Three years on, No flowers for Martyred Kandhamal

[Dr. John Dayal]

JOHN DAYAL

I would have liked to write that somewhere in India, some church –
Catholic, Orthodox, Syrian, Episcopal, Pentecost or Evangelical
Independent – held a prayer meeting on 23rd or 24th August 2011 for
those martyred in the violence that began in Kandhamal, Orissa, on
those dates in 2008. I was in Kandhamal during much of the week this
year, as in past years, with local Nuns, pastors and catholic
priests, so may have missed out on prayer services and observances
elsewhere in Orissa and the country at large.

I fear though, barring Masses and prayers on Sundays and weekdays in
a routine manner, and perhaps a passing reference in some homily,
there was no dedicated prayer service for Kandhamal. This would be
understandable in Kandhamal, where a terribly wounded peace filled
with fear and apprehension is really no more than a technical absence
of violence. But it is difficult o understand how a nation of a
billion and quarter people, 2.3 per cent of them Christians and
perhaps another similar number admirers or private followers of Jesus
Christ, could have forgotten the trauma of the victims.

The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and its sister organisations, the
Bharatiya Janata Party which was once a part of the ruling coalition
of Orissa, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad or the Bajrang Dal, did not
forget the day. It was the murder of their vice president,
Lakshmananda Saraswati by Maoists in his second Ashram at Jalespata,
that sparked off the violence. Bloodshed followed in forest villages
along the route when his body was taken along a couple of hundred
kilometres.

The Sangh Parivar as a matter of fact held the entire district to
hostage as part of its commemoration of that day. The police had
practically cut off Kandhamal to ensure that outsiders did not enter
the district, but political leaders from Cuttack and Bhubaneswar did
enter, including Ashok Sahu, the former Police officer of the Assam
Cadre who was a losing candidate of the BJP from Kandhamal in the last
elections to the Lok Sabha. Interestingly, one of the key speakers was
Manoj Pradhan, accused in several murder cases who is out on bail
because the court says he is a Member of the Orissa Legislative
Assembly and should be therefore not necessarily remain confined in
jail till his cases are disposed off in the fast track courts.

I was witness to RSS cadres on motorcycles keeping vigil along roads,
questioning people, including journalists, and mobilising crowds for
the rally on 23rd August. An early Janamashtmi festival in fact
provided them a double occasion, for it on the same religious festival
three years ago that Lakshmananda was killed, and many traditional
people mourned him on that holy day.

The actual political outburst was on 23rd in the district headquarters
at Phulbani where amidst police bundobast and policemen and Special
Police Officers near major churches, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad held
its memorial rally, and later submitted its memorandum to the
Collector. The memorandum called for an enquiry by the Central Bureau
of Investigation into the killing of Lakshmananda Saraswati and a halt
to conversions to Christianity. The memorandum also demanded
prohibition of cow slaughter, and action against those seeking
benefits by obtaining fake caste certificates, a phrase they use to
focus on Panos, or Dalit Christians in government service. Laxman
Panda, general secretary of the state unit of the VHP said they were
upset as the main culprits in the murder case were still at large.
Maoists who have claimed credit for the murder are in jail, as are ten
or so Christians accused by the police of masterminding the murder.
The last to be arrested was Azad, a Maoist leader, The High court at
Cuttack has rejected bail for the Christians a couple of times even as
the same court has released Manoj Pradhan on bail despite multiple
murder charges against him. The Sangh Parivar however wants to
implicate senior church leaders, as well as lay persons they have
been targetting for several years, and they made this clear both in
the rally in Phulbani and in a petition before the Orissa High court.

The Orissa government had indeed ordered a judiciary inquiry by high
court retired judge Sarat Chandra Mohapatra. The crime branch
investigated the murder. But the Sangh brotherhood said they were not
satisfied with the pace of investigation and demanded a CBI inquiry,
in the words of Priyanath Sharma, another VHP leader and a coordinator
of the campaign.

Perhaps a reminder is necessary of the magnitude of the violence that
was unleashed in Kandhamal and 11 other districts of Orissa in August
and September 2008, which also had repercussions in several other
states, particularly Karnataka. In Kandhamal alone, over 56,000
people, both the Dalit Panos and the Tribal Kondhs – almost 99.99 per
cent of them Christians by faith, were rendered homeless, spending
several days each in the forests without food and water, before they
could find their way to the safety of refugee camps opened at last by
the state government. By Church count, almost 6,000 houses were
looted, demolished or burnt down. Close to 300 big and small Churches,
including most major Catholic Parishes, were destroyed as were several
other convents, clinks, schools, hostels and social service
institutions include the premier organisation in the district, Jan
Vikas, which had organised the women of the backward district over
several years of hard work. Civil society counted perhaps a 100 dead,
though officials kept the count below 50. The number of injured was
never really assessed. Neither was gender violence. There are at least
three rape cases on record, but there certainly were many other women
who were molested or raped. The formal court cases on rape proceed
along at a snail’s pace. Almost no one has been sentenced for murder
in almost two dozen cases that have so far come up before the two fast
Track courts in Phulbani. The few convictions have been for
“abduction” of a person whose body has not been found even now, but is
presumed killed. Convictions have not come through because almost all
significant eye witnesses have been scared to death by the Sangh
Parivar. The remaining have been bribed. Despite complaints to the
judges, the police have not been able to put into p[ale a reasonable
or significant witness protection programme.

Reparations have also not been the best. The government has given
compensation to the widows – Rs 2 lakh from the Prime Minister’s
office and Rs 3 lakh from the Stat government, but not every widow has
received this compensation. There have been no job offers, no free
houses. There is a distinction made by governments of various states,
and the Union government too, when it comes to compensating widows of
communal violence of various sorts. The government showered its worst
face when it came to compensating for victims of arson. It divided the
houses into partially and fully damaged, even though it realised that
partially damaged houses would often have to be razed to the grown and
rebuilt. It offered Rs 50,000 for the fully damaged houses and Rs
20,000 for partially damaged, and that too in several tranches. Many
people had to use the money for food. There was not just sufficient
money anyway to rebuild houses which cost upwards of Rs 85,000 for a
small brick house with a tin roof. The church willy-nilly was forced
to come up with the balance of money. The Catholic Church and the
Believers Church have built about 2,500 and 1,000 houses with other
groups including the all India Christian Council also chipping in
with about a hundred houses each. But over 2,000 houses may never be
built unless new money is found. This of course does not include maybe
several hundred houses in remote villages or on disputed ground that
have been listed in the official or church records. The church has
gone to the Supreme court seeking proper reparations. Many of these
lapses have been listed in detail in the report of the National
People’s Tribunal which held hearings around this time last year in
New Delhi.

The government has also failed in its duty on issues of employment and
rehabilitation. The Supreme court has expressed its concern at the
slow pace of rehabilitation. This is specially visible in areas such
as Nandigiri in the worst hit Tikabali block. These are people who had
to escape massive violence in the Batticola village. The Church and
attached buildings were obliterated. The people sought to be converted
to Hinduism, or assaulted. The violence ended, but the people just
could not go back home. The government finally allotted them a piece
of land under a hill several kilometres away from G Udayagiri. The
Believers church made some houses for them, in three neat sterile
rows. But here was no land to till. Their fields had been left behind
in Batticola. There were no jobs for the men, none at all for the
women. Some had to travel to the nearby Udayagiri Town to find work as
casual labour. That situation remains.

But peace still remains tenuous. And some of the threats come from the
government, specially in Nandigiri. Thanks to the efforts of Gabriel
brother Markose, a lawyer who is helping the victims,. The villages
had almost completed a small building on common land to serve as a
community house and a church. But these seems to have run against the
whims of the local officials. The villages have been given notice to
demolish the building forthwith. There is also serious trouble in the
case of another church not too far away from Nandigiri, in the Raikia
Block. The Baptist Christian community had been worshipping at their
village church for more than 60 years. They have a graveyard on a plot
adjacent to the church. During the violence of 2008, their church was
badly destroyed, only a very little portion of the old church remains
now. Rebuilding of the church began over an year ago. But Hindutva
activists brought an earth mover and dug up the land between the
church and the graveyard. The administration conveniently declared
that it was disputed land. Revenue and police authorities repeatedly
told the Christian community not to proceed with reconstruction work
whenever they began work. On 23 August, the Revenue inspector came to
the site to issue an order to the Christians to stop work. The third
church affected is the one at Bakingia where the coercion comes from
the local fundamentalist group, who seem to be protected by the
authorities. Indian Currents in the past has also covered incidents
of economic and business blockade of Christians, which specially
injures the few Christian entrepreneurs.

It is in this backdrop that the Church, with all its mistakes over
the past three years in not being able to force the State government
to rebuild houses and lives, is trying to rebuild peace.

Archbishop Raphael Cheenath, who led the community in the last three
years returned earlier this year and has been succeeded by Archbishop
John Barwa, SVD, a tribal from Rourkela. Archbishop Barwa is the first
tribal Church leader of that rank in Orissa and is hoping that gives
him an entry point for some serious work. In his talks with me and
with Christian Media, Archbishop John Barwa has articulated his call
to tackle religious intolerance, and adding that more work is needed
to bring reconciliation in Kandhamal district. He maintains the Church
is fully involved with the people and remains apprised of the goings
on in the state. Three years after the incident, he finds the lower-
ranking officials “disturbing” Christians, but has hopes from higher-
ranking officials who now seem more “cooperative”. “My message is
clear: we need peace and tranquillity – no more violence, no killing.
The Christian faithful have the right to be in Kandhamal. They are
growing in faith," says the Archbishop, though a number of local
groups in the district continued to create problems, blocking the
provision of building materials and other supplies for Christian homes
and churches.

The focus is now on the Supreme Court of India where petitions are
expected sometimes this for a reopening of the cases of murder of
Christians and for redressal of the miscarriage of justice in the fast
track courts in Phulbani.

[Published in Indian Currents, New Delhi, 28 August 2011]