Monday, November 5, 2012

Government silence on Kandhamal gang rsapes


To The Chairperson
National Commission for Children
Government of India, New Delhi

Dear Dr Shantha Sinha

This is to request you to kindly look into the plight of a young Christian girl who was gang raped in Kandhamal, Orissa and then subjected to abuse by the state child right and police authorities [women themselves]

Thank you

John Dayal
Member, national Integration Council
Government of India

KANDHAMAL REPORT NOVEMBER 2012

Gang-rapes in Kandhamal, and the apathy of government agencies towards the young victims

JOHN DAYAL

The gang rape of two Christian girls in Kandhamal, both 13 years old, and the murder of one of them subsequently during the Dussehara festival has created not just panic in their villages, but a sense of disgust among activists for the obnoxious attitude of police and the State Child Right Commission.

It was possible to meet the surviving victim because she is now with her parents who now work as casual labour in Bhubaneswar.

The first one, a class VII student of Dadamaha, had gone to witness a 'yatra'(play) at nearby Simanbadi village on Thursday night when the youths sexually assaulted her. Sub-divisional police officer (SDPO), Baliguda, Arjun Barik said the girl apparently attempted to raise an alarm, she was tied to a tree and strangulated to death with her scarf. The body was found from the roadside near Masanipada village 26 October.
An autopsy was conducted on the body at Daringbadi public health centre and a case was registered on the basis of an FIR lodged by her father. There have been no arrests so far.
The second girl, a  resident of  Ritangia village in Tiangia block, was also 13-year old, and a student of class VIII in a local school. Her father is now a security guard in Bhubaneswar, and the girl lives with relatives to continue her studies. On 27th October, she went to see the Dussehara festivities, which attract a large crowd. On the way home, she was abducted by six men, taken the nearby forest, stripped naked and raped by all six of them. She collapsed.
She regained consciousness after one of the rapists sprinkled water on her face. One of them put a shirt on her and brought her close to the village. She was found in the marketplace in the morning, and taken to her aunt’s house.
Initially the local police did not help at all. She was brought to Bhubaneswar and taken to the offices of the State Commission for Child Rights. This is where she was subjected to mental torture by those designated to help children in distress. The  chairperson was rude and crude, said this was a police matter and that she could not do anything even if she believed the story of the girl.
In the all-woman Police Station set up for registering crimes against women in an environment friendly to the victims, the office on charge was absent. When Inspector Itti Das came to the office at last, she too was rude, and even more crude. According to the woman social worker who had accompanied the victim to the police station, the woman inspector said “you would not be alive if you had been gang-raped”. The implication was that  the girl was covering up, had gone with the rapists of her own accord.
The police filed a report at last, and referred the report to the Raikia police station in Kandhamal. The victim was finally given a medical examination on 3rd November, a full week after her  traumatic experience. The medical report  has not been given to the police yet.
Activists who ar now counseling the girl, who was still in a state of shock when we met her, are aghast at the manner in which the child right chief, a government appointee, and the woman police officer behaved with the girl, who is no more than a child, small and in distress.
Surprisingly, the local and state media have chosen not to investigate this story. The two gang rapes merited a passing couple of paragraphs.

Saturday, October 27, 2012

NGO work in Orissa may be impacted as India cracks down on foreign funding


India chokes NGOs dependent on Western charity

JOHN DAYAL

After trying to bludgeon the Catholic church in Tamil Nadu into submission and withdrawing its support to the protest against the Russian-aided nuclear power plant in Koodmakulam, the Indian government now seems bent upon choking civil society voices seen as challenging it on issues such as torture, religious freedom, and the life and death powers the military exercises over citizens in the country’s north eastern states.

The weapon of choice is the threat to cancel licenses under the Foreign Contributions Regulation Act that allows non-government organization, especially religious groups of all faiths, and Human Rights advocacy activists, to carry on their work with foreign financial help in an impoverished country where corporate and individual philanthropy is virtually unknown. 

While a large number of Hindu God men and women are also major recipients of donations from international charities, including church agencies in Europe and the United States, Indian Catholic and Protestant groups, with slim local resources, are to a large extent dependent on foreign funds to carry on their charitable and development work among India’s poor and marginalized communities. The Christian institutions working in education and health sectors among the Tribals and the Dalits, once branded, as untouchables in the iron Caste system, are particularly vulnerable. As it is, the meltdown in the west has severely impacted on their work.

After arbitrarily cancelling as many as 4,300 FCRA permits – on specious arguments that their addresses could not be verified -- the Union government is now issuing orders virtually banning some European and US funding agencies from the country. Indian groups have been told they need to take prior permission from the Ministry of Home Affairs, which also controls the intelligence agencies and some central police forces, before they can submit their projects to funding agencies named in the government’s prohibitory list.

Prime among them is Cordaid, a Dutch Catholic charity that is accused of having given funds to some Indian NGOs who are working for the repeal of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act that is responsible for many human rights abuses in Kashmir valley and the North Eastern States. The Reserve Bank of India has circulated an order to all banks in India that they have to inform it if they notice any transfer of funds from Cordaid to local NGOs. Cordaid is also held responsible for partly funding the India Against Corruption trust headed by social activist Anna Hazare and his erstwhile colleague Arvind Kejriwal whose newly formed political party is challenging the ruling Congress and main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party.

Authoritative sources in the government say several other European charities, specially from the Scandinavian countries, are also on the government’s radar, as are many Indian NGOs with whom they have had relationship in the past.

The NGOs affected by the government withdrawing their FCRA permits have protested, but only a few of them have had the precious license restored. In a few other cases including some high profile advocacy groups, permission has been given for them to operate their bank accounts for payment of essential services, but they cannot withdraw any money in cash.

This has, understandably, created a panic among organisations working in development and training at the grassroots. Among those who risk going bankrupt for want of funds are several groups working among victims of violence against the Christian community in Kandhamal district of Orissa state.

Mr. Sanjay Patra, a highly respected transparency expert heading the Financial Management Services Foundation, there is no reason for the government’s paranoia, as there are several other laws on the books to check any misuse of funds, or diversion of money to terrorism on insurrectionist activities. Mr. Patra is also a leading light of the Voluntary Associations Network of India [VANI], which provides an interface with the government. VANI is now engaging with the government to get the FCRA licenses restored for the NGOs that have fallen foul of the authorities.  VANI is also urging the government to change provisions in the FCRA rules that make it mandatory for all NGOs to seek a renewal of their permissions every five years instead of the earlier permanent ones. Anyway, money received from foreign charities under FCRA rules can be used only in designated activities and cannot be diverted to other areas.

Of the more than two million NGOs registered in the country those registered under FCRA are 38436. Of them, 21508 Associations reported a total receipt of an amount of Rs. 10,337.59 crore [about US Dollars 195 million] as foreign contribution. Many have FCRA permits but actually do not get any funds from abroad.
The government says the NGO sector in India is vulnerable to the risks of money laundering and terrorist financing, and therefore requires some form of policing of their funds and activities. But it has not been able to adduce any real evidence indicting the NGOs or linking them with terrorist or other unlawful groups other than in political rhetoric. According to government data, list of donor countries is headed by the USA (Rs. 3105.73 crore) followed by Germany (Rs. 1046.30 crore) and UK (Rs. 1038.68 crore).
The FCRA law is a reflection of India’s paranoia on what is euphemistically called the “foreign hand”, or fears that the West is intervening in Indian politics and culture. India’s right wing has accused the West of financing conversions to Christianity and supporting “Christian” insurrectionist groups in states such as Mizoram, Manipur and Meghalaya in the North East. No evidence has ever been adduced for this, other than political gossip and innuendo.
The law was drafted by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s government in 1975 when she declared a State of Internal Emergency, all but suspended the Constitution and imposed censorship on the Media, arresting thousands of political dissidents and leaders of political parties. The government then said that Socialist leader Mr. Jaiprakash Narain, leading a movement against corruption and for democratic reforms, and several Gandhian groups supporting him were funded by western agencies and were trying to induce the Indian army to mutiny. Subsequent governments overturned many of Mrs. Gandhi’s laws, but retained the FCRA as a useful instrument to tame civil society.

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

SEPTEMBER 2012 UPDATE ON KANDHAMAL

At last, a token of hope amid injustice
But Christians still face an uphill struggle

By John Dayal
New Delhi: 
In the continuing gloom of injustice, broken promises and misadministration in Kandhamal, the birth of the new parish of Pakari has come as a token of hope and light for a Christian community still living with the memory of brutal attacks in December 2007 and August 2008 and with the ensuing “structural violence”.

The two young priests in charge of the parish, Fr. Bimal Nayak and Fr. Cassian Pradhan, a Panos Dalit and a Kondh tribal, are hopeful that it will invigorate the almost 5,000-member local church. They hope that in a few years, they will see the birth of another parish in the remote region of Orissa.

The church building is still just a design on a piece of paper, broadly resembling the church in Brahminigaon, which is getting the finishing touches on reconstruction after its destruction on Christmas Eve, 2007. The new parish will have a hostel and perhaps even a school, as well as the presbytery for the parish priest and his assistant, and a few rooms for visiting bishops and clergy.

One school may not be enough to challenge the success of the Sangh Parivar in spreading its hate ideology to the young.

Surveys by several groups, including mine, the All India Christian Council, reveal a massive effort by the Hindu nationalists to penetrate every village in the region. By this summer, the Sangh had set up an estimated 500 “Shishu mandirs,” or formal schools, and as many as 500 additional “Ekal vidyalayas,” or one-teacher schools, in remote villages.

Neither the government nor the church comes anywhere close to these numbers.

Observers have also noted changes in the tactics of the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh, the main cadre of the Hindutva Parivar in the villages. The presence of Maoists in Darringbadi and other blocks has made the Sangh focus on areas where the Maoists are absent, or present only in small numbers. No major attacks have been reported this summer against Christians.

But the absence of violence brings little joy for much of the Christian community. In interviews and affidavits, residents speak of extreme economic hardship, particularly in remote areas, because of a lack of employment and ongoing economic boycotts of Christians.

In the villages of Tikabali, Adasapanda and Mujhlimandi, Christians are not being employed as labor in the fields or in the local markets.

Worse, many Christian men and women have been kept out of the government-run Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, which is supposed to provide 100 days a year of paid employment on official projects such as roads, bridges and water conservation works.

Government agencies are still harassing tribal Christians, forcing them to get a recommendation from the political outfit Kui Samaj when they come to get their “caste certificates” which are needed for scholarships, jobs and other “benefits” from the state and union governments. This is of course illegal, but the practice goes on despite Christian activists and lawyers notifying the District Collector.

There is also no government initiative as yet to give land to the landless tribals.

The cumulative impact of these situations is the migration of tribals and Dalits first to Phulbani, the district capital, and Baliguda, the only two major towns in the district, and then out of Kandhamal and even out of Orissa.

Recent surveys have confirmed that as many as 10,000 of the 56,000 people impacted by the violence have not returned to their homes in the villages.

With the justice process in the two fast-track courts showing no progress, Christian groups have once again petitioned the Supreme Court for re-investigation of the murders committed during the August 2008 violence. There have been just two convictions in more than 30 cases accepted by the government, after a death toll of more than 90. The Supreme Court is expected to take up the writ soon.

In another major initiative, the National Human Rights Commission is being approached by victims and their representatives who are seeking a comprehensive justice and rehabilitation package such as the ones victims of the anti-Sikh violence of 1984 and anti-Muslim violence in Gujarat in 2002 won after interventions by the Supreme Court and the National Human Rights Commission.

The comprehensive application points out that thousands of children continue to be without education, and men and women without jobs. Both individuals and the church have been denied adequate compensation for the destruction of property during the riots, because of deficiencies in government surveys and irrational systems of calculating the loss.

Christian activists have taken great heart from the recent Supreme Court judgment holding two BJP politicians guilty of murders in Gujarat’s Naroda Patiya area, and NHRC decisions in similar cases.

This has been reflected in the mass rallies that have been held in Phulbani and Bhubaneswar on August 25. Police gave permission at the last moment for Christians to mark the fourth anniversary of the violence. Berhampur Bishop Sarath spoke to about 4,000 people about the need for justice and rehabilitation.

The RSS held its own rally on August 23 to commemorate the murder, by Maoists, of Vishwa Hindu Parishad vice president Lakshmanananda Saraswati. Several hundred RSS activists shouted slogans asking for the arrest of the “real” murderers of Saraswati. Seven Kandhamal Christians have been rotting in jail for four years as suspects, their bail applications routinely denied by the courts.
[First published in Ucan News, 12 September 2012, New Delhi]

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Church and the government's forked tongue

‘Pick our hot chestnuts from the fire, teach our children, and heal our sick, but no Evangelisation please,’ says the government. And, of course, nothing doing on Dalit Christians’ rights JOHN DAYAL The dapper Union minister, Jairam Ramesh, is a very nice person, a gentleman. He deserves a reply. And since the princes of the Church have not been voluble for reasons they know best, let us venture a response. The Times Now TV Satellite channel headlined its report on Ramesh speaking at the Golden jubilee of Caritas India at the Convent of Jesus and Mary, New Delhi, on Friday 20th January 2012, saying pithily “Help us in Naxal areas but no religious mobilisation: Ramesh.” Despite the paraphrasing, the headline does catch the sense and the mood of what Ramesh told his audience of Cardinals and ordinary Bishops and clergy. It also makes clear that like most people in India, and specially politicians ranging from the Marxists at one end and the Sangh Parivar at the far right, Ramesh too has not been able to differentiate between the Church as a mission obeying the commandment of Jesus Christ to serve the poor, the deprived, the sick and the marginalised, and any service-provider running educational and health institutions for commercial gain, and occasionally, for political advantage. That the government thinks of the Church not only as just a mere service provider but a particularly naïve one at that, is clear from the rest of what Ramesh said. It is important, therefore, to quote the Times Now report in full: “Union Minister Jairam Ramesh made a strong pitch for roping in organisations like those run by Catholic Church to bring development in Maoist-hit areas but asked them to respect the 'Lakshman Rekha' and not engage in "religious mobilisation". "I expect Caritas to respect the sentiment of not getting involved in religious mobilisation. That is not the objective. The objective is to use the powers of the organisation like yours to help us breakdown the deficit of trust between the Government and the tribal communities. That is our objective," he said. The Minister said he does not talk about Caritas as a Catholic organisation but as a social organisation run by Catholics. Focusing on the issue of Maoist influence, Ramesh said the challenge is "how we deal with the whole issue of Maoist violence which is spreading across large parts of tribal areas. Orissa, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh. All central Indian tribal belt today is in the grip of what our Prime Minister has described as the most serious internal security challenge of our country." The Minister said that people in these areas are unable to carry out their very existence in peace, normalcy and harmony because of the growing incidents of an ideology that is dedicated to the overthrowing all democratic institutions. he said that organisations like Caritas and Ramakrishna Mission have a very important role to play in such areas, "provided social organisations respect certain 'Lakshman Rekha'". Foreseeing a possible opposition from BJP-ruled Jharkhand for involving Caritas India in Maoist-hit areas, Ramesh said "you must be prepared for this" and said "the ultimate objective of course is to create an environment in which peace returns." Three important issues arise here. What is the nature of service the Catholic – and Protestant -- Churches provide to the country, and where. Does this service and these institutions instantly become focal points of evangelisation, and thereby of proselytising. And finally, if only as a comparative study, what is the nature of service that institutions of the Hindu faith, such as Ramakrishna Mission, and the Ekal and other schools run by the Sangh Parivar, provide, and do they spread their faith in the areas they work: in affect what is the end prod duct of their very well financed and administered educational projects. Looking at the Christian [I use this better term to include all those who follow Christ. I find the terms “Catholics and Christians” a bit of an anathema and not in keeping with the unity sought in Christ] effort in education and health. It can be easily said that the Church effort, or the work of the missionaries to be precise, laid the foundations of modern medicine and modern health services in the country, including the birthing of the institution of the Indian nurse who is so ubiquitous across the globe today. This is with due respect to the traditional systems of medicine practiced by the itinerant Vaids and Hakims and Dais in rural India. Hospitals, dispensaries and medical, dental and nursing colleges now dot the landscape, especially in forest and village areas not easily accessible from metropolitan and capital cities. In the mega cities and state capitals, it needs be admitted, the Christian presence is outnumbered by commercial and glossy hospitals and colleges set up by charitable trusts, governmetns, and most of all, businessmen who charge huge capitation fees, give a long berth to meritocracy and teach anyone whose family has the money, producing doctors of great greed but little training and talent. Despite commercialization, in areas of Chhatisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand, even Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Orissa, the Christian hospitals and training centres often remain the only one, specially the only ones not charging sky high fees. As Fr Kuriala, head of the Education Commission of the Catholic Bishops Conference recounts, the Catholic Church has been a true pioneer in promoting modern education in the country. In fact, the first formal Christian educational enterprise anywhere outside Europe was the Santa Fe School in Goa, started in 1540. Soon more Christian Schools appeared in other parts of India: at Bassein (Vasi- 1546), at Cochin (1549), at Punnakayil (1567), in Madurai (1595). The first ever Girls’ School in India was opened by the missionaries in 1819 in Kottayam. The Church also pioneered technical education in the country, with the first trade schools coming up as early as 1842. It may also be mentioned that a Sanskrit School was opened by the Catholic Church in 1846 at Mannanam, Kerala. Though constituting only 1.6% of the population, the Catholic Church in India today runs 13,004 Schools (Lower Primary to XII), 243 Specialized schools, 450 Colleges, 2 Universities, 534 Formal Technical Institutions, 310 Non- Formal Educational Institutions. Of these nearly 60 % are in the rural areas and 40 % in the urban areas. The total number of students attending our institutions is 69, 05,566, of whom 31,76, 466 are boys and 37,29,100 girls. For the record, of the children coming to catholic schools, 53% are Hindus, 28% Christians, 8.6% Muslims and 10.1% others. The numbers of the institutions run by the Protestant Churches may be smaller, but the best of them compete well with the Catholics. For every Loyola and Xavier college, there is a St Stephens. In medical education, the Protestant college outnumber those of the Catholics. Many of these institutions, and the smaller unnamed dispensaries are deep in the forests. I have seen many of them, some in Kandhamal in Orissa where they provide the only place for a healthy birthing by a tribal woman, or assistance to a delirious patient wafting to be taken to distant Behrampur as the district hospitals in this district are an abomination. Have they become focii of conversions? They have indeed converted Indian women to give up their apprehensions on caste and creed, and come to learn the useful and glorious profession of nursing. Once when most of the nurses were Christians, and mostly from Kerala or the Maharashtra area, today nursing students come from all over the country, and most of them are Hindus. The only difference is while once the Christian nursing schools were giving a stipend to the women students, the private sector nursing colleges of today charge a hefty fees. But jobs are plenty, salaries are good and the Indian woman has shed her inhibition and defied taboos.. Bu there is no conversion to Christianity, of course. The fact that most of the alumni in Christians schools are Hindus – Christians almost never form the majority other than in religious seminaries is testimony to the fact that while the Christian schools are preferred for the value-loaded education they important, they have never been accused to inducing thier students to become Christians. Let me give contrasting examples from Ramakrishna Mission Schools in Tribal areas and the Ekal Vidyalayas. The second first. The Ekal Vidyalayas, whose scholarship, books and pedagogy has not been audited by any government agency, make no bones showing the sort of education they give. A mix of mythology and history, a harking to a Hindu golden age and heroism, the education is a hagiographic introduction to an India that cannot be articulated as history, or even as political geography because it speaks of a greater Hindu India which has never existed. It belittles Buddhism and Jainism, keeps Sikhism’s as a arm of the Hindus and cold-bloodedly converts the tribal into aggressive Hindu believer. RK Mission’s forest schools in Chhatisgarh, which I have visited, are more gentle, and do give some sort of a liberal education different from the Sangh Parivar. But thier end product is child who is no longer a tribal, but a Hindu Bengali Bhadralok! Where is the conversion, and where indeed the hiatus from the Sarna religion, the tribal Santhal or Oran culture? Why does the government and Jairam see the Church as a mere service provider? Possibly it is because Church leadership and institutional administrators have, of late, been diffident, on the back foot. In the face of persecution, they have fought shy of facing that they have been attacked because they have helped empower the poor. They are not crying out for the poor in the voice of the agitated masses. In the mouth of the Sangh Parivar, thier mute anger against empowerment of the poor becomes an argument against conversions. The two terms are seem the same. Somewhere hidden behind Jairam’s invitation of working in Naxal prone areas is also a reference to the insinuation, if not accusation by the BJP and BJD governments that Christians are working with Maoists. The Maoists have no religion, if they are rally a ideologically extremist Left. In the Mao belt, they are mostly Hindus, their leadership Brahminical. But in Andhra and Bihar and even in Karnataka, many are Muslims, even Christians and Buddhists. They swear by ideology, not by faith. But in Orissa, the government seems to be tying itself into knots trying to establish linkages between Christians and Maoists. Many innocents have been arrested and kept in jail without trial. How then does the government ask the Church to work in specified Naxal dominated areas. If it is just the states in this corridor, the Church is already present in Bihar, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Chhatisgarh, Orissa and Andhra, working in villages and districts, running schools. They are not too involved in social action. Some are lawyers and fighting for a just wage for labourer and teacher, other work on gender issues for the women, and against trafficking and infant mortality. There is no major work in trade unions, unlike in Kerala and Tamil Nadu's fisher folk’s movement. . In the North east, the Church has also been a victim of local terrorism and insurrection. Many priests were killed in Manipur, many abducted in Assam and elsewhere where they were released in private arrangements involving large sums of money. The Church, under the dynamic leadership of Archbishop of Guwahati Thomas Menaparampil, done a lot for the peace process. So also for the Naga peace process where the Baptist Church is almost single handed responsible for a return from arms. It is a moot question if the increased presence of missionaries will close the deficit of confidence in the government. The Church cannot afford to be seen as an agent or front of the government. It will lose all legitimacy in the eyes of the people. The government, on the other hand, cannot shirk its responsibility. It must get its officers and its doctors to go to the villages. It must provide the teachers and ensure that they are available to teach. It is not the soldier alone they can send to the forest . And it must change its response to the Christian community and the Church. The government has been ungrateful, to say the least. The time has now come when we need to ask the government and the political parties if they are willing to show in word and deed their respect for us. It is not just their dastardly betrayal of the Dalit Christian. The government response is yet to be given in the Supreme court where the Dalit Christen rights is the subject of writ for half a decade. It is also seen in the government response to the issue of justice for victims of persecution in Orissa and the rest of the country. And above all, it is seen in the defence of the so called freedom of religion Acts which are possibly the greatest assault, on individual freedom and defiance of international result ions and global norms, other than in fundamentalist and totalitarian countries. The Church, finally, needs to tell the government and tell Mr Jairam Ganesh that it does not do its social work for money. It does not do it for influence. It does certainly not do it for buying converts. It does so in absolute obedience to the teachings of Jesus Christians to serve the poorest of the poor, of which there are plenty in India.