Admin | On 08, Apr 2020

21-day curfew threatens human rights weeks after Delhi pogrom

Delhi, India: April 7, 2020 — Millions are facing starvation and minorities are being accused of spreading COVID-19 after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi imposed a 21-day nationwide lockdown a month after his political party staged an anti-Muslim pogrom in Delhi.

Modi announced the lockdown only four hours before it went into force on March 25. All Indians are banned from exiting their homes without a police pass. All services, shops, schools, and places of worship are shuttered except for those labeled essential. As transportation was shut down across India, millions of migrant workers flooded out of the cities to return to their villages on foot.

“Masses of India’s common people are facing starvation as they’re stripped of their livelihoods and forced to flee the cities to survive,” says Arvin Valmuci of Organization for Minorities of India. “Faced with the responsibility to flatten the curve to slow the spread of the coronavirus, the Modi regime instead inflicted the lowest of the low with circumstances that place them not only at greater risk of contracting the disease but of starving to death before they do. His Hindu nationalist regime is taking advantage of the public health crisis to move forward its communal agenda of cleansing communities it considers undesirable, even blaming the virus on minority populations.”

Hundreds of COVID-19 cases were recently linked to a Muslim religious conference at the Nizamuddin Markaz Mosque in Delhi.

Although the event occurred two weeks before the lockdown began, some social media users responded by trending the hashtag #CoronaJihad. Their attempts to link the spread of the novel coronavirus to Muslim communities was fueled by India’s Minister of Minority Affairs, who called the gathering a “Talibani crime.” A leader of the Hindu Mahasabha, a political party with historical links to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh paramilitary, called for shooting on sight those who attended the gathering. On April 4, several men opened fire on a mosque in Gurgaon, Haryana. After their arrest, the attackers revealed they believe Muslims are responsible for spreading the virus.

Earlier, Sikhs were accused of spreading the virus as the government in Punjab reportedly compared Non-Resident Indians in the state to “time bombs waiting to explode.” The government further circulated fake news accusing a Sikh preacher returning from Italy of defying quarantine orders and infecting large numbers before dying of COVID-19. It later emerged that the preacher had not been ordered to quarantine nor was he tested until after his death.

“It was mere weeks ago that we warned about the looming threat of genocide after the Bharatiya Janata Party led a pogrom that left over 50, mostly Muslims, lying dead in the streets of Delhi,” comments Pieter Friedrich, an analyst of South Asian affairs. “With the Kashmir region on lockdown since last August and Modi brutally repressing dissident movements against the new Citizenship Amendment Act and proposed National Register of Citizens, we talked about how the BJP was turning all of India into Kashmir. Fascism was not rising in India, but already risen. There are legitimate concerns that Modi is using the necessity of confronting COVID-19 as an opportunity to make his authoritarian nightmare a reality. As he turns the entire country into a black zone, many fear that he can get away with almost anything in total secrecy and with absolute impunity.”

Draconian measures have shocked Indians.

Telangana Chief Minister KC Rao threatened to “shoot at sight” anyone caught breaking curfew. Viral videos showed police throughout India beating people caught in public the day after the unexpected curfew. One man in West Bengal was beaten to death after leaving home to buy milk. Police in several states filmed themselves forcing curfew violators to perform often humiliating exercises as punishment. Karnataka’s BJP-led government demanded that those on home quarantine send selfies every hour to prove they are keeping quarantined.

“It is a mammoth task anyway to put a country of India’s size on siege for three weeks, but to make it worse the announcement was done hastily without proper and elaborate planning,” reports Dr. Ashok Swain, a professor of peace and conflict studies at a Swedish university. “The real problem arose when millions of India’s migrant workers became jobless and homeless overnight as factories and business establishments they used to work in closed down for the lockout…. Despite police brutality and lack of transportation, many of these desperate migrant workers are on the move and that has led to a certain possibility of spreading the coronavirus faster and particularly in interior parts of India, where medical facilities are almost non-existent. India is most likely staring at a major outbreak of coronavirus and if that takes place, a large share of the blame has to go to Narendra Modi and his government.”

Atrocities continue as migrants in BJP-ruled Uttar Pradesh were sprayed with a bleach-based disinfectant while Muslims displaced by the February 2020 Delhi Pogrom now face homelessness after the relief camps set up to host them were dismantled in the wake of the lockdown.

Citing rushed BJP actions like passage of the Citizenship Amendment Act and the annexation of Kashmir, journalist Sidharth Bhatia said, “This is the third instance of an official act that has caused hardship and misery to a large number of people at the same time…. The common elements in each instance are peremptory decision making, lack of planning and shoddy execution. There’s another — the complete lack of concern over the human cost, which has been colossal.”

Social activist Harsh Mander criticized implementation of the lockdown. “The entire plan had the imagination of a middle-class person: people were asked to maintain social distance, wash their hands and stay home assuming they have homes and salaries going into bank accounts,” said Mander. “You can’t have policies directed to protect the rich and middle class on the backs of the intense suffering of the poor…. Police treat poor people trying to survive as though they are criminals because that’s how they’re encouraged to think about them. Even the middle classes are stigmatizing them for spreading the virus. The worst in society is emerging because the leadership is not leading with compassion.”

“Ramped-up efforts to prevent the spread of the coronavirus in India need to include rights protections,” said Human Rights Watch’s South Asia Director Meenakshi Ganguly. “The Indian government’s responsibility to protect its people from the outbreak should not come at the cost of human rights violations.”

“We’re seeing COVID-19 blamed on Indian Muslims while the fascist RSS appears free to operate with exemption from the lockdown,” remarks OFMI’s Pawan Singh. “While Indian police murdered a man for leaving his home to buy milk, it appears the RSS has been given a near-monopoly on food distribution in many areas of India. The vast majority of Indians lack the basic resources to survive the order to stay off the streets for three weeks. Social organizations must step in to help feed the hungry, but we’re concerned that the RSS is using this as an opportunity to exercise control over the population and boost its public image after its involvement in the recent Delhi Pogrom. When even the country’s minority affairs minister is spreading Islamophobia during this pandemic, there’s a horrible risk that this lockdown by a RSS-ruled government that already has blood on its hands will lead to far more egregious violations of human rights.”

“This mass migration in India today is reminiscent of the bloody days of the subcontinent’s partition,” adds Valmuci. “As the Hindutva regime grabs power, we are also seeing a Nazi-style approach of total control over the population. Their food, their movement, everything about their lives is subject to the whims of the Modi government. As the RSS is entrusted with distributing food, and we hear reports that others like gurdwaras are prevented from helping even though they distribute irrespective of religion, we are peeking into a terrifying vision of the future where everything in an Indian’s life will be dependent on the RSS.”