IQBAL KHAN
COVID-19 challenge has exposed the Indian medical industry’s larger than life projections. These testing times have brought to fore its structural and operational weaknesses. Non-COVID-19 patients suffered as Mumbai ran out of beds in intensive care units. Indian journalist Rajdeep Sardesi is “appalled over segregation of virus patients in India”. Professor Ashok Swain of Uppsala University stated, “Even test kits are allocated on the basis of religion.” Purely a project of neo-capitalism, Indian medical industrial complex got larger than life projection in the region through a fake narrative of providing affordable quality health services. During the Coronavirus crisis, shallowness of Indian health system has come to fore as poor and marginalised Indians have been left on the mercy of doctors and hospitals who charge exorbitant fees for basic treatment. India’s Cabinet Secretary Rajiv Gauba has flagged “a gap between the number of international passengers who came from January 18 to March 23 and needed to be monitored by the States/Union Territories and the actual number of passengers being monitored”. Mr Gauba wrote a letter to States’ Chief Secretaries that the list of such passengers as compiled by the Bureau of Immigration had been shared with all the States and Union Territories. “It is important that all international passengers are put under close surveillance to prevent the spread of the epidemic”, the letter stated.
Nonetheless as per BJP’s calculus Indian Muslims must bear the responsibility for spread of Coronavirus; and Indian media has been unleashed to construct a narrative. According to Business Standard, India, [12 April], the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) called for a ban on the Tableeghi Jamaat and its Nizamuddin Markaz on 12 April which has emerged as a COVID-19 hotspot in the country. “The whole of India is in serious crisis today due to the countrywide criminal misdeeds of the Tableeghi Jamaat and its Nizamuddin Markaz”. Party’s Central Joint General Secretary Surendra Jain said the Tableeghi Jamaat is endangering the life of all Indians, its financial resources should be found out and their bank accounts, offices and activities stopped at once. “After the hard work and achievements of the 8-day pan-India lockdown, the whole country was taking a sigh of relief. The growth rate of Corona victims was just 2.8 per cent. Just then, on 30 March, a terrible corona explosion took place in the Nizamuddin Markaz,” he said. Jain added that the entire country is “stunned and disgusted with this inhuman behaviour of the Tablighis” and the radicals indoctrinated by them.
Zainab Sikander, while writing for “The Print” contested the VHP point of view: But were they [Tableeghi Jamaat] the only religious groups who did this? No. The Tableeghi Jamaat congregated between 13 and 15 March, but temples like Siddhivinayak and Mahakaleshwar were not closed until 16 March. Shirdi Saibaba Mandir and Shani Shingnapur Temple were closed only on 17 March, Vaishno Devi on 18 March and the Kashi Viswanathan Temple was operating until 20 March — a day after Prime Minister Modi had addressed the nation and called for ‘social distancing’. Some news channels pointed these anomalies out but for the most part, the narrative to demonise and blame the entire Muslim community — and not only the Tableeghi organisers — played on a loop. Handling of the Tableeghi Jamaat fiasco by Indian media is a good example: “Like a herd of cattle that cannot think on its own, the 1500-odd men who were stuck at Delhi’s Nizamuddin Markaz continued to stay there while their spiritual shepherd didn’t think it necessary to empty the premises despite the fear of the Coronavirus”.
Since Tableeghi Jamaat became the scapegoat, fake news has been used rather assiduously in India to create a sense of unity within the majority—Hindu community. A feeling of unity to hate a common enemy—Muslims— and defeat that enemy by voting a Hindu nationalist political party that will safeguard their rights. According to Zainab “the ‘us vs them’ elixir has always worked. Why isn’t anyone talking about the gaumutra and gobar [cow urine and dung] parties thrown by superstitious Hindus to fight the coronavirus? Why aren’t these unscientific and unhygienic practices being called out? Why isn’t anyone outraged by pilgrims stuck in gurdwaras and temples? Because no one is bothered by “non-Muslim” folks doing anything wrong”.
With the rise of Narendra Modi to the prime ministership in 2014, Indian media, “metamorphosed from a pigeon — a messenger of truth and facts — to a hyena, one that serves its own interest fuelled by an insatiable greed that drives it to devour its prey alive, sometimes ripping it apart, while it sniggers. Today’s news media, especially the prime time debates, is brutal, almost barbaric, with little to no regard for ethics and morality”. She adds: “Journalism is now endangered and what’s masquerading in its name is business — with open display of bigotry and hate against Muslims and other minorities”. Alongside, there is narrative that the “protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the National Register of Citizens (NRC) were being funded by foreign entities”. From the looks of it, Indian media is winning the war being waged against Muslims and Islam.
World is gripped in the pandemic of Coronavirus. Such a threat to global human society was neither seen for a long time nor was it predicted by the great astrologers. Like its predecessors, Covid-19 is likely to stay in the global society for quite some time. Extremist government of BJP is especially and specifically targeting Muslims to fulfil its greater electoral designs. Coronavirus was another test of India’s secular nationalism. And Indian government and media are in a mad race to fail India’s well-meaning people.
—The writer is a freelance columnist based in Islamabad.
