April 14, 2020
A wave of stereotyping on several news channels and violent attacks on the streets have pushed Indian Muslims into a state of persecution as extremist voices scapegoat them for coronavirus outbreak.
“Fear is staring at us, from everywhere,’’ Mohammed Haider, a milk seller told The New York Times.
“People need only a small reason to beat us or to lynch us,’’ he told in poignant comments to the newspaper correspondent.
“Because of corona.’’
The Times notes that the health ministry of the Hindu nationalist government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi claims that Muslims are spreading the virus.
Indian officials claim that more than a third of the country’s over 8000 cases were connected to a Tablighi Jamaat gathering held in March.
An Indian Muslim violently attacked on a New Delhi street in February 2020 Image: Screenshot
In reaction to such claims and media portrayals of Muslims have provoked assaults on Muslims with cricket bats, a New Delhi-datelined report says.
“Other Muslims have been beaten up, nearly lynched, run out of their neighborhoods or attacked in mosques, branded as virus spreaders,” the paper said, highlighting that Hindu extremists were scapegoating the country’s entire Muslim population for deliberately spreading the virus through “corona jihad”.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s BJP government has already taken a series of anti-Muslim measures like Citizenship Amendment Act – which deprives Muslims from seeking Indian citizenship, revocation of Kashmir’s autonomy and a planned register for immigrants.
Modi has defended his decision to strip Kashmir of its autonomy as a step toward mainstreaming it via development. He has also defended CAA as part of efforts to accommodate minorities from regional countries.
Last week, Human Rights Watch said the discriminatory moves like CAA have fueled violence against Muslims.
Members of the ruling BJP party have repeatedly refused to condemn violence against Muslims including bouts of fire and massacres during President Trump’s visit to New Delhi earlier this year.
Even some Sikh temples in Punjab State say people should not buy milk from Muslims as they are suspected to be infected with the coronavirus.
Then there are hateful messages against Muslims that include fake videos calling on Muslims not to take protective measures, including wearing masks and practicing social distancing, and urging them not to worry about the virus at all as if they aimed to let Muslims get infected with the virus.
Meanwhile, Scroll.In, a major Indian website, has lambasted TV channels enagaged in spewing out venom against Muslims.
“Why the slow drip of anti-Muslim poison in India is now a flood,” an opinion piece says while noting that COVID-19 pandemic is a convenient staging point on the route to the marginalization of Muslim India.
“At the urging of its ruling party, with the acquiescence of its Supreme Court – which is failing to act as a bulwark against majoritarianism – and the primacy accorded by Hindus to rabble-rousing media, India is eagerly embracing its Islamophobia.”
The writing notes that most Indian Muslims fear that worse may be coming when the coronavirus pandemic abates. Writer Samar Halarnkar says.
“Since the Tablighi Jamat story broke, Health & Home ministry has spent more time blaming Muslims than addressing kit shortages,” Halarnkar writes in the piece which shows four Indian channels in the featured top image with headlines sounding like an orchestrated smear campaign against the Muslims.
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