Something to know

A WARNING SIGNAL

While today’s Abhinav Bharat belongs to an old tradition harking back to Savarkar and even Tilak, the new element here lies in the implication of one serving officer of the Indian army. Certainly, any institution can have a black sheep. But was he that isolated? He has already named other officers who would have been his more or less passive accomplices and his colleague, Upadhyay, who once headed the Mumbai unit of the BJP’s ex-servicemen cell. The BJP, indeed, inducted ex-army men in large numbers since the 1990s. After the BJP came to power in 1998, two dozens ex-servicemen more joined the party. This inflow of ex-army men may reflect the increasingly communal atmosphere of the institution. In December 2003, a survey by the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies for Tehelka, one of the first among army men — and probably the most comprehensive — showed that 19 per cent of the soldiers interviewed felt that the army practised some religious discrimination — and 24 per cent of the Muslims among them shared this view. 

Instead of distancing itself from the Hindu terrorists, as it had done in the 1940s, this time the Sangh Parivar has decided to support the Malegaon accused. Bajrang Dal chief Prakash Sharma declared that “policy makers should be worried if the Hindus were taking to arms because of the government’s skewed approach to war on terror” and admitted that the Bajrang Dal was running training camps too “to boost their morale [the Bajrang Dal’s members]. The country wouldn’t get its Abhinav Bindras if there were no armed training for the youth”.

[The writer is Christophe Jaffrelot, a political scientist and South Asia specialist at CERI, Paris]

Angana Chatterji testimony in USA on Orissa anti Christian violence

To: The Congressional Task Force on International Religious Freedom 

From: Dr. Angana Chatterji
Associate Professor, Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology 
California Institute of Integral Studies
1453 Mission Street, San Francisco, California 94103
achatterji@ciis.edu; 415.575.6119 (office); 415.640.4013 (mobile) 

December 30, 2008

Re.: Recommendations for action, as requested, following a briefing held on December 10, 2008, on 'The Threat Religious Extremism Poses to Democracy and Security in India: Focus on Orissa', at 2168 Rayburn in Washington D.C.

I thank the Congressional Task Force on International Religious Freedom for honoring me with an invitation to testify at the hearing. I submit the following recommendations for consideration related to United States policy in its continued association with India, in ensuring mutual respect for, and commitment to, freedom of religion, a secular state, and the attendant human rights and civil liberties of disenfranchised, including minority, groups and peoples. 

The following submission is mindful of the political/policy borders and boundaries that mediate issues of national sovereignty. The implicit assumption is that actions to uphold human rights, civil liberties, and democratic governance by the United States Government contributes significantly to international discourse in ways that are beneficial globally as well as to United States domestic policy and practice. The following submission is an appeal for ethical negotiation between India and the United States as the most powerful (United States) and populous (India) democracies seek to fulfill their commitment to human rights and its attendant freedoms. In so doing, various constituencies in both nations remain hopeful that any opportunity for association between these states will assist in enabling mutual adherence to responsible and democratic governance. 

The following is in addition to the dossier of my research that I submitted at the hearing.

Note: 
I am a Citizen of India and a Permanent Resident of the United States. My observations are based on research on religious freedom and minority rights conducted by me in Orissa. I have undertaken 16 trips to the state since June 2002, and undertaken work in 66 villages, 11 towns, and 4 cities across 17 districts in Orissa. In 2005-2006, I co-convened the Indian People's Tribunal on Communalism in Orissa through the Indian People's Tribunal on Environment and Human Rights with Advocate Mihir Desai, with a panel led by Former Chief Justice K.K. Usha of the Kerala High Court.

Religious violence and the religionization of social life by Hindu nationalist organizations have continued to endanger life and livelihood for minorities in India, as witnessed in Gujarat (2002), Jammu-Kashmir (2008), Orissa (2007-2008), Karnataka (2008), Assam (2008), and elsewhere. The violence against Christian minority communities in Orissa in August-October 2008 was not unexpected. In Orissa, since the mid-1990s, a formidable mobilization has been established by Hindu nationalist groups, including in Kandhamal district. These groups have acted with egregious impunity with adverse impact on society, economy, culture, religion, polity, and security in the state. The Sangh Parivar 'family' of Hindutva, Hindu supremacist, organizations has a visible presence in twenty-five of thirty districts in Orissa. The Sangh Parivar has amassed between 35 and 40 major organizations with numerous branches (including paramilitary hate camps) in 25 districts in Orissa, with a massive base of a few million operating at every level of society, ranging from, and connecting, villages to cities, in their campaign to 'convert' Orissa for the 'Hindu nation'. 

Following the recommendations for action listed below please find a note on actions proposed by concerned citizens in India, and a brief note on the context of Hindu nationalism in Orissa today.

Recommendations for action in the United States:
Various diasporic charitable organizations affiliated with Hindu nationalist ideologies operate in the United States. This has been well documented with details submitted by me in the dossier. These organizations routinely maintain links with Hindu nationalist leaders and organizations in India, including in Orissa. As well, these diasporic organizations seek to influence public discourse and policy in the United States that relates to India. They also fundraise to export capital and resources to counterpart/affiliate organizations in India, including in Orissa, that assist in various ways in promulgating Hindu nationalist ideology. It is imperative that charities involved in work that promulgates and maintains an infrastructure of hate and violence against minorities be so designated. A list of such charities must be responsibly developed in consultation with academics, researchers, and independent bodies with relevant expertise on the subject. Following such identification, investigations must be undertaken by relevant authorities into the actions of these organizations operating with charitable status. Note: The categorization of organizations that promulgate divisiveness, hate, and violence must occur with the utmost care and in a transparent manner, so as to not infringe on the freedoms, rights, and entitlements of organizations that legitimately undertake charitable work, or ensue the demonization of vulnerable groups and marginal, even unorthodox, perspectives. The objective is not to further involve the state in public life, but to note that the state is already involved in the ability of these organizations to function. Hindu nationalism operates as a transnational movement and the reach of its affiliated 'charitable' organizations in the United States continues internationally through groups they fund and support in India. Halting their interventions requires new ways of thinking about domestic and foreign policy and necessitates coordination between the United States and India as a tenet of bilateral cooperation.

Toward the above and further:

1.     Undertake a systematic, routine, and detailed investigation into the actions of diasporic Hindu nationalist groups to identify and investigate their status, actions, finances, and the actions and affiliations of their membership in the United States, as well as their affiliates and cadre. These groups must be investigated and monitored, and, as appropriate, requisite action must be taken and sanctions must be imposed on their activities. 

2.     Many of these organizations, registered as charitable entities in the United States, routinely allocate sizeable amounts of money under 'program services', disproportionately directed to Hindu nationalist and affiliated groups in India. The effects of this have been documented in the organized violence against Muslims, aided by officials of the state government at the highest level, in Gujarat in 2002.

3.     Certain diasporic organizations affiliated with Hindu nationalism, such as the India Development Relief Fund (IDRF, Tax identification number 52-1555563) and Vishwa Hindu Parishad of America (VHP-A, Tax identification number 51-0156325), Sewa International (Tax identification number 20-0638718), and Ekal Vidyalaya Foundation of USA (Tax identification number 77-0554248) are registered as charity organizations in the United States. As their work appears to be political in nature, they should be audited and recognized as political organizations. A serious concern is whether the activities of these fall within the objectives of their tax-exempt status; whether in fact these organizations should have been registered as 501(c)3 groups given the nature of their activities, whether the monies collected are indeed used for the purposes for which they were collected, and whether illegal and political activities are being carried out in the name of social work. Given these concerns, the charitable status, and the rights and privileges thereof, enjoyed by these groups should be reviewed, and, where appropriate, revoked. Further, their activities should be monitored to determine their role in fomenting hate and undermining the human rights of various individuals and groups in India. Note: The VHP failed to gain recognition at the United Nations as a 'cultural organization' in 1999 because of its philosophical underpinnings, even as the VHP-A continues to function as an independent charity, registered in the United States since the 1970s. 

4.     The Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh-USA (Tax identification number 52-1647017, an ideological affiliate of the militant Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh in India) and VHP-Overseas (Tax identification number 04-3576058) are registered as 501(c)3 groups and operate as cultural organizations, seeking to mainstream and lobby Hindu nationalist concerns in the United States. The impact of their activities in promulgating hate and perpetrating 'terror' and communal violence in India must be investigated.

5.     Monitor visa issuance to, and the travel of, Hindu nationalist leaders and activists charged with involvement in criminal acts. A case in point is Mr. Narendra Modi, the incumbent Chief Minister of Gujarat, who has been implicated in the violence orchestrated against Muslims in 2002, and whose visa was revoked by the United States in 2005, following advocacy on part of civil society groups and academics in the United States and support from Congressional members. 

6.     Ensure that appointees to federal and state positions, or those that serve in an advisory capacity, or as experts to state officials are scrutinized for affiliations or linkages they may hold within Hindu nationalist groups. These affiliations, where they exist, should not be treated as benign, and a reasoned investigation must be undertaken to determine whether the prospective appointee or advisor is able to fulfill requisite service obligations with ideological and practical distance from Hindu nationalist agendas. A case in point is Ms. Sonal Shah, who was appointed to President-elect Barack Obama's 15-member Transition Team in November 2008. While her list of accomplishments and expertise run high, she has worked as a National Coordinator for the VHP-A and served on its Governing Council, and her organization, Indify, affiliated with Ekal Vidyalaya of India, and supported the ideological and political premises of Hindu nationalism, and their action programs.

7.     Ensure that international human rights and independent monitoring groups are invited to India on a regular basis to monitor the status of religious freedom and human rights of minority communities and allied faith and secular peoples and groups. The ability of international human rights and independent monitoring groups to work in alliance with local civil society institutions is crucial to interrupting the isolation disenfranchised/minority groups experience and producing accountability.

8.     Ensure that the constitutionality and transparent implementation of security laws of India, as they pertain to religious groups and religious freedoms, are able to be rigorously monitored by international human rights and independent monitoring groups in alliance with local civil society institutions. These laws have been, without due cause, disproportionately and variously used by law enforcement agencies in India against minority communities and those dissenting unethical practices of the state, and their rights have not been duly protected.

9.     All bilateral projects must be assessed for their human rights implications, and cost-benefit analyses undertaken to determine/ensure that these projects are in fact positioned to make contributions that are empowering for disenfranchised groups, including minorities, so as to enable the restructuring of inequitable and institutionalized relations of power that lead to majoritarianism and communal violence. 

Actions applicable to Orissa and at the national level in India:
Reciprocally, it is important to note certain actions that have been proposed by concerned citizens in India that the Government of India and Government of Orissa must undertake toward effective intervention into the organization and growth of Hindu nationalism. Toward this:

1.     In India, the Central Bureau of Investigation must be required to expeditiously investigate the activities of the Bajrang Dal, Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) in Orissa, and apply, wherever necessary, relevant provisions of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967. Section 2G of the Act, 'unlawful association' denotes: (1) 'that which has for its object any unlawful activity, or which encourages or aids persons to undertake any unlawful activity, or through which the members undertake such activity'; or (2) 'which has for its object any activity which is punishable under Section 153A or Section 153B of the Indian Penal Code 1860 ([Central Act] 45 of 1860) or which encourages or aids persons to undertake any such activity; or of which the members undertake any such activity'. 

2.     A review panel must be appointed by the Government of Orissa, in consultation with the National Human Rights Commission, the National Minorities Commission, and other relevant independent bodies, such as the People's Union for Democratic Rights and People's Union for Civil Liberties, to identify and investigate the status, actions, finances, and membership of Hindu nationalist groups and their affiliates and cadre, and the actions of their membership. These groups must be investigated and monitored, and, as appropriate, requisite action must be taken and sanctions must be imposed on their activities, and reparations must be made retroactively to the affected communities and individuals. The Government of Orissa must act to stop instances of communalization from escalating into violent episodes.

3.     Hindu nationalist leaders, activists, and organizations in Orissa charged with involvement in criminal acts and involvement in actions that have led, or may lead, to communal violence must be investigated and prosecuted. 

4.     Certain organizations, such as the VHP and Vanavasi Kalyan Ashram, are registered as cultural and charitable organizations. As their work appears to be political in nature, they should be audited and recognized as political organizations. A serious concern is whether the activities of Hindu nationalist charitable organizations fall within the objectives of the social trust/public charitable trust and whether in fact these organizations should have been registered as social trusts given the nature of their activities; whether the monies collected are indeed used for the purposes for which they were collected and whether illegal and political activities are being carried out in the name of social work. Given these concerns, the charitable status, and the rights and privileges thereof, enjoyed by these groups must be reviewed and necessary action taken.

5.     The Government of Orissa and the Central Government must make concerted efforts to identify, investigate, and eradicate paramilitary hate camps being operated in Orissa by the Hindu nationalist groups that instruct cadre in arms training and militancy with the express purpose of threatening and destroying disenfranchised and minority populations through social and economic boycotts, sporadic and organized intimidation, arson, rape, murder, and other forms of social, gendered, sexualized, economic, and physical violence. 

6.     Various police and court investigations related to crimes against minorities have not been undertaken in Orissa. On various occasions, the police have refused to file First Information Reports (FIR). Police desks should be set up for registering minority grievances and filing FIRs, and the Government of Orissa must appoint a team of Special Public Prosecutors to conduct proceedings as necessary. Toward this, independent monitoring bodies must be supported and protected.

7.     The Government of India and the Government of Orissa must take adequate and expeditious steps to ensure that those who convert voluntarily to Christianity, Islam, or any other faith are allowed to practice their religion. Failing to do so is in serious violation of Articles 25-28 of the Constitution of India, which define the Fundamental Rights of every citizen of India, and those that the Government of India and the Government of Orissa are obligated to uphold. Toward this, independent monitoring bodies must be supported and protected.

8.     Hindu nationalist organizations are forcibly converting Christians and other non-Hindus in Orissa to Hinduism. Sangh Parivar activists claim India to be a Hindu nation and all Adivasis (tribals, indigenous peoples) and Dalits (erstwhile 'untouchable' groups) to be 'originally' Hindus, even as Adivasis and Dalits often do not self-identify as such. Drawing on such rationales, Hindu nationalist organizations justify coercion in 'bringing back' Adivasis or Dalits to Hinduism. Urgent steps should be taken to stop the Hinduization of these communities by means of coercion or duress. The police and courts must act immediately and authoritatively to stop Hindu nationalists from enacting forcible conversions or 'reconversions', and the police must be required to submit regular and public reports documenting their work in this matter. 

9.     The disparagement, demonization, and vilification of any religion should be statutorily prohibited and held punishable under the Indian Penal Code. 

10.     The Orissa Freedom of Religion Act, 1967, must be reviewed and repealed.

11.     The Orissa Prevention of Cow Slaughter Act, 1960, must be reviewed and repealed.

12.     The Government of Orissa must establish and activate the State Minorities Commission.

13.     The BJD-BJP coalition government in Orissa must honor the Constitutional mandate requiring the separation of religion from state.

14.     Police, judicial, and governmental reform, including diversity training, must be addressed by relevant state institutions, and action taken against officers of the law and political servants who abuse their position of public trust by using their power to influence and support Hindu nationalist organizations and sustain a climate of communalism in Orissa.

15.     The Government of Orissa must adopt an integrated and sustainable approach to community development, and take concrete efforts to stop further ghettoization of minority communities. The Government of Orissa must promote non-segregated localities, housing complexes, housing societies, clubs, educational, and recreational institutions, and that the Government of Orissa must publicly support social interactions, including voluntary inter-caste, inter-faith, and inter-class unions, marriages, and partnerships.

16.     The Government of India must issue a White Paper on bomb blasts and terror attacks in India and constitute a Joint Parliamentary Committee that investigates such incidents.

17.     The law should be amended to obviate the requirement of prior sanction of the state before prosecuting anyone for hate speech.

18.     The Communal Violence (Prevention, Control and Rehabilitation of Victims) Bill, 2005, introduced in the Parliament of India in December 2005 and approved by the Union Cabinet in March 2007, must be passed, and with the requisite clauses to ensure state accountability. The bill, advocated by citizen motivated efforts for the prevention of genocide and crimes against humanity, in its official formulation as introduced by the Congress government, remained deficient in defining procedures for state and public accountability. As presently drafted, the law will become applicable only selectively. An amendment should do away with the law being made applicable only selectively, at places and times as convenient to the state. In addition, there exist no dedicated provisions for reparation and rehabilitation of victims/survivors. The bill fails to address issues of negligence displayed by state authorities in preventing and controlling communal violence, and in disbursing timely and just compensation and psychosocial rehabilitation, as well as establishing parameters for witness protection and for soliciting and recording victim testimonies. It fails to chart measures to bring justice and accountability with regard to gender and sex-based crimes in the event of communal violence (which is not effectively addressed by the Indian Penal Code or separate legislation), and in imposing checks and balances on the state and its police and security forces, whose inertia and majoritarianist complicity in communal collisions have been consistent.

19.     On 29 November 1949, India became a signatory to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, approved by the United Nations General Assembly resolution 260 A (III) of 9 December 1948. On 27 August 1959, India ratified the Genocide Convention. However, India is yet to fulfill its obligatory commitment to enact legislation to implement the convention, which it must be compelled to undertake.     

Context of Hindu nationalism in Orissa:
Conscription into Hindu activism is coordinated through political reform, propaganda/thought control, cultural and religious interventions, developmental/social service and charitable work, sectarian health care, unionization, and revisionist education. Hindu nationalists have inaugurated various trusts and branches of national and international institutions in Orissa to aid fundraising, including, reportedly, the Friends of Tribal Society, Samarpan Charitable Trust, Sookruti, Yasodha Sadan, Utkal Bipanna Sahayata Samiti, and Odisha International Centre. It is noteworthy that since March 2000, the state government has comprised of a coalition of the Biju Janata Dal and the Bharatiya Janata Party (the parliamentary wing of Hindu nationalism).
The Sangh Parivar has built a cadre comprised of Hindus, men and women, in targeting Christians, Muslims, Adivasis and Dalits, and other disenfranchised, progressive, and secular groups in Orissa. Orissa has a population of 36.8 million (Census 2001). Of this, 761,985 - 2.1 percent - are Muslims. Orissa Christians number 897,861 - just 2.4 percent of the state's population per the census of 2001 (in 1991, it was 2.1 percent, and in 1981, 1.7 percent). There are 6.08 million Dalits in Orissa, 16.5 percent of the population. Adivasis are 8.14 million in number, 22.1 percent of the population, the largest among all states in India.

The Sangh Parivar's agenda is enabled by the staggering inequities present in the state, where severe social and institutionalized forms of caste, class, and gendered oppressions are rampant, facilitative of regularized violence, including sexualized violence. Unemployment is on the rise in Orissa and abysmal daily wages prevail; 47.2 percent of the total population lives in poverty while 48 percent of the rural population is poor (87 percent of the state's population lives in villages currently and per the 2001 census, there are 51,352 villages in Orissa). Among the Adivasi population, 63.6 percent are poor while 40.5 percent of Dalits live in poverty. Among the Muslim population, 70 percent are poor in Cuttack, Jagatsinghpur and Puri districts, where they are concentrated. 

During the 2008 violence in Orissa, various militant Hindu nationalist organizations acted with impunity. The violence was led by the following groups -- the Bajrang Dal, VHP, and RSS. Following the riots and extended violence against Christian communities in Kandhamal district of Orissa in August-October 2008, the Government of Orissa and police, military, paramilitary forces deployed in the state failed to respond effectively, efficiently, or appropriately. This posed a serious threat to democratic governance in the state and the ability of government to ensure the security and sanctity of peoples and groups made vulnerable through majoritarian communalism as perpetrated by Hindu nationalist organizations in the state. The Central Government in New Delhi as well failed to respond in a timely and effective manner and with due concern. 

It is only after the violence drew significant national and international attention, and began to generate other and political consequences, that both state and central governments responded to stop the violations against Christian minority groups in Orissa. The outrage and response of the state failed to match the proportion and extent of violence perpetrated by Hindu nationalist organizations. As of 25 December 2008, rehabilitation measures and provisions ensuring the security of vulnerable groups in rural areas and towns in Kandhamal district remained vastly inadequate. 

The matters and circumstances that led to the Kandhamal violence of 2007 and 2008 in Orissa continue to pose a threat to the sanctity and security of human rights in the state, particularly of religious and ethnic minorities such as Christians and Muslims, disenfranchised Adivasi, Dalit, and caste groups, and other vulnerable groups such as women, and secular organizations and active individuals across the state. Failure to take preventative and effective action continues to jeopardize the rule of law, the right to life and livelihood, freedom of religion, of speech, movement, assembly, inquiry, and the right to information in Orissa. As I write this, the situation in Orissa remains beleaguered and volatile, de facto in a state of emergency.
______________________________

BETWEEN HOPE AND HOPLESSNESS

THE INDIA UPDATE

ANTI-CHRISTIAN VIOLENCE SINCE AUGUST 24, 2008

Updated 20^th January 2009

 1. ORISSA         Ten years after the Christmas violence in the Dangs district of Gujarat  in 1998, and the burning alive of Australian missionary Graham Stuart Staines, on 22 January 1999, in Orissa, anti Christian violence has not just grown in the two regions, but has spread to other states such as Karnataka. Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh.  Karnataka, in fact, has now surpassed Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh, which were earlier the main areas witnessing persecution. In Orissa, where violence broke out between 24 to 27 December 2007 and then again between 24 August 2008 till the end of the year, a chilling tension still pervades the worst affected district of Kandhamal. And in government camps in G Udaygiri and Raikia in Kandhamal, more than Eight Thousand refugees live a life of torment, humiliation and unemployment. The un-totaled thousands in small and big Church-run camps outside Kandhamal and even deep in Andhra Pradesh that have little coordination with each other, people face an uncertain future. And perhaps 30,000 people still escape to the forests every night to sleep the night in the safety of raw nature, for fear of the marauding gangs. During sunlight hours, they attempt to harvest the paddy crop in the safer areas. Christian and Civil Society groups tried unsuccessfully to move the Courts to stop a government move to forcibly send back people from refugee camps back to distant villages without providing adequate security and employment. The Central Reserve Police Force has begun to thin out from its peak strength of 6,000 on the eve of Christmas, despite earnest requests to government to maintain sufficient numbers to bring confidence to the battered people. Criminal Investigation Department police are making some headway in the investigations in the rape of the Catholic nun, and that of another woman, a Hindu brutalized because her uncle had converted to Christianity. But police also admit that they will have to "trim" the list of about 70,000 persons named as aggressors in over in 746 cases to manageable numbers. The new Director General of Police feels that in each case only a clutch of principal accused can be investigated. So far 598 accused have been actually arrested. Christians have told investigators that many of the aggressors are still roaming free, and some murder suspects have even come to the government refugee camps. The death toll remains a matter of dispute. Human rights groups have a total of 120 names of persons of whom 103 are confirmed dead, and 17 are those whose names are not known, but are known only by their relationship with some villagers. Though there have been several other incidents in Orissa in December and mid January 2009, they have not been directly linked with the earlier sequence of violence. Reconstruction of the houses is yet to begin, and churches await the government assistance promised them by the Government after the intervention of the Supreme Court of India.

 A brief recall of major persecution:

ORISSA:         

14 (of 30)         Districts hit

315                  Villages destroyed

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

54,000             Homeless initially

120                  People murdered

7                      Priests/ Pastors killed

10                    Fathers/Pastors/Nuns injured

 2                     Rapes confirmed [One of Nun]

252                   Churches destroyed [estimated by State government]

13                      Schools, colleges destroyed

2. KARNATAKA      

 8 (of 29)           Districts affected

33                    Churches attacked update again

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

3. TAMIL NADU                     

 12                     Churches attacked

 4. MADHYA PRADESH    

5                       Churches damaged

5. KERALA  

4                      Churches damaged

 6. DELHI                        

 2         Churches damaged/destroyed 

[This update does not include incidents of violence and persecution witnessed in many other states, but not linked with the August 2008 outbreak.]

AND LEST WE FORGET

The decadal growth of the Sangh Parivar in Orissa from the martyrdom of Graham Stuart Staines and his sons on January 22, 1999, and of Father Bernard digal in the violence of August 2008

RSS the mother organization now has 6,000 shakhas with a 1,50,000 plus cadre.

 

The VHP has 1,25,000 primary workers in Orissa.

 

The Bajrang Dal has 50,000 activists working in 200 shakhas.

 

The ruling  Bharatiya Janata Party has above 4,50,000 workers.

 

 The Durga Vahini, the women’s group has 7,000 outfits in 117 sites.

 

The Rashtriya Sevika Samiti, another gender group, has 80 centres

 

Bharatiya Majdoor [labour] Sangh manages 171 trade unions with a cadre of 1,82,000 members.

 

 The strong Bharatiya Kisan [farmers] Sangh has 30,000 in 100 blocks.

 

Other  Sangh front organisations include Friends of Tribal Society, Samarpan Charitable Trust,

Sookruti, Yasodha Sadan, Eklavya Vidyalayas [schools], Vanvasi Kalyan Ashrams and Parishads , Vivekananda Kendras, Shikha Vikas Samitis and Sewa Bharatis.

Kandhamal district, one of Orissa’s thirty, has 2,415 villages, the two towns of Phulbani and Balliguda.

 

Orissa’s 36.8 million population has a mere 2.4 per cent Christians, 2.1 per cent Muslims.

 

[Data courtesy Census of India, Survey of India, Prof Angana Chatterji [US] and others]

John Dayal, 19^th January 2009

JOHN DAYAL’S NEW YEAR UPDATE ON ORISSA

Despite Supreme Court rap, Orissa government unable to keep peace in Kandhamal without help of federal police, Christians forced to compromise with criminals

Sister M recognises some of the rapist gang, but people fear a new armed gang fathered by the Sangh Parivar

In refugee camps and forests, expectant and nursing mothers go anaemic without Medicare

JANUARY 8, 2009

The Supreme Court of India’s ‘Quit if you can’t protect the minorities’ admonition to the Government of Orissa seems not to be taken too seriously by the Biju Janata Dal- Bharatiya Janata Party Coalition ministry in Bhubaneswar and the police headquarters in Cuttack.

Though six thousand federal troops of the Central Reserve Police Force and a Helicopter ensured a peaceful, if very un-Christmassy festival season in the forests and refugee camps of Kandhamal district of the State, shattered by two rounds of anti Christian bloodshed and arson in December 2007 and August-October 2008, ground level peace in forest villages remains a distant dream. A Supreme Court bench headed by Chief Justice KG Balakrishnan had made his remarks while hearing Colin Gonsalves, counsel for Archbishop Raphael Cheenath who had filed a Public Interest Litigation, informed the court that only “deceptive calm” existed in Kandhamal.

In fact, the State government is using its so called official peace committees, heavily loaded against the religious minority, to force withdrawal of criminal cases registered by Christians against those who burnt their houses in the first round of Sangh violence from 24-27 December 2007. As many as 107 churches and close to a thousand Christian homes were burnt at that time, as also some Hindu homes [in the Brahminigaon village]. The spirit behind the anti-Christian violence was Vishwa Hindu Parishad vice president Lakhmanananda Saraswati, whose murder by Maoists on 23 August 2008 sparked off the second round of mayhem.

Reports were then lodged with the police on January 2008. Criminal complaints were filed in the local courts. Of 127 cases registered in the 2007, only five were ever investigated, the National Commission for Minorities discovered. Affidavits were also filed with the Justice Panigrahi Commission of enquiry in which the VHP leader was named as the instigator. [The commission, after a few sittings in which we participated, has since then been formally boycotted by the Church and the Christian community for its blatant partisanship].

Now, in Brahminigaon, for instance, the District authorities are “encouraging’ victim Christians to reach an “accord” with the Hindu community with both parties agreeing to withdraw all criminal cases. Initial reports indicate that the authorities have ensured that there will be no one present when the criminal cases come up for hearing after some weeks.

The entire peace initiative has been under a shadow for want of transparency, and for the one-sided approach of the state officials who are totally under the sway of the BJP ministers in the Cabinet.

The same pressures are visible in the media coverage of the situation, especially in the Oriya language print and television groups. The media continues to target Christian politicians, religious heads and human rights activists. A particular target of criminal slander and coercion is Mr. Radha Kant Nayak, a former federal administrative officer, who is now a Congress member of the Rajya Sabha, the Upper House of Parliament in New Delhi.

The media attitude was also visible during the identification parade in Cuttack where some of them even found their way, much to the irritation of the magistrate, in the chamber where Sister “M”, raped in Nonagon village of Kandhamal in August 2008, recognised two of her assailants. While the Nun could recognise at least two men, Father Thomas Chellum, who was with her when she was attacked, and who was brutally beaten up himself in the presence of the local police and stripped naked, was still too disturbed to be able to identify his assailants from the mixed group of suspects and others paraded before him. Fr Thomas was one of several Catholic and protestant priests attacked and wounded in Kandhamal. A senior Catholic priest, Father Bernard Digal, treasurer of the Archdiocese of Bhubaneswar which covers Kandhamal, died later of his wounds. At least one Pentecost pastor was also butchered by the mobs.

NCM member Michael Pinto has said several Christians were still living under the threat of conversion. “This is not acceptable. The matter of conversions falls under the purview of the Freedom of Religion Act already in force in Orissa.

A new dimension to the terror in Kandhamal has been the emergence of two new groups which apparently will be working in tandem. One is the government sponsored civilian militia, of which 800 will be deployed in Kandhamal and paid out of state funds. The second is the group of 80 young men who had gone to Gujarat last year and have now returned, apparently well armed and well trained. This group has said they will execute Christian on the 23rd of every month to mark the killing of Saraswati. The Orissa government is quiet about it, but the media is trying hard to project it as a split in the Maoist group which killed Saraswati last August. [A detailed analysis of the Maoists and civilian militias operating in the forest areas of Orissa is being made, and will be circulated soon on this forum.]

At the human level, while the State government has gone on record to say it is not confident what will happen once the Federal police are withdrawn, possibly at month-end, the situation of the refugees remains dire. The European commission delegation surveyed refugee camps around Kandhamal and even in Andhra Pradesh before Christmas [they were refused permission to go to Kandhamal], and medical experts who have worked with refugees in the Raikia and G Udaygiri camps speak of widespread anaemia among pregnant and nursing mothers. The health of babies born in the camps since August 2008 is also pitiable for want of neo-natal Medicare and nutrition.

A new dimension was added his week when the authorities launched another phase of “thinning out” the camps by sending reluctant refugees back to their villages.

There has been a bumper crop of paddy this year, and ironically it remains unharnessed in most villages because the farmers with small land holdings are in the camps. While some of the crop has been stolen, much remains in the paddy fields and has to be harvested soon if the rice not to rot. The authorities are assuring safety, and some farmers are willing to go back to harvest the crops, but it remains to be seen how much protection the state forces will provide without the back-up strength of the federal police.

Sangh Parivar is communalising civil rights

RSS, VHP get foreign funds without any check, says John Dayal John Dayal, secretary general, All India Christian Council and Member, National Integration Council, has been a critic of Sangh Parivar. He has been fighting for the cause of the Dalit Christians for the past several years. Currently, Dayal is working 24/7 to bring out a While Paper on Orissa - 2008.

In a detailed interaction with Sai Prasan, a senior journalist, John Dayal spoke on issues ranging from the Dalit Christian rights to the foreign funding of the RSS and VHP to pursue communal politics in Orissa. 

Excerpts:

What will be the strategy of the Church in countering the violence unleashed by the Hindu fundamentalists on the Dalit Christians in Kandhamal? How Church will protect their life?

John Dayal: As a peaceful people, we can do nothing but pray. But as citizens of India, there is much we can do, and have done. We have moved constitutional authorities in the political, administrative and judicial spheres, ranging from President of India, prime minister and chief minister to the High Court and the Supreme Court. We are hoping the government will provide enough CRPF forces to ensure peace in Kandhamal, and if necessary, will call in the Indian Army.

There is a strong opinion that Christian organizations also do not want quick solution of the problem as they get foreign funds in the name of persecution?

John Dayal: We want the violence against us to end as soon as possible so that the refugees can go home. We have a vested interest in peace. It is the Hindutva forces that thrive on tension and fear. The church does not get a penny from any source without the knowledge and permission of the government. The Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) ensures that. In fact, the RSS and Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) get foreign funds from NRIs without any check.

Why the Church failed in fulfilling the aspirations of the Dalit Christian youth as youngster are either joining Left extremism or they are Naxal sympathizers in Orissa including in Kandhamal region?

John Dayal: The government has failed and betrayed us. It gave Dalit rights to Buddhists and Sikhs but has denied us those rights. It is a communal gesture and seeks to keep Dalits as bonded labour of Hindu upper caste society. The church is doing what it can from its limited resources, but it is committed to helping all people without reserving its activities only for Christians. It helps Hindu Dalits as much as Hindu Tribals and non-Hindu Tribals.

Naxalites and Maoists, which are different ideologies, do not have a religion. Most ultras are from Hindu families. There may be some from Muslim, Sikh or Christian families in the country, including Kandhamal.

Why are the Dalit Christians in Orissa divided on the denominational lines? Why are the different Churches staking their claim on Dalits?

John Dayal: This is not a fact. Orissa has several regions and the situation differs from one place to another. In the plains, especially in the Cuttack-Bhubaneswar-Berhampur coastal region, there are a few upper caste Christians, even perhaps in Sambhalapur. The rest are Oriya Dalits. And in both segments, both the Catholic and Protestant churches are prevalent. In the protestant churches, the Baptists are the dominant groups in Cuttack, for instance. In Tribal areas, the situation is slightly different. In the Northern region adjoining Madhya Pradesh and Jharkhand, the Oraons and other Tribals are mostly Catholic for historic reasons but there are Church of North India, which is about thirty years old and was founded by uniting existing denominations such as Church of England and Presbyterian, and Pentecost groups also.

The situation in Kandhamal is complex. Kandhamal has four groups of people. The outsiders are Oriya migrants from the plains who are mostly Hindus. The local people are Kondhs, Kuis, who speak the same language as the Kondhs but are ethnically different, and the Panos who speak a variant of Oriya but are culturally and ethnically different. All three groups have both Catholics and Protestants. The Protestants, as usual consist of Baptists, the oldest, church of north India and new Pentecost groups. Some Kondhs are also nature worshippers and are not Hindus.

The historic reason is that both Catholics and Baptists first came about 140 years ago from two streams - from Calcutta and from the Madras Presidency region. The churches they established continue to this day. The Catholics are the most visible because of the structured churches and the Nuns.

What are the reasons behind your not attending in person the proceeding of the State instituted Commission (investigations) in Orissa?

John Dayal: There two reasons. First, the government could not provide security to witnesses coming from Kandhamal. Second was that Mr Panigrahi seemed to have made up his mind? I have, together with the church, decided to boycott both commissions.

What is the permanent solution of Kandhamal violence ?

John Dayal: Permanent peace can come with justice and implantation of constitutional guarantees. The police cannot be partisan. The poison which was spread by Mr Lakhmanananda will have to be removed. Forcible conversions will have to be stopped, and the guilty should punished ; the rule of law has to be maintained. Churches and houses must be rebuilt, livelihood given, education restored and normal life encouraged. Kondhs, Kuis and Panos, whatever be their religion, will have to live together in peace and they will do so once they understand that the government will be fair and will not tolerate violence.

How do you portray Indian Dalit Christians in front of the western world including Vatican City specially through Christian media - www.persecution.in and www.dalitnetwork.org and similar other websites and publications?

John Dayal: Indian Dalits are a marginalised group, who have been denied their constitutional rights. No more. No less. They are fighting for their rights, and will get them some day.

What is the view of the western world including Vatican City on Indian Dalit Christians? Or What is the take of Vatican on the Dalit Christians?

John Dayal: The same.

At what level, the discrimination exists between the Christians and Dalit Christians? How the co-existence is maintained within the Church periphery in the social context?

John Dayal: Historically till about fifty years ago, some churches in south India had separate segments for Dalits and upper caste. It is not so any more. But traces exist. Caste is an Indian phenomenon, and all religions including Muslims and Sikhs and Christians have practiced it at some level. That is the truth. Even Mahatma Gandhi wanted an end to untouchability only, but not to caste. The church has outlawed caste within it and is working hard to make it a reality. There has been much success, but traces still remain.

Are the Dalit Christians going to remain Dalit Christians for ever as it is being observed in Southern states including literate Kerala where Christianity is 1,900 years old? Has church kept any time frame for their total integration?

John Dayal: Of course not. There will be no more Dalit Christian when there are no more Dalit Hindus. In the church, there will be no separate feeling within the next generation.

How do the reformed Dalits view themselves in the Christian fold? Is there any behavioural awkwardness among Dalit Christians?

John Dayal: No different from the rest.

Are Dalit Christians willing to forego the state offered benefits like land and jobs once they are converted to Christianity? Has the Church taught Dalits the Central tenets of Christianity after adopting them into its fold?

John Dayal: Dalit Christians get no benefits from the government. Dalit Christians are the same as any other Christian in their faith understanding.

Why does the Church think that it has started the social reform process when the Church leadership itself concedes that it does not interfere in the social issues like discrimination on the caste lines in marriages ?

John Dayal: Church does not interfere in anything of a personal nature, but the social teachings of the church make it clear that it does not acknowledge or encourage castism .

Do you endorse the Dalit concept in Christianity as Bible does not permit any discrimination on any ground. Why do you demand reservation for the Dalit Christians which is against Bible?

John Dayal: I do not endorse any discrimination on any basis - caste, race, gender. The Bible does not come into the picture in getting legal rights.

You are vocal on Dalit Christian’s reservation in public sector. But, why are you silent on similar reservation in the private sector where the presence of Dalits is negligible?

John Dayal: I support affirmative action in all spheres of society, including what is called the private sector but is built on bank funds and tax rebates from government agencies.

Are there any other issue which you want to convey?

John Dayal: These are issues of justice and of the rights of citizens. Let us not let religion come into it. That is communalising civil rights. That is what the Sangh Parivar is doing.

Source: http://blog.orissaconcerns.net/2008/12/sangh-parivar-is-communalising-civil-rights-interview-with-john-dayal/