to account for the Waqf by person properties within the space, he says. “However I’m the lone Muslim right here. I can’t ask folks to vacate the cemeteries or clear them of encroachment. Reclaiming it will do nothing. I wish to dwell right here peacefully and am pleased with the established order,” he says.
Mokhtar Ul Haque, the individual accountable for the Woghra Waqf Property, echoes this. “It’s true that cemeteries come underneath Waqf by person property, however the place are the customers? We might request the state authorities to reclaim the cemeteries, however who would handle them within the village?”
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As Zahid steps out of the mosque to go to his three-room brick home in a single nook of the village, an aged girl stops him and advises him to get married “quickly”. He smiles and nods on the girl, however as soon as she leaves, Zahid says that between his mosque duties and educating college students, he’s left fairly happy.
“I desire to dwell alone,” he says. “What I would like is for the mosque to be whitewashed. I additionally have to have a makeshift construction constructed on mosque land so I can train my college students there.”