Hindus in Mahoba district have decided to fast during the Islamic month of Ramzan to take the campaign forward led by Muslims. Muslims have written to Narendra Modi in ‘mann ki baat’ (Sanskrit) to press for an AIIMS-like institute in Mahoba in UP.
“We want to attract the attention of government towards our problem. We have opted for an exceptional route to show that lack of health services in the region is an important issue that cannot be ignored,” said a social activist Tara Patkar, who is going to lead the group of the 25-odd Hindu rozedars.
“Health facilities” are pathetic in our region. For simple health problems we either head to Jhansi or Kanpur and when the disease is complex, we have to go all the way to Lucknow or Delhi,” Mohammad Samad, a local madrasa teacher said.
The local’s campaign began around Holi by writing post cards. Locals failed to evoke the response of PM even after 50,000 post cards have sent to prime minister. Accordingly, the group changed its strategy and wrote postcards in Sanskrit, believed to be PM’s favorite language. Eventually, the PM Office took cognizance of the matter but the matter did not go beyond the inquiry.
Seeing no progress in the matter, the group decided to raise their voice all over again. “Ramzan is round the corner and we felt that the pace of campaign may slow down because fasting would be difficult in the summer month, but many Hindus happily agreed to join with us in fasting,” said Haji Muddan, president of Bundeli Samaj.
Meanwhile, Haji said “the postcard campaign would continue as usual”. So far, over a lakh post cards in different languages, including 45,000 in Hindi, 5,000 in English, and 5,000 in Urdu and remaining in Arabic and Pashto besides Bundeli dialect have been sent. Besides Sanskrit, the group has also sent letters in different languages like Gurmukhi, Tamil, Telegu, Bengali, and Malyalam.