How Muslim Clerics In Dharavi Are Busting Covid Myths To Push Community For Vaccination

With hot spots popping up here and there in the early days of the coronavirus outbreak, all eyes were on Dharavi —  a slum area in Mumbai with a high-density population who shared civic amenities.

Muslim Clerics in coordination with Bhamla foundation help dispel Covid myths in Muslim community | Image Courtesy: Asif Bhamla

New Delhi: As Covid-19 started gripping countries one after another in early 2020, unprecedented measures were being taken across the world. While lockdown, social distancing, and quarantine were the initial measures to stop the spread of the novel coronavirus, pharma companies started to work on the Covid vaccine in expedited mode, as governments tried hard to ensure a massive public outbreak is avoided at any cost.

Every country had its own challenge, and India's was to sustain its large population under lockdown during this global pandemic.

With hot spots popping up here and there in the early days of the coronavirus outbreak, all eyes were on Dharavi —  a slum area in Mumbai with a high-density population who shared civic amenities such as public toilets.

But Dharavi managed to contain the virus.  

As the "Dharavi model" gained fame worldwide, there is a story of how a group of Muslim clerics pushed the community to move towards quarantine centers and get vaccinated as hysteria and misinformation were rampant.

In order to fight Covid, no relaxation was given for any kind of gathering including religion-based. During this period in 2020 Ramazan was at its peak, so was the pandemic. Muslims were not able to go to mosques to do their regular prayers.

With isolation and social media as a regular tool for spending time, paranoia crept in Dharavi's Muslim community with murmurs of the lockdown being a curb measure by the current government to hold Muslims back from performing their religious duties.

Dispelling this taboo and other misinformation, a group of Muslim clerics from Dharavi took it upon themselves to inform and educate the population by various means. Enabled by the Bhamla Foundation, a small group of Muslim Clerics, popularly called Maulvis, were given the task to remove the "misconceptions propagated by some political parties".

Asif Bhamla, the founder of Bhamla Foundation, told ABP News: "The challenge was to bring the infected people to quarantine centers first and that could only be done when the leaders from within the community helped."

He added: "There are many mosques in Dharavi and the local clerics have an influence. With mass prayers ceased, these Maulvis took the onus of reaching out to the community and do a door-to-door campaign spreading awareness.” 

After the quarantine challenge came to an end, the bigger challenge was to get people from the Muslim community in Dharavi vaccinated.

Meraj Hussain, CEO of Bhamla Foundation, said people in Dharavi were misguided into thinking that the vaccination drive was against the minority population.

“I have videos where Muslims declared that they wouldn't take the covid-19 shots at all. Adults were scared and thought they would die after getting vaccinated,” he said.

Misinformation was all around regarding the vaccine from the contains of the covid vaccine to the adverse effect it will have.

This fear was busted by the Maulvis who went around in Dharavi spreading the correct information. People listened to them as they not only talked about scientific measures involved in the vaccination process but also quoted Islamic Hadith (Prophet's saying) in order to develop trust in the ongoing process.

Maulana Khalid Shaikh of Jama Masjid in Dharavi said “maulvis were shown a video first on the efficacy and the process of covid vaccines. How it is made and how it is tested. On being satisfied, we went door-to-door to explaining about its importance in the community”.

Maharashtra was hit hard during the second wave of Covid-19 and it is right now in mode to tackle a plausible third wave. Keeping that in mind, the "Dharavi Model" and the work done within the community by Muslim clerics with the help of the Bhamla Foundation become all important now than ever.