TABLIGHI JAMAATIS BROKE EVERY REGULATION BUT WERE IGNORED BY OFFICIALS

‘There is a culture of secretism in the organisation, which develops suspicion. The movement was never viewed adversely by the government.” These words were used by the present National Security Adviser, Ajit Doval, to describe Tablighi Jamaat, while speaking to a media organisation in September 2013. It would appear that the “culture of secrecy” was strong enough to ensure that the authorities in 2020 too did not view the Tablighi Jamaat adversely and ignored the vast meeting organised by the outfit in March, with participants from around five dozen countries. This looking the other way rather than blocking such a meeting, caused an alarming situation. Judging by the lack of official reaction to the event until the Tablighi Jamaatcaused Covid-19 fire started to rage in Telangana, it is apparent that seven years later, the observations of one of the world’s top security experts, Ajit Doval, continues to hold true. Followers of the Tablighi Jamaat, though not viewed adversely by the government, are now under the spotlight because many of them have become super spreaders of Covid-19, putting the health of an entire nation to risk. And it took the personal intervention of NSA Doval himself very late in the night to ensure that the congregation dispersed and its linkages start getting traced.

The members of Tablighi Jamaat (literal meaning: outreach society) are engaged in Islamic preaching through discourse while going from one place to another. It was founded in 1926 and stands accused, perhaps rightly so, of violating the rules that were imposed by the Delhi State and the Central governments to stop the spread of Covid-19. As of Friday, more than 400 positive cases of Covid-19 in India have been found among those who were a part of the Tablighi

A man performs a song during a programme organised by the police to entertain residents during a 21-day nationwide lockdown to slow the spreading of Covid-19, in Ahmedabad on Friday.

Jamaat congregation in Delhi on 13-15 March.

Starting March, when the entire country was moving towards a complete lockdown, around 2,000-3,000 Jamaatis (the actual number of those who were present at the site is hard to ascertain as no official record is there) from several countries and every state of India were converging at the Nizamuddin Markaz Masjid, the headquarters of the Tablighi Jamaat, for the three-day religious programme. The programme was presided over by the 55-yearold Maulana Muhammad Saad Kandhalvi, who is the great grandson of the Tablighi Jamaat founder, Muhammad Ilyas Kandhlawi who founded the same in Mewat, which was and still is one of India’s most backward regions. No effort seems to have been made by the authorities to stop the meeting from taking place.

Of course this Covid-spreader congregation could have been stopped well in advance. Tablighi Jamaat issued a press release on 31 March, after it emerged that six of their followers, who had participated in the 13-15 March congregation had died due to Covid-19. The release said that the programme was decided well in advance. It appears that visas were given liberally to individuals known in many of their respective countries for their extreme views. It may be mentioned that similar congregations of the same group had caused Covid-19 outbreaks in