Muslims in the community have now taken initiative to build a temple there and give their Hindu neighbors a place to worship, since the village does not have one. Most people in the village have contributed to the construction of the temple either financially or with voluntary labor. Some Muslim families have contributed as much as Rs 50,000. Baluwa is not a well-to-do village, nor are the villagers in this community highly educated. But they didn´t need affluence or a university degree to show compassion toward another religion and to celebrate the diversity in their community.
The Muslims are building the temple this time because they want to reciprocate the goodwill shown by local Hindu families during the construction earlier of mosques in the village. The Hindu families had contributed money and labor to construct two mosques. The community also has a long tradition of celebrating each other’s festivals and cultural events. Hindus invite Muslims during Dashain for meals, while Muslims do the same during Eid and on other occasions. The fact that different families may subscribe to different religions has not gotten in the way of their being good neighbors and friends. One can only wish that one could say the same thing at the global level, or at least for all over Nepal.
The bonhomie in the village between Hindu and Muslim has lately, and especially after the commencement of the temple construction, generated a lot of curiosity in neighboring villages and also across the border. People from the nearby villages are pouring in to see the temple construction for themselves and to get a feel of this extraordinary community. This in turn seems to have generated even bigger interest in villages across the border in India where Muslims and Hindus occasionally clash.
And why should it not? After all, India has seen people die in Hindu-Muslim clashes and demolition of mosques by Hindus to replace them with a temple. If only they could emulate the community in Mahadevpatti village.
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