The virus of ‘blame’

Abstract

The COVID-19 crisis in India lay bare the socio-political fault lines which consequently amplified into discrimination and ‘blame’ on socially and politically vulnerable minorities, especially Muslims. In March 2020, a Muslim religious organization Tablighi Jamaat faced intense criticism for holding a congregation in New Delhi amid growing coronavirus cases in the country. The criticism subsequently transcended into perpetual Islamophobic discourse with Muslims being blatantly blamed as the reason for the growing coronavirus in the country. The predominant section of Indian news media was swift in following suit and communalizing the pandemic in their news narratives. The Indian media’s coverage of the COVID-19 crisis is an interesting case to understand how the already existing socio-political polarization in the country was further amplified through hateful news narratives during the pandemic. The chapter, being theoretical in nature, draws from the existing literature and tries to demonstrate the explicit bias against Muslims by discussing the Islamophobic news narratives on leading Indian news channels during the Tablighi Jamaat controversy in 2020. The author argues that while compromising on journalistic ethics, the news narratives not only shamed Muslims for congregating at the Delhi event but also displayed explicit bias of casting the minority Muslims as the “other” to scapegoat them during the pandemic. Given the existing phenomenon of socio-political prejudice against minorities in India, the chapter aims to analyze the complicity of television news media in transposing the existing Islamophobia onto the COVID-19 pandemic in India, consequently criminalizing the entire Muslim community.