COVID-19, Religion & Politics in South Asia

• In Event: Religious Minorities

Abstract

The introduction of COVID-19 in early 2020 in South Asia, brought a slew of online and offline misinformation about the local carriers of the virus. While those of Chinese ethnicity were discriminated against in countries like the US, I argue, religious minorities instead, were victimized during the pandemic’s onset in South Asia (Noel 2020). Using a comparative online news media study from February 2020 to May 2020, this paper seeks to explore 1) how Hinduism and Islam were instrumentalized through political rhetoric in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic in India and Pakistan and 2) how the blame was placed on religious minorities (Muslims and marginalized Muslim sects), furthering xenophobic attitudes and violence towards these groups in both countries.

Author

• Zainab Alam, Howard University