Admiral of the Faith

Raphael Cheenath of Kandhamal

By John Dayal
August 2010

In a year which marks the Centenary of Blessed Mother Teresa and of Saint Alphonsa, most would find it difficult to find another authentic Christian hero for the Faithful in India. Raphael Cheenath would possibly blush if someone were to describe him as a living Saint -- if a tall deeply tanned and well built man in his late Seventies, who has seen both the urbane world and the deep of the forests, can indeed blush. But the Archbishop of Cuttack Bhubaneswar, and as he is now better known across the globe, “Archbishop Cheenath of Kandhamal”, is indeed one of a kind, a hero of the faith for Catholics, Episcopal and Evangelical Christians. This for having provided leadership to a battered and fragile community consisting of indigenous Tribal Kondh people and Dalit Panos groups, the poorest and the most marginalised segments of the population, to stand up to the worst form of persecution Christians have faced in over three hundred years. The last such large scale violence against the faithful was at the hands of Tipu Sultan, King of Mysore, who ravished the West coast of the Konkan and drove the Catholics on a long march to captivity.

What Cheenath and his people faced was the full hatred of India’s emergent neo-fascist religious bigots, described by political scientists as the Sangh Parivar. This is a pseudo-military political conglomeration believing in the right of their upper caste co-religionists to be the true and only inheritors of India, with Muslims and Christians in particular as aliens who have no place in the motherland. This group, which took inspiration from the Nazi and fascist traditions of Adolf Hitler and Il Duce Mussolini from the Europe of the 1920s and 1930s, has been unhappy at India’s partition with the Muslim dominated western regions becoming the Islamic republic of Pakistan. They transferred their political angst into an animosity against Indian Muslims. This animosity has triggered perhaps twenty thousand riots in fifty years against the Muslims, who form just over ten per cent of the population. The Sangh hatred of Christians – who are less than 2.4 per cent of the national population -- was perhaps even deeper, partly by identifying the community with the imperial British who ruled India for more than a Hundred years, and partly for seeing in proselytising Christian missionaries a threat to the core of Hinduism itself. This led to a series of violent acts, sporadic in the first forty years of Independence of India in 1947, but bursting into the open in the mid 1990s, mostly in Gujarat, Orissa and Madhya Pradesh.

The Sangh violence of the 1990s against Christians saw the emergence of Archbishop Alan De Lastic of Delhi as the undisputed leader and spokesman of the Christian community in the country. Alan took to advocacy at the highest level, representing the community’s cause with the highest political leadership in the land, and when that failed to rouse the national conscience, led the community into radical action, including all India agitation such as the strike of 4 December 1998 which saw every educational and medical institution run by the community close down for a day in protest.

The government’s response, then, and of the Bharatiya Janata party now, was to call for a national debate on conversions, a ruse repeatedly used by the Sangh Parivar to coerce the community and subvert Constitutional guarantees of freedom of faith.

The Sangh violence in Kandhamal was at a much higher pitch, lasted much longer and affected more people than the mayhem had in 1998 or even earlier. When the fires died down in the plateau of Kandhamal right in the middle of the State of Orissa, more than 54,000 people had become refugees in their own homeland, Over 400 villages had been purged of all Christian presence, a hundred people had been killed and over 5,600 houses burnt. Children lost their childhood, those going to school lost years of academic progress. A Nun was gang raped, and there were reports of many other rapes and molestation. Girls were molested, and into the third year, some had been victims of human trafficking. For many, the trauma was worse – they had been told they could not return to their villages till they became Hindus, a process accomplished by forcibly shearing off their hair and making them drink a mixture of the dung and urine of a cow. Most refused and were severely beaten up and brutalised. They remain the real heroes.

In a way, Cheenath had a lifetime of experience in the tribal regions of central India to know how to respond even to the unexpected. Raphael Cheenath, born in Manalur, Kerala on 29 December 1934 joined the Society of the Divine Word, worked in Madhya Pradesh and Orissa as a missionary and priest, and was eventually appointed Bishop of Sambalpur, before being named 1 July 1985 as the second Archbishop of Cuttack-Bhubaneswar Archdiocese. As missionary, priest, Bishop and Archbishop, he had worked closely with the Dalit and Tribal communities. It is an interesting factoid that his Bishop’s house is almost entirely staffed by people from Kandhamal.

When violence broke out, first in December 2007 at Christmas-time and then in August 2008, it was natural and swift for a duty-bound Cheenath to convey the cries and the anguish of the victims to the national political and governmental leadership. With other colleagues of the Episcopacy in the Catholic Bishops Conference of India, he met the President of India and the Prime minister, the Governor and the Chief Minister. When the Chief Minister refused to meet the Christian delegation which had called on him, Cheenath led the clergy group to stage a Gandhian “dharna” or sit-in at the residence of the Chief Minister till the man, Mr Naveen Pattnaik, agreed to meet them.

The fires however continued to rage in the forests. It was the forest, like a mother, which sheltered the refugees, preventing a much higher death toll. But they were without relief. The district officers refused permission for Church agencies to bring in relief. The Sangh had feared that church relief agencies would further convert people or spread Christianity! The media was not helpful.

Cheenath had the courage to go to court. He has consistently shown this commitment to justice, to the need to challenge the legal system of the country to deliver justice to religious minorities. This is not as easy as it sounds. Justice still eludes most in Kandhamal, and it is the legal review system that has been put ion place by the church that is ensuring that the Fat Track courts trying several of the criminal cases are closely monitored and preparations made for remedial action.

Cheenath’s writ petition in the Supreme Court of India was the first of the many steps that would have to be taken in courts big and small, and it produced results. If over 2,000 of the houses have now been completed and relief agencies are working, it is because of that court action.

Cheenath would sound out the justice system more than once. He became the first Archbishop, or Christian leader, in living memory to appear before a Judicial Commission, the Justice Panigrahi Commission, to put on record the plight of the common an the poor of his community. He refused to be cowed by the cross examination of hostile lawyers, most of whom were politically aligned with the Sangh Parivar.

It has been this charismatic leadership in all sectors – the justice system, the relief and rehabilitation, and the matter of faith – that Cheenath has been successful in strengthening the spiritual values of the people and of his clergy and restoring faith in the system, which had been shattered. In fact, government and judiciary owe him a debt of gratitude for this, for it would have been so easy for the frustrated and the angry to lose faith in democratic processes and institutions when faced with the magnitude of the crisis and the initial hostility of police and administration.

It is not that the Archbishop has not faced charges from the lesser informed among clergy and lay persons, mostly for not being physically present in Kandhamal in the initial weeks, and coming first to Delhi and then staying back in the Bishops House in Bhubaneswar. But to say this is to not fully understand the geography of the area and the political and violence situation. There was hardly a Catholic institutional building intact in the entire region. It may, by the way, be recalled that a bomb was thrown at Bishop’s house during Christmas 2007; the complaint of this was made to the police by no less than Father Bernard Digal, then Treasurer of the Archdiocese. One of the great tragedies of Kandhamal was the martyrdom of Fr Bernard, who left the comparative security of Bishops’ house to travel close to 300 kilometres to see the ground situation in the district, which also happened to be his homeland. His own village had been devastated. His brother and family had seen their hut being burnt to the ground, and were now staying with thousands of others in a refugee camp. Bernard was waylaid, and beaten savagely, and then left for dead. He was rescued by others a day alter, brought to hospital. He almost recovered after intensive treatment in Mumbai, but eventually succumbed to his internal injuries and complications in a hospital in Chennai just when everyone was expecting him to be declared cured.

That showed the threat to all clergy and religious, especially women who were absolutely not safe. The Archbishop had been identified by the Sangh Parivar and named as their main enemy. The Sangh staged dharna and agitations in Bhubaneswar asking for his immediate arrest, tighter with Rajya Sabha member Radha Kant Nayak and a couple of others. The threat to the Archbishop’s life and liberty was very real. The Sangh was trying hard to implicate him and some other Catholic leaders in the murder of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad vice president Lakshmanananda Saraswati whose murder, acknowledged to be their handiwork by left-wing militant Maoist groups of the region, that had triggered off the violence. The body of this man had been taken in a procession of over 200 kilometres through the hills and valleys of Kandhamal, accompanied not just by Sangh leaders, but even by the highest district civil and police authorities who ten stood by while well armed mobs used direr and knife to lay into the Christian community village after village. The district authorities were just not ready to take the risk for a survey of the violence by the Archbishop, afraid both for his security and possibly that his presence could make the Christian community rise in revolt in the refugee camps where living conditions were barely fit for animals. And when finally Cheenath did come to the district, it had to be while being escorted by an armed convoy.

There had also been charges, muttered silently and gossiped through SMS messages and emails that while Pentecost pastors stayed with the community even in refugee camps, the Catholic priests had gone to the forests. Cheenath had even in the Christmas 2007 violence given clear instructions to the men and women under his charge – human lives were precious and sacred, but buildings could be rebuilt. Catholic fathers including parish priests saw their churches burn as they fled to the forests, but many of the parishes were coming alive within months of the return of peace, the lone priest living in the ashes of the parish church, so to speak, of perhaps a single surviving room in what was once his home. Catholic institutions were the main target of the violence of 2008, but it is the resilience of the church and the strength of its leadership – including the courage of individual priests – that the Church is alive once again in the forests of Kandhamal.

Cheenath has toured Europe and other countries, but more important, it has been his witness in many states in the country that has encouraged and strengthened the community and given it hope. His evidence before visiting human rights groups, and as important, before emissaries of various countries and the international human rights movement, including the Untied Nations Human Rights Council through its Special Rapporteur, that Cheenath ahs been successful in explaining to the world at large the danger that neo Nazi and fascist groups, riding a narrow religious nationalism, pose not just to India, but to international peace. We cannot say this of many other religious leaders in the country today. As someone who has seen him at close quarters over the last three years, I have come to respect and admire Archbishop Raphael Cheenath. His life remains under threat. But Cheenath has been a veritable Admiral, leading his men, of course, but also steering the community to security, and peace while maintaining pressure on the State to give Justice to the victims.

To the Nuns and Priests of Orissa

The priests of Kandhamal

By John Dayal

Kandhamal is deadly beautiful. A tropical forest, but with close mountains and deep valleys, and a climate that can get alpine in winter, without the snow. The topography of this plateau in the middle of the Indian province of Orissa may have saved the lives of tens of thousands of Christians who fled to the forests as mobs with murder, arson and rape on their minds, attacked 300 villages on 25 August 2008. At the peak of the violence, 54,000 men, women and children were hiding in these forests of tall Sal trees, where bear and big cats still abound, and wild elephants can be heard in the dark of the night. Among those 54,000 were the families of perhaps three dozen Catholic priests and twice as many Nuns, and two dozen priests themselves, hiding and waiting for the moment the police would come to restore order. For some of them, it came too late. A hundred people may have died there, among them three protestant Pastors and a Catholic priest, Fr Bernard Digal, who was grievously wounded and succumbed some time later. A nun, Sister M, as I will call her, was among at least three women raped.

The brutal tragedy however also shed light on how close are the bond that the local priests have with their flocks. Unlike in many other parts of India where he parish priest may have come from as far as three thousand kilometres, be of a different ethnicity and with a different mother tongue, priests and nuns in Kandhamal are of the soil. The villages that were torched were where they were born, the churches destroyed were the priest too had been baptised, and where they celebrated their First Mass.

There is therefore something remarkable about the Priests and Nuns of Kandhamal, be they Dalits or the Tribals. Some of them, such as Fathers Vijay Naik and Vijay Pradhan, the first a Dalit and the second a Tribal, have doctorates from Roman universities. Many others chose to study social work, and were active at the grassroots. They helped galvanise a people who for centuries had suffered from a situation close to serfdom in which food was rare and education unknown, where women were vulnerable and children could bare hope to grow to adulthood. No wonder the work of the priest sand nuns had angered vested interests, the local equivalent of big business, and the power brokers. When the violence broke out, the families of the priests were particular targets. The brother of Fr Mrityunjay, the secretary of the Archbishop of the region, was forcibly converted into Hinduism by a murderous gang shaving off his head and forcing cow dung and urine down his throat. The youth suffered in silence, but was back in the church in the refugee tent as soon as it was humanly possible.

As elsewhere in the world, the clergy and women religious in India too face occasional charges of financial wrongdoings, but those in Kandhamal can easily be said to be crystal clean. The family of father Bernard Digal, who was Treasurer of the Archdiocese and became its first martyr in the violence, lived in a mud and thatchl hut when I visited them some years ago. After the violence, they were among thousands living in a government refigure camp. They still have to return to their village.

I salute the priests and Nuns of Kandhamal.

Justice, Kandhamal style

Miscarriage of Justice in Kandhamal Courts

From John Dayal

12 November 2009

I have just come back from Orissa, very depressed at the way the criminal justice system is working in that benighted state.

I had gone to take part in a rare Civil Society meeting with victims, some law experts and some Human Rights activists on 3rd November 2009 in Bhubaneswar. In truth, barring some leaders of various Left parties and Women’s groups, there is not much of a civil society in Orissa as far as violence on Christians or Muslims is concerned. Fortunately, there are activists – and Dhirendra Panda is one such – who are determined to press for justice. Fortunately again, there are some more activists working in the defence of the rights of Tribals and workers whose very existence is threatened by the entry of global mining giants trying to profit from the underground riches of Orissa. About them, in another note.

Advocate Rasmi Ranjan Jena says “As we know in most of the cases already tried in the Fast Track Courts in Kandhamal the accused persons have been acquitted. This is nothing but a great failure of the criminal justice system which has miserably failed to give justice to the victims of the communal violence. At this juncture there is an urgent need of critical analysis of the factors responsible for the failure. Though nothing much should be expected from a judicial forum in a communal society, but we need to have a self introspection to develop a strategy for the upcoming days.”

The following is a more urgent situation report on meeting convened under the banners of the Common Concern and Orissa Manavik Adhikar Suraksha Abhijan on justice delivery crisis. The report’s authors include Dhirendra Panda and Fr Ajay Singh. While this report is critical of the legal support systems for the victims, I must acknowledge the work done by the Human Rights Law Network and the Christian Law association who have had to work with young local lawyers and limited resources in the face of official machinery that is determined not to pursue justice with honesty.

I quote from the report:

“In the context of regular acquittals of the persons accused of criminal involvement during Kandhamal violence by Fast Track Courts on the ground of non-availability of witnesses, a meeting was held at Lohia Academy, Bhubaneswar to listen the experiences of the victims and their witnesses seeking justice. About seventy five persons including the victims, activists, representatives of left/democratic political parties and civil society organisations, advocates, media persons, civil society

members, church leaders and others participated in the Meeting.

Agenda

• Sharing of experiences/concerns by victims and witnesses in and outside courts

• Sharing on challenges faced by Lawyers and organizations engaged in legal aids

• Observations/Suggestions by the Participants

Among the participants, Prafulla Samantara, renowned activist and an ardent advocate of people’s rights and movements, Radhakant Sethy, former MLA and leader of CPI-ML Liberation, Dr. John Dayal, Member of National Integration Council, Sudhir Patnaik, Editor, ‘Samadrusti’, John Nayak, former DG of Police, Orissa, Prasant Paikray and Ramakrishna Panda – leaders of CPI, Smt. Tapasi Praharaj, CPI-M leader, Smt. Saila Behera, Shanti Ranjan Behera – Senior Social Activist, Ms. Lalita Missal – Woman Rights’ Activist (NAWO), Hemant Nayak – Social Activist, Mahendra Parida - Social Activist and Trade Union leader, Pradip Pradhan – RTI Activist and many others shared their observations regards to the approaches to the problems faced by the victims.

Observations

• Public Prosecutors are mostly found biased against the victims

• In comparison with the skills, influences, clouts, numbers of advocates favoring the accused persons, the strength of advocates need to be improved

• Faulty and biased methods of police investigation, framing the charge sheets and presentations in the Courts weaken the cases

• Absence of social and physical security of the victims and witnesses inside and outside the Court

• The provision that in GR cases only Public Prosecutors can argue, while the victim parties can not appoint their own advocates privately, does not help the victims in cases where PPs are biased.

• Show of extra-favour to the accused ones by some judges harass the victims and their counsels

• Lawyers counseling the victim parties are even persuaded not to continue their legal assistance

• Witnesses are threatened/allured to turn hostile

• Absence of democratic and left parties in comparing to the dominance of BJP and RSS helps the culprits and corrupts the atmosphere of the courts

Suggestions

• Appeal to transfer the cases to outside Kandhamal, preferably to Bhubaneswar and Cuttack courts.

• Christian Lawyers’ Association, Human Rights Law Network and other groups engaged for legal aid should work in a coordinated manner

• Assistance from senior and experienced lawyers should be taken up

• Engagement of other lawyers to assist the P.Ps\A.P.Ps in GR cases and submission of written arguments by other lawyers

• Mobilisation of activists to be present in the court will help in building confidence among the victims and influence the PPs/APPs and judges to be careful to some extent

• A Public Hearing/People’s Tribunal can be organized..

• Lawyers should be smart enough to intervene at the right manner at the time of necessity

• Local people need to create their own defense mechanism

• Secular minded organizations/activists, particularly the people participating in this programme, need to evaluate the ongoing legal actions and decide upon appropriate measures to respond to the current situation collectively.

• At the state level a joint committee involving people from various sectors need to be formed to keep regular watch on legal matters and monitor the actions being taken up by the organizations engaged in legal aids

• It is necessary to document the court proceedings and situation of witnesses and victims, which can be used in future for raising the issue before higher courts and media

• A Kandhamal level committee should be formed for monitoring justice delivery processes and for looking after mobilizing social supports for the victims and witnesses

• Extensive media campaign has to be taken up to expose the illegal and biased behavior and functioning of PPs/APPs and judges.

• Referring to the deposition of Police officers before the Sarat Chandra Mohapatra Commission, information will be collected from their respective offices using RTI and a letter can be sent to the Governor with a copy to the Commission can be sent mentioning the concerns and position of the civil society

Decisions

• An ad hoc state level joint solidarity committee was formed involving the participants to coordinate

o Interaction with political parties for their support for the victims in getting justice

o Media campaigns

o Keeping watch on legal processes

o Documentation of justice delivery processes

o Social Mobilisation for backing the victims inside/outside courts

,;

Footnote:

To understand the different factors responsible for the failure it will be convenient to have a minimum idea on the chain/ stages on which the justice delivery process runs.

The stages of criminal cases in series:

(1)Occurrence of the Incident--- (2)FIR--- (3)Investigation (includes arrest of the accused & Submission of Charge-sheet)--- (4) Magistrate( who commits the case to the competent court)--- (5)Trial (includes Framing of Charges, Summon to Witnesses, Testimony by the witnesses, Argument & Judgment)--- (6) Appeal

Difficulties & Lacunas in different stages

(1) Occurrence of the Incident

- Many of the victims are not eye witnesses as they fled away to the jungle just before the incident happened.

- As the investigation started very late the proofs and marks of violence had disappeared or washed away.

(2) FIR

- Non- registration by the police

- The names of the accused persons are not mentioned

- Delay in filing

- In some FIR the offence in specific is not disclosed

- In most of the cases copies of the FIR not given to the victim

- The informant himself is hostile in some cases.

(3) Investigation

- No proper investigation but a stereotyped process adopted by the police.

- Non-examination of the important witnesses

- Accused examined as the witnesses.

- Non-arrest of the accused persons ( particularly the kingpins) till date

- The property of the absconding accused persons could have been attached ( Sec 83 of Cr.P.C.) which could compel them to surrender.

- Proper sections of IPC not mentioned in the Charge-Sheet

- Delay in filing of Charge-sheet helped the accused persons to get bail.

(4) Magistrate

- The lawyers for the victim could have put their objection before the magistrate, before whom the charge-sheet is submitted, on the non- mentioning of appropriate sections of IPC in the Charge-sheet. ( Section 216 of Cr.P.C)

(5) Trial

- Most of the independent witnesses were hostile as they were threatened by the accused persons in the village.

- The court atmosphere is not conducive for free and fair trial.

- The judge and the public prosecutors lacks judicious mind.

- Deficiency of trained lawyers in comparison to the number of cases.

- Lacuna in the part of the lawyers engaged on behalf of the victim. No effort to build up the case in favor of the victim, only tutoring of the witnesses on their previous statement of the police is done. The lawyers could have done as the following.

- Effort could have been made to cover up the lacuna in the FIR as well as the statement before the police, while giving testimony before the trial court.

- The witness/ victim could have been prepared on the point on which the defense lawyer is striking.

- Proper caution could have been taken to avoid major discrepancy between the testimonies of the major witnesses.

- Petition could have been laid to examine the important witnesses who are not charge-sheeted. ( Section 311 of Cr.P.C)

- Written argument could have been filed in each case at the time of final argument. ( It must be kept in mind that if the lawyer has not filed the Vakalatnama from the initial stage then he may not be allowed to file written argument in the final stage.)

- Even though most of the witnesses are becoming hostile, the victim and the family members could have been properly guided before giving testimony. Because law is well settled, the sole testimony of the victims / the eye witnesses, if inspires confidence and appears to be natural and truthful and also corroborated by the documentary evidences, is enough to convict the accused.

(6) Appeal

- No appeal preferred in most of the cases where the accused were acquitted.

- Appeal should be preferred in conviction cases as in the said case conviction is done for only few accused persons and most of them are acquitted.

-

[PP is Public Prosecutor appointed by the Administration. CrPC is Criminal Procedure Code, IPC is Indian Penal Code, FIR is First Information Report, ]

Hindutva's Violent History

Hindutva's Violent History

By Angana Chatterji

06 September, 2008
Tehelka

Hindutva's production of culture and nation is often marked by savagery. On 23 August 2008, Lakshmanananda Saraswati, Orissa's Hindu nationalist icon, was murdered with four disciples in Jalespeta in Kandhamal district. State authorities alleged the attackers to be Maoists (and a group has subsequently claimed the murder). But the Sangh Parviar held the Christian community responsible, even though there is no evidence or history to suggest the armed mobilisation of Christian groups in Orissa.

After the murder, the All India Christian Council stated: “The Christian community in India abhors violence, condemns all acts of terrorism, and opposes groups of people taking the law into their own hands”. Gouri Prasad Rath, General Secretary, VHPOrissa, stated: “Christians have killed Swamiji. We will give a befitting reply. We would be forced to opt for violent protests if action is not taken against the killers”.

Following which, violence engulfed the district. Churches and Christian houses razed to the ground, frightened Christians hiding in the jungles or in relief camps. Officials record the death toll at 13, local leaders at 20, while the Asian Centre for Human Rights noted 50.

The Sangh’s history in postcolonial Orissa is long and violent. Virulent Hindutva campaigns against minority groups reverberated in Rourkela in 1964, Cuttack in 1968 and 1992, Bhadrak in 1986 and 1991, Soro in 1991. The Kandhamal riots were not unforeseen.

Since 2000, the Sangh has been strengthened by the Bharatiya Janata Party's coalition government with the Biju Janata Dal. In October 2002, a Shiv Sena unit in Balasore district declared the formation of the first Hindu ‘suicide squad’. In March 2006, Rath stated that the “VHP believes that the security measures initiated by the Government [for protection of Hindus] are not adequate and hence Hindu society has taken the responsibility for it.”

The VHP has 1,25,000 primary workers in Orissa. The RSS operates 6,000 shakhas with a 1,50,000 plus cadre. The Bajrang Dal has 50,000 activists working in 200 akharas. BJP workers number above 4,50,000. BJP Mohila Morcha, Durga Vahini (7,000 outfits in 117 sites), and Rashtriya Sevika Samiti (80 centres) are three major Sangh women's organisations. BJP Yuva Morcha, Youth Wing, Adivasi Morcha and Mohila Morcha have a prominent base. Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh manages 171 trade unions with a cadre of 1,82,000. The 30,000-strong Bharatiya Kisan Sangh functions in 100 blocks. The Sangh also operates various trusts and branches of national and international institutions to aid fundraising, including Friends of Tribal Society, Samarpan Charitable Trust, Sookruti, Yasodha Sadan, and Odisha International Centre. Sectarian development and education are carried out by Ekal Vidyalayas, Vanavasi Kalyan Ashrams/Parishads (VKAs), Vivekananda Kendras, Shiksha Vikas Samitis and Sewa Bharatis — cementing the brickwork for hate and civil polarisation.

This massive mobilisation has erupted in ugly incidents against both Christians and Muslims. In 1998, 5,000 Sangh activists allegedly attacked the Christian dominated Ramgiri-Udaygiri villages in Gajapati district, setting fire to 92 homes, a church, police station, and several government vehicles. Earlier, Sangh activists allegedly entered the local jail forcibly and burned two Christian prisoners to death. In 1999, Graham Staines, 58, an Australian missionary and his 10- and six-year-old sons were torched in Manoharpur village in Keonjhar. A Catholic nun, Jacqueline Mary was gangraped by men in Mayurbhanj and Arul Das, a Catholic priest, was murdered in Jamabani, Mayurbhanj, followed by the destruction of churches in Kandhamal. In 2002, the VHP converted 5,000 people to Hinduism. In 2003, the VKA organised a 15,000- member rally in Bhubaneswar, propagating that Adivasi (and Dalit) converts to Christianity be denied affirmative action. In 2004, seven women and a male pastor were forcibly tonsured in Kilipal, Jagatsinghpur district, and a social and economic boycott was imposed against them. A Catholic church was vandalised and the community targeted in Raikia.

Change the cast, the story is still the same. 1998: A truck transporting cattle owned by a Muslim was looted and burned, the driver’s aide beaten to death in Keonjhar district. 1999: Shiekh Rehman, a Muslim clothes merchant, was mutilated and burned to death in a public execution at the weekly market in Mayurbhanj. 2001: In Pitaipura village, Jagatsinghpur, Hindu communalists attempted to orchestrate a land-grab connected to a Muslim graveyard. On November 20, 2001, around 3,000 Hindu activists from nearby villages rioted. Muslim houses were torched, Muslim women were ill-treated, their property, including goats and other animals, stolen. 2005: In Kendrapara, a contractor was shot on Govari Embankment Road, supposedly by members of a Muslim gang. Sangh groups claimed the shooting was part of a gang war associated with Islamic extremism and called for a 12hour bandh. Hindu organisations are alleged to have looted and set Muslim shops on fire.

It is Saraswati who pioneered the Hinduisation of Kandhamal since 1969. Activists targeted Adivasis, Dalits, Christians and Muslims through socio-economic boycotts and forced conversions (named ‘re’conversion, presupposing Adivasis and Dalits as ‘originally’ Hindus).

Kandhamal first witnessed Hindutva violence in 1986. The VKAs, instated in 1987, worked to Hinduise Kondh and Kui Adivasis and polarise relations between them and Pana Dalit Christians. Kandhamal remains socio-economically vulnerable, a large percentage of its population living in poverty. Approximately 90 percent of Dalits are landless. A majority of Christians are landless or marginal landholders. Hindutva ideologues say Dalits have acquired economic benefits, augmented by Christianisation. This is not borne out in reality.

In October 2005, converting 200 Bonda Adivasi Christians to Hinduism in Malkangiri, Saraswati said: “How will we… make India a completely Hindu country? The feeling of Hindutva should come within the hearts and minds of all the people.” In April 2006, celebrating RSS architect Golwalkar’s centenary, Saraswati presided over seven yagnas attended by 30,000 Adivasis. In September 2007, supporting the VHP’s statewide road-rail blockade against the supposed destruction of the mythic ‘Ram Setu’, Saraswati conducted a Ram Dhanu Rath Yatra to mobilise Adivasis.

In 2008, Hindutva discourse named Christians as ‘conversion terrorists’. But the number of such conversions is highly inflated. They claim there are rampant and forced conversions in Phulbani-Kandhamal. But the Christian population in Kandhamal is 1,17,950 while Hindus number 5,27,757. Orissa Christians numbered 8,97,861 in the 2001 census — only 2.4 percent of the state’s population. Yet, Christian conversions are storied as debilitating to the majority status of Hindus while Muslims are seen as ‘infiltrating’ from Bangladesh, dislocating the ‘Oriya (and Indian) nation’.

The right to religious conversion is constitutionally authorised. Historically, conversions from Hinduism to Christianity or Islam have been a way to escape caste oppression and social stigma for Adivasis and Dalits. In February 2006, the VHP called for a law banning (non- Hindu) religious conversions. In June 2008, it urged that religious conversion be decreed a 'heinous crime' across India.

‘Reconversion’ strategies of the Sangh appear to be shifting in Orissa. The Sangh reportedly proposed to 'reconvert' 10,000 Christians in 2007. But fewer public conversion ceremonies were held in 2007 than in 2004- 2006. Converting politicised Adivasi and Dalit Christians to Hinduism is proving difficult. The Sangh has instead increased its emphasis on the Hinduisation of Adivasis through their participation in Hindu rituals, which, in effect, ‘convert’ Adivasis by assuming that they are Hindu.

The draconian Orissa Freedom of Religion Act (OFRA), 1967, must be repealed. There are enough provisions under the Indian Penal Code to prevent and prohibit conversions under duress. But consenting converts to Christianity are repeatedly charged under OFRA, while Hindutva perpetrators of forcible conversions are not. The Sangh contends that 'reconversion' to Hinduism through its ‘Ghar Vapasi’ (homecoming) campaign is not conversion but return to Hinduism, the ‘original’ faith. This allows them to dispense with the procedures under OFRA.

The Orissa Prevention of Cow Slaughter Act, 1960 should also be repealed. It is utilised to target livelihood practices of economically disenfranchised groups, Adivasis, Dalits, Muslims, who engage in cattle trade and cow slaughter.

In fact, a CBI investigation into the activities of the VHP, RSS and Bajrang Dal is crucial as per the provisions of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967. Groups such as the VHP and VKA are registered as cultural and charitable organisations but their work is political in nature. They should be audited and recognised as political organisations, and their charitable status and privileges reviewed.

The state and central government's refusal to restrain Hindu militias evidences their linkage with Hindutva (BJP), soft Hindutva (Congress), and the capitulation of civil society to Hindu majoritarianism. How would the nation have reacted if groups with affiliation other than than militant Hinduism executed riot after riot: Calcutta 1946, Kota 1953, Rourkela 1964, Ranchi 1967, Ahmedabad 1969, Bhiwandi 1970, Aligarh 1978, Jamshedpur 1979, Moradabad 1980, Meerut 1982, Hyderabad 1983, Assam 1983, Delhi 1984, Bhagalpur 1989, Bhadrak 1991, Ayodhya 1992, Mumbai 1992, Gujarat 2002, Marad 2003, Jammu 2008?

The BJD-BJP government has repeatedly failed to honour the constitutional mandate separating religion from state. In 2005-06, Advocate Mihir Desai and I convened the Indian People's Tribunal on Communalism in Orissa, led by Retired Kerala Chief Justice KK Usha. The Tribunal’s findings detailed the formidable mobilisation by majoritarian communalist organisations, including in Kandhamal, and the Sangh's visible presence in 25 of 30 districts. The report did not invoke any response from the state or central government.

In January 2000, The Asian Age reported: “‘One village, one shakha’ is the new slogan of the RSS as it aims to saffronise the entire Gujarat state by 2005.” Then ensued the genocide of March 2002. In 2003, Subash Chouhan, then Bajrang Dal state convener, stated: “Orissa is the second Hindu Rajya (to Gujarat).”

We all know what has happened in Kandhamal December 2007, and again now. The communal situation in Orissa is dire. State and civil society resistance to Hindutva’s ritual and catalytic abuse cannot wait.

The writer is associate professor of anthropology at California Institute of Integral Studies and author of a forthcoming book:
Violent Gods: Hindu Nationalism in India's Present, Narratives from Orissa


From Tehelka Magazine, Vol 5, Issue 36, Dated Sept 13, 2008

Let we forget

LEST WE FORGET

In its annual report for 2008, India’s Ministry for Home Affairs recorded that the country had witnessed a high incidence of communal violence --- as many as 943 communal incidents, mainly against Muslims and Christians, took place in which 167 persons were killed and 2,354 persons were injured. The figures were up from those of 2007, when there were 761 incidents in which 99 persons were killed and 2,227 persons were injured.

Some details:

ORISSA

14 (of 30) Districts hit

315 Villages destroyed

4,640 Houses burnt [State government earlier estimates 4,215]

54,000 Homeless initially

20,000 People still living as Internally Displaced Persons

1,500 People still in Government run camps / enclaves

120 People murdered [Estimated, but not officially acknowledged]

7 Priests/ Pastors killed

10 Fathers/Pastors/Nuns injured

3 Rapes confirmed [One of Nun]

252 Churches destroyed [estimated by State government]

13 Schools, colleges destroyed

827 cases have been registered

6 persons convicted

4 Cases in which all accused acquitted

Registered

2. KARNATAKA

8 (of 29) Districts affected

33 Churches attacked update again

53 Christians injured in attacks, including Nuns assaulted by state police.

[This does not include incidents of violence and persecution witnessed in Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Kerala, Andhra, Chhattisgarh, Delhi and many other States in 2008-09]

The reality of Kandhamal – One year on, the crisis of State continues

Our Lord teaches us not to hate. We do not hate our enemies.

But Fear is real, specially in Orissa’s Kandhamal district.

It is not just Kandhamal, or indeed Orissa. Unfortunately, circumstances in India are such that the religious minorities and the marginalised groups, the Dalits and others, have to live under the shadow of fear, of violence and domination, hate and official impunity, always looking over the shoulder for the next threat. Priests in forest parishes, pastors in villages, evangelists in distant rural areas, and social activists live under a very real and very dark shadow of fear.

In Kandhamal a year after that dreadful day of 24^th August 2008, the situation remains terrible. We know for a fact that perhaps as many as 20,000 [of the 50,000 who were rendered homeless when almost 5,000 houses were torched by Hindutva mobs] remain internally displaced persons, living as refugees or beggars in other towns of Orissa and in nearby states, some even in Mumbai and New Delhi. Some live in Christian ghettos created by the government which could not protect them in their home villages.

We know that so called fast track courts of the Orissa government have set free known killers because the police did not prepare a sound case and because the state failed to protect witnesses who were threatened and who could not give evidence. We know that government has reneged in its promise of financial relief and rehabilitation of widows and other victims of the violence. We also know to our deep regret how even so called judicial commissions headed by retired High Court judges have tried to pin blame on Christians citing conversions as the main cause of violence without even trying to identify the perpetrators of murderous violence.

The threat is potent enough for many Christians to prefer to live in government refugee camps in ghastly conditions because the killers roam scot free in their home villages while the police look on. All this has been documented by the international media, and by noted Indian Christian investigative reporters such as Anto Akkara and Vishal Arora. Independent scholars Professor Angana Chatterji of California, and Prof Manoranjan Mohanty and Advocate Vrinda Grover, both of New Delhi have documented this. Even the National Minorities Commission has commented on it. And of course the Church and its Human Rights activists continue to raise the issue with the National and State governments. The uneasy peace is maintained by armed police whose energies have however been diverted to cope with Maoist militant activity in this region and other states.

The main threat continues to be from Hindutva elements who have tasted blood and who have prospered and flourished under official patronage. Many of them are now joining the ruling party, the Biju Janata Dal. The police and administration is also heavily infiltrated by these elements. The lack of a witness programme and the involvement of crucial police officers prevent real investigation and ensure s a miscarriage of justice. We await superior court judgments to petitions that these criminal cases be tried outside Kandhamal and outside Orissa so that witness protection programmes can be put into place. .Official impunity, the tacit support to Hindutva, and increasing polarisation do not augur well for religious minorities.

But this is our homeland, and we will remain, even if the struggle for justice has to continue indefinitely. It is the state’s duty to end violence, a duty it must carry out. We are before the Supreme Court for this, as also before the President of India. We also know that the international human rights community is watching India.

For the Christians of Orissa, and of Kandhamal in particular, there is the strength of faith which prevents the fear from becoming a routing or crippling paralysis. Even in the darkest hour of violence in Orissa a year ago, the people refused to abandon their faith, and that is where they conquered fear of that sort.

As for reconciliation, most of us have been working for reconciliation and peace. Not reconciliation as a compromise, or as a sign of defeat; not reconciliation as surrender; but reconciliation born out of forgiveness and underpinned by justice ensured by the state. Murderers and killers, who did the violence out of ideologies of hate and mischief, need to be punished, but communities need to get over the suspicion and hate and come together once more.

Time is ripe for genuine reconciliation in Orissa and elsewhere.

Page four

Demands and Recommendations which the government must implement in Orissa:

i. Investigate the forcible conversion of Christians to Hinduism, and prosecute perpetrators under the provisions of the Indian Penal Code;

ii. Ensure that (with reference to the ruling of the Supreme Court in Writ Petitions) police unfailingly assist victims of violence to submit FIRs.

iii. There must be a Witness Protection Programme put into immediate operation giving serious consideration to the need for a suitable atmosphere for victims and witnesses to testify, in order to expedite prosecutions and convictions;

iv. Investigate reports of police officers failing to register cases or showing complicity in attacks, and bring prosecutions against offending officers;

v. Supply a substantial number of investigating officers and public prosecutors, and implement fast-track courts in at least four locations in Kandhamal district.

vi. Request that the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) carry out an investigation into the assassination of Vishwa Hindu Parishad leader Lakhmanananda Saraswati and the subsequent anti-Christian violence from 24^th August 2008, paying specific attention to the root causes of this violence, including the propagation of anti-Christian hatred;

vii. The Government should take measures to carry out an extensive research with the view to rehabilitating the victims of violence, make the recommendations public, and implement them without loss of time.

viii. Provide education to displaced children

ix. Provide further compensation for those who have been affected by the violence, including covering the loss of crops, livestock and employment, and assess required levels of compensation on a case-by-case basis through certified independent evaluators;

x. Undertake to follow the recommendations of the National Commission for Minorities in September 2008 on the establishment of Peace Committees, and further to take measures to ensure that all communities are adequately represented within such Peace Committees, to enable these to promote reconciliation and inter-communal understanding with integrity;

xi. Establish a State Commission for Minorities (in the model of its national counterpart) and ensure that members of the commission are appointed by transparent and non-partisan procedures;

xii. Repeal the Orissa Freedom of Religion Act, 1967.