Communalism in the time of corona

Photo credit: Financial Express

Devotees can swarm temples and poojas; and CMs be festively sworn in or bless the wedding stage. But a group of clerics conferencing before the lockdown are anti-nationals out to spread the virus. Corona will go one day. But when will we get immune to the poison of communism asks Anghrija Chakraborty

Earlier this week, as I went about “working from home”, I was made aware of an event in the Nizamuddin area of New Delhi which had been organised by the Tablighi Jamaat, between March 13 and 15. As a consequence of flouting social distancing rules and ignoring COVID-19, dozens of people have tested positive, and several individuals have reportedly died. There are obviously news reports and accusations flying around, with the administration accusing the Jamaat of criminal conspiracy, disregarding guidelines, and of flouting social and physical distancing rules; the Jamaat has denied these accusations, and said that their hands were forced due to the “lockdown.”

Irresponsibility? Most likely, yes.

And, then, suddenly the following hashtag - #CoronaJihad – started trending on Twitter.
 
 As one news report after the other started coming to fore, the hashtag gained more and more visibility as tweets came flying blaming Muslims for the spread of COVID-19. My WhatsApp groups were flooded with messages, videos, photographs, etc., of crowds of Muslims with police raining baton blows on them for congregating together to offer prayers.

And, suddenly, trolls started to crawl out of the social media woodwork, and started accusing Muslims of creating and spreading COVID-19.

• Let’s look at some of the other instances where there were similar events that did not cause this sort of a massive search being undertaken or an entire religious community being vilified.
• Hindu pilgrims gathering at the Sai Baba temple in Maharashtra
• The swearing in of Shivraj Singh Chouhan of the ruling BJP party which was attended by a huge crowd
• Yogi Adityanath organising a huge religious ceremony in Ayodhya;
• The Karnataka CM attending a grand wedding.

Welcome, communalism!

Blame religious congregations, yes, by all means, for not following rules; but can you really start blaming the entire community?

The perception as “all Muslims” based on only the irresponsible of them is ludicrous on paper, and we cannot consider such generalizations as acceptable (but apparently, these generalisations are still perfectly popular to make about minority religious groups.

Human beings can be apathetic, irresponsible, horrible to one another. No ethnic, religious, or racial group is an exception. But there is a problem when selective irresponsibility is elevated to collective attribution, and that collective attribution is used to justify collective punishment, as well as collective suffering.

As social media has gained ground, so has spread of misinformation, religious and racial stereotyping, fear mongering. And, these are exacerbated during times of pandemic. This has resulted in “echo chambers” of people sharing inaccurate and religious information with people who may already have existing prejudice towards various groups.

This has to stop, now!

Sources:

https://theprint.in/opinion/tablighi-jamaat-congregation-and-how-religion-has-been-the-super-spreader-of-coronavirus/392531/

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/03/india-links-dozens-coronavirus-cases-muslim-gathering-200331095417048.html

https://www.sakaltimes.com/coronavirus-nation/dont-blame-muslims-coronavirus-spread-says-omar-abdullah-48165

Anghrija Chakraborty holds degrees in English Literature and Law. When she is not working, she is an occasional writer, a dreamer, thinker, part-time blogger, millennial, feminist, and an absolute, but barely controlled legal research junkie.