Targetting Tabligh

Superspreading Corona

The Tablighi Jamaat, relatively unknown until quiterecently, doing its work away from the public gaze, has hit the headlines.Unfortunately, for all the bad reasons. The quiet missionary movement is, inprinciple, more focused on good deed than jurisprudence. It has remained alooffrom the dominant political issues of contemporary Islam, for which it has receivedcriticism from other sects of Islam. It is useful to know that its centre inIndia is close to the shrine of sufi saint Nizam ud Auliya. It draws peoplefrom various countries and regions of India, a meeting point of Muslims fromall races and colours, a virtual melting pot, is now embroiled in acontroversy. Was it right on its part to assemble so many people when a ban hadbeen put on the meeting of around 200 people by Delhi government? Was itsocially and ethically irresponsible or was it not criminal negligence on thepart of authorities to let people gather, and create a conducive atmosphere forthe virus to spread? These and other questions must be investigated. Theperception created now is that the Tabligh is a vector and not merely an apoliticalmissionary movement; probably a general quarantine is in order against itsoperations shortly, from a ruling system whose immunity levels are quite highagainst the proselytising variety among the Muslims. The Tabligh may turn outto be the new Shaheen Bagh for a media compromised to its roots.

   

Fatalism or Conspiracy

A number of the Tablighis had come from outside the country.Like Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Gulf. A virulent section of the media willeven go the extent of attributing terrorist designs on the Tabligh. That thesuperspreading operation was planned from abroad, and a couple of men hadarrived with a load of virus to cast in the assembly, and then when the memberswould go to their respective places in India, the pandemic would cast densefootprints in India. In the current polarised atmosphere in India, there aremany takers for any kind of theory which will boost the motivated reasoning.However, in that case it is also an intelligence failure at many levels; theinternational, national and the local intelligence unit have been caught withgrass growing under their feet. There will remain unanswered questions: whoallowed the international vectors to come inside India? What were the local lawenforcement agencies doing when they noticed a huge assembly of peoplegathering under their ear? Once caught assembling—an assembly of such enormitycannot go unnoticed, and after the local government had issued warnings—thelocal police should have come down like a ton of bricks on them. None of thathappened, blame it on the lackadaisical nature of the law enforcementinstitutions or pure dereliction of duty, the woeful result is for all to see.

But it is irresponsible to absolve the Tabligh from blame.When it was public knowledge that assemblies have been banned, it was criminalto assemble and create a situation for mass spread of the disease. Did they notknow that the holiest sites of Islam had been closed in Mecca; that Umrah hasbeen suspended, and the call to prayer in some Muslim countries askedworshippers to pray at home. No doubt administration cannot wash its hands ofresponsibility, but there was an information downpour, and continues to beabout the catastrophic situation unfolding around the world. They cannot excusethemselves that they could not move out because of the lockdown. Even beforethe lockdown there was strong evidence, and insistence from the administrationto adopt social distancing (physical distancing is a better term) and preventthe virus from spreading. The administrative responsibility is fine, but howcan one excuse from personal responsibility? And this personal responsibilitynot just for the safety and security of one’s corporal self but that of thecollective humanity with which one is in close contact. The lack ofcomprehension concerning that is a common aporia in the context of somereligious constituencies.

The problem is that, when we come out of the ‘sophisticated’discussions about individuals and communities and organisations, it is a commonobservation that most of them are grounded in an acute form reason-defyingfaith. They are rarely amenable to rational explanations. From observation andprevious experience, perhaps neither authorities nor the Tabligh did anythingintentionally to produce the ‘epicenter’ of the coronavirus. The reason may be,despite being surrounded by inventions of reason-based science, theirfatalistic nature. While they may travel in planes, take off from meticulouslydesigned runways, and land at an appropriate altitude, the modes of behaviourof most of the people in South Asia are still oriented towards belief. Thismode of behaviour cuts across all kinds of boundaries. It may well be that theTabligh people stayed put with the belief that whatever destiny has scriptedfor them will happen, no matter what they did. Just to exemplify this pointabout fate-governed mode of behaviour; all of us witnessed how both Modi andImran made appeals for social distancing, and called upon all academicinstitutions to close for some time. But both remained cautiously silent aboutthe Mosque and the Temple, two places where most of the assemblies take places,where social closeness is rife, and thus potential cites for corona virus tothrive. You do not need to be a social scientist to explain that carefulsilence.

Demonisation

The demonisation of the Tabligh and the community to whichit belongs may go for some time. It is forgotten that the people with whomthese potential vectors came into contact are fellow Muslims. And the evidenceso far is supporting the same. A man in Kashmir, apparently a pious humanbeing, returned from Tabligh activity and spread the virus in his community.Most of the Covid 19 cases so far in Jammu and Kashmir are contacts of Tablighmembers, who had recently arrived from outside the state. Same in other statesof India, and even in Malaysia, Pakistan, and Indonesia. It was not planned buta happenstance, which could have been avoided, if, for a while, reason had beengiven space against an extreme fatalism, and if the administrationhad swiftly moved into action. However, Covid 19 does not begin or end withTabligh, the latter is just an isolated dot in the furious march of thepandemic.

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