GCIC updates

Radicals clean up burnt houses and churches to destroy the proof of attacks on Christians in Orissa.

Monday, 13 October 2008

ORISSA: GCIC sources found out that, another saddest act of Sangh parivar activists have come to notice that in Kandhamal, in the absence of the Christians when they are either in the forests, relief camps or out of Kandhamal now, these radicals have started cleaning up the Christian's burnt, destroyed and broken houses and Churches completely and even digging out the foundations of the same from the ground, filling the pits again and making it a plain surface probably with the following bad intentions.
It is also reported that they have even wiped out, removed the demarcation lines of the Christian farmers cultivated lands and distributed among themselves by now and they are actively still on that job even by forcibly collecting the harvests for which they had not sowed ever.

The intention behind this was;
To acquire those landed properties of Christians by fraudulent means.
ii) To show that there was neither any Church nor any Christian houses before which were attacked and burnt.
iii) To minimise, reduce density of their damages and nature of attack which are coming to the National and International knowledge.
iv) To destroy the proofs of their attacks which monuments certainly do testify now of their brutality, hatred only against the innocent Christians which establishes their motives of attack.
v) To grab the properties of Christians, and I am also worried and afraid that tomorrow they may construct Hindu temples on the lands where Churches or Christian houses were there which have been their regular practice throughout the Country and can not be ruled out.

Decomposed dead body recovered and two suicide deaths reported at Kandhmal, Orissa

Sunday October 12, 2008

ORISSA: A decomposed dead body was recovered by the Police at Simanbadi village under Daringbadi PS, in a well inside the PH Department Rest House on October 12.
The dead body was of a tribal namely Birupakhya Majhi. He was a daily labourer and staying in a village called Patangi under Birikuti Panchayat.

Two other suicide deaths are also reported from our GCIC sources in Kandhamal Yesterday. Both of them are women whose names are; Mrs. Rajni Digal (30) of Jarigipada village under Pabingia Panchayat and Phiringia PS/Block and Miss Manasi Mallik (16) of Khajuripada, Phulbani.
The CM of Orissa has gone to New Delhi for two days to attend the National Integration Council Meeting called by the PM of India to deliberate on security for minorities and communal amity. Few electronic Medias have taken bytes as GCIC's comment on this issue.

Protest rally verses peace rally in Kandhamal, Orissa

Monday, 13 October 2008

PHULBANI: Main opposition Congress on Sunday organised a peace rally in this district headquarters town of Kandhamal district and appealed to people belonging to all sections of society to restore peace in the region.
According to the News paper The Hindu, more than 2,000 party workers from different parts of Kandhamal and adjoining areas participated in the peace rally, which started from near the Mahatma Gandhi statue.
Holding placards with messages of non-violence and peace written on them, the men and women went round the town seeking restoration of communal harmony.

Pradesh Congress Committee president Jayadev Jena led the peace march. A number of senior leaders of the party including former Railway Minister K. C. Lenka, former Minister Jagannath Patnaik, and former Union Ministers Srikanta Jena and Bhakta Charan Das also participated.

Many leaders and workers of the party’s women and youth wings also participated in the peace march.

Meanwhile, former Minister and leader of Samruddha Odisha Panchanan Kanungo blamed the State government for not taking action against those converting Christians into Hinduism in the aftermath of the killing of Vishwa Hindu Parishad leader Lakshmanananda Saraswati.

Mr. Kanungo, who participated in peace rallies organised by different opposition parties in Phulbani during the past two days, also demanded those who had put up flags on damaged churches should also be brought to book, he added.

In a statement, SUCI leader Sambhunath Naik said the situation in Kandhamal was yet to become normal as sporadic incidents of violence were continuing in the interior areas.

Pointing out that situation was not likely to improve in the near future, Mr. Naik suggested that peace committees should be formed at village-level and later similar committees could be constituted in block and district level.In another development, activists of Swami
Lakshmanananda Saraswati Shradhanjali Samiti staged a demonstration in Bhubaneswar demanding immediate action against those who allegedly hatched a conspiracy to eliminate the Swami.

On the same day, thousands of Hindu tribal women consisting a large number lodged a strong protest against indiscriminate arrests (which they call) by the Police at places called Sarangagada, Gochhapada, and Lubasingh of Phiringia block of Kandhamal demanding immediate release of their men who are Sangh Parivar activists. They blocked the Police station of Sarangagada. These tribal women conducted this rally against the State Government and District Administration. The protest rallies organized everyday by the Sangh
Parivar through their tribal lady wings is obviously spreading hatred and tension by delaying the process of Peace restoration works which are becoming futile for 268 times in the District.

Their men attacked the Christians and accordingly victims lodged FIR against them and when Police started arresting them after pressure from all corners, these women instigated by the Sangh Parivar Supremos and masterminds started to hinder in all the active, constructive works of the State Government and the District. Administration are creating tension and division in the society to damage the peace process, security system (they strongly demand withdrawal of CRPF through their tribal leader Lambodhar Kanhar and during these protest rallies).
It has been observed that anytime any attempt is made for uniting people from all sections of the society in Kandhamal through Peace process, Sangh Parivar spoils, shatters the same which is really a matter of concern now when everybody are craving for Peace and social harmony.

Please contact GCIC for details. www. persecution.in

Devil's advocate Interview of Naveen Patnaik by Karan Thapar

Please click here to go to the IBN site to view the video and for the transcript

Has the Orissa government failed to protect the Christian community? Karan Thapar asked this to Orissa Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik.

Karan Thapar: Nearly 50 days have passed since the killing of Swami Laxmananda Saraswati and yet Christians remain in fear for their lives. There are still reports of people being killed and houses being destroyed. Are you unable or unwilling to restore order?

Naveen Patnaik: As a matter of fact for the last eight or nine days there have been no violent incidents in Kandhamal district at all.

Karan Thapar: But they have moved to the next Boudh district. On Wednesday, 10 houses were destroyed and on October 3 a hundred houses were burnt down.

Naveen Patnaik: Well, it wasn’t as many numbers as that. Let me explain to you that in the forested area next to Kandhamal—this has just happened virtually on the border of the Kandhamal district (and) into the district of Boudh.

Kandhamal district is a hilly area, a heavily forested area and difficult to police at normal times because the villages are small, remote and far from each other.

There has also been a very long-standing problem between tribals of the area and scheduled castes and other persons.

Karan Thapar: Your critics say that you are using sociology as an excuse. No matter what the ethnic divisions maybe, the killing of Christians—some would call it a massacre—is simply not justified. You have not stopped it.

Naveen Patnaik: I can only tell you that it is most unfortunate that this communal violence has taken place. Of course, it has to condemned by all of us.

Karan Thapar: Can you say you have done everything you could to control the violence or will you concede that mistakes have been made and perhaps at times you have not been as tough as you should have been?

Naveen Patnaik: The communal violence began after the night of August 23 when the Swamiji was killed. Before that there has been a long-standing ethnic divide between two castes in that district.

Karan Thapar: Absolutely. Let’s take the events as they happened after the night of August 23.

Within 24 hours you permitted (Vishwa Hindu Parishad leader) Praveen Togadia to take a funeral procession of the Swamiji’s body through almost 150 km of your state, knowing that this would inflame passions and provoke. This is exactly what it did. Can you concede that was a mistake?

Naveen Patnaik: Firstly, Togadia was in no procession at all. The Swamiji and he are both members of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad. He (Togadia) went just to attend the funeral and as far as the procession is concerned, action has been taken at the district level. The Superintendent of Police has been suspended.

Karan Thapar: But the point is that procession was almost a replica of what happened in Gujarat in 2002. You knew that from experience that it would inflame passions and lead to violence. Why was that procession not stopped? Why was it permitted in the first place?

Naveen Patnaik: I repeat again that the Swamiji was killed on the night of August 23. The procession began—it was a very, very volatile situation. You do understand that we had asked the Centre for many more forces, which didn’t come till five days later.

But whatever mistakes were made as far as the procession is concerned, it could have turned much more violent and action was taken against certain people concerned.

Karan Thapar: Your Deputy leader in the Rajya Sabha speaking on the Network18 programme ‘War of Words’ said perhaps permitting that procession was a misjudgement. Would you concede as much?

Naveen Patnaik: Action has been taken against certain people for that procession to have taken place and let me tell you that as far as the violence is concerned more than a thousand people have been arrested—whether they are individuals, belonging to groups or even to fundamentalist organisations.

Karan Thapar: Many of those arrests have actually happened in the last week and not earlier.

Naveen Patnaik: I am sorry but you are wrong there. Arrests have been taking place from the very beginning of the violence.

Karan Thapar: You are also the Home Minister of the state, which means that you are doubly responsible for the police. How do you account for the fact that perhaps for the first three-four days police stood by, permitting the VHP to attack Christians.

Even when an Orissa bandh (shutdown) was declared, you may not have had sufficient force from outside the state but you didn’t even redeploy the force you had within Orissa.

Naveen Patnaik: The forces were redeployed as quickly as they could be. You must remember it was an all-state bandh for that particular bandh on August 25, but we did deploy the forces. As much (forces) as we could keep in Kandhamal district we did.

Karan Thapar: Did you move forces to Kandhamal?

Naveen Patnaik: Of course we did—very much so. As far as the state government is concerned we did move forces. If we had adequate forces why do you think we were requesting the Central Government, asking them to send forces. Which they did after five days.

Karan Thapar: Let me give you an example of what people consider the incompetence of the Orissa Police force. ‘The Hindu’ reports that handwritten eyewitness accounts of the killings naming the alleged killers were sent by registered post to Balguda police station and the envelopes were returned with the following messages written on them: ‘addressee refused, have returned back’.

What sort of police force hands back such evidence and such material?

Naveen Patnaik: Let me tell you as far as the violence is concerned, the Crime Branch of the Orissa Police is investigating all those matters and we have also called for a judicial enquiry. All those who are found guilty stringent action will be taken against them.

Karan Thapar: The point is that Sabyasachi Panda, head of the local Naxalite force, who has admitted that he was responsible for the killing of Swami Laxmananda, has also revealed that the People’s Liberation Army left behind two letters at the Swamiji’s ashram accepting responsibility and that your government suppressed the letters.

Those letters could have defused the situation. Why did you suppress them?

Naveen Patnaik: That is absolutely incorrect. Why should the police suppress the letters? There is a police investigation and there is a judicial enquiry. Three persons have been arrested for the killing of the Swamiji. The Crime Branch is investigating the matter; let them get to their finding. I am sure they will get to the truth.

Karan Thapar: You are laying a lot of stress on the process the police is going through. Let me then ask you a simple question about the nun who was raped in Nuagoan (village in Kandhamal). How do you account for the fact that for one month your police took no action? For 38 days they were incapable of collecting the medical report.

It seems to the world outside that your state acted when ‘The Hindu’ had broken the story.

Naveen Patnaik: As far as the crime against the nun is concerned, it is a shameful and barbaric crime. The moment we came to know about this the officer-in-charge (of the local police station) was suspended. Persons have been arrested for that crime.

Karan Thapar: You say the moment you came to know about it, but forgive me Chief Minister that is not true. The Superior General of the Missionaries wrote you a letter within 24 hours pointing out what had happened. The Archbishop of Cuttack says he personally met you and told you. (CPI-M leader) Brinda Karat has gone on record to say that she told you. You yourself, therefore, knew almost one or two days after the rape itself.

Naveen Patnaik: Let me clarify that the Archbishop has not spoken to me after the events began in Kandhamal after August 23.

Karan Thapar: What about Sister Nirmala (Superior General of the Missionaries of Charity), Brinda Karat?

Naveen Patnaik: Sister Nirmala’s letter is much later, and after that appropriate steps have been taken. Brinda Karat spoke to me about victims of the riots.

Karan Thapar: Are you saying to me that the claim made by these people in the Press is incorrect?

Naveen Patnaik: Let me be quite clear: the Archbishop has not met me at all. Brinda Karat did meet me and she told me of the problems of the victims in the violence-hit area.

Karan Thapar: But not about the raped nun?

Naveen Patnaik: Not about the raped nun. She spoke about the problems of the people there. I immediately, within half an hour, sent the local Collector to see to their problems.

Sister Nirmala’s letter came much later. In fact Sister Nirmala met me and she said she had faith in the government and in the steps she had taken. I have a letter from her but it came much later (after the rape).

Karan Thapar: Let me put to you what the church seems to have concluded about you. Two weeks ago, on this programme, the Archbishop of Delhi had this to say about you: Naveen Patnaik has not done even the minimum that is required to protect citizens.

In other words he is accusing you of almost dereliction of duty.

Naveen Patnaik: This is the first time I am hearing what you are saying about the Archbishop of Delhi. Let me make my point of view clear. From the very start of these horrible and shameful incidents of communal violence my government has taken whatever steps it possibly could to bring normalcy and peace back to that disturbed district. For the last week or more there has been normalcy and it has been brought under control.

Karan Thapar: You say you have taken every step to restore normalcy. In fact the truth is that reconversions to Hinduism, a flagrant violation of your own state laws, are openly happening in Orissa today and your government is doing nothing to stop them. Why?

Naveen Patnaik: We are against anything which is illegal.

Karan Thapar: But why are they not being stopped?

Naveen Patnaik: Registers are going to the victims—to sign whatever complains they may have.

Karan Thapar: Chief Minister, you are taking a very technical responsibility to a situation which requires urgent action. You are talking of registers—the newspapers are widely aware of the reconversions. You seem to be unaware of them.

Naveen Patnaik: Obviously, we have heard of that and we will do everything legal to stop all of this.

Karan Thapar: How quickly will you act?

Naveen Patnaik: We have taken steps. You do understand that there is lot of force in Kandhamal district to maintain law and order.

Karan Thapar: Do you know what they say in Delhi? They say Naveen Patnaik is taking sides, he seems to be siding with Bajrang Dal and VHP against the Christians which is why he is talking in technical terms. They say he talks of excuses and delays, he talks of conditions of roads which don't let him send the police force to Kandhamal, but he doesn't act.

Naveen Patnaik: When you say that, it’s completely incorrect because among the thousand people, roughly a thousand people who have been arrested, many of them belong to the organisations that you have just named.

Karan Thapar: You mean the Bajrang Dal and the VHP?

Naveen Patnaik: Yes.

Karan Thapar: The law of the land and Constitution continued to be violated in Orissa. If that violation continues in Orissa, and if you are not capable of stopping it, why shouldn't your government be dismissed?

Naveen Patnaik: We are making every effort to stop it. I don't want to make comparisons but there have been violent incidents and communal incidents in other parts of India. I don't see why the government of Orissa should be targeted.

Karan Thapar: Let me put it like this. You face perhaps the most serious challenge of the eight years and seven months you have been Chief Minister. Are you honestly up to it?

Naveen Patnaik: Let me tell you another thing. In the eight years and seven months you have mentioned, there have been two communal incidents in my state. One at the end of the last year in Kandhamal district and again to be repeated in Kandhamal now.

I told you earlier there are ethnic problems which took a communal turn after the killing of the Swami.

Karan Thapar: Before Kandhamal you were considered a modern, urbane and secular Chief Minister. After Kandhamal you are either considered incompetent or a puppet in the hands of the Bajrang Dal.

Naveen Patnaik: I would consider those points of view inaccurate. I have told you how the Government has tried to handle the situation, both strongly and with a great deal of sympathy and humanity as far as the victims are concerned.

Karan Thapar: You say you acted with sympathy. The Archbishop of Cuttack says the statement you issued after visiting Khandamal didn’t even mention a word about the Christians killed, the thousands of homes that have been destroyed and tens of thousands of people who have been rendered homeless and are living in refugee camps.

You didn’t have a word to say about them, he says.

Naveen Patnaik: Let me clarify that I went to Kandhamal for a very short while after these incidents began. I visited burnt homes, damaged churches and I went to refugee camps.

Karan Thapar: But why was there sympathy for them?

Naveen Patnaik: Of course there is sympathy for them, and I have made that clear from the very first day. Since August 23 I have been appealing for peace among the people. I have been as humane as one ought to be.

Karan Thapar: You know what the Christian community say about you. They say if there was one leader in the NDA who they thought would protect Christians it was Naveen Patnaik. They thought you have Western education and a broad Catholic outlook.

But in letting down the Christians you have actually betrayed your own values.

Naveen Patnaik: I feel I have not let down anyone in my state, whichever community they belong to. Every bone in my body is secular and I don’t think any of those bones have been damaged.

Karan Thapar: Your critics say you are scared of taking action against the Bajrang Dal and the VHP because he needs the Sangh Parivar’s support in the elections.

He has probably done a Faustian pact; he is deliberately turning a blind eye to what they are doing because he needs their support in the elections.

Naveen Patnaik: The BJD and the BJP have had an alliance for more than 10 years. In that period there have been a number of elections and we have remained the majority party by far.

Karan Thapar: But you do not have majority on your own.

Naveen Patnaik: You do understand the mathematics of seat sharing, but we are sanguine with our victories in any election.

Karan Thapar: Many people today are comparing you to Narendra Modi. Many people today are comparing Kandhamal to the Gujarat massacre of 2002, can you accept that?

Naveen Patnaik: I think that comparison cannot be made rationally by anyone.

Karan Thapar: Have you let yourself down? The world knows you as the modern, secular people. Today, as the Chief Minister, you are emerging as someone who is conniving with the Bajrang Dal to let the killings of Christians continue.

Have you let yourself down?

Naveen Patnaik: I have to repeat to you again that people, after these violent incidents, from that organisation have been arrested. My government is trying to bring peace and tranquillity back to the troubled area and will continue to work towards that. What some people may believe I cannot help that. My job is to see that peace, security and progress remain in the state.

Karan Thapar: Chief Minister, a pleasure talking to you.

Naveen Patnaik: Thank you.

Conversion Business - Excellent article by Khushwant Singh

Recent incidents of violence and vandalism against Christians and their churches deserve to be condemned unreservedly. They have blackened the fair face of Mother India and ruined the reputation of Hindus being the most religiously tolerant people in the world. At the same time, we must take a closer look at people who convert from one faith to another.
To start with, let it be understood that these days there are no forced conversions anywhere in the world. India is no exception. Those who assert that the poor, innocent and ignorant of India are being forced to accept Christianity are blatant liars. A few, very few educated and well-to-do men and women convert to another faith when they do not find solace in the faith of their ancestors. Examples are to be found in America and Europe of men and women of substance turning from Judaism and Christianity to Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam and Sikhism.
There are also men and women who convert to the faith of those they wish to marry. We have plenty of cases of Hindu, Muslim, Christian and Sikh inter-marriages. However, the largest number of converts come from communities discriminated against. The outstanding example was that of Dalit leader Bhimrao Ambedkar who led his Mahar community to embrace Buddhism because they were discriminated against by upper caste Hindus. This is also true of over 90 per cent of Indian Muslims whose ancestors being lower caste embraced Islam which gave them equal status. That gives lie to the often-repeated slander that Islam made converts by the sword.
An equally large number of people converted out of gratitude. They were neglected, ignorant and poor. When strangers came to look after them, opened schools and hospitals for them, taught them, healed them and helped them to stand on their own feet to hold their heads high, they felt grateful towards their benefactors. Most of them were Christian missionaries who worked in remote villages and brought hope to the lives of people who were deprived of hope.
To this day, Christian missionaries run the best schools, colleges and hospitals in our country. They are inexpensive and free of corruption. They get converts because of the sense of gratitude they generate. Can this be called forcible conversion? Why don’t the great champions of Hinduism look within their hearts and find out why so many are disenchanted by their pretensions of piety? Let them first set their own houses in order, purge the caste system out of Hindu society and welcome with open arms all those who wish to join them.
No one will then convert from Hinduism to another religion.

Vatican: The Persecution in Orissa, India

By Giorgio Bernardelli
5/19/2008

Chiesa

"Why does no one in the West raise his voice about what is happening in Orissa?"

ROMA (Chiesa) - "In the village, the climate between us and the Hindus had always been good. We invited them to our celebrations, and we participated in theirs. But now we are all afraid." Fr. Santosh Kumar Singh, a young priest of the archdiocese of Chuttack and Bhubaneswar, is talking about his Baminigam.
He is talking about a village like so many others in this area of eastern India. A group of houses in the forest that, all of a sudden, has been turned into the epicenter of the strongest wave of anti-Christian violence in recent years.
It is the story of what happened here in Orissa at Christmas. With the raids by the Hindu fanatics of the RSS, who left behind seven dead and hundreds of homes, churches, schools, and clinics burned in the district of Kandhamal. And in a climate of intimidation that – several months later – is still palpable.
Again at Palm Sunday, for example, in the village of Tyiangia, a crowd incited by the usual characters gathered shouting anti-Christian slogans. Violence was avoided only because the pastor decided to cancel the procession.
Everything began in Baminigam on December 24, Christmas Eve. "Do you want to know how it really happened?" Fr. Santosh asks immediately. Telling the story is important to him, because there are several reconstructions of the events.
And the one that appeared in the Indian newspapers identifies the spark in the aggression against the swami Laxmananda Saraswati, a Hindu holy man linked to the RSS who travels around Orissa to " bring back to their origins" the tribals who have converted to Christianity.
"That's not what happened," rebuts Fr. Santosh. "It all started when, on the morning of December 24, our permission to celebrate Christmas in the town square was revoked. Our stallkeepers arrived and were told that they had to go back home. There must have been some tension as well. But two hundred men armed with clubs suddenly emerged from the forest, and began to destroy and burn everything."
The violence continued for four days. It was fostered by the inexplicable delay in the intervention of the security forces. The Christians were forced to flee into the forest in order to survive, while their homes continued to burn. There remained in the forest for days and nights, in the cold, eating what they were able to find. Until, finally, the local authorities set up tent encampments. And in the district of Kandhamal, a calm returned full of tension and of serious doubts.
"We had realized what was about to happen," recounts Raphael Cheenath, the archbishop of Chuttack-Bhubaneswar, whose territory includes the district of Kandhamal. " On December 22, we had clearly told the authorities that we were afraid of suffering violence at Christmas. They had promised us protection. Instead, they did absolutely nothing."
I met Archbishop Cheenath in Bhubaneswar, the capital of Orissa. The district of Kandhamal is about five or six hours away by car, in the forest. And yet during those days, the violence had arrived all the way to the archbishop's residence, with a Molotov cocktail thrown against the entrance.
And it is no mystery to anyone that the meetings of the RSS in which Christians are identified as the enemy are also held in that city of 800,000 inhabitants. But, more than the clandestine secrets, it is the public decisions that worry the archbishop, and the ambiguous attitude of the local government, headed by prime minister Naveen Patnaik, an ally of the BJP, the Hindu nationalist party.
"In February," the archbishop continues, "right here in Orissa there was an attack on the part of Maoist guerrillas. They attacked a police barracks and killed some of the officers. A state of emergency was declared immediately: the military arrived en masse in a few hours. At Christmas, instead – when it was the Christians who were suffering violence in the district of Kandhamal – It took four days. Why this difference in the reaction? ".
But there is also the problem of assistance for the victims, which is still unresolved. "They do not allow our organizations to bring assistance," Archbishop Cheenath charges. "There are people there who have lost everything: their homes were burned, and they were left with nothing but the clothes on their backs. The government has promised to take care of them, but the help does not come. And the population continues to suffer."
Together with the houses, in the district of Kandhamal, the work of 30 years has been completely destroyed: schools, clinics, centers of assistance. Even the house of the Missionaries of Charity, the male branch of the order of Mother Teresa of Calcutta – which shelters lepers and tuberculosis patients – was attacked. Everything was left to burn for hours, while the Christians were fleeing into the forest. And now school is held under the tents.
"Misereor" – the international solidarity organization of the German Church – has come forward to help with reconstruction. But the government of Orissa is not giving them permission. For 42 days, the archbishop himself was refused permission to visit the stricken communities.
"Officially, " comments Archbishop Cheenath, "they tell us that this is for security reasons. But the truth is that they want to block the presence of Christian organizations. The Hindu extremists accuse us of carrying out conversions through aid operations. But this is a false accusation: everyone saw this in Orissa in 1999, when there was a tremendous cyclone. Two thousand of our volunteers were mobilized. And they helped everyone, without distinction." In order to resolve the situation, the Indian Supreme Court had to intervene on April 8, with a judgment that declared the ban illegitimate.
In looking at this big city, so much like so many others, it is difficult to believe that it is a haven for fanatics. "We know that many Hindus are against the violence, " the archbishop confirms." Privately, they have even expressed solidarity with us. But they are afraid of speaking out. And so this campaign of hatred conducted by the fanatics is producing results. They are depicting us as enemies, and saying openly that they want to destroy us."
"But where do you think that all this hatred against Christians comes from?", I ask him.
"I am convinced," the archbishop replies, "that there is a hidden cause behind the religious extremism, one of a social nature. The real problem is not the conversions, but the work that the Christians in Orissa have done over the past 140 years on behalf of the tribals and the Dalits, the lowest in the caste system. Before, there were like slaves. Now, at least some of them study in our schools, start enterprises in the villages, assert their rights. And those – even in the India of the economic boom – who want to keep intact the ancient caste divisions, are afraid that they will become too strong. The Orissa of today is a laboratory. At stake is the future of millions of Dalits and tribals living all over the country."
Orissa is like the new laboratory for the fundamentalists: so many say this over and over again in the Christian community. Because it is true that this is one of the poorest states in the subcontinent. But also here in Bhubaneswar, something is starting to happen. You leave the archbishop's residence and plunge into the Big Bazar, the brand new American-style shopping center. The airport – like all of the Indian airports – is in expansion. And in the city, office buildings are multiplying.
"It seems incredible, but when we opened twenty years ago, it was still jungle around here," recounts Fr. E. A. Augustine, director of the Xavier Institute of Management, one of the city's most respected institutions. It is an economics faculty with an interesting history: it is the result of an agreement between the government of Orissa and the local Jesuit province.
So even in a state like Orissa, where an anti- conversion law is in effect, there is no difficulty in naming a public entity after Saint Francis Xavier. Because in India, the Xavier School is synonymous with quality everywhere. "Everyone wants to imitate our structures, " continues Fr. Augustine, " they acknowledge their quality. Apart from some fanatics, they respect us. But we do not want to be a center for elites. For example, and we also organize courses in rural management, specifically designed for the development of villages."
And then – also here in Bhubaneswar – there is the other face of the Jesuit presence. It is that of the Human Life Center, with its popular courses in spoken English to help those who have emigrated to the city from rural areas. Or the courses in tailoring, typing, computers, to provide opportunities for those who otherwise would have none. And then there are the seven schools opened right in the slums of Bhubaneswar. Because change must arrive there as well.
The impression is that in the end, the real problem lies here. The violence in Orissa is not simply the inheritance of a past that India is struggling to leave behind it. The clash concerns the present, and above all the future of the country. It concerns a social situation in which those who for centuries have remained at the margins are beginning to come forward. And so those who – on the contrary – want to maintain the status quo are playing the card of the threat to identity.
There is an important electoral appointment in view: in May of 2009, general elections will be held in India. The BJP – the Hindu nationalist party, defeated in 2004 by the alliance of the Congress Party and the left – is aiming at a comeback. And – as the violence against the Muslims in Gujarat demonstrated in 2002 – inciting tension among religious groups is the most effective way to consolidate the ranks.
"It is no accident," maintains Fr. Jimmy Dhabby, director of the Indian Social Institute in New Delhi, "that this violence against Christians erupted a few weeks after the reconfirmation of Narendra Modi, a leading member of the BJP, as head of the state of Gujarat. And that it happened in Orissa, a state where voting for the local government will be held in 2009."
It is a game that – despite the events of Christmas – is moving forward in Bhubaneswar. It's enough to open the local edition of the newspaper "The Indian Express" on any day of the week to find statements like this, from the leader of the RSS K.S Sudar-shan: "There are many threats hanging over the nation: the violence of the Maoists, the Islamic jihad, the conversions of the Christian missionaries. We must be united in order to react. Do not wait for someone else to do it for you."
Even the investigation opened by the government of Orissa to shed light on what happened at Christmas is proceeding according to rather questionable methods. "After months without any news whatsoever," John Dayal, secretary general of the All India Christian Council, charged on his blog, "the judge handling the case arrived without warning in the district of Kandhamal. He questioned the sisters and the priests. They were astounded when they were asked: Have you converted anyone here?" As if the object of the investigation were the activity of the Christians, and not the violence committed by the Hindu fanatics.
Another worrying chapter is that of compensation. "So far no official indications have been provided," Dayal continues, "but we have read in the newspapers that while schools, hostels, and clinics will be able to receive a contribution of 200 thousand rupees (about 5 thousand dollars), the churches and convents will be excluded from anycompensation. If this were true, it would be not only surprising, but also offensive. The main targets of the attacks were precisely the churches and convents. Excluding them makes no sense."
This is the atmosphere now in Orissa. "An explosive situation is lurking beneath the ashes," says Hemanl Naik, of the Orissa Dalit Adivasi Action Net. "For some time the Hindu nationalists have been campaigning to 'reconvert' the tribal Christians. Are these not violations of the anti-conversion laws? Why do they not apply to them?"
After so many people were killed, so many homes and Christian churches burned, one question must be asked. What is the difference with respect to the Islamic violence in other regions, for which – rightly – so much space is reserved in the media? And why does no one in the West raise his voice about what is happening in Orissa? The protest of the Christians in front of parliament in New Delhi at Easter did not appear in our newspapers.
The reply of Archbishop Cheenath is a bitter one: "The India of today is a market sought after by everyone," he explains. "There are strong economic interests, and everyone wants to have good relations with us. In this kind of situation, no one cares about what is happening to the minorities."
It is an unsettling cry of pain that is coming from the Christians of Orissa today.

A dangerous mix

What does it take to create a communal flashpoint? Some answers are obvious: a precipitating incident, simmering tensions between two religious communities and initial administrative failure to cope with the flare-up. But records and documents relating to the disturbances in Orissa’s Kandhamal district show that, in addition to these, some venerable institutions of the country are also inadvertently responsible for creating tensions, which have been rising since 2002: the legislature, the judiciary and the executive have all contributed to aggravating the situation in Kandhamal at some stage or other, until mindless violence gripped the region in the last week of December and continued for days.

The communal clash was triggered on December 24 by a trivial event at Brahmanigaon. The Christians wanted to put up a Christmas tree and a few decorative gates on a public ground where Durga Puja is traditionally held. The Hindus refused to allow them, and a violent clash between the two communities occurred. Swami Laxmananda Saraswati, a revered Hindu religious leader of the area, hearing about the clash was rushing to the spot, when en route he was allegedly attacked. With that, communal fire engulfed the district.

The date of the first clashes, Christmas eve, is significant, but much more so is the fact that this was also the eve of a two-day bandh called by a section of the Kui community, the Kui Samaj Samanwaya Samiti. Why was the bandh called? The samiti, comprising Hindu tribals, was protesting against the granting of Scheduled Tribe status to Kui-speaking Pana Christians. And therein hangs a tale.

Until 2002, the Kuis were included in the list of Scheduled Castes of Orissa. But with the passing of a presidential order that year (which later became an act — the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes Orders [Amendment] Act), their status was changed to that of a Scheduled Tribe. Referring to the Kuis, the official press release from the Ministry of Law and Justice said: “The act seeks to amend the Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order 1950 and the Constitution (Scheduled Tribes) Order 1950, made by the President in terms of the provisions of Articles 341 and 342 of the Constitution, to effect transfer of communities from the list of Scheduled Castes (SCs) to that of the list of Scheduled Tribes (STs) as they had been wrongly included in the list of Scheduled Castes whereas they belong to Scheduled Tribes category.”

But the same presidential order, which classified the Kuis as STs, also referred to Panas, who also speak the Kui dialect, as a Scheduled Caste who should not be given ST status. Taradutt, then Orissa’s commissioner, in a clarifying note, wrote, “Pana, Pano, Buna Pana and Desua Pana, which have been specified as a Scheduled Caste, cannot be shown as Kui, a Scheduled Tribe.”

Despite this, the Panas, because they spoke Kui, preferred to believe that they too were now STs. What difference did it make? A good number of the Panas are Christians, all of them converts to Christianity. As SC Christians, they are not eligible for the benefits of affirmative action, reservation of jobs and seats in educational institutions being prime among them. But as ST Christians, they would be, since all tribals enjoy these benefits, irrespective of religion. But any such benefit extended to them is deeply resented by the Hindu Kuis, who fear that there will be more claimants for the limited benefits they enjoy.

A tussle in the Orissa High Court has also compounded the problem. The Kui Janakalyan Sangha moved court seeking ST status for all Kui speakers. In its judgment in July, 2007, the High Court directed the government to “look into the matter and make necessary correction of the Record of Rights in accordance with the presidential order of 2002”. This seemed to suggest that the court had upheld the organisation’s claim.

But soon after, two locals went to the High Court again, appealing to it to ‘recall’ the earlier order. In September, 2007, the court decreed that if the concerned authorities felt Panas should be categorised as SC and not ST, there was no need to make any changes in the Record of Rights!

It all hinges on that ‘if’ and tensions remain.

Soumyajit Pattnaik is Coordinating Editor, Hindustan Times, Bhubaneswar

www.hindustantimes.com

Christians under attack

Thu, 2008-01-10 02:36

By Tukoji R. Pandit - Syndicate Features

For a country that swears by secularism attacks on the minority communities is a matter of deep concern. The outside world cares little if these attacks are sporadic or frequent. For the world it matters even less if the offence against the minorities comes from the state or a small organised section of fundamentalists among the majority community, even if that is true in most cases.

The history of Hindu-Muslim clashes is old and looks intractable. Though few and far between, there have been Hindu-Sikh clashes. And in recent years the Christian community has also been subjected to frequent attacks in a number of states. It hardly lessens the guilt that the clashes are more or less confined to small tribal belts in one or more states. The crimes against Christians have included murder, arson and rape with the law enforcing agencies unable to take preventive action despite intelligence warnings of impending trouble.

Christianity in India is nearly as old as the religion itself. The oppressive caste system in the majority community was one of the factors that led to its expansion in India over the centuries. The community has a high percentage of literacy and is known to be peaceful and docile with no history of enmity with other communities.

Orissa had shocked much of India and the outside world in 1999 when a 58-year old Australian missionary, who had worked among leprosy sufferers for 34 years, and his two sons aged 10 and 8 were burnt alive by a Bajrang Dal mob, led by Dara Singh who saw his death sentence commuted to life imprisonment even as he refuses to express any regrets for what he did.

More shocking was the effort of the BJP-led NDA government of the time ruling at the centre not to take a serious note of the crime because the perpetrators belonged to the Sangh Parivar to which the dominant party in the ruling coalition owed allegiance. One union minister in the coalition, a Christian to boot, appeared eager to dilute the allegations against the Bajrang Dal. The then prime minister tried to sidestep the issue by saying that the matter needed a national debate; a formula that he wanted applied to Gujarat too. He later went on to claim that reducing communal violence was one of the great achievements of his government!

The Orissa incident was condemned worldwide, much to the embarrassment of the country though not the Sangh Parivar. The Human Rights Watch (HRW) accused the NDA government of failing to prevent violence against Christians and compounding that lapse by ‘exploiting’ communal tensions for ‘political ends’. In a 37-page report, it said that attacks on Christians had increased ‘significantly after the BJP came to power (at the centre) in 1998’.

The BJP-led government at the centre has since gone but that has apparently not reduced the tension between the Hindu fundamentalists and Christians in the tribal belts of Orissa as well as some nearby states in eastern and central India. With nearly 95 percent of its population Hindu, the minorities constitute a very small number of Orissa’s population. Even among the scheduled tribes in the state, over 88 percent are Hindus and only a little over 7 percent are Christians.

Attacks on such tiny population in one state cannot be justified on any ground. The entire tribal belt in Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Chattisgrah and Gujarat, where Hindu-Muslim tensions have taken a dangerous turn in recent years, is equally afflicted by Hindu-Christian tensions. Rajasthan is another state to witness Christian bashing and not just in remote villages but also in some of the big towns.

If the Sangh Parivar is to be believed proselytiser priests are at the root of the clashes with the Christians. The Christians deny the charge that they offer inducements or force the largely illiterate but poor and neglected people in the tribal belts to convert. There is no justification for use of force or even any kind of inducement to convert a person. But by the same token ‘re-conversion’ can also be faulted. Several Indian states, Orissa among them, have laws that ban forcible conversions. How many times have acts of ‘forcible’ conversions been brought to the notice of police?

But assuming that even the police cannot altogether prevent conversions that result out of ‘force’ or some allurement, there is a more important related aspect to the proselytising controversy. Even the Sangh Parivar says that almost all the cases of ‘forcible’ conversion are reported from among the Adivasis who are among the most backward. The booming economy has not made much difference to their lot. They are not considered part of the mainstream and they hardly command any respect from the caste-ridden society.

If anyone or any group is really concerned about the Adivasis they should be really emulating the Christian missionaries in reaching out to them, spreading education and attending to their sick and hungry. It is only in the last few years that the Sangh Parivar has tried to reach out to the Adivasis but with a political agenda—wean them away from rivals and enlist them as supporters.

The Sangh Parivar may have opened schools in the tribal belt of a few states but it is yet to match the missionaries’ efforts in opening health care centres. No Sangh Parivar member has, for instance, rendered the kind of service to the lepers in Orissa’s Adivasi belt that Graham Staines, the Australian missionary killed in Orissa in 1999, did?

If Hindu fundamentalists are really concerned about forcible conversion they have to adopt a two-pronged strategy to stop it. Give the poor their self-respect and meet their needs for some of the basic facilities like schools and hospitals—and jobs.

Unprovoked attacks on the Christian community whether in a remote village or in towns will not serve any purpose other than defaming the country and weakening its roots.

- Syndicate Feature -

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