World’s largest healthcare emergency of our time, PandemicCoronavirus has united India as never before to fight it out with single mindeddetermination with hope and confidence. The unity of people at grassroots levelis much stronger and widespread than at political level where parties outwardlyrallying behind PM Modi but don’t miss any opportunity to criticise him in thiswar which many call, ‘Third World War’ that emanated from China. All CMsincluding volatile Mamata & Kejriwal and the political parties have, by andlarge, kept politics aside in an unprecedented manner. They are supportingModi’s strategy of national lockdown, quarantine and social distancing, thathas given a feeling that Indian nation is united in its fight against COVID-19with expectations that India would turn around the situation. But shall weremain united in times ahead? Going by our political history, it is difficultto predict but one thing is certain that the Govt is fully geared up for any exponential rise ofCOVID cases that made the PM to change the popular adage, jaan hai to jahaanhai, to Jaan bhe, Jahaan bhe.
Since it is a new virus it is called Novel Coronavirus thatemanated from China’s port city, Wuhan and exponentially spread across theglobe except Antarctica, taking toll of more than one lakh with positive casestouching 19 lakh mark by now. While it is difficult to keep pace with themounting numbers but luckily, it has been reasonably contained in India withloss of about 350 lives and over10000 positive cases out of hugepopulation of 130 crore
At a time when the Centre and State govts. and allinstitutions are engaged in containing COVID, Tablighi Jamaat, an Islamicevangelical movement, has turned out to be a big spoiler. It was set up in 1926by Maulana Muhammad Ilyas Kandhlawi, a leading Deoband scholar and convert of aHindu Rajput family, at Mewat, a historical region between Haryana &Rajasthan. Now headed by his great grandson Maulana Saad Kandhlawi, TablighiJamaat is under scanner after their thoughtless defiance of norms of socialdistancing and suspension of all gatherings including religious congregations.Instead Tablighis went ahead with their scheduled mid-March ijtima at itsglobal headquarters at Nizamuddin locality of South Delhi.
More serious was the ‘fatwa’ of itsChief against leaving the mosque in fear of COVID, saying “Do not leave mosqueseven if your trusted doctors ask you to. There was no better place to die thanin a mosque”. And his followers followed the diktat and stayed put in themosque till NSA Ajit Doval persuaded them to be evacuated on the interveningnight of 28-29 March, 2020. But the nation’s fight against COID-19 was alreadyderailed.
Those Tablighis who had left the mosque earlier carried theCoronavirus across the country and many of them even preferred to hidethemselves till they were tracked down by the police and administration in over17 States of the country including J&K. In Kashmir, the administration hasquarantined already tracked down 863 Tablighis and looking for other 72Tablighis who are hiding and possibly infecting their families and othercontact keeping the chain of transmission intact. The administration ofdifferent States has tracked down at least 30,000 Tablighis and their contactswhile other 600 are still missing. Obviously, these Tablighis are a singlelargest group for spiking the number of positive cases at least by 30 % andmore than doubling the rate of positive cases daily. In some States it is muchhigher.
Tablighis’ religious obscurantism, fanaticism, delusions ofdivine protection and open disdain for medical science has endangered publichealth in many countries where they continued to hold ijtima after ijtima. Theytransmitted COVID from Southeast Asia to West Africa. The February 27th-March1st ijtima at Sri Petaling Mosque in Kuala Lumpur helped in spreadingCOVID to Brunei, Cambodia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. Nearlytwo-thirds of coronavirus cases in Malaysia last month were linked tothat ijtima. In Pakistan too, the Govt had asked them to stay away but itcould not enforce it with 2.50 lakh Tablighis assembled in Raiwind, Lahore for5-day annual ijtima in predominantly Barelvi nation. There too, Tablighis areaccused of spreading Coronavirus.
It is in this scary background people across the country aregenuinely concerned over these insensitive Tablighis for spreading the viruspan-India who are also called as “super spreaders”. One may or may not agree with it but the factremains that Tablighi Jamaat’s ijtima should not have been held at Nizamuddinwhen such ijtma was cancelled in Mumbai after the Police withdrew itspermission. Role of Delhi police and Delhi Govt cannot be overlooked inNizamuddin crisis.
Was Nizamuddin ijtima deliberate act or just ignorance aboutCOVID? While the CBI will unravel it at appropriate time it gave a serioussetback to Modi Govt’s efforts to contain this virus which has yet no drug orvaccine to cure it.
National outrage is a natural reaction to their act ofcriminal negligence but should it to be taken as targeting Muslims as a whole?The counter point to this outrage is small gatherings of other faiths andreference is made to UP CM’s visit to Ram Janambhoomi at Ayodhya on 26th Marchwith posse of people and pilgrims visiting Venkateswara Temple in Tirupati upto 17th March. Their actions too are irresponsible that too risked the peoplewhich luckily didn’t lead to any positive cases. Criticism and countercriticism on the basis of religion are not fair as it is not against the faithbut the organizers of the events.
It is not that Muslims are not part of nation’s fightagainst Covid-19 as lakhs of mosques along with other holy places of worshiplike famous shrines, temples, churches and Gurdwaras are shut down across thecountry without any fuss. The fight against COVID is also a test of India’ssecularism and non-sectarian nationalism as every Indian, irrespective ofreligion, sect or caste has to follow prescribed protocol and support lockdown,social ( personal) distancing and self-quarantine. The faith, sect or caste hasnothing to do with spread of COVID but criticism of Tablighis’ criminalnegligence and defiance to social distancing, by no stretch of imagination canbe taken as targeting Muslims. Yes, sporadic incidents of attacks on mosquesand Muslims too have taken place in some areas that need to be stronglycondemned in the same way as is being done on Tablighis. Such things won’t helpthe nation to win this war.
Muslim scholars and even clerics did not subscribe toMaulana Saad Kandhlawi’s action. The controversial Ameer forgot that prayerseven in Mecca and Medina have been suspended in view of pandemic COVID. KeralaGovernor, Arif M Khan quoted verses fromthe Quran to tell that Allah asked the believers not to go to the mosque andoffer prayers from home, when the circumstances are not conducive. In any case,bringing religion in to the nation’s fight against COVID is an affront tonational effort to save the people from the virus.
Regrettably, Omar Abdullah and some other leaders haveunnecessarily taken the criticism of Tablighis’ irresponsible and criminal actsas attack on Muslims in India and sharply reacted through tweeter. Who isvilifying Muslims? Is it just a political statement? Didn’t Tablighiscompromise the safety of their own families and others? Any condemnable actionof an individual or group cannot be linked to the entire community or religion.If it is done then the objective would be to create disharmony. Foreign mediausing such hasty irrational reactions too launched a vilification campaignagainst India treating it as Islamophobic rhetoric which actually doesn’texistence.
Maulana Mahmood Madani, Secretary General of JamiatUlema-e-Hind who helped Doval to resolve the Tablighi crisis, has moved theApex Court to stop media to demonise Muslims due to Tablighis’ acts.Unwarranted criticism of any particular community or faith even on social mediaor defiance to prescribed protocol on the basis of religious obscurantism andfanaticism would weaken nation’s war against COVID. Let no one, individually oras a group, play the role of spoiler in this fight and instead strengthen thehands of administration and COVID warriors. This war has to be woncollectively.