Muslims of India face further persecution under coronavirus

The outbreak of coronavirus is seen throughout the world simply as a pandemic, which is unavoidable due to its peculiar characteristics and as a result of globalization -- nothing else. But in India, the situation is extremely unfortunate as COVID-19 is squarely blamed on Muslims, who were already marginalized, and are now being targeted under this pretext. There have more verbal and physical attacks on the community than ever before, blaming it for spreading the pandemic in the country. Reports are coming in that on social media, the blame is being put on the Muslims alone, especially by the RSS goons and BJP supporters.

India is already a fractured and racist country, which has tried to hide the shortcomings of the society under the cover of a secular constitution, which is already under the verge of major breakdown. It is now understood and believed by the world at large that the constitution will not survive for long and India will be turned into a Hindu majority country with all the rights for the Brahman community while the rest will be further sidelined. There has been little space for the minorities facing the wrath of the Hindu majority since 2014 when the terrorist RSS won the national polls through its political wing, the BJP.

Now on social media posts created by Hindu extremists, the majority of India is being told that Muslims are spitting on everybody, especially from vegetables to clothes of Hindus, to spread the virus. There has been a large number of increase in Islamophobic hashtags and the number of such racial and obscene posts blaming Muslims for launching 'corona Jihad' has gone up. Many Hindu villages are now guarding against the entry of Muslims while Muslim vendors are being stopped forcibly from selling their wares on streets.

Especially under attack are the people of India’s Tableeghi Jamaat, who had held a congregation in March this year in New Delhi. The Indian government, without realizing the consequences of Covid-19, had allowed thousands from abroad to attend the meet. Perhaps, there were some carriers of coronavirus among the crowd. But on such charges, the whole of the Muslim community of India is being stigmatized. The Tableeghi Ijtima or the meet provided the Indian government a justification to create a separate column of Tableeghi Jamaat-related cases in daily briefings given by government officials.

This was done deliberately to show the world that it were the Muslims who were the carriers of the sometime lethal virus. In an already splintered and broken society, it was taken as a hint to further ostracize the already-marginalised Muslim community.

The sampling bias was very much present as not the majority of Indians were tested. As is the case, millions of Indians, most of them non-Muslims and hundreds of thousands of foreigners, were allowed into India during January to March period without caring for the virus.

Only one cluster of virus victims has come from the Tableeghi Jamaat while more than 95 percent coming to India were not blamed. The game played by the Indian government is so dense that Pakistan is being blamed for trying to infiltrate Covid-19 affected Muslims into the country either through the Line of Control or Nepal. One should not be at all surprised that if an Indian politician comes out with the statement that many Pakistanis are spitting towards the East and the wind is carrying coronavirus to India as a form of biological attack. Such is the mentality of Indian BJP politicians and supporters.

Meanwhile, in an effort to further put pressure on the Muslims, the BJP government, which is known for anti-Muslim hatred, sent a memo to the Mamata Banerjee’s government in the West Bengal state, to strictly lock down communities, many of which were Muslims. Mamata Banerjee, who heads the West Bengal state, reacted sharply to the directive and asked the New Delhi government not to use this corona crisis to further its communal and divisive agenda.

At the same time, it has been reported that a Rohingya Muslim refugee camp in Nuh district, in the outskirts of Indian capital New Delhi, is facing famine after the severe lockdown by the BJP government. Surprisingly, no corona case was reported by the 250-family locality but it was still blamed by the BJP government for spreading the virus. Residents warn that they are unable to procure food items and could die of starvation rather than COVID-19.

While many countries are seeing surge in domestic violence during the lockdown, there is little relief for women and children in India. India's National Commission for Women has seen a horrible spike in domestic abuse cases as lockdown continues in the country. The NCW registered 587 domestic violence complaints in some 25 days. It should be noted that one-third of women in India's 2015-2016 National Family Health Survey had revealed they had experienced domestic violence, but only less than one percent of them sought help from the police.

Unfortunately, the Indian Muslims are now facing a stronger kind of apartheid as India’s BJP government directly targets them under the pretext of coronavirus.