By Afshain Afzal

The reports by Human Rights and International organization in the recent past has opened the eye of the world that how Indian leadership treats its minority, especially the Muslims in India. With the outbreak of COVID-19 there was Anti-Muslim rhetoric surge. In March, after Indian authorities announced that they found a large number of COVID-19 positive cases among Muslims who had attended a mass religious congregation in New Delhi and reflected Muslims as carriers of Coronavirus. Some BJP leaders called the meeting a “Talibani crime” and “CoronaTerrorism.” Some pro-government media had labeled “CoronaJihad” and social media platforms were flooded by calls for social and economic boycotts of Muslims. There were also numerous physical attacks on Muslims, including volunteers distributing relief material, amid falsehoods accusing them of spreading the virus deliberately. The COVID-19 lockdown disproportionately hurt marginalized communities due to loss of livelihoods and lack of food, shelter, health care, and other basic needs.The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government increasingly harassed, arrested, and prosecuted rights defenders, activists, journalists, students, academics, and others critical of the government or its policies. The Indian government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi imposed harsh and discriminatory restrictions on Muslim-majority areas in Jammu and Kashmir. Attacks continued against minorities, especially Muslims, even as authorities failed to take action against BJP leaders were found guilty. 

Hundreds of people remained detained without charge in Jammu and Kashmir under the draconian Public Safety Act. The restrictions, including on access to communications networks, since August 2019 adversely affected livelihoods, particularly in the tourism-dependent Kashmir Valley. The Kashmir Chamber of Commerce and Industries estimated that the first three months of the lockdown to prevent protests since August 2019 cost the economy over US$2.4 billion, for which no redress was provided. Losses nearly doubled since the government imposed further restrictions to contain the spread of COVID-19 in March 2020. During the pandemic, despite Supreme Court verdict in January that access to the internet was a fundamental right, Indian authorities permitted only slow-speed 2G mobile internet services, leading doctors to complain that the lack of internet was hurting the COVID-19 response.

The pandemic made access to the internet crucial for information, communication, education, and business. However, even after the Supreme Court said in January that access to the internet was a fundamental right, authorities permitted only slow-speed 2G mobile internet services, leading doctors to complain that the lack of internet was hurting the COVID-19 response.

There were calls for social and economic boycotts of Muslims. There were also numerous physical attacks on Muslims, including volunteers distributing relief material, amid falsehoods accusing them of spreading the virus deliberately. Similarly those journalists who were reporting on COVID-19, faced criminal cases, arrest, threat, or even physical assault by mobs or police. In many cases, they were independent journalists working in rural India, targeted for their criticism of the government’s handling of the pandemic.

Children’s Rights were violated as schools remained closed from March onwards and are still closed, affecting more than 280 million students and threatening to reverse the progress made in access to education for the poor, especially those who attended government schools. In most states, government schools did not deliver education during the lockdown, putting children from marginalized communities such as Dalit, tribal, and Muslims at greater risk of dropping out, and being pushed into child labor and early marriage. Girls were even more vulnerable.

Where the US government and the European Union said very little about India’s human rights record, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation criticized the “unrelenting vicious Islamophobic campaign in India maligning Muslims for spread of COVID-19.” The World Health Organization also cautioned against profiling COVID-19 cases “on the basis of racial, religious and ethnic lines.” It is high time that the United Nations Organization must take action on the reports of human rights groups and International organizations and save Indian minorities including Muslims from sufferings and humiliation.