Demonization of Muslims being part and parcel of India’s Hindu revivalist narrative, they are the target of a visceral hate campaign by the ‘Sang Parivar’ and sections of the media ever since some in Tableeghi Jamaat’s annual gathering in Delhi’s Nizamuddin area were found to have coronavirus infection. Aam Aadmi party’s Delhi Chief Minister Arvid Kejriwal may not have realized it but the inclusion in a separate column of ‘Markaz Masjid’ in his government’s daily briefings on the coronavirus situation has been working as grist to Hindutva’s hate mills. Chairman of Delhi Minorities Commission has felt impelled to write a letter to the CM to inform him that “such thoughtless classification is feeding into the lslamophobia agenda of the lap media and Hindutva forces, and has been easily turned into a handle to attack Muslims across the country.”
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government bears some of the responsibility for what happened at the event and afterwards. The Tableeghi Jamaat was allowed to hold its annual gathering on March 13-15, at least six week after the country’s first Covid-19 case was detected in Kerala. But Modi had remained in denial well into March when coronavirus emerged as a serious threat. All this while, he and others in the ruling party had been participating in all kinds of public engagements. Even after he had declared a lockdown, UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath presided over a religious ceremony in Ayodhya accompanied by several members of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad – principal militant Hindu organization behind the demolition of Babri Mosque – and priests. Who knows how many people, like the one in Kerala, had transmitted the virus to others before the government acknowledged the problem and took some preventive measures; nor is it known if any of those had the virus who accompanied Yogi for accomplishing the first stage of “grand Ram Temple” at the site of the Babri Mosque.
It is an open season on Muslims. As the Minorities Commission Chairman said in his letter “Muslims are being attacked in various areas, calls are being made for their social boycott. One boy has been lynched in the north-west Delhi village of Harewali, and others have been attacked.” Even before that, BJP supporters were staging vicious riots against Muslims in Delhi. Earlier still, patronized by BJP leaders, Hindu vigilantes designated as ‘cow rakhshaks’ lynched several Muslims on mere suspicion of eating cow beef or even transporting cows, secure in the knowledge that they would never be held to account. Christians are not spared, either. In a recent appeal to Modi, President of United Christian Forum offered “authenticated data” of at least 27 incidents of violence against Christians in eleven states of India, in the 31 days of March. There is no stopping Hindu extremist rulers of India unless their influential Western friends, who miss no opportunity to wag a finger at rival powers, stop putting their business interests before human rights.
