Thursday, October 30, 2008

AIDWA meeting Chief Justice of India for Central Bureau of Investigation probe into Nun's gang rape in Orissa

PRESS RELEASE
31 OCTOBER 2008

AIDWA TO MEET CHIEF JUSTICE OF INDIA SEEKING CBI PROBE INTO NUN’S GANG RAPE

The All India Democratic Women’s Association [AIDWA], the women’s wing of the Communist Party of India Marxist has in a compassionate letter to the Catholic Nun who was gang raped in Kandhamal, Orissa, said it would ask the Chief Justice of India to order a CBI enquiry into the assault on her.

AIDWA is the most major of a large number of national women’s organisations who have expressed deep concern at the plight of the Nun who was tortured in the anti Christian violence in Orissa which continues since it started on 24 August 20-07.

Left parties are perhaps the only political groups to have held protest demonstrations in the Kandhamal district capital Phulbani and the state capital Bhubaneswar against the anti Christian orgy of violence by Hindutva elements.

The Nun was gang raped by a Hindutva nun while police watched. She was taken away from the police and tortured again. A third time, the police abandoned her while they were coming to hospital in Bhubaneswar by bus.

The Nun said she had no faith in the Orissa police and beseeched the Supreme Court of India through her counsel for an enquiry by the federal agency, Central Bureau of Investigation. This was opposed by the state government which wants its own police to carry on the investigation. The Supreme Court rejected the appeal of the Nun. The Nun later addressed the media with the story of her ordeal.

The following is the text of the letter by Subhashini Ali, President , and Sudha Sunderaraman, General Secretary, of WIDWA sent to Dr John Dayal, secretary general, All India Christian Council, for sending to the Nun:
“Dear Sister

On behalf of all the more than one crore members of our orgnisation, the All India Democratic Women’s Association (AIDWA), we extend our heartfelt support and solidarity in this extremely difficult and traumatic time. We appreciate your courage and your brave struggle for justice and would like to assure you that you are not alone. We and many, many others are with you.

After December, 2007, when the attacks on Christians, their churches, their shops and their homes started in Kandhamal, AIDWA has been protesting against these and demanding stringent action against the perpetrators. Many of our units in different parts of the country have also organized strong protests. After your recent press conference at which you spoke so movingly and with such dignity about the horrors you had not only witnessed but also been subjected to, we have sent telegrams from every state in the country to the Chief Minister of Orissa demanding that the investigation into your complaint be transferred to the CBI. We are also planning to meet the Chief Justice of India after he returns to the country to make the same request to him

We know that you are going through an extremely difficult time. Whenever it is convenient for you, we would be privileged to meet with you personally. If there is anything you would like us to do, please do not hesitate to let us know.
An AIDWA delegation, of which both of us will be part, will be visiting Kandhamal on the 1st and 2nd of November.

We are also extremely saddened by the tragic death of Father Digal. Our sincere condolences to all of you in this moment of great loss.

We are yours in solidarity,

Subhashini Ali, President and Sudha Sunderaraman, General Secretary, AIDWA”

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Assure security to depose before Justice Panigrahi Commission

FROM DR JOHN DAYAL
Plaintiff in Person
Justice Panigrahi Commission of Enquiry in the Kandhamal, Orissa violence of December 2007

To The Honourable Commission

1. I, John Dayal, Plaintiff in Person, state as follows;
2. I have been summoned by the Honourable Justice Basudeo Panigrahi Commission to appear before it in Cuttack, Bhubaneswar on 1st November 2008.
3. I have just heard that my close friend Father Bernard Digal, treasurer of the Archdiocese of Bhubaneswar, who was grievously injured in an attack on him by religious fundamentalists in Kandhamal during the August to October 2008 violence, died in hospital of complications. Those responsible for the attack are not known to have been arrested. His death has affected the community deeply, and I am troubled in my mind. Fr Bernard was himself an applicant and was to reappear before the Honourable Commission.
4. The general law and order situation in Orissa continues to be aggravating. The Honourable Chief Minister admits 10,000 persons are in government refugee camps. Unknown numbers are in forests. It will be impossible to summon witnesses I may want to cross examine, or who may want to depose for the 2007 violence. The assailants are scot free, and the few arrested may be out on bail, as happened in 2007 December violence according to depositions before the Commission in earlier hearings.
5. I have been, together with the Archbishop and Mr Radha Kant Nayak, MP, subjected of a sustained and criminal hate campaign which exceeds definitions of libel and criminal defamation. The hate campaign, which has been carried out in public dharnas by leaders of fundamentalist organisations, has also been carried out in a section of the Oriya language Press and has been widely reported in the media. A ruling political party, the BJP by its acts and deeds has given moral support to this hate campaign by visits to the dharna or agitation spot by its leaders. This has made the government complicit in the campaign against me. This has also patently created an atmosphere of hate and can, I fear and apprehend, foment violence against me in Bhubaneswar and Cuttack, and other parts of Orissa.
6. In a past visit to Bhubaneswar, I had to return to Delhi from Bhubaneswar because of the hate and threat environment. I of course could not move out of Bhubaneswar, much less go to Kandhamal or other places hit by the violence.
7. Other witnesses, and past witnesses and applicants are also not in a position to depose before the commission for the same reasons and as such will not be available for examination and cross examination.
8. It is therefore averred that the environment is not conducive to my safety and security. I apprehend a serious threat to my security and to my life and limb, and to my freedom of movement.
9. The Honourable Commission and the State Government, I fear, are in no position to guarantee my safety, security and life.
10. I, therefore pray that my deposition be deferred to such future dates as and when the environment is conducive, and my security and safety is guaranteed.

For this, I shall as in duty bound, ever be grateful

John Dayal
Applicant in Person

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

PRESS RELEASE FROM THE ARCHBISHOP OF CUTTACK,

ARCHBISHOP RAPHAEL CHEENATH S.V.D.

1. With respect to the communal violence that began in Kandhamal district of the state of Orissa in December, 2007 the state government has appointed the Justice Basudev Panigrahi Commission of Inquiry. Similarly, with respect to the communal violence that flared up in August 2008 in different parts of Orissa, which continues unabated, the state government has appointed the Justice S.C. Mohapatra Commission of Inquiry.

2. I am profoundly distressed by the fact that the Chief Minister did not consult the victim community before deciding on the persons to head these Commissions. The very least that is expected from the state government is that it take the victim community into confidence so that the Commissions of Inquiries are headed by persons who are, in the perception of the victim community, both independent and strong willed enough to hold the officers of the state responsible. The present appointments have been made in haste disregarding the point of view of the victim communities.

3. Our experiences before the Justice Basudev Panigrahi Commission have been demoralizing to say the least. Advocates for the victim communities appeared before Justice Panigrahi and filed statements on behalf of approximately 275 victims and others. They began full-hearted participation in the inquiry despite their reservations as to the independence of the Commission. Their confidence was shaken when the second round of attacks began and they informed Justice Panigrahi that not only the Christian community but also some of the advocates representing the victims had come under the threat of assault and they therefore requested Justice Panigrahi to adjourn the hearing for two months. Justice Panigrahi refused. It became impossible for the victim community and their advocates to participate freely in the Commission. Victims were without food, houses were being burnt, people were being killed; all this was pointed out to Justice Panigrahi and a most reasonable request was made to keep the Commission in abeyance until matters settled down.

4. Not only was the request refused but the Commission is proceeding in undue haste. Some members of the victim community undoubtedly manage to attend but the leading team of lawyers and the main victims cannot attend. It is also very difficult to travel within Kandhamal to meet the victims and prepare them for the proceedings. They have been traumatized and are scared and need to be given confidence to speak out. This is especially so because the assailants are still roaming free in the villages and may, in all likelihood, attack the witnesses for deposing before the Commission. It was expected of the Commission that it would have some sensitivity in respect of witness protection to maintain the sanctity of the Commission proceedings; but this is not so. A formal order has been made but no protection on the ground is available.

5. This leads me to the conclusion that the Justice Panigrahi Commission is more interested in covering up the misdeeds of the state government and its police force whose actions have been truly shameful, rather than to identify the organisations and prominent individuals behind the fascistic attacks. The Commission wishes to produce its report in undue haste with a view to giving the Chief Minister and his officers a clean chit. In the circumstances I have no hesitation in stating that I have no faith whatsoever in the Justice Panigrahi Commission.
2

6. This view also holds good for the Justice S.C. Mohapatra Commission. I have nothing against Justice Panigrahi or Justice Mohapatra personally. But I do protest the appointment being made unilaterally without consultation with the victim community. He to has issued notice to the victim community in the middle of all this violence to file affidavits by the 15th of November, 2008. Such a formal approach displays an insensitivity to the suffering of the victims. Victims who do not know where their next meal is coming from or those who are hiding in the forests are hardly likely to be able to identify an advocate and meet the prescribed deadline. What these Commissions need is a person of dynamism like Justice Krishna Iyer with a compassionate heart and a deep social understanding of the nature of communal riots. Perhaps the state government ought to have approached Mr. Justice B.N. Srikrishna who headed the Commission of Inquiry in respect of the Bombay massacres. Such judges would indeed have inspired confidence. Sadly this is not the case. I do not have confidence that the Justice Mohapatra Commission will indeed do
justice to the victims in Orissa.

7. I am constrained to release this statement because there is, particularly of late, a distressing tendency to avoid naming and catching the culprits immediately and to waste time by appointing Commissions with pliant persons heading them in order to protract the conflict and to get political benefits by stigmatizing minority communities. This strategy will not work. The people of Orissa as indeed the people of the world know who the assailants are. This is no secret. What it needs is not an Inquiry for the truth is well known. It needs the political will to do what is right in accordance with the Constitution of India and the laws of this land.

8. In this, I do believe that I have the support of all religious communities in India. I do believe I have the support of those professing the Hindu religion in India as well. Hinduism is a religion of peace, nonviolence and tolerance. I am a profound admirer of the philosophical and religious tenets of Hinduism. I can therefore say with absolute certainty that those who attacked Christians in the name of religion are profoundly anti-hindu and also anti-national. They seek to divide and thus weaken our wonderful nation of kind hearted and generous people.

9. This is why I am so utterly distressed that our national leadership does not appear to be capable of actingbravely and decisively with compassion and clarity to challenge these fascist forces that have divided thenation and committed so many horrendous crimes again and again. What is at stake in the communal attacks in Orissa is not just the future of the Christian community and its security and safety, but the future of our democratic nation itself.

10. May God help us all.

Archbishop Raphael Cheenath S.V.D.
Archbishop of Cuttack – Bhubaneswar
22.10.08

Monday, October 20, 2008

Orissa Update:

Kandhamal Dalits’ turmeric crop may be stolen
20 October 2008

After losing their homes – more than 4,300 log huts, mud and brick houses have been burnt down – the 50,000 Christians o0f Kandhamal in Orissa hiding in forests for two months or living as refugees in government and NGO camps across the state, also risk losing their precious crops of the world famous aromatic turmeric and ginger to marauding neighbours egged on by Hindutva hordes.

Losing the crops will not just be losing the last hope they had of an income, it also marks the end of so much labour of love, and so much hope.

A very large number of the Dalits and Tribals -- Christian, Hindu or traditional religionists -- of the Kandhamal plateau in the heart of Orissa state are marginal farmers and rural workers for whom the turmeric and ginger added to the pittance they earned from selling forest produce such as seeds of the sal trees, resin, and mango and jackfruit.

Even this was a big racket with middlemen, most of them Oriyas of the upper castes and trading classes from the big cities, buying the produce for a song, and selling it at a five hundred to a thousand per cent profit. The ginger and turmeric grown organically on the hill slopes and valleys, fed by rainwater and tilled in backbreaking labour, are so aromatic they are used in medicines and in the cosmetic industry.

Church and other NGOs had in fact been working with the small farmers, or rather with their wives, to see how they could cut out the middlemen. This was one reason all the moneyed men were financing the late Lakhmanananda Saraswati in his war against the Church.
The Panos Dalits face a twin crisis. Many of their fields have been taken over by Tribals under the newly implemented Forest Act. This had started happening after the December 2007 violence. Now with the men and women missing, the crops are at the mercy of the neighbours and others who have been mobilised by the traders and the Sangh activists.

Experts say a majority of the big traders are outsiders from Gajapati or Ganjam districts and even from as far as Cuttack, who form the middle and upper castes and are traditional supporters of the Hindutva groups. A few Panos who had become traders have always been under pressure.

Kandhamal ginger is understood to be available in the United States, Germany and Netherlands, and Japan. About 12,000 hectare is recorded as under turmeric cultivation with an annual production of just over 10,000 tonne.

And now the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and the Bajrang Dal have started targeting Union police forces, many of whom are said to be trainees. Reports say sections of the Central Reserve Police Force are frequently ambushed, and forced to run away.

The VHP has also launched a media campaign against the CRPF, accusing its policemen of harassing Hindu women.

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

POLITICALWILL NEEDED TO STOP ANTI CHRISTIAN VIOLENCE

Press Statement – 14th October, 2008

[Text of Statement by Most Rev. Vincent M Concessao, Archbishop of Delhi, Dr John Dayal, Secretary General, All India Christian Council and Dr Valson Thampu, Principal, St. Stephen’s College, Christian Members of the National Integration Council after its meeting on 13th October 2008 in New Delhi]
We are happy that the meeting of the National Integration Council was called at last after three years as India seemed engulfed in several instances of communal frenzy, terrorism and extremist violence., But we were sad to see that beyond platitudes and political polemics, Union and State governments gave little indication of the political will and administrative focus required to restore confidence in the people, specially the minorities.
We are particularly distressed to see that while the continuing anti-Christian violence in Kandhamal, Orissa, Karnataka was forcefully detailed by not just the Christian members but the leaders of the Left parties, senior Jurists and Civil Society and Human Rights activists, there was no assurance forthcoming as to when the more than 50,000 Internally Displaced persons, refugees in their homeland, can return home without being forced at gunpoint by the Bajrang Dal to become Hindus.
For us, peace would be when the last refugee is back in his home, secure in his faith, with a livelihood restored, his children’s future secured as it should be in a secular India.
Hours before the NIC meeting began, arsonists had struck a Catholic church in rural Bangalore, and in Kandhamal a CRPF jawan was reportedly killed by a Sangh mob, and the mutilated body of a Christian farmer was recovered in the fields. When these were personally brought to the notice of the two chief ministers, they were dismissive of the reports.
No less a person than the Chairman of the National Commission for Minorities, Mr Shafi Qureshi, a former Union Minister and Governor, had to say “the people are losing faith’ in institutions and political parties.
The Chief Minster of Orissa admitted that at least 10,000 of them are still in government run refugee camps. Tens of thousands are in the forests or have migrated to towns outside Kandhamal, and even outside Orissa. The government has admitted forty dead, though we have details of 59 men and women mercilessly killed in the seven weeks of unabated mayhem.
The confrontation between Union Home Minister Mr. Shivraj Patil and Orissa Chief Minister Mr. Naveen Pattnaik clearly showed the utter lack of coordination between the Union and State governments, the delays in sending police forces, the gross incompetence of the State officials in deploying central troops and helicopters. Though the government claims to have arrested 1,000 men, television every day shows scenes of violence and forcible conversions to Hinduism where no policeman seems to be present and the goons rule the landscape.
The inability of the Government to provide security to relief teams to go into the interiors has added to the misery. We have demanded we be given adequate security to take relief to everyday affected village and to the people still hiding in the forests.
We call upon political parties to urgently reach a consensus on curbing such senseless violence which is terrorising minorities. We have also strongly opposed the profiling of all minorities, and demand urgent confidence building measures. On our part we have done all we can. We have met every Constitutional authority at the Centre and in the affected states, heads of political parties and have even moved the High Courts and the Supreme Court. We have had dialogues with religious heads, and with leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party. We have reaffirmed the Church’s position against forcible and fraudulent conversions. And yet some government and political groups continue to harp on the same old matter which is a non-issue to the rest of the country, as a justification of the violence.
For our own community, we have demanded an early restoration of Scheduled Caste rights for Dalit Christians, a Justice Sachhar-like commission also for assessing the development status of the Christian community, and adequate representation in police and administrative forces of all states, no erosion of minority education rights and lifting of current difficulties in some places to open new schools. We have also strongly demanded that government and society overview be maintained to see that institutions, especially in the primary level in rural areas, do not teach hate, and that hate crimes in their entirety are immediately proscribed.
Other urgent steps that have long been kept in cold storage are;
1. Stern action against the hate Crimes. Hate campaigns are the incubators of communal violence.
2. Enacting of the Communal Violence Bill ensuring that it takes care of the concerns of the Christian community and does not further arm communal administrations or further embolden impunity of communalised police elements.
3. Comprehensive relief and rehabilitation policies that wipe the tear from the eye of victims of communal violence and give them the opportunity of creating a new life.
4. Adequate representation to all minorities and underprivileged groups in the Police, Administrative and Judicial systems.
5. A thorough revamp of the education system, including a close watch on the recent rash of communally motivated village and rural schools set up by political groups, so that once again secularism, religious and cultural diversity and pluralism become the cornerstone of our nation-building.
6. Above all, the State – Parliament, Supreme Court, and Executive – must ensure that no one remains under the illusion, unfortunately very well founded at present that communal politics, hate and the demonization of religious minorities can bring them electoral dividends in an India of the Twenty-first Century.

Monday, October 13, 2008

Christians speak out at National Integration Council

National Integration Council
Government of India
13 October 2008

Joint Statement by Christian Members:

Archbishop Vincent Concessao, Archbishop of Delhi
Dr John Dayal, Secretary General, All India Christian Council
Dr. Valson Thampu, Principal, St Stephen’s College, Delhi

Mr Prime Minister and Honourable Members of the National Integration Council,
We stand before you as Indian citizens professing the Christian faith. We bring you greetings from a community traumatised and struggling for its existence in the state of Orissa, and buffeted by senseless and motivated violence in eight other states of this wonderful country which is not only our beloved motherland, but is one of the first homelands of the Christian Faith in the world.
We feel it is a tragedy that the National Integration Council has met so rarely since the Honourable Prime Minister reconstituted it some years ago. As the highest national body of its kind outside the formal structure of Parliament, it could perhaps have been the forum to discuss solutions to the many incendiary issues that have ravaged our nation in recent times. There could have been solutions found, we dare say, in discussions unshackled by political whips and other agendas. Patently, Government must ensure that the NIC becomes a useful instrument in the continuing process of preserving and strengthening national integration.
For us, the threat has never been solely against the Christian community, its major victims though we are in recent months.
We know to our pain that for all practical purposes, Kandhamal district in Orissa seems not to be a part of India, as police and paramilitary could not enter it for weeks. The Indian Constitution remained operative. The National Commission for Minorities in earlier two visits in 2007 and a recent visit in August – September 2008 gave clear findings about ineffectiveness of local police and administration, and even suggested connivance, in the carnage.
The threat, therefore, is posed to the very Idea of India, as Jawaharlal Nehru would have said, to the Writ of the Constitution, to the rule of law. The Prime Minister has correctly called the horrific events in Orissa a National Shame. They are a slur on our ancient civilisation, our collective heritage. They are also cognizable crimes.
Honourable Members,
Even as we meet here today, the embers still smoke in the ruins of more than 4,300 houses and 157 Churches burnt in the Kandhamal and 13 other districts of Orissa. In a meticulously planned and executed conspiracy, a frenzied and well armed band of political criminals has threatened our community as perhaps it has never been in its 2,000 year old history in India, one of the earliest homelands of the faith.
We face a trial by gun, sword, fire and rapine, tantamount to ethnic cleansing. Over 50,000 who were forcibly purged from 300 villages now hide in forests as Internally Displaced persons, or cower in Government refugee camps in sub human conditions. They have been given a simple option – Convert to Hinduism or die.
The elements threatening them now, and who murdered 59 of them in 45 days, have been identified as – and have often come before Television camera to in macabre boast -- members of the Bajrang Dal and its sister organisations. They say it is their revenge for the killing of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad vice president Lakhmanananda Saraswati on 23 August 2008. The Church condemned the murder unequivocally and called for a high powered enquiry. The guilty must be traced, arrested, tried and punished -- whatever is their religion, or ideology. The Maoists have given TV interviews accepting responsibility for the assassination. The State police have said it is the work of the Maoists.
And yet a Nun has been gang-raped, many men and women burnt alive or hacked to death. A strange retribution against an innocent people. We fear it is a conspiracy to polarise communities along religious divides in areas which had been peaceful through the decades.
The Sangh Parivar claims the violence is against forcible and fraudulent conversions to Christianity. We denounce forcible and fraudulent conversions. They would, by definition, be illegal, immoral, unethical, and against the Teachings of Faith. Five decades of Church documents, Catholic, Protestant and Evangelical, testify to this. Conversion is the work of the Holy Spirit. Repeated exercises by the National Minorities Commission and efforts by aggressive Governments have failed to provide a single proven case of forcible or fraudulent for forcible conversion. And yet State guarantees on Freedom of Faith, including the propagation of faith, and human rights are smothered in calls for moratoriums and black laws, and brutalised in police harassment.
Honourable Prime Minister and Members,
This violence must cease forthwith. Our people must be allowed to return home in peace in Kandhamal and in other districts of Orissa. We must be allowed to profess our faith in honour without fear, and without the sword of forcible conversions and the so called Ghar-wapsi, at our throat. This is what the Constitution assures us. We seek no more.
It is for the Law to take action against the guilty. We, as always, forgive our tormentors. This is our creed, a part of our daily prayers.
Experts, however, have suggested remedies that are available to the Union Government and the State.
The Fifth Schedule in the Constitution "Provisions as to the administration and control of Scheduled Areas and Scheduled Tribes” gives extensive rights to the Governor of the state. It also enjoins upon the governor the right to maintain law and order in scheduled areas.
The final word on subject of tackling communal riots should be left to the Honourable Supreme Court. [para 9- Legalpundits' Citation : LIS/SC/2008/826 - Harendra Sarkar Vs. State of Assam, [Alongwith Criminal Appeal No. 1068 of 2006] - May 2 2008—“ 9. The matter does not end with the reports of the judicial commissions alone but has been a matter of deep concern for the administration as well. The First National Police Commission headed by Shri Dharam Vira ICS (Retd.) in Volume VI, Chapter XLVII, Page 9 dealing with ''communal riots' of the report reads thus: - The investigation of crimes recorded is a matter which calls for professional skill and expertise of a different variety. Investigations of crimes cannot be undertaken in moments of tension and confusion. The National Integration Council has observed that special investigation squads should be set up to investigate crimes committed in the course of serious riots. We endorse this observation and recommend that such squads should be set up under the State Investigating agency [State CID (Crime)] to investigate all crimes committed in the course of a riot.
The Supreme Court had commended the role of the National Integration Council set up by Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. We must, today, redeem that pledge.
Other urgent steps that have long been kept in cold storage are;
1. Stern action against hate Crimes. Hate campaigns are the incubators of communal violence.
2. Enacting of the Communal Violence Bill ensuring that it takes care of the concerns of the Christian community and does not further arm communal administrations or further emboldens impunity of communalised police elements.
3. Comprehensive relief and rehabilitation policies that wipe the tear from the eyes of victims of communal violence and give them the opportunity of creating a new life.
4. Adequate representation to all minorities and underprivileged groups in the Police, Administrative and judicial systems.
5. A thorough revamp of the education system, including a close watch on the recent rash of communally motivated village and rural schools set up by political groups, so that once again secularism, religious and cultural diversity and pluralism become the cornerstone of our nation-building.
6. Above all, the State – Parliament, Supreme Court, and Executive – must ensure that no one remains under the illusion, unfortunately very well founded at present, that communal politics, hate and the demonization of religious minorities can bring them electoral dividends in an India of the Twenty-first Century.

Sir,
The current violence against us is the uppermost in our mind. But we three would be failing our community if we do not refer to some other major issues that are whittling away at our Constitutional rights, and have stressed our people.
1. The issue of Dalit Christians: The Government has shown scant respect for the reports of various National Commissions commending that Christians of Dalit origin be granted the same Constitutional rights as Dalits professing other faiths. This delay, in fact, fuels the communal violence against the Christian community in various states.
2. Economic Development of the Christian community: There are a few islands of prosperity, but the vast majority of Indian Christians are Dalit, landless farmers, even manual labour. Many live below the poverty line. Many, specially women in tribal areas, remain uneducated. The Government appointed the Justice Rajender Sachhar Commission for Muslims and has acted with alacrity on its recommendations. We welcome that. We demand a similar commission and similar steps for the poor and the underdeveloped in the Christian Community.
3. Our Constitutional right to profess and propagate our faith has been severely restricted. By restraining the freedom of Propagation, we fear the attempt is to make Christianity a religion that can devolve only by birth. This violates national and international guarantees by taking away free choice of the citizen. Added to this is police interference with home worship and smaller church groups.
4. State and local laws have severely restrained out educational activities, specially for the poor. Government land is increasingly becoming unavailable to the social sector, and seems reserved for private business. English medium schools for Dalit children are now impossible in several states. Despite court decisions, there is increasing interference and erosion of Article 30 assurances.
These must end.


PART II

Our response to other Items on the NIC Agenda:

1. SOCIAL STRUCTURE – Caste and Identity divisions and rhetoric:

We hold caste to be an affront and an insult to human dignity. Untouchability has been outlawed, but is practiced openly in most states, specially in villages. Caste remains an ugly reality. It permeates administrative and police structures and is reflected in police atrocities. There seems to be swift retribution against social sector efforts to empower Dalits.

We hold every man and women to be made by God in His own image. Jesus died on the Cross to make this a reality for us.

2. ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT -- Equitable development and removal of regional imbalances:

Justice Krishna Iyer famously said “In an obsession with the billionaires, we are forgetting the Billions [of poor of India]”. The Prime Minister has often spoken of the Human f ace of development. This Human face has been woefully missing. The suicides by farmers, the growth of disillusionment among poor youth and their gravitation to extremism, economically driven crime in urban areas by people seeking a `good life’ are warning posts we cannot afford to ignore. The government’s single minded focus must be on equitable distribution of the fruits of development beginning with the very basics – food, water, a roof over the head, education for the children, and primary health.

3. Promotion of Feeling of Security among minorities and other vulnerable sections:
Minorities seem to be directly isolated as if part of a design and State and Media have both acquiesced in this. Terrorism should not be defined by the religion of the criminal, but by identifying the person who commits the crime. India unfortunately turns a blind eye to hate campaigns, especially those sustained against the Muslim and Christian Communities. This has led to the demonization of communities, making them vulnerable in many ways. The government and society must show uncompressing committeemen to the rule of law. There must a response mechanism, an early warning system, a rapid action force and strategy to nip communal mischief in the bud. The minorities must be able to see their face in every edifice and branch of the state, in every instrument of power – Judiciary, Administration, and police.
State culpability must be addressed honestly. Police impunity must be ended. We regret the guilty of most communal riots, and especially those of 1984 anti Sikh violence, the 1993 and 2002 anti Muslim violence and other incidents remain unpunished.
4. Education – Promotion of Education among Minorities, Scheduled castes and scheduled Tribes

The state must reclaim it role in the education system which it has ceded to private and big business. Rural education must be closely monitored; text material, pedagogy and personnel must be screened to ensure there is no hate taught to the young Indian citizen.

5. Communal Harmony: we are a harmonious people. Level play grounds, equal opportunities, if through law such as the creation of an Equal Opportunities Commission, and close monitoring of development plans and law and order will go a long way in reassuming the communities. Subordinate and grassroots strucrur4es, peace committees, consultations can only help in this dialogue of life.


Thank you.


THE TOLL
ANTI-CHRISTIAN VIOLENCE
24 August – 9 October 2008

1. ORISSA
14 Districts hit
300 Villages destroyed
4,400 Houses burnt
50,000 Homeless
59 People murdered
10 Fathers/Pastors/Nuns injured
2 Women gang-rapes confirmed [One Nun]
18,000 Men, women, children injured
151 Churches destroyed
13 Schools, colleges destroyed

2. KARNATAKA
7 Districts affected
33 Churches attacked
20 Nuns, women injured

3. KERALA
3 Churches damaged

4. MADHYA PRADESH

4 Churches damaged

5. DELHI
1 Church destroyed
4 Attempts made

6. TAMIL NADU 4 Churches attacked

7. UTTARAKHAND 2 murdered – aged priest and employee

Saturday, October 11, 2008

On the eve of National Integration Council Session, Mr Advani diverts attention from Ethnic Cleansing of Christians in Orissa to the non-issue of `con

ALL INDIA CHRISTIAN COUNCILPRESS STATEMENT
Council stands by Church unity, denounces effort to isolate individual churches
Coercing and terrorising a people into submission is not genuine dialogue
[The following is the text of the Statement issued by Dr. Joseph D’ Souza, President, and Dr John Dayal, Secretary General, of the All India Christian Council on the
failure of the Biju Janata Dal – Bharatiya Janata Party coalition government to stop the Ethnic Cleansing of Christians in the State of Orissa. The violence has
continued for more than 45 days since it broke out on 24th August this year. ]
New Delhi/ Hyderabad October 11, 2008
Our community is facing a trial by gun, sword, fire and rapine, the worst crisis it has seen in its 2,000 year old history in India, one of the earliest homelands of
the faith. There is ethnic cleansing of Christians in Orissa where violence continues unabated for 45 day at the hands of bloodthirsty gangs Civil Society identifies
as the Bajrang Dal and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad. So far 300 villages have been cleansed of all Christians, the 17,000 or so in government’s refugee camps have been
told they can go home only if they become Hindus. More than 4,000 houses and more than 100 churches have been burnt. Perhaps thirty thousand or more, more than half of
them children are hiding in forests or are living as Internally Displaced Persons. More than 50 have been butchered, often burnt alive. A nun and an uncounted number
of other women have been gang raped. Gender violence was one of the unspoken traumas of the widespread violence in Orissa in December 2007. For all practical
purposes, Orissa seems not to be a part of India where the rule of law operates, and the Indian Constitution remains operative.
Orissa is ruled by a coalition of the Biju Janata Dal and the Bharatiya Janata party [BJP]. The violence has spread to other States ruled by the BJP, including
Karnataka, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, and Uttarakhand. Other States have not remained untouched, and Jharkhand, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Delhi have also seen
demolition of churches, the maiming or killing of priests.
A Constitutional authority as the Leader of the Opposition in Parliament, and the supreme leader of his party, Mr Lal Krishna Advani could have ordered his governments
in the States to act and stop the violence. He chose to remain a silent spectator for more than 40 days. When he spoke at last to condemn the rape of the Nun in
Orissa, he immediately diverted attention from the heinous crime by speaking of `forcible and fraudulent conversions’ during a meeting with some Christian leaders,
called at the behest of a Hindu swami from Rishikesh and some BJP Members of Parliament. The dialogue was neither religious, nor political.There is nothing in these BJP and RSS dialogues that identifies the killers, arsonists and rapists. There is little that puts the onus of the violence where it belongs
– on a political leadership which has conspired with the goons and its police which is guilty both of inaction in saving in the victims, and of participating in the
violence against the Christians.
We are deeply anguished. We see this and similar attempts at `dialogue’ as an insidious and clever way on the eve of the meeting of the National Integration Council to
absolve the BJP of responsibility and to save the goons of its parent organisation, the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh and its militant terrorist organisations, Bajrang
dial and Vishwa Hindu Parishad who run a parallel government in Orissa and other States. The organisations are now facing the wrath of the entire civil society of
India, and of the world.
The All India Christian Council welcomes all dialogue. It is the cornerstone of our everyday life and Christian witness. But a dialogue presupposes free will, a
peaceful platform, a structured agenda, a common goal for peace through mutual respect, understanding and acknowledgement of each other as equals.
The BJP-RSS `dialogue’ exercises in some parts of the country exude the stink of coercion and beating a smaller community into submission and a whittling away of
Constitutional rights. This also becomes a strategy to divide the community and to isolate and target smaller groups, in this case the Believers Church and the New
Life Fellowship, through well placed and motivated media gossip. These churches have pleaded innocence but face a well constructed campaign designed to extinguish
them. We condemn this and affirm the unity and solidarity of the Church in its entire rich diversity of denominations and Rites, from the Catholic to the Episcopal,
Evangelical and Pentecostal groups. Everybody who believes in Christ is a Christian.
We also denounce forcible and fraudulent conversions. They would by definition be illegal, immoral and against the Faith. Five decades of Church documents testify to
this. Conversion is the work of the Holy Spirit. Repeated exercises by the National Minorities Commission and efforts by aggressive governments have failed to provide
a single proven case of forcible or fraudulent for forcible conversion. And yet State guarantees on Freedom of Faith, including the propagation of faith, and human
rights are smothered in calls for moratoriums and brutalised in police harassment.
There should be more dialogue and an encompassing one on all issues so vital to the unity and integrity of India. Religious leaders should dialogue with other
religious leaders in bilateral and multilateral forums. Parliament provides the forum for political dialogue. Civil society is the best platform for a larger
peaceful and continuing dialogue and debate. These are forums we trust. And we call upon them, including the National Integration Council, to act soon to save not just
the Christian community in Orissa, Karnataka and other States, but to save the very Idea of India in all its glorious diversity, its precious secularism and its
civilisation dignity.
Rev Dr. Joseph D SouzaDr John Dayal CONTACT; 9811021072 CATHOLICUNION@GMAIL.COM

Sunday, October 5, 2008

Home Ministers of Orissa, Karnataka must be sacked

5th October 2008

Orissa-like terror stalks Christians in Karnataka interiors; Hindutva vigilante groups stalk Pastors, visitors

State home minister VS Acharya, senior Police officers must be sacked

Police ordering village churches not to hold Sunday worship, submit `Licences’ to hold prayers;

[The following is the text of the Press statement issued to the media in Mangalore, Karnataka, by Dr John Dayal, Secretary General, All India Christian Council, and Member, National Integration Council of the Government of India, after a tour of the rural churches in Dakshina Kannada District of Karnataka on 4th and 5th October 2008]

A two day tour of rural Christian churches in the forested hill villages and plantations of Dakshina Kannada district of Karnataka makes it clear that Christians in areas outside the metropolitan areas of Bangalore and Mangalore have lived a life of fear since 14 September not much different from the terror that stalks the Dalits and Tribals of Kandhamal in distant Orissa. Although the violence was only on one day in most places, people fear they may be attacked again anytime in the future.

The devastation of major Catholic and Protestant places of worship in Mangalore city, the attack on women and specially the beating up of Nuns, has correctly shocked the conscience of the majority community in Karnataka and the rest of India as much as has the rape of the Nun in Orissa.

But this other side remains dark, beyond the glare of media. The VHP and the police are making full use of the interlude to ensure that the law cannot take it due course and the culprits who came in well orchestrated attacks will never be caught.

The mocking tone of the State Home Minister, V S Acharya, his pugnacious and continuing oral attacks on the Church and on the Catholic Archbishop and Bishops, his threats to the New Life Church and its pastors, his defence of the Hindutva Parivar, and his encouragement to religious groups to demand bans and moratoriums on `conversions’, clearly show his commitment to the fascist cause.

The formal Constitutional position of Home Minister Acharya is untenable and the Governor and Chief Minister must sack him. Chief Minister, Mr. Yeddiurappa, no less pugnacious in defence of the Hindutva Parivar and in his critique of the Church, would otherwise have shown himself to be condoning a well thought out and planned conspiracy against Christianity in Karnataka, which is one of the ancient homelands of our faith, together with the States of Kerala and Tamil Nadu.

I am also surprised that former Deputy prime minister and BJP supremo Mr. Lal Krishna Advani in his meeting with United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in New Delhi, has chosen the occasion to plead that the US reconsider its ban on a visa to Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi. The US has refused him a visa twice after human rights groups across the globe exposed his complicity in the genocide of Muslims in Gujarat in 2002. In fact human rights groups have demanded that the US visa of Orissa chief minister Naveen Patnaik also be similarly revoked for his complicity in the ethnic cleansing of Christians in Kandhamal in violence that has continued now for forty days after it began its second phase on 24th August 2008.

In Karnataka, the simultaneous attacks left at least one pastor grievously hurt and scores injured. Pastor Christu Das of Kayarthada in Belthangandy D-K, escaped being decapitated as he warded off a sword attack with his arm, which now is in thick plaster. His wife, who ran to save him, was also attacked. All that the State did was to give him Rupees One thousand five hundred from the taluk office. He lives a life of terror in his incomplete IPCI church, and has been told not to hold worship services. Visitors going anywhere near him are stopped by goons, some on motorcycles, at the heeds of the road and questioned. The police are nowhere to seen.

At other churches, belonging to Believers Church India, Indian Pentecostal and other Evangelical groups, lone unarmed police or home guards sit, after having told the pastor not to carry on any religious work.

These rural areas are not visited by national teams and political leaders on disaster tourism of the region. Even the senior police and administrative officers have met the wounded only in hospitals and have not visited the devastated churches.

A most peculiar aspect of the entire episode from the time of the violence has been the role of the police. They had come to the churches before violence to warn the pastors to be cautious. They were missing from the spot then the actual violence took place. They appeared at the spot often within minutes of the violence as if they were waiting somewhere close by. At each church, they forced the pastor and his associates to clean up the damage remove broken glass and furniture before the press, sometimes accompanying them, was allowed to take pictures. In one case, attempts were made to wipe out all evidence of attempted arson. What were the police attempting to hide, and who where they attempting to protect. At each place, the assailants came with their faces masked with deadly weapons, and with fuel. When they did not find fuel, they emptied vehicles of pastors of fuel and set them afire.

Taking into consideration that the Rule of Law is inoperative on a widespread level and anarchy is prevalent in the affected Districts of Orissa, and Karnataka, our demands are:

1. To send in, para-drop if necessary, contingents of the Indian army into the Kandhamal district where the writ of the State no longer runs. This must be followed by a total change in the police and civil administration which has proved to be incompetent, partisan, bigoted and tainted at the highest levels. These officers must face criminal prosecution for c0mplicity in heinous crimes, and for dereliction of duty.

2. To sack the Home Ministers of Karnataka and Orissa, together with their senior police and civil officers for their complicity and sympathy with the assailant fascist forces.

4. To proscribe immediately all organisations and individuals carrying out or inciting communal violence, namely, the Bajrang Dal and Vishwa Hindu Parishad, that have been identified by no less than the National Commission for Minorities as causing disaffection among the communities.

5. To order investigation by Central Bureau of Investigations, not by State commissions, into the circumstances leading to the murder of Vishwa Hindu Parishad vice president Lakhmanananda Saraswati and the organised violence which followed in the wake of the Yatra in which his body was taken along hundreds of kilometers in the district of Kandhamal.

6. Order compensation without delay to the families of those killed in the anti Christian violence and the injured.


THE TOLL
ANTI-CHRISTIAN VIOLENCE
24 August – 4 October 2008

1. ORISSA
14 Districts hit
300 Villages destroyed
4,400 Houses burnt
50,000 Homeless
59 People murdered
10 Fathers/Pastors/Nuns injured
2 Women gang-rapes confirmed [One Nun]
18,000 Men, women, children injured
151 Churches destroyed
13 Schools, colleges destroyed

2. KARNATAKA
4 Districts affected
22 Churches attacked
20 Nuns, women injured

3. KERALA
3 Churches damaged

4. MADHYA PRADESH

4 Churches damaged

5. DELHI
1 Church destroyed
4 Attempts made

6. TAMAIL NADU 1 Church attacked

7. UTTARAKHAND 2 murdered – aged priest and employee



[Released to the media by Dr John Dayal]