- Trying to clame the pandemic on Muslims
As the novel coronavirus keeps striking the denizens of this globe with no discrimination of race, wealth and creed, it is saddening to observe that India malevolently looks at the problem through an anti-Muslim lens.
A general perception has been made to develop that the main source of the virus was the religious congregation of the Indian Muslims– that happened in early March in Nizamuddin area of Delhi– thus piling all the blame for the spread of Covid-19 on the Muslims, wilfully ignoring many such accumulations of Indians on many other spots.
Such biased charges have reignited the already burning anti-Muslim embers. Politicians belonging to the ruling Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) never flinch from venting their prejudice against the Muslims. Journalists have become salesmen, selling proudly and gleefully the hate-ideology with as much verve as the ultra-nationalist Hindus are executing Muslimsin the streets of India.
As a result, in some areas, the Muslims were beaten with bats by a xenophobic crowd, lynched and socially boycotted. Announcements were made through loudspeakers exhorting Hindus not to buy milk from the Muslim dairy men. Muslim vendors selling vegetables were also boycotted.
The harsh question is that while the coronavirus will die as the saner brains are struggling in their labs to grapple it, but who will fight with this intractable communal virus in India and kill it for the ease of Muslims?
Fake stories about the Muslims spitting, coughing and sneezing on the non-Muslims have started making rounds on social media, stirring the ire of many smeared with anti-Muslim angst.
Expressions like ‘corona-jihad ’, ‘bio-jihad ’, ‘tablighi jamat viruses’ have become trends against the Muslims with the result that the Muslims are feeling increasingly threatened.
Equality Labs, a digital human rights group, says that the accounts sharing anti-Muslim material on social media are of the supporters of the BJP and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a Hindu extremist paramilitary organization.
Just lately, a video went viral, in which a Muslim man was shown to spit on others ostensibly in an effort to transfer the disease to others. The video created huge fuss in India adding a great amount of hatred against the Muslims. Later, it transpired that the video was filmed in Thailand, and not in India.
But the clarification could not abate the smouldering wrath of the super-nationalists. Moreover, such a social media campaign by the feigned army of uber-nationalists leaves grave impact on the socio-cultural lives of the inhabitants. Recently, a person, named Dilshad Muhammad, came back home from hospital gleefully because he didn’t have coronavirus as was suspected. Hours later, he committed suicide; the reason being, his Hindu neighbours believed that he had the disease and taunted him for the spread of the same in the village.
In Meerut district, a group of men went to a police station to lodge a complaint against their Muslim fellow for spitting on them. To the utter dismay of investigation team, the allegation was false as the group wanted to settle old scores with their Muslim neighbour.
The hate campaign has penetrated so deep and wide that it does not spare the hospitals and doctors that are supposed to save lives with the least inclination to rancour or prejudice. A newborn child died in the ambulance as the hospital refused to admit the family for being Muslim.
In the daily briefings about covid-19, the government spokespersons, notwithstanding talking of the shortages of surgical masks, personal protective equipment’s and other medical paraphernalia, start bashing the ‘tablighis’, even though the World Health Organization’s Emergency Programme director has disapproved of India’s religious profiling.
Recently, top BJP leader Subramanian Swamy, while giving an interview, said that the Muslims could not be termed equal citizens in India.
Such bigotry by the close associates of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is quite disturbing, given the havoc being played by the novel corona. Sam Brownback, the US Ambassador for international religious freedom, says in this context, “We know it’s a pandemic the whole world is being subjected to. It’s not something from religious minorities. But unfortunately we are seeing that sort of blame game getting started up in different places around the world.”
Hate-related issues have redoubled since Modi became the Prime Minister for a second term last year. The revoking of the special status of Indian Occupied Kashmir and the subsequent lockdown of the Valley, the judicial verdict to build the Ram temple on the site where the Babri Masjid once stood, and the recent legislation of the Citizenship Amendment Act categorically show that only Muslims are the butt of a bigoted ideology promoted by the state.
Communal violence is not new to India. Hate lurked there but it was never so much toxic as it has turned now. The desire in India for bolstering the pluralistic, secular, democratic and diverse socio-cultural values seems to lose the battle in the face of the imperious norm of ultra-sentimentalism steeped in the poison of chauvinistic intolerance.
There does not seem to be any sigh of relief for the Muslims of India as long as the politicians like Anurag Thakur keep spewing the orders to attack the Muslims, anchors like Arnab Goswami keep fabricating realities, and the intelligentsias keep crafting arguments to support the oppressors.
The harsh question is that while the coronavirus will die as the saner brains are struggling in their labs to grapple it, but who will fight with this intractable communal virus in India and kill it for the ease of Muslims?
The writer can be contacted at [email protected], and tweets at @TahirIqbal87
