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

Abstract

This paper aims to understand how Coronavirus as a pandemic is mis-utilized in constructing a false narrative, which has encouraged religious hatred and subsequent discrimination, as well as hate crimes against the minority community in India. More specifically, the paper looks into the role of various social media platforms and news agencies (in spreading half-baked information, false information, and misinformation) to unfold the root cause behind demonizing a particular community. The design is exploratory, and the data collected are from secondary sources. The approach is to understand the impact from a new point of view. The study's findings reveal that the false creation of a narrative has led Muslims to face severe hardships' thereby destroying the true meaning of secularism. The study shows that Muslims as a community were already discriminated and the pandemic has added voluminously to their woes. This paper tries to give a new perspective on the impact of the pandemic. Most of the research papers have tried to understand the impact of the pandemic on the social aspects; however, no research paper has attempted to understand the social hatred due to COVID-19.