Coronavirus Pandemic and Construction of False Narratives:: Politics of Health (Hate) and Religious Hatred/ Hate Crimes in India

Subhra Rajat Balabantaray

doi:10.24197/st.2.2022.307-322

Authors

Subhra Rajat Balabantaray University of Petroleum and Energy Studies

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.24197/st.2.2022.307-322

Keywords:

Social Hatred, Islamophobia, COVID-19, Pandemic, Social Media

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to understand as how Coronavirus as a pandemic is mis-utilized in construction of a false narrative, which has encouraged religious hatred and subsequent discrimination, as well as hate crimes against minority community in India. More specifically the paper looks into the role of various social media platforms as well as news agencies (in spreading half baked information, false information and misinformation) to unfold the root cause behind demonizing a particular community.

Design/methodology/approach – The design is exploratory in nature and the data collected are from secondary sources. The approach is to understand the impact from a new point of view.

Findings– The findings of the study reveal that the false creation of a narrative has led Muslims to face severe hardships’ thereby destroying the true meaning of secularism. The study reveals that Muslims as a community were already discriminated and the pandemic has added voluminously to their woes.

Originality/value – This paper tries to give a new perspective of the impact of the pandemic. Most of the research papers have tried to understand the impact of pandemic on the social aspects, however no research paper has tried to understand the social hatred due to COVID-19

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