India is a land of paradoxes but amidst all the paradoxes is the precarious woke feminist paradox of which The Wire senior Editor Arfa Khanum Sherwani is a conspicuous example. In her eyes being orthodox is a reason for being let off the hook when some members of a particular community and a particular cult engage in profane behavior with the frontline health workers. The female staff of the MMG Hospital, Ghaziabad where Tablighi Jamaat members were hospitalized after being infected by the deadly virus were subjected to sexually predatory behavior. The nurses, in their complaint to the Police, had alleged that the men were roaming naked around their wards, making lewd gestures at them, listening to vulgar songs and when they are given medicines, they refused to take it and misbehaved with them. They also claimed that the Jamaatis had been asking for beedi-cigarettes from the housekeeping staff and when they are told to remain away from each other, they sat together in close proximity
Despite the nurse’s plight, Arfa has innocuously declared the Tablighi Jamaat and its lewd cult members innocent. She came up with a baffling tweet where she refused to believe the Jamaat will harass or molest women, “I know them as selfless individuals who leave materialistic world, even their families in service of religion/society”. She howled, “Stop the propaganda NOW!”
You are right. I’m no fan of their beliefs either, but anyone who has spent any time with Tablighis knows that their conservatism extends to extreme propriety around women. Stories about their lewdness ring false. And attempts to tar Muslims in general are beyond despicable.
— Sadanand Dhume (@dhume) April 3, 2020
Yes, we totally agree, they are selfless, so selfless that their lynchpin Maulana Saad after proclaiming that Wuhan virus was a conspiracy against Islam has been absconding. Only Allah knows how many individuals he is going to possibly infect before landing in the police’s net.
Controversial journalist Sadanand Dhume quickly joined the inanity of Arfa Khanum and reiterated her stance.
Arfa’s tweet sits conveniently with her innate Muslim victim-card narrative where Muslims of the country are pertinently subjected to discrimination. While the country was well on its trajectory of flattening the curve, Tablighi Jamaat threw the collective cohesive efforts of central and state governments down the drain. And now we are staring at a potential community outbreak. Yet Ms. Sherwani and Sadanand Dhume are defending them.
I refuse to believe that all the cases that are testing +ve across the country are linked to #MARKAJ_NIZAMMUDIN
Feels like the Govt is using the #TablighiJamat incident to release data about positive cases that it had been holding back.
States seem to be doing it too #COVID19— seemi pasha (@seemi_pasha) April 1, 2020
Then there are some like high intellect ‘secular’ journalists like Seema Pasha whose lucid imaginations can rival that of a six-year-old kid. They need to be educated that Tablighi Jammat organized the fateful four-day Muslim gathering at the Sri Petaling Mosque in Kuala Lumpur which is responsible for two-third cases of Malaysia. At the time of writing this story, there were 3,483 confirmed Wuhan virus cases in Malaysia with 57 deaths. The religious gathering that was held from February 27 to March 1, made Malaysia the epicenter of the Wuhan virus outbreak in Southeast Asia.
The Jamaat recklessly repeated its mistakes of Malaysia and organized a congregation in Lahore that brought together tens of thousands of Islamic preachers from some 80 countries. With thousands of people assembling in a cramped space, Lahore has also emerged as a potential infection cluster of the Wuhan virus.
The Jamaat knew their actions had inflicted harm much earlier in Malaysia, so what was the point to gather in such huge numbers, with ‘red’ travel history for the sake of preaching religion?
The excuses the liberal media are coming up with to defend the indefensible is ludicrous, yet it is sad at the same time. In the wake of a catastrophe of such monstrous propositions facing the entire mankind, few sections of the society still turn blind eye to the facts crystal clear as a day for everyone to see. For them, appeasement politics and defending the culprits is a chore and a way to serve their higher-masters. People like Arfa think they are the judge, jury and the executioner when they come up with such divisive and communal tweets.
प्रिय @UPPolice, कृपया #TablighiJamat व्यक्तियों के खिलाफ अपनी जांच रद्द करें। फैसला पहले ही ट्विटर पर जारी है। pic.twitter.com/5asLnzabZE
— Shiv Aroor (@ShivAroor) April 4, 2020
‘Why we should believe survivors’ to ‘refuse to believe the survivors’ @khanumarfa’s hypocrisy was noticed. pic.twitter.com/fqcIA77lly
— Mikku 🐼 (@effucktivehumor) April 3, 2020
One only wonders what would have happened if it was RSS instead of the Tablighi Jamaat, neither Sadanand Dhume nor Sherwani would have waited a minute for any proof and immediately hopped on the bandwagon to disseminate the anti-Hindu propaganda.
Just so the left-liberals and seculars stay put at their seats, their memory needs to be jogged at what RSS has been doing in these perilous times. RSS workers have been pitching in to clean the hospital premises as an aid to the authorities.
In Odisha and Karnataka, RSS Swayamsevaks distributed masks and conducted awareness drives. In Madhya Pradesh, the diligent Swayamsevaks sanitized an entire village while in Kerala, the Sangh and Seva Bharti volunteers have been assisting police and fire services in cleaning and disinfection works. RSS set up a kitchen service at Delhi’s Krishna Nagar to distribute food at Anand Vihar Bus Terminal. And yesterday, RSS distributed 250 food kits to GB Road sex workers
After Jamaat’s unpardonable behavior, an FIR has been lodged against the perpetrators. NSA has also been slapped on the Jamaat members. This incident brings to light what is wrong with our media. Journalists like Arfa have the tendency of defending their indefensible kin ingrained from the starting and they would go to any lengths to prove their point. The woke feminism that comes up when Tanushree Dutta is on the line suddenly disappears when the Nurses are in the fray.
