Ep.21 Modi, India and 'Corona Jihad' with Fadl Hejazi

On 24 March, the Government of India under Prime Minister Narendra Modi ordered a nationwide lockdown for 21 days, limiting movement of the entire 1.3 billion population of India as a measure against the coronavirus pandemic. The lockdown came as cases of the virus spiked and for many came too late and with ill-thought-through preparation.

The government of Modi had sat complacently for months, preferring to stoke communal tensions and watch as mobs burnt down Muslim shops and homes during a month’s long campaign to assert the Hindutva fantasy that India is for Hindus alone.

This week I speak to Fadl Hejazi, a Muslim academic from India, about the crisis facing the Muslims of India. To cover its obvious failures, key Indian politicians and its RSS supporters opted to turn the country on its Muslim citizens, blaming the mounting cases on the Tablighi Jamat Ijtima (gathering) in Nizamuddin. What they dubbed an insidious campaign to spread the virus to Hindus, perversely called ‘Corona Jihad’. The virus, in their warped view, was another weapon used by Muslims against Hindus.

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