Indian Defence Review

Media has reported Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind moving the Supreme Court that the Tablighi Jamaat was being used to demonize the Muslim community. However, Tablighi Jamaat does not represent the Muslim community of India unless the Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind accepts Tablighi Jamaat’s supremacy over itself and India’s entire Muslim community. This is the first question the Supreme Court should be asking the appellants if it is not throwing the appeal out of the window. But should the case get going, one can expect familiar faces representing the Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind in Court; one known for his clownish appearance whose spouse is the biggest beef exporter in the country and the other whose driver became overnight rich having shot a video of his employer in action.  

The Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind is apparently supporting the Tablighi Jamaat because of the hardcore ideology of the latter – same way as the Pakistan Muslim League-Q, coalition partner of the Imran Khan’s Tehreek-e-Insaf government in Pakistan has lent its support to the Tablighi Jamaat meet in Pakistan, as also has Pakistan’s Muslim League-Nawaz  which is understandable being the opposition. But the Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind moving the Supreme Court implies they ‘support’ Tablighi Jamaat and Saad Kandhalvi of Markaz Nizamuddin for defying the government orders of lockdown, and organizing the Tablighi Jamaat with thousands attending from outside and within India despite the threat of COVID-19 (China Originated Virus In December – 2019) looming large. Attendees of similar Tablighi Jamaat meets in Malaysia (January 2020) and in Pakistan (March 2020) proliferated Coronavirus to multiple countries, details of which are on the internet.

To top this, Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind is also showing approval of attendees of the Tablighi Jamaat meet hiding in mosques defying government’s directive for social distancing and ignoring calls to come forward for testing.    

In his article ‘Tabligh, Religion, and Corona’ published on April 4, 2020 in South Asia Journal, Asif Ibrahim, former IPS officer and Director Intelligence Bureau, writes, “Though many Muslims associate themselves in India with the activities of the Tablighis, which is a puritanical movement, and seeks to drag the Muslims 1400 years back, most of the Muslims are very critical of it, and oppose it tooth and nail. They call it ‘Taklifi Jamaat’, as, according to them, it maximizes difficulties of its followers and of the Muslims. They see it as an enemy of the Muslims, since it persuades the Muslims to renounce the world, and take to prayers and propagation of the puritanical form of religion as a full-time activity. The Tablighis move in cities, towns, and villages, and stay in the mosques, and engage with the Muslims of the locality. They tell the young minds to distance themselves from the world, education, career, and wallow in the opium of religion.”

Whether such medieval mindset is good for advancement of the Muslims and the nation is for readers to decide though it does provide opportunity to do little and enjoy freeloading with funds aplenty for this form of jihad.  

Of serious concern are links of Tablighi Jamaat with Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HuM) and their cadres having participated in the 1999 hijacking of Indian Airlines Flight IC-184 – as established by Pakistani analysts and Indian investigators. Their association with HuM also facilitates links with outfits like Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) and Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HuJI). HuJI itself was formed with former Tabjighi Jamaat members.

Farhan Zahid, a Pakistani counter-terrorist specialist in his article ‘Tablighi Jamaat and its links with Terrorism’ published in 2015, wrote, “in many cases it (Tablighi Jamaat) has acted as the nursery for indoctrinating Islamist terrorists…….Tablighi Jamaat’s congregations allows radical elements worldwide to meet and discuss violent activities and provide them with the best opportunity to coordinate …….. many of its followers have dual membership with jihadists groups .” with respect to Pakistan becoming the global terror hub, Farhan says, “Several mainstream Islamist violent non-state actors have taken their roots from Tablighi Jamaat’s indoctrination”.

There is little doubt that the single most dangerous event responsible for the Coronavirus spread throughout India was the annual Tablighi Jamaat meeting hosted by the Markaz Nizamuddin led by Saad Kandhalvi. The spurt in Coronavirus cases witnessed a three-fold increase. Delhi itself had more than 500 Coronavirus positive cases related to Tablighi Jamaat by April 10. In a recent study, IIM Rohtak says that the Tablighi Jamaat congregation in Delhi will increase Coronavirus cases “exponentially”.

The study proposes that “any such event in the future will be severely detrimental for the health of the people and may pose a serious threat to the growth and well-being of the nation”.  It is pertinent to note that India is yet to transit into stage three of Coronavirus. It would not be known if those attending the meet at Markaz Nizamuddin had also attended earlier annual meets in Pakistan.

The Tablighi Jamaat meet in Pakistan during March 2020 was held at Raiwind close to Lahore. Some 2,50,000 attended the meet amidst the so-called lockdown.  What could be the discussion and motivation at annual Tablighis meetings in Pakistan, in light of what has been described in the paragraphs above? In this particular case, Iran had already banned congregational prayer and Saudi Arabia had  closed the Ka’aba to pilgrims. Yet Imran Khan allowed a quarter of a million Tablighis to gather despite Pakistan suffering its first Coronavirus casualties in  February,  who returning home spread the Coronavirus from Kyrgyzstan to Gaza.

In his above mentioned article Asif Ibrahim writes, “Black Death, the epidemic of bubonic plague in the 14th century, wiped out almost half of the population of Europe….. so contagious and deadly… Tablighis believe Coronavirus is a curse of God let loose on the sinful humans to teach them a lesson….The illiterate clerics feed the common Muslims that Corona virus is a conspiracy to damage the religious traditions of the Muslims. Mosques are ‘deserted’ because Muslims have no love for or fear of God, and they are mandated to ‘populate’ it.” Was this the reason for Saad Kandhalvi of Markaz Nizamuddin giving a virtual call to Tiblighis to defy the lockdown?

But why has Pakistan shifted Coronavirus cases to POK and is desperately trying to infiltrate them into India – is it to spread the virus in India. Are some of the Tiblighis on similar mission in India on the belief that whoever dies is God’s wish and as Asif Ibrahim mentions they believe “they are mandated to populate” the planet?  

This brings us to the need for reflecting on issues of grave concern, some of which are:

•  Is our government aware that Pakistani military officers are permitted to join the Tabligh and quite a few retired military officers are in the top hierarchy of Tablighi Jamaat? Surely there is no need to elaborate what the implications are!

•  Was our intelligence community privy to Tablighi Jamaat links with HuM, Huji and that Pakistani counter-terrorism specialist Farhan Zahid wrote five years back that “Tablighi Jamaat’s congregations allows radical elements worldwide to meet and discuss violent activities and provide them with the best opportunity to coordinate’ with ….many of its followers have dual membership with jihadists groups?  If yes, then why did they not advise the government to prohibit this congregation? It is impossible they did not know about the meet which was planned well in advance.  And, if they did so advise the government, what tied hands of the government?

•  Would we have continued to permit Markaz Nizamuddin hosting annual Tablighi Jamaat meetings in India’s capital city had Coronavirus not cropped up?

•  Saad Kandhalvi’s virtual call to defy lockdown apart, are we privy to what has been transpiring in annual Tablighi Jamaat meets at Markaz Nizamuddin? MK Dhar, former Joint Secretary Intelligence Bureau wrote in his book ‘Open Secrets – India’s Intelligence Unveiled’ that two years before Babri Masjid incident happened, all BJP and RSS meetings were secretly audio-taped and video-taped on orders of Congress, which conclusively  proved the demolition was not pre-planned. There were over 140 tapes in IB’s archives but only 23 with element of doubt were made available to the inquiry.

•  Two days before government finally acted against the attendees of Tablihji Jamaat, residents of adjoining colonies were reporting them moving around in the open freely in droves defying lockdown orders with police doing nothing to stop them, despite the police station in situ.

•  Are we content with the display of incompetence at functional levels of governance in all cogs of the wheel – SHO, ACP, SDM and DM? What about MLA’s of the Delhi Government – did they not know about the meet and how the lockdown and imposition of Section 144 was being flouted? And what about Delhi government itself?

•  According to media, the NSA eventually spoke to Saad Kandhalvi (at 2 AM?). Did it befit the NSA to do so after latter’s virtual call to defy lockdown? Why not the SHO or the ACP? And now that Delhi Police has filed an FIR against him, what is stopping arresting him when lockdown is the best opportunity and there is talk of him hiding in Zakir Nagar?

•  Have we examined if there is a pattern in attacking doctors and health workers and incidence of what is being described as ‘spitting terrorism’ to spread the virus further, and who is behind it?

•  Is filing FIRs against Tablighi Jamaat Coronavirus positive cases moving around minus their trousers, making obscene gestures and playing dirty songs in Ghaziabad’s hospital enough, that too after letters are floated all over? Don’t we immobilize and chain wild animals going berserk in public?

In the above backdrop how would the world view our Republic and are we not encouraging anti-nationals? There is no opposition worth the name anyway, so why the scare – why the jelly behind the rhetoric and hype? If we cannot deal with stone-pelters like Israel does, why would radicals not indulge in spitting to spread the virus? Will we still learn any lessons from the exponential spread of Coronavirus pan-India because we failed to stop the Markaz Nizamuddin meet? Two related issues also merit mention here.

First, illegality of the six-storey building of Markaz Nizamuddin and the fact that latter has no proof of ownership of the plot of land on which it is constructed is in media. Leaving aside who all were on payroll to permit its construction and continued existence, what are we going to do about it? Delhi government will do nothing for certain because it would disturb their vote calculations, but will Centre follow suit? Haven’t we demolished illegal high-rise building in Kochi in recent times?

Second, hundreds defied lockdown to attend funeral of a JeM terrorist killed in Sopore area of J&K on April 8 and FIR has been filed for defying lockdown (sic). When Muslim leaders have repeatedly said that terrorism has no religion then why don’t we cremate slain terrorists at a designated place rather than permitting these congregations? If we cannot do this during President’s rule in the Union Territory, when will we? Fact remains we will remain a banana republic if we stick to only calculating votes.