Sunday, August 23, 2020

Vilification of Muslims in India during COVID-19: From Tablighi Jamaat to the Bombay High Court judgement

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Adnan Abbasi

Article Title

Vilification of Muslims in India during COVID-19: From Tablighi Jamaat to the Bombay High Court judgement

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Global Views 360

Publication Date

August 23, 2020

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Indian Media’s reaction to the Tablighi Jamaat controversy

Indian Media’s reaction to the Tablighi Jamaat controversy

March 2020, when coronavirus was a new occurrence in India, an Islamic organization—Tablighi Jamaat—was accused of spreading it across the country. Criminal proceedings were registered against Tablighi Jamaat members—some of them belonging to foriegn countries as well—for acting against law during the pandemic. This accusation was then used to further spread hate against the whole Muslim community of India.

On August 22, 2020 however, the Bombay high court struck down all criminal charges against Tablighi Jamaat’s members stating that they were scapegoated by the government.

The Bombay high court mentioned in their judgement:

"A political Government tries to find the scapegoat when there is pandemic or calamity and the circumstances show that there is probability that these foreigners were chosen to make them scapegoats. The aforesaid circumstances and the latest figures of infection in India show that such action against present petitioners should not have been taken. It is now high time for the concerned to repent about this action taken against the foreigners and to take some positive steps to repair the damage done by such action."

Let us understand how the events unfolded in the Tablighi Jamaat saga and its impact on Muslims of India.

The Markaz Nizamuddin Event

Tablighi Jamaat is headquartered at Alami Markaz, Banglewali Masjid in Nizamuddin, New Delhi which is often referred to as Markaz Nizamuddin. Markaz Nizamuddin is where members of Tablighi Jamaat often congregate to discuss and deliberate about their outreach plans.

One such meeting was held in early-March 2020 which drew members not only from various parts of India but also from Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and other countries. The people from foriegn  countries entered India on a valid tourist visa to attend the congregation much before the time March 13, 2020, when Indian Health Ministry claimed “COVID-19 is not a health emergency, no need to panic.” In fact most of the  attendees left Delhi around March 11, 2020 itself.

However, on March 24, 2020 the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a nationwide lockdown so some of those attendees who were still staying at Delhi Markaz got stranded as they could not leave in the wake of sudden nationwide lockdown of transportation services.Tablighi Jamaat officials asked for permission to send stranded members to their destination but the permission was denied.

This was then followed by a series of fake news stories of which major Indian media houses were a part of. Sudheer Chaudhary of Zee News claimed that Tablighi Jamaat members are somehow linked to Al Qaeda and are working similar to the “suicide bombers” by spreading COVID-19 deliberately. The stories about Tablighi Jamaat members misbehaving with Quarantine center staff and spitting in the open were broadcasted on Times Now and several other news channels. This story was proven to be incorrect by fact checking website AltNews.

Rohini Chatterjee (2020) describes India TV News coverage of Jamaat in these words “In a video, one of India TV’s anchors says, “God knows how many members of the jamaat are roaming around in the country like corona bombs”. The other anchor chimes in, ‘they can detonate the virus bomb at any moment, putting large numbers of people in danger.’ All of this was also announced in high-pitched, dramatic tones aimed at spreading fear and panic in the minds of viewers”.

Cartoon published in Indian leading news paper, Dainik Jagran portraying Tablighi Jamaat members as willful spreaders of COVID-19 pandemic | Source: Indian Journalism Review

Indian print media also ran hoax news reports. For instance Danik Jagran—India’s leading Hindi Daily—published 156 stories, eight editorials, and five cartoons over 15 days spreading misinformation and half truth about the Jamaat. Another widely read Hindi daily, leading, Amar Ujala, claimed Tablighi Jamaat members defecated in the open after being denied non-vegetarian food at quarantine centre. This story was again proven incorrect by the fact checking website AltNews.

Aftermath & Discrimination

Source: Adnan Abbasi via Archiving the Times

The fake news on the Jamaat further led to more structural forms of violence against Muslims in India. Islamophobic hashtags like #CoronaJihad were over twitter in hundreds of thousands. Time Magazine reported that over 165 million people saw the hashtag #CoronaJihad on Twitter—which as explained earlier was done at the behest of the Indian media.

These include countless incidents like that of Mehboob Ali—a 22 year old who attended the Jamaat’s function—and was brutally thrashed over rumours of deliberately spreading COVID-19.

30-year-old Rizwana Khatun lost her child to hate infodemic. She writes “I was abused on the lines of my religion and was asked to wipe the blood. I could not because I was shivering. I was beaten up with slippers. I was shocked and rushed to a nursing home.there it came out that my child had died.”

BJP Legislator Suresh Tiwari with Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath | Source: Dainik Bhaskar

In Indian state of Karnataka, Muslims distributing food to migrant labourers were beaten over a rumour of them spreading COVID-19 through food distribution. In Uttar Pradesh—the most populated state of India, the ruling party—Bharatiya Janata Party’s elected legislator—named Suresh Tiwari—appealed to people not to buy vegetables from Muslim vendors.

In Punjab, Muslim Gujjar dairy farmers were beaten and boycotted in their villages over similar rumours. There are many more such post-jamaat incidents of violence against the Muslims reported by the media.

Some Reflections

The way Tablighi Jamaat was vilified and blamed for spreading coronavirus in India may seem to be atrocious and plain hate speech as per any globally acceptable norm. However in Indian context, this is just one more example of the continued onslaught of misinformation; disinformation, half truth, plain lie, and slander, which in the last few years, has become acceptable to be peddled by the mainstream print and electronic media.

Let us hope that the Bombay High Court  judgement on Tablighi Jamaat will create enough pressure on the mainstream media which will make them scale back the blatant Islamophobic fake news pedling on their platform.

During the time contemporary to the Tablighi Jamaat controversy, I was part of a research group that was working towards archiving COVID-19. We also did a case study on Tablighi Jamaat (this part was handled by me), so some parts of the article are referred to and reproduced from this archive, to learn more visit archivingthetimes.webflow.io.

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February 4, 2021 4:46 PM

Plant- Microbial fuel cell: Generating electricity from green, living plants

Humans are capable of discovering and creating great things with the help of science and one such impressive discovery is that green, living plants can generate electricity. It may seem unbelievable, but not impossible.

One must be wondering how this technology works. Well, the answer is quite simple; photosynthesis. Plants excrete organic matter into the soil as a result of photosynthesis. Only some of the organic matter is used by plants and the rest is released in the soil. This released organic matter is broken down by bacteria. In the breakdown process, electrons are released as a waste product. Since the movement of electrons produces electricity, these electrons, which are of no use to the plant, can be harvested. The best part about this innovation is that the plants from which energy is being generated are not affected in any way.

This idea was first put into use by a Dutch start-up called Plant-e. This company was launched in September 2009 and is successful in launching and selling many environment- friendly products like DIY kits to the public for experimentation purposes and modular systems which could be easily installed on green roofs for abundant electricity production. Plant-e is involved in various projects, within The Netherlands, like automatic lighting systems in gardens and many more.

This technology works with the plants which thrive in moist soils and where the water is present in abundance. Therefore marshlands, paddy fields and deltas are some of the most suitable places for setting up plant batteries as a huge amount of water is present in those areas. Hence, the use of this technology is limited to certain geographic areas containing moist soils and cannot be used in arid regions. It may, however, promote the growth of more trees and plants which will gradually reverse the malicious effects of global warming.

Another obstacle in widespread adoption of this technology in today’s time is the high cost of installation of the system. The initial adopters of this technology are those who are attracted by the efficiency and eco-friendly nature of the plant batteries and willing to pay a premium for it.

The concept of plant batteries can be further taken into rural areas where most of the population still does not have access to adequate electricity. It is estimated that plant-MFC technology can cover upto 20% of European Union’s primary future electricity needs. Also, plants are almost 100% efficient at converting photons from sunlight into electrons which indicates a bright future for this technology. However, more research needs to be done in this field.

Another innovation in the field of green electricity is using algae , which often grows in ponds and rivers, for generating electricity. The basic concept which explains the working is similar to the way plants are able to produce electricity; photosynthesis.

Various other ventures in the field of renewable energy also include vegetable batteries, meaning, electric power generated from fruits and vegetables like lemons, tomatoes and potatoes, have been investigated. According to experiments, at least 3 to 4 vegetables are required just to light a small LED bulb. Moreover, it leads to poisoning of the vegetables and those food products need to be thrown away, without being useful for consumption purposes. It is therefore not a viable option for energy production.

Plant based electricity generation is still an evolving technology which has immense potential for producing energy in an environmentally sustainable way. It will realise full potential when the installation cost is attractive enough for the farmers to prefer it over the electricity grids or fossil fuel based personal electricity generator sets.

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