‘The term Corona Jihad makes no sense,’ From Scroll to The Wire, how leftist media is defending Tablighi Jamaat

Ever since the Tablighi Jamaat fiasco hit India late last month, the number of confirmed Coronavirus cases across the country has suddenly shot up, and as per latest updates there are more than 5,900 cases along with 180 deaths.

8,000 Islamic preachers of different nationalities had gathered at the Alami Markaz Banglewali Masjid in South Delhi’s Nizamuddin last month, at a time when prohibitory orders were in force restricting gatherings of more than 50 people in the National Capital.

But Delhi was not the only city affected by the Tablighi Jamaat, as the chain extended across all corners of India, from Manipur and Assam in the Northeast to Tamil Nadu, Andaman & Nicobar Islands and Telangana down South to Maharashtra in the West, and Jammu and Kashmir in the North.

There has been a rise in cases across all states directly attributable to the Tablighi Jamaat fiasco in Delhi. What has also left the authorities shell-shocked is a number of cases where the Tablighi Jamaat attendees from Nizamuddin Markaz were found spitting upon doctors and other health officials.

Throughout India, there have been several cases of authorities- both policemen and health workers in search of Tablighi Jamaat attendees getting attacked by communal mobs.

Nurses from the MMG Hospital, Ghaziabad even complained that Tablighi 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.

But the left-liberal media doesn’t want us to ‘bat’ an eye. They want India to be as ignorant of the Tablighi Jamaat fiasco as the WHO was ignorant of China’s Coronavirus mishandling.

Therefore, Shekhar Gupta’s The Print says, “Call it a mistake, not conspiracy against India, say Muslim scholars on Tablighi Jamaat event.”

The Tablighi Jamaat made a reckless mistake- it didn’t know that Coronavirus Pandemic had hit India, and it also didn’t know that prohibitory orders were in force in the National Capital. Or maybe, the Tablighi Jamaat invited these many preachers of different nationalities accidentally. The Tablighi Jamaat’s ‘mistake’ of ‘deliberately disobeying authorities which ordered them to vacate the premises, is a deed all of India is paying for today.

It is also flummoxing how the Tablighi Jamaat is seemingly a cursed organisation for the same organisation made the same mistake three times in three different countries- gathering at Sri Petaling Mosque in Kuala Lumpur of Malaysia, Tablighi Ijtema in Lahore’s Raikind and of course, Nizamuddin Markaz in Delhi.

If an organisation is this unfortunate to make huge mistakes three times in a period of less than a month, what it deserves, according to certain sections of the media, is heart-felt sympathy rather than bigotry.

The Print also claims that while “Citizens of India” are angry with the Tablighi Jamaat, Mohammad Ilyas Babar- a staunch Tablighi supporter and  celebrated athletics coach had brought laurels for India. He had also trained Padma Shri Olympian Sriram Singh.

This manifests how reckless the “citizens of India” have been in their approach. They should have felt indebted towards the Jamaat even if it meant getting spat on, attacks on health officials and lewd behaviour with nurses.

When The Print was finding all lame excuses to exonerate Tablighi Jamaat how could the more extreme leftist outlet, Scroll miss the opportunity.

Trying to dissect the mob attack on health workers, including women health workers in Indore recently, Scroll doesn’t consider bigotry as the driving factor but recalls “how quarantine worked in colonial India”.

Scroll being Scroll, draws a bizarre analogy between the 1897 plague epidemic and the attack on health officials in Indore. The premise itself is outlandish. How can we even compare the socio-economic conditions during the British Raj with the present-day India?

But far worse has been The Wire, which has a problem with the term “Corona Jihad”. Interestingly, it claims that the Jamaat is an “anathema” to the Salafi ideologies of organisations like Al Qaeda.

It is absurd that The Wire should categorically mention Al Qaeda when a 2011 Wikileaks report accused the Nizamuddin Markaz, the same shrine that has now drawn fire amidst the COVID-19 outbreak, of acting as a cover for Al-Qaeda operatives, and an FBI official too had accused the Jamaat of facilitating Al Qaeda recruitment.

It seems that The Wire no longer believes in free speech extremism of the kind that had led to the leftist lobby calling Prime Minister Modi names, accusing the RSS of being a terrorist organisation, ridiculing Hindutva as saffron terror and calling Pragya Thakur terrorist. Now that Tablighi Jamaat is facing the music, The Wire doesn’t want people to take the liberty of hitting out at the Jamaat.

Meanwhile, The Wire editor, Arfa Khanum Sherwani and WSJ journalist, Sadanand Dhume have hit a new low even by their own standards. Victim-bashing the nurses about the allegations of Tablighi boys misbehaving with them at the Ghaziabad quarantine facilities, they have literally taken up the “men will be men” attitude.

Arfa tweeted, “I refuse to believe they (Tablighis) will harass doctors and 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!”

For those of you who don’t know Tablighis are the most pious, selfless men but doctors and nurses form part of the least respected medical profession. Doctors and nurses are self-centred, selfish creatures who have not contributed anything for this society. How dare we rely upon the statements of nurses and doctors? Tablighi Jamaat is anyday more reliable than nurses and doctors.

Sadanand Dhume has an even better explanation. He tweeted, “You (Arfa) 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.”

No Dhume the alleged attempts are not “despicable”. It is the attempt to portray conservatism (read “orthodoxy”) as a virtue of sexual morality which is despicable.

Why is it so that every time you talk about a ‘saffron’ organisation, conservatism automatically translates into toxic masculinity but when it comes to Tablighi Jamaat, conservatism becomes “extreme propriety around women”.

Why is it so that when godmen like Asaram Bali and Ram Rahim come in the scanner for crime against women, the leftist lobby shames the entire Hindu society even though the mainstream Hindu culture had nothing to do with them. But when it comes to Tablighi Jamaat, they portray conservatism as some sort of a virtue.

The leftist media outlets have completely lost it. At a time when the Tablighi Jamaat is clearly responsible for creating hundreds of Super Spreaders, these media groups are coming out looking even more bigoted than the Jamaat itself by defending its serious misdemeanours.