The Delhi High Court has quashed charges against 70 members of the Tablighi Jamat charged with criminal conspiracy and actively spreading the pandemic. But it has been more than 5 years now.
This is an indictment of the incompetence, communal bias, executive overreach and blatant impunity of the police force absolutely subservient to the political masters. The media has a far larger share of the blame but they are beyond redemption and it’s futile calling them out. The ruling sangh parivar had field day. A pandemic or any such disaster is a great opportunity for authoritarian regimes and forces. People are fearful and apprehensive, incapable of exercising rational thought, ready to submit to any person or advice promising safety. It’s also the best time to exploit sectarian fault lines, mass paranoia is in action. The pandemic undid 70 years of efforts against untouchability. Social distancing has vastly different connotations in India. Suddenly the entire social media and right wing ecosystem start claiming being vindicated. The caste system had prescribed similar behavior. It was hailed as scientific and farsighted. Suddenly distancing was advised not just from physical contact but to exclude all less familiar social identities, maids and other workers were debarred from using common utilities. Muslims were particularly demonized as agents of infection. Hawkers were denied entry into gated communities and sometimes entire villages. Financial boycott was advised against them as precautionary measures. In the midst of all these came the news of a Tablighi congregation with around a thousand foreigners stuck in Delhi due to the flight shutdown. This was milked by the media as the sole culprit of bringing the virus into the country. No one asked why weren’t international flights shut down earlier when news of their spread was already coming from China, Europe and the US. Muslims faced the worst smear campaign ever and we had a digital pogrom. While most foreigners had arrived much before the lockdown, when not even advisories had been issued against travel to India and subsequently flew back once the flights resumed, it was the Indian organizers who faced the brunt of this. Jailed and charged with the most serious charges, they were hounded by the media.
A thousand Tablighis confined to a few mosques in Delhi were charged with spreading the virus to the entire country. Subsequently when the first wave subsided in October, that year, the government declared victory over the virus and we saw a huge congregation in Haridwar for the Kumbh in march next year. It was precisely when the second wave had set in. Lacs officially and millions unofficially died, doctors across the country reported that persons returning from the Kumbh were testing positive for the virus. Even the head of the Niranjani Akhara died of the virus in the middle of the Kumbh in Haridwar, but no media or state officials blamed the Kumbh, organizers weren’t even advised to close the congregation and any one suggesting so was shouted down. The government enjoyed absolute control through the disaster management act, invoked for well over 3 years. The pandemic resulted in a vastly concentrated power in the central government and deepening inequality economically. Today when the verdict was pronounced, it is time for deep introspection. How our prejudices took over and how the regime and its media manipulated us. How we forgot that as a nation we owe each other justice. But most importantly how the system escaped all accountability.
Milking a pandemic
