A NUN’S MURDER POSES QUESTIONS FOR STATE AND CHURCH

[Dr. John Dayal]

Activist and Whistle-blower Sr Valsa John pays with her life for
defending the Tribals’ ownership of their land, minerals and forests

JOHN DAYAL

It was proper that the candlelight vigil in memory of Sister Valsa
John of Dumka, Jharkhand, on Friday 18th November 2011 at New Delhi’s
Sacred Heart Cathedral became a celebration of her life, the work of
Christian activists in defence of the rights and dignity of the poor,
tribals, dalits and marginalised.

It also posed a challenge to the Church in general if it would retreat
in fear at the brutality of Valsa’s sacrifice, or get courage from the
luminescence of her sacrifice and go deeper into territories of human
rights still uncharted -- obeying the demands of Caritas in Veritate,
love and the Truth underpinning the social teachings of the church. It
also had a message for the State, the government and the political,
bureaucratic and criminal justice system – will they wake up to the
threat posed to society in general and to whistle blowers and rights
defenders in particular from the unholy regime of impunity and the
conspiracy between vested interests in governance and the corporate
sector for whom profits are God.

Valsa John’s fellow activists in Jharkhand, New Delhi and elsewhere,
mourned a comrade. The gathered Archbishops, Bishops, Nuns, Priests
and Laity felt the loss of a person who heard the call of God when she
was already working as a teacher. Valsa had responded to that call
with an alacrity and sincerity that surely will remain a lesson for
many more than just her congregation, the illustrious Sisters of
Charity of Jesus and Mary. To the common people, Sr. Valsa John is a
Martyr whose blood would not go in vain. But they also wanted to find
out why she was murdered, calling for a high level enquiry, possibly
by the Central Bureau of Investigations, into the criminal conspiracy
behind her dastardly murder because Jharkhand State’s police
investigation and justice system are rickety at best, and often part
of the corporate and mafia conspiracies.

Sr Valsa John, 52, is the fourth social activist killed in unexplained
circumstances in India this year. Like many other activists, trade
union leaders and Right To Information crusaders, she had a
premonition of her death, and had warned friends and relative, and
perhaps even the police, that she feared a brutal end.

Valsa was brutally murdered in her room in a rented house in Pachaura,
In Pakur in Dumka district of Jharkhand late at night on Tuesday, 15th
November 2011. The bloodstained floor of Sister Valsa’s room bore
testimony to the violence. She had been attacked by a group, said to
number anywhere from two dozen to forty men armed with swords, axes
and other weapons. Her head was nearly severed from her body. Some
Maoist literature and a spade were left behind, possibly as a ruse.

Many immediate theories were floated to account for the attack. One
was that Valsa may have incurred the wrath of a group of local
criminals for seeking justice for a raped tribal girl and that may
have been the immediate provocation . Valsa had sought an appointment
with Pakur deputy commissioner S K Singh after the Amrapara police
refused to lodge an FIR against the alleged rapists. Singh did not
deny that an appointment had been sought, newspapers reported, quoting
him as saying “She may have contacted my office for an appointment.”
Amrapara police maintained no FIR about a rape had been lodged at the
police station, although they detained two persons for questioning
today in connection with the murder. A deathly silence remains in
Pachaura, the village where Valsa was butchered.

The local media too has taken sides, some imputing motives. The local
reporters of the large media such as the Times of India have
particularly come in for scrutiny for their apparently biased
reporting.

Valsa was laid to rest at the Christian cemetery at Dudhani in Dumka
on 17th November after the Mass in St. Paul’s Cathedral. Her eldest
brother, Baby Malamel, and two of her nephews, from Kochi were
present for the funeral. About 600 to 700 people were present for the
funeral, 200 of whom were from the village Pachaura where she
lived.Even as her body as buried in the Jharkhand she had come to
love, Valsa has been espoused by national and international
organisations working in Human Rights. Amnesty International asked for
an enquiry at the highest level, suspecting the hand of mining mafia.
Cardinal Telesphore Toppo called it a shame for the state. Officials
of almost every church organisation – from the Catholic and Syrian
Churches to the Evangelical and Pentecost denominations, made common
cause, calling her a martyr in the cause of serving the poor, as
mandated by Jesus Christ who she loved so dearly.

Sr Mary Scaria, an Advocate of the Supreme Court of India and also an
activist, recalled Sr Valsa as a member of her own congregation, the
Sisters of Charity of Jesus and Mary known for their work in education
and activists in various parts of the country. The Congregation was
founded on the 4th November in 1803, in a little village of Lovendegem
in the diocese of Gent, Belgium by the parish priest, Fr. Peter Joseph
Triest, in the aftermath of the French Revolution which left so much
poverty and misery, specially that of the children. On 4 November 2003
the Congregation celebrated 200 hundred years of living out the
charism of the Sisters of Charity. Following the footsteps of the
founder, no challenge was too great, no request too trivial and no one
too precious. This has been a sacred history during which every
milestone has seen the deepening of the threefold dimension of the
SCJM life of love - Love for God her father, love for one another and
love for all peoples especially the poor, the abandoned and those who
are deprived of love and dignity in the world. The sisters are active
in England, France, Ireland, Netherlands, Israel, Rwanda, Mali, Congo,
South Africa, Venezuela, India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, the Republic of
Central Africa and Rome. The Mother house of the Congregation is in
Ghent, Belgium.
This was the congregation Valsa chose to be her destiny.

Valsa was born on 19 March 1958 at Vazhakala village of Idappally in
Ernakulam District of Kerala, the second child of her parents. A good
student, she went on to become a teacher in her home town’s St. Pius
UP School,. Her life still felt unfulfilled, and one day Valsa decided
she would live and work for the poor and exploited people of our
country. The Sisters of Charity of Jesus and Mary had a convent in her
village and she approached them and told them about her wish. They
told her that the SCJM sisters work in the rural areas, mainly among
the marginalized people and through this congregation; she would be
able to fulfil her desire. She did not hesitate. After her religious
training she was assigned to Palamu district. In 1993 she came to
Sahibganj district and worked with the Jesuit Fathers at Kodma. She
was transferred to Jiapani Mission in 1995.

Jesuit priest and tribal intellectual-activist Dr Marianus Kujur says
“If she wanted she could have had a cosy and comfortable life in
‘God’s own country’, where she started her career as a teacher more
than 20 years ago. But she did not.

She came to Pachaura in 1998 and the anti-mines movement in the area
started in 2000, working for the people in coal mining areas of
Jharkhand for 12 years and guided them in their struggles. She perhaps
did not realise it then, but she was joining a distinguished band of
people who had fought for the right of the tribals. Long ago in the
1880s, suffocated by injustice and oppression from all sides
visionary leader Sido of Bognadih village near Barhait sent a clarion
call to all the Santhals to get organized and rise up in arms. His
brothers Kanhu, Chand and Bhairav and his sisters Phulo and Jhano too
joined him to give his leadership shape and substance. This,
historians recall, resulted in the legendary Santhal rebellion of
1855, which swept the British administrators off their feet.

Valsa landed in the midst of important developments – the issue of
rights over the coal in that mineral rich region. Kataldih village
near Amrapara block in Pakur district has reserves of good quality of
coal on a very large scale The main users are the Punjab State
Electricity Board and the private sector Emta Group of companies –
collectively called the Panem coal mines..

Human Rights group Peoples Union for Civil Liberties, PUCL,
investigated the issue back in 2003 and published a detailed report on
the Pachaura coal mining project when the media began reporting
resistance from local tribals to the Project. The PSEB is a ‘public
utility service’ wholly owned by the Government of Punjab. By a letter
of the Ministry of Coal and Mines (Department of Coal), letter No.
47011/1(4) 2000- CPAM dated 26th December, 2001, Pachaura Central
Block was allotted to the PSEB for captive mining for supply of coal
on an exclusive basis to its own power plants. The PSEB formed a Joint
Venture Company, PANEM Coal Mines Limited, with Eastern Minerals and
Trading Agency (EMTA) to produce, supply, transport and deliver coal
from the coalmines of Pachaura Central Block, exclusively to PSEB
thermal power stations. According to Gazette notification, by the
Ministry of Coal and Mines (Department of Coal) F.no.38011/4/2002 CA,
dated Feb.22, 2002, the Central Government specified “as an end use
the supply of Coal from the Pachaura Central Block by PANEM Coal Mines
Limited on an exclusive basis to the power plants of Punjab
Electricity Board for generation of thermal power.

PUCL noted that the Government surveyed and delineated the whole area
covering 41 square kilometers with demarcated divisions such as North,
South and Central Blocks. Pachaura Central Block is given to PSEB.
This Block measures approximately 13 square kilometers covering nine
revenue villages (mouzas) such as Singhdehri, Taljhari, Kathaldih,
Chilgo, Bisunpur, Dangapara, Amjhari, Liberia and Pachaura. It is
estimated that Pachaura Central Block holds 562 million ton of coal
reserve. Out of this reserve it was proposed that in an area of
approximately 13 square kilometers open cast mining will be done in 11
square kilometers. The Central Block envisaged 44 years of open cast
mining to extract 289 million tons of coal. The Jharkhand Government
is expected to get annual royalty at the rate of Rs. 100 crores.

The Government claimed it was legally within its power to acquire land
for specific purpose given the Land Acquisition Act. The PUCL team
heard the local people who said “We have been living here for long.
Our forefathers Sido and Kanhu and their followers sacrificed their
lives and won for us freedom from oppression and gave us an identity.
And all of a sudden, like a bolt from the blue, we hear that someone
is coming to enter our premises and oust us as if we are encroachers
and criminals.”

The people knew that that elsewhere in Santhal Parganas, at Lalmatia
and at Chitra, collieries have displaced and decimated tribals and
most of the promises of rehabilitation remained only on paper. The
PUCL report highlighted that the tribal community is a cohesive
community with its communitarian mode of living, interaction and
decision-making. It depends on a life close to nature with its rivers
and forests, with agricultural fields and grazing lands, places of
communitarian gatherings for festivals and village functions. It also
has its ancestral abode right in its midst. It is in this socio-
cultural phenomenon they live and conduct their affairs. Their homes
may be mud walled and grass roofed but they have a beauty and
functional practicality of their own. Land is their most important
natural and valuable asset and imperishable endowment from which the
tribals derive their sustenance, social status, economic and social
equality, permanent place of abode and work and living. It is a
security and source fr economic empowerment. Therefore, the tribes too
have great emotional attachment to their lands.

Civil servant and later Commissioner for Scheduled Tribes Dr. B. D.
Sharma has noted this was the thesis behind Jawaharlal Nehru’s
Panchsheel which enunciated that “ people would develop along the
lines of their own genius and we should avoid imposing anything on
them. We should try to encourage in every way their own traditional
arts and culture. Tribal rights in land and forest should be
respected. We should try to build up a team of their own people to do
the work of administration and development. Some technical personnel
from outside will, no doubt, be needed, especially in the beginning.
But we should avoid introducing too many outsiders into tribal
territory. We should not over administer these areas or overwhelm them
with a multiplicity of schemes. We should rather work through, and not
in rivalry to, their own social and cultural institutions. We should
judge results, not by statistics, or the amount of money spent, but by
the quality of human character that is evolved.”

This was codified in the Fifth Schedule of the Constitution which is
an integral scheme of the Constitution with direction, philosophy and
anxiety to protect the tribes from expropriation. Its objective is ‘to
preserve tribal autonomy, their culture and economic empowerment to
ensure social, economic and political justice for preservation of
peace and good government in the Scheduled Areas. B D Sharma said all
actions of the State must be in furtherance of the above
Constitutional objective and dignity of persons belonging to the
Scheduled Tribes, preserving the integrity of the Scheduled Areas and
ensuring distributive justice as an integral scheme thereof. The
executive in the name of the Governor stands vested with all the
necessary powers, perhaps more, for achieving the aforesaid
objectives.”. Sr Valsa John believed in this thesis of justice for the
tribals.

The sustained resistance of the people forced the PSEB to work out a
rehabilitation package which included monetary compensation,
employment against land in exceptional circumstances only to fill
vacancies, jobs for one member of a family which has lost three or
more acres of land,

Sr Valsa had been jailed in 2007 for protesting against the forced
acquisition of adivasi lands for Panem. It was because of her role in
negotiations with all the authorities that a more comprehensive
agreement was worked out. The agreement with Panem paved the way for
alternate land, employment, a health centre and free education for the
children of the displaced families. Apart from economic rehabilitation
and resettlement benefits, the company agreed to fill the pits of the
open cast mines, level them, put good sand, make it cultivable and
give back the land to the people. It agreed to a crop compensation for
the land under mining at Rs. 6000 per acre per year, a share of the
profit to the people (Rs. 10,000 per acre per year) till they fill the
pits and give back the land to the people and undertaking to level the
remaining land of the people and make it fit for better cultivation
using lift irrigation facilities. The company also agreed to jobs for
the affected people, free education, a hospital with all modern
facilities, quarters with four rooms and a veranda and the standard
facilities under existing government rules.

As the local media now reports, there were some who were dissatisfied
with the agreement Valsa had reached. No one knows if any of these
disgruntled elements are a part of the conspiracy.

For civil society, Sr Valsa’s murder is part of another chain too.
Three other social activists have been killed this year after fighting
on behalf of victims of human rights violations and marginalized
communities, or using India’s Right to Information legislation to
expose human rights violations and government corruption. In November
2011, Nadeem Sayed, a Gujarat-based activist, was stabbed to death
after he testified on behalf of the victims of the Naroda Patiya
massacre case in which 95 persons had been killed during the 2002
Gujarat anti-Muslim riots. In August, environmental activist Shehla
Masood, 35, was shot dead in Bhopal city in August after trying to
expose environmental violations of urban infrastructure projects and
challenging mining plans in Madhya Pradesh. In March, Jharkhand social
activist Niyamat Ansari was abducted and killed after he used the
Right to Information legislation to expose local contractors and
officials who had embezzled funds earmarked for the rural poor.
Suspicions centre around armed Maoists because Ansari's exposes
threatened their share of the embezzled funds in return for protecting
the corrupt contractors and officials.

India’s civil society has been demanding new legislation to protect
activists who received threats after filing petitions demanding
crucial information affecting the livelihoods of local communities.

For the Church and the Christian community, the brutal murder of Sr
Valsa has to be also seen in a different light. This certainly is not
a question of persecution of a minority community. Sr Valsa was in
Dumka not as a proselyser, as some in the print and electronic media
make her seem, but as a human rights activist obeying her calling. But
the murder does have a critical mission dimension. After being
battered into some sort of submission to the will of the state during
the seven year regime of the pro Hindutva Bharatiya Janata Party-led
National Democratic Alliance, and the last eight years of an insipid
United Progressive Alliance, the church is at the cusp, or the
precipice, of a great rethink.

The State has betrayed the Church on the issue of rights to Dalit
Christians. It has given no clear answer in the Supreme court which is
hearing Writ petitions by various groups on restoring the rights of
Dalit Muslims and Christians which they enjoyed before the passing of
the 1950 Presidential Order. The State has also shown no signs of
reversing the notorious Freedom of Faith laws enacted by many Congress
and BJP ruled States. The government is also playing an insidious game
in using the Right to Education Act to “tame” the church institutions.
These are signals as much as the central government’s silence to the
call of that great Hindutva leader, oncologist Dr Praveen Togadia of
the Vishwa Hindu Parishad who has called for the beheading of anyone
who converts a single Hindu. Any other person would have been in jail
for saying less.

Will the church be cowed down before this building pressure. There are
some murmurs saying that the church must focus on faith and leave
social action to others. A section of the Church wants to focus on
insinuation building. A small but influential section of the church
wants to stress its “nationalistic” credentials to cosy up to the
right wing Hindutva elements and evade their political wrath. But this
is not the majority of the Church.

One is happy to note a strong spine in all denominations of the
Church. The recent mass movement, which the church supported in Tamil
Nadu, is an indication of this. The Bishop and priests who
participated in the movement against an ill planned nuclear power
plant in Koodankulam where villagers of Idinthakarai staged relay
hunger strikes to protest against the Koodankulam nuclear plant whose
safety has been called into question. Right wing propagandists,
politicians and a section of the media have joined hands to demonize
the Church. It is heartening to see the brave response of the people
and the religious who hold the public cause to be superior to their
own well being. The situation in Orissa, Chhatisgarh and several other
states may demand the same fortitude and courage from the church. The
Nun working in a distant forest hamlet, or standing in challenge to
the conspiracy of mafia, police and the corporate sector, is proof
that the church actually practices its theoretical preferential
commitment to the poor.