On July 19, two days after the Shiv Sena's Rajan Vichare force-fed a Muslim, who was fasting on Ramzan, a group of 50 Hindu traders of Kinari Bazaar in old Delhi organised an "iftaar" at Pipalwali Masjid, a small mosque located in the market.
The traders, part of an association called the Bhagwati Jaagran Sangathan, laid out a fast-breaking feast of samosas and fruit chaat, with Roohafza as refreshment. They served the fasting Muslims themselves, and later cleared the soiled plates and glasses. This year around 400 people took part in the ritual meal. "We have been doing this every year since 1994," Vinod Sharma, a member of the Sangathan whose father Shiv Dayal has a shop right opposite the entrance of the mosque, said.
India's communal harmony is a way of life in Kinari Bazaar. "My father has known Imam saheb since 1955, when they both moved here from UP," Sharma said. "Religion has never caused any tension between them."
The feeling is reciprocated by the other community. "The Sangathan organises regular jaagarans [all-night devotional music programmes] and Sai Sandhyas and the bhandaras [communal feasts] are done right outside," Syed Mohamed Fahad, the son of the Imam, said.
"There have been so many riots in other parts of the city, but Kinari Bazaar has never been affected," imam Hameem Syed Ahsan Ahmed said. "Even during the height of communal riots in 1992 and 2002, prayers never stopped in this mosque. In 1987, curfew was imposed in this area during Ramzan, but my Hindu neighbours made sure that I got regular supply of fruits and milk and could continue with my fast."
"We are like one family," Shiv Dayal Sharma said. "When the Imam sa'ab went on Haj a few years ago, people in 12 cars went to see him off and bring him back from the airport. Of these only two belonged to his family, the rest were all people from the mohalla."
Kinari Bazaar is a wholesale market of beads, zari, and fancy items used in weddings. Hindus own an overwhelming majority of the warren of tiny shops that line the three-four-storeyed mansions in the narrow lane just off Chandni Chowk. Most of the traders settled here after the Muslim zari workers left during the riots that broke out in Delhi after Independence. Now the imam's family is the only Muslim family still living in this area.
Pipalwali mosque, which is around 120 years old, was also affected in the 1947 riots, said Ahmed. "It lay unused from 1947 to 1959... it had become a heap of ruins. But my Hindu friends of the area, and a few Sikhs, took the initiative to get it opened."
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