The Tablighi tangle

That a gathering of literate people could brazenly flout the order is highly irresponsible and completely inexcusable. It has not only risked their lives, but that of others. The sharp spike in confirmed coronavirus cases over the past couple of days can be attributed almost entirely to this. On Thursday, for instance, Tamil Nadu reported over 180 new COVID-19 cases, all of them linked to the Tablighi gathering. The figures are smaller in other States, but the overall jump in cases on a single day has been the sharpest and most worrying ever.

There are other questions about the congregation that need to be addressed. For instance, why were tourist visas issued in such large numbers to those from south-east Asia to attend the congregation? More importantly, why the authorities weren’t alerted by the fact that the Tablighi meetings, held earlier in Malaysia and Iran, had become extremely significant vectors for the spread in these and other countries? Why weren’t the Delhi police aware, or why were they negligent, in failing to enforce the March 13 order? While such questions need to be honestly addressed, what is required immediately is for all those who were present at the conclave to self-report to the authorities. It is heartening that many have done so already, but those continuing to abscond must be traced and punished.

Meanwhile, it is important to put an end to communalising what is essentially a health issue. The Tablighi Jamaat may be a fundamentalist group that behaved with reckless negligence, but there is no excuse for using this incident to link such behaviour with one religion or a community at large. It is regrettable that Union Minister of State for Minority Affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi described the congregation as a “Taliban crime” – there is no place for such inflammatory rhetoric at a time like this. Trolls on social media will do what trolls do, but it is pertinent to point out that some temples closed their doors for darshan rather late; the famous Tirumala temple, for instance, went into lockdown only on March 19.

It is likely that the Tablighi-related cases will spike further over the next couple of days. The country has a job on its hands and the last thing it needs is to create a political controversy over an event that should have never taken place. The battle against the coronavirus demands that our eyes be fixed on the future.