As the number of confirmed Coronavirus cases in India reached 1,900, the religious gathering of preachers since early March at the building known as the headquarters of Tablighi Jamaat in India’s capital Delhi suddenly turned into Corona Jihad, leaving a trail of infection and death from Kashmir to the Andamans.
On March 31, the administration of Andaman and Nicobar Islands said 10 people had tested positive for Coronavirus. On March 30, six deaths related to Coronavirus were reported from South Indian state Telangana. A few days before this, on March 26, a businessman died in Srinagar after battling with Coronavirus for many days. 29 out of 32 positive cases are linked with Tabligi jamat conference, the health minister of the Government of Delhi Satyendar Kumar said.
The common thread binding all these otherwise unrelated incidents, apart from the virus, is that all the victims had recently attended prayer gatherings organized by the Tablighi Jamaat – a global Islamic evangelical movement of Indian origin promoting the ideology of Wahhabism – at a six-story building in South Delhi’s Nizamuddin West area. The event has been attended by foreign nationals from Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Kyrgyzstan, and Malaysia as well.
Markaz popularly called for the headquarters of Tablighi Jamaat founded in 1926, organized a religious congregational programme from 13th to 15th March 2020 even when there was a ban from the Delhi government for mass gatherings due to COVID-19 outbreak in the city. There were also other violations of rules by foreign speakers including misuse of tourist visas for missionary activities and not taking 14-day home quarantine for travelers from abroad. Many participants had traveled back to their states and also eventually started local transmissions especially in Tamil Nadu, Telengana, Karnataka, Kerala, Jammu and Kashmir, and Assam. The congregation resulted in the spread of COVID-19 among many people who attended it who have already departed to many states of India.
The Delhi police have evocated more than 2000 devotees from the building and Banglewali Masjid inside on Thursday morning. Authorities in the Indian capital sealed off the premises of Tablighi Jamaat, accusing it of organizing the controversial religious gathering and ignoring the threat of the COVID-19 outbreak. Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has asked for a police complaint to be registered against the head of the mosque as well. Delhi police on Tuesday said they have filed cases, including criminal conspiracy, against the organizers.
However, the event’s organizers have issued a statement, saying they had suspended the event and asked everyone to leave as soon as Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that there would be a day-long national curfew on 22 March. While many were able to leave, they say, others were stranded because states began to seal their borders the following day, and two days later, India imposed a 21-day lockdown, suspending buses and trains. The mosque’s premises include dormitories that can house hundreds of people. The organizers say they informed the local police about all of this and continued to cooperate with medical officers who came to inspect the premises.
The Grand Mufti of India Sheikh Abubakr Ahmed, whose office is nearby Tablighi Jamaat headquarters, appealed to strictly adhere to the lockdown and follow the government instructions. Everybody should behave responsibly and stay at home ahead of the COVID-19 outbreak.
Soon after reports of the gathering hit the headlines, the hashtag #CoronaJihad trended on Twitter, with many tweets blaming Muslims for the spread of coronavirus in India. News channels in English and Hindi languages broadcasted in India have come with primetime discussions on Corona Jihad as the virus has deliberately been made spread by the Muslims. The editor in chief of Republic TV Arnab Goswami said they made fun of our national effort. They have compromised us all; we were just winning when they did everything to defeat us.” Goswami again fumed “They have been spreading hate against the lockdown and told their followers to do everything possible to defy the lockdown”. Many politicians participated in the prime-time discussions in different Hindi news channels demanded that the possibility of the Muslim generated virus attack should be investigated. Navika Kumar, editor of Time Now, also mentioned Tablighi Jamaat headquarters in Delhi as a primary source of COVID-19. Like many others, one of the popular TV anchors Bhupendra Chaubey of News 18 had been shouting at a similar Islamophobic discussion on Tuesday overnight at the newsroom calling the controversial issue as Corona Jihad. BJP leaders such as Gautam Gambhir, B.L. Santhosh, and Sambit Patra fuelled the denunciation parade, warning of a “disaster of gigantic proportions” from the “criminal negligence”. Obviously, ‘Coronajihad’ was one of the top trending topics on Twitter Tuesday.
At the same time, senior TV journalist Rajdeep Sardesai added that the Nizamuddin incident was a “one-day tragic breaking news story” and that the migrants’ crisis will “sustain for an extended period”. The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government had previously been criticized for how Modi announced the lockdown just hours ahead of it being imposed. The lockdown has been announced by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi without having adequate preparations that left hundreds of thousands of migrant workers stranded in cities, forcing many to attempt to walk hundreds of kilometers to their villages. This showed Modi’s government in a poor light. Amid of lockdown, many such challenges faced by the common people in India have never been addressed by the home ministry as well. The political editor of Media One Delhi bureau said that the Tablighi incident has given the right-wing government and the media a diversion from the difficulties thousands of migrant workers had been facing since the lockdown began on March 25.
Dr. Abdul Khadir, Islamic Studies department of Jamia Millia Islamia University, Delhi said the on-going controversy is another version of Islamophobic attempt by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party. The main threat is incalculably dangerous effects of communalizing this coronavirus would long outlast the pandemic itself. Though the organizers managed it irresponsibly, religious gatherings should never be organized like this, he added.
“Between Corona Jihad and defending Tablighi Jamaat, there is a stand about the health concerns of the public.” Muhammed Shameem, a research fellow at Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi takes a different drive, “Of course, Muslims in India have always been discriminated against and faced Islamophobia. But, this does not mean that you should not speak up against crimes committed by a group of people like Tablighi Jamaat. This congregation is probably the worst thing that these 3,000 Muslims and thousands of others could have ever inflicted on humanity in the name of preaching Islam. Ultimately, the brokers of Islam have added to this coronavirus mess.”
The controversy has negatively affected the on-going fight against Coronavirus in India. It has slowed people’s attention off safety measures and social distancing. Apart from this, the hatred messages and fake news have already been started circulating in social media groups and it, after all, resulted in a communal divide. Despite its size, worldwide presence, and tremendous importance, Tablighi Jamaat remains largely unknown outside the Muslim community, even to many Muslims in India due to remain outside of both media and governmental notice. Tablighi Jamaat neither has formal organizational structure nor does it publish details about the scope of its regular activities, its membership, or its finances. By eschewing open discussion of politics and portraying itself only as a pietistic movement, Tablighi Jamaat works to project a non-threatening image even it has encouraged to avoid all references to politics and asked to devote themselves for what is called struggle to consolidate faith. This extreme fraction encourages believers not to obey the worldly authorities like politicians and the police. Because of the movement’s secrecy, one often has no choice but to rely on explanations from Tablighi Jamaat acolytes.
This is not the first time religious congregations have been blamed for the spread of coronavirus. Tablighi Jamaat events have also been blamed for spreading cases in Indonesia and Malaysia. And in South Korea, many positive cases were linked to the Shincheonji church, a secretive religious sect that has since apologized for its role in the outbreak. It was in February when about 16,000 Tablighi devotees gathered at a mosque in Malaysia from across the region. The New York Times reported that the participants in the 16,000-strong gathering of this missionary movement had spread the coronavirus to half a dozen nations, creating the “largest known viral vector in Southeast Asia”.
“More than 620 people connected to the four-day conclave have tested positive in Malaysia, prompting the country to seal its borders until the end of the month. Most of the 73 coronavirus cases in Brunei are tied to the gathering, as are 10 cases in Thailand,” the daily reported. On 18 March, Al Jazeera, quoting Malaysian Health Minister Dr. Adham Baba, reported that only half of the Malaysian participants who attended have come forward for tests, raising fears that the outbreak from the mosque could be more far-reaching. Even in Pakistan, 27 members of Tablighi Jamaat, out of the 35 screened at their headquarters in Raiwind, tested positive for coronavirus Sunday.
However, Indian security agencies have alerted state governments to strict inquiries in the religious institutions across the nation. The controversial incident has triggered the tension among the Muslims in the outbreak of Coronavirus as well.
