Politics meets healthcare? Religious misinformation in India during the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstrak

India has recently become a hotspot of misinformation: the COVID-19 brings
a new opportunity for the rumor-spreaders. Of various categories, religious
misinformation seems harmful for both Indian society and public health. In
this paper, therefore, I tried to sketch a few necessary aspects of religious
misinformation in India during the COVID-19. From the previous literature
and ongoing trend of Indian misinformation, I identified two important
phenomena: (a) Though Muslims produce more spiritual misinformation,
most of the religious misinformation targeting Muslims is inspired by
Islamophobia; (b) misinformation that tries to champion Hinduism is more
related to the contemporary political ideologies of India. I also tried to explain
how religion as a political issue relates to public health