Odisha witnessed a limited yet big celebration of Lord Jagannath''s Rath Yatra on Wednesday. Every year Lord Jagannath''s Rath Yatra is celebrated in Jagannath Puri. However, before its celebration, there were many debates and discussions related to its celebration in the times of pandemic.
This celebration and gathering have once again irked a row of Hindu-Muslims. Many Twitter users of the liberal-secular persuasion are comparing to the Tablighi Jamaat event in February and March.
Former Chancellor of Maulana Azad National Urdu University, Zafar Sareshwala had made controversial remarks. He called the devotees present in the Rath Yatra as 'Tabligi without cap'.
These are #Tablighi ‘s without Topi https://t.co/WNt2lMOx2E Ufff. Tablighi Jamaat will never learn from the past. https://t.co/YItVM528XW Rath Yatra from Jagannath Temple in Puri during the peak of coronavirus outbreak in India.
But let's demonise the entire Muslim community because Tablighi Jamaat held a congregation when health ministry was saying that coronavirus isn't a health emergencypic.twitter.com/8FygXnELUo
Comparing the two affairs is like comparing mangoes and oranges:
1) The Rath Yatra in Puri was only allowed after the Supreme Court of India gave the go-ahead. Should the Supreme Court of a secular republic be deciding the matters of faith? Looking at any article of religion through the prism of rationality is always problematic, as Justice Indu Malhotra noted in her dissent note on Sabarimala.
2) Although the Rath Yatra event was not needed to celebrate seeing the present situation of the pandemic. The event goes against the spirit of social distancing that has set in as an after-effect of the Unlock 1.0 guidelines. Still comparing both the events remains illogical.
3) Before allowing the rath yatra to take place, the apex court narrated some guidelines. The yatra was celebrated without any devotees. It gave strict guidelines on how the event is to be held. No locals were allowed to participate in the event. The Odisha authorities claim that there was a strict lockdown for 41 hours.
4) Before the event, all servitors of the Jagannath Temple were tested. One servitor, out of 1,143 servitors tested positive on Monday night and wasn’t allowed to participate.
5) Unlike the Tablighi Jamaat event, there were no foreigners involved
How Tablighi Jamaat had respoded?
Several question marks remain over the Tablighi Jamaat event which the current dispensation still hasn’t answered. It is the MEA who hands out visas to foreigners as they did to members of the Tablighi Jamaat.
NSA Doval personally met Maulana Saad to convince him that the Markaz congregation needed to be tested and quarantined.
That the Tablighi Jamaat chief managed to abscond after meeting the NSA is an embarrassment. According to a report in Zee News, the Delhi Police are waiting for a green light from the Ministry of Home Affairs before taking any action against Maulana Saad.
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It is right to oppose the organizing of Rath Yatra seeing the present scenario of COVID-19 and social distancing norms, however, it is totally wrong to compare the Tabhlighi Jamaat event with the Puri Rath Yatra and give it another communal angle.