Will the opposition unite against Prime Minister Modi as starvation rises
Each day the BBC, The New York Times, The Toronto Globe & Mail and other reputed media around the world report on the rise in the number of infections and deaths in India due to the coronavirus. They also predict that hundreds of thousands of Indians, if not millions, could die from the infection as well as from starvation resulting from the massive loss of jobs, if preventive measures are not taken.
Meanwhile in India itself there is limited coverage of the infections, deaths and starvation, especially on the major TV channels. Instead “the mainstream media has incorporated the Covid story into its 24/7 toxic anti-Muslim campaign,” notes Arundhati Roy, a novelist and winner of the Booker prize in 1997, in a story in The Financial Times this weekend.
TV channels falsely blame Muslims as “corona jihadists”
In early March, a Muslim missionary organization held a gathering of thousands in Delhi. This was before a nationwide lock down was announced on March 24. So far, about 300 Muslims who attended the event have been infected by the virus, according to the BBC. They have spread the virus to other regions in India and to other countries. (According to later reports, a third of the Covid-19 cases in India were spread by attendees of the gathering. See update below*.)
The missionary was irresponsible to hold the gathering and that too for days, as several major Muslim leaders have also noted. But, as the BBC and other media point out, there are numerous major outbreaks of Covid-19 in India. For instance, also in March, about 40,000 were quarantined in Punjab after a Sikh preacher infected some attendees at a religious event.
Yet Indian TV channels constantly repeat the false news that the Muslim gathering in Delhi spread the virus in India. “The overall tone suggests that Muslims invented the virus and have deliberately spread it as a form of jihad,” Roy added.
Rising discontent due to job losses and lack of money to buy food
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has announced that 800 million Indians will get five kilograms of food grains and one kg of pulses per month for free, for the next three months. But, as the widely publicized program is being implemented, most of the poor, especially migrant labor, will not get the hand out since they do not have ration cards. Further, among households with ration cards, only those which can prove their income is below a living wage are eligible for the free food. So most of the poor and low-income households do not qualify.
According to economists, as many as 450 million poor and low-income Indians will not benefit from the free food and other social welfare programs, which are part of the Modi government’s meager $23 billion package of measures to help Indians deal with the loss of jobs. So there is growing anger across the country over the loss of income and lack of money to buy food, along with a fear of being infected by the Covid-19 virus.
Modi’s government and his ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) are trying to shift the blame and avoid being the target of the rising public discontent, according to several analysts. This is the context for major TV stations in India repeatedly broadcasting that Muslims are spreading the virus in India. As Buzzfeed reported on April 3, every night prime time Indian TV news programs broadcast that the organizer of the Muslim event in Delhi is the “mastermind” of a terrorist operation meant to infect Indians.
Some of the owners of the TV and other media outlets in India openly support Modi. Other owners ask their staff to carry the false stories about Muslims to appease the ruling BJP since their business is financially dependent on government advertising and since they do not want to lose their satellite connections and broadcast licenses, as The New York Times and other reputed media outlets point out.
Banging pots and pans but not to protest Modi’s policies
Muslims are also being blamed by leaders of Modi’s party. In their media interviews and social media postings, they use terms like “Islamic insurrection” and “corona terrorism,” to describe the organizers of the gathering of Muslims in Delhi. Hindu extremist groups, who form the base of Modi’s support, are using WhatsApp to demonize Muslims as “super spreaders” and “corona-jihadi” terrorists.
While the major media and Modi’s party are seeking to blame Muslims, Modi is also trying to neutralize the opposition parties from organizing protests to seek food, water, proper sanitation, face masks and other vital medical supplies. On March 22, through appeals on TV broadcasts, Modi got people to go to their windows and balconies and bang pots and pans in support of the nurses, doctors, ambulance workers, police and firefighters, who are dealing with those infected by the virus.
These service providers, who risk getting infected while they perform their jobs, are indeed heroes who deserve respect and support. But, in addition to portraying himself as a leader who mobilized the people to inspire the nurses and police to make greater sacrifices, Modi sought to deprive the opposition parties of the key mode of protest when people are locked in their homes.
In the 1970’s, women leaders of the opposition parties organized protests in Mumbai and other cities, seeking cheaper food and fuel oil supplies at a time of steep inflation. They marched on the streets banging pots and pans, adopting a form of protest Chileans, Argentinians, Brazilians and other Latin Americans continue to use against their governments.
Will the virus crisis morph into Modi’s version of forced sterilizations?
Modi and other leaders of the BJP probably fear a repeat of the 1977 parliamentary elections. That year, the opposition parties united under the Gandhian leader Jayaprakash Narayan to oust Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. The major reason for her defeat was that, during a state of emergency from 1975 to 1977, her Congress Party government carried out forced sterilizations, or nasbandi, on thousands of poor men, especially in the crucial electoral states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. Mrs. Gandhi and most leaders of her party lost their parliamentary seats by a large number of votes.
As more coronavirus infections, deaths and cases of starvation lead to widespread anger, will the opposition parties unite against Modi and counter his divisive communal strategies and curbs on civil liberties? A simple electoral math favors the opposition. In the 1971 parliamentary elections, an earlier incarnation of Modi’s BJP, a party traditionally representing the Brahman and business castes, got just 7% of the votes. By uniting the farmer and lower castes and the Muslims, the opposition parties have a good chance to defeat Modi’s party in the coming elections.
UPDATES April 12, 2020*
About a third of the 8,000 Covid-19 cases in India - as of April 11 - were due to infections spread by attendees of the Muslim missionary gathering in Delhi in early March, according to news reports. After India’s health ministry and BJP officials repeatedly blamed the gathering for spreading the virus “…a spree of anti-Muslim attacks has broken out across the country,” The New York Times reported. While President Trump sought to shift blame, by initially calling it a “Chinese virus,” in India the Muslims are being demonized, the Times added.
The New York Times story on attacks on Muslims in India
The New York Times story on attacks on Chinese in the U.S.