To the residents of Yarpur basti in the heart of Patna, there is nothing extraordinary in the friendship between Mohammed Jaleel and Ganesh Ram Bara. Both of them, in their mid-sixties, had worked together for many decades in the Patna Municipal Corporation as sanitation workers. They spent much of their lives in Yarpur, locally called dom basti or bhangi basti in a disparaging reference to the caste of the sanitation workers. Their work involved a variety of tasks, such as sweeping the roads, unclogging gutters, cleaning toilets, carrying filth and disposing of waste, aimed at keeping Bihar's capital city clean.Because of the nature of their job both Jaleel and Bara faced the same kind of societal exclusion.
"No Brahmin or Rajput would come to my house or drink a glass of water from my hands. No Sayed or Mallik would go to Jaleel's house or have a glass of water from his hands," says Bara. "All our social gatherings are essentially among sanitation workers, both Hindu and Muslim."
Obviously, Jaleel and Bara have led strikingly similar lives. Their day-to-day social experiences too are similar. Yet, in the eyes of the government, Jaleel is more privileged than Bara. Throughout his service, Bara had enjoyed some benefits because the Hindu safai karmachari community was absorbed in the Scheduled Castes (S.C.) list.
Jaleel never got the same benefit because he is a Muslim. "We tried to enlist ourselves as beneficiaries of various government schemes, including education schemes, which our Hindu brethren enjoy, but we were rejected each time on the grounds that we were Muslims," said Jaleel's daughter, Najma Khatun.
But this is not the story of one Jaleel and his family. Dalit Muslims across Bihar and other parts of North India who belong to castes such as Jolaha, Nutt, Bakkho, Bhatiyara, Kunjra, Dhunia, Kalal, Dafali, Dhobi, Lalbegi, Gorkan, Meershikar, Cheek and Rangrez, have the same low social ranking and are deprived of the benefit others enjoy. In many parts of North India, many of these communities have separate mosques and bury their dead in separate graveyards.
According to Mohammed Usman Halal Khor, general secretary of the All India Pasmanda Muslim Mahaj (AIPMM), a Bihar-based organisation of Dalits and Most Backward Caste (MBC) Muslims, the socially and educationally backward communities among Muslims "are not accepted or treated as equals by elite Muslim communities and even by sections of the clergy. They are subject to the same social discrimination faced by Dalit Hindus. Yet, Dalit Muslims are deemed ineligible for the government benefits given to Dalit Hindus."
Of the total Muslim youth in the 18 to 25 age group, a mere 8.1 per cent are in college (Hindus: 18.7 per cent; Christians: 20.5 per cent), 6.2 per cent alone are engaged in other studies (Hindus: 9.9; Christians 14.9); 30.5 per cent are employed (Hindus: 32.3; Christians 32.7) and 55.2 per cent are unemployed (Hindus: 39.1 per cent; Christians 31.9 per cent). Muslims have clicked `Pause' on education only to their disadvantage even in a progressive society that has nurtured their interests throughout history.
(excerpt: hinduonnet) 
