Cardinal Cleemis speaks for Freedom of Faith in India

In the face of adversity, Cardinal Cleemis speaks words of courage

JOHN DAYAL

He impressive formal religious title, Moran Mor Baselios Cardinal Cleemis Catholicos, is the Major Archbishop-Catholicos, and first Cardinal, of the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church. Sometimes he is also called Cardinal Thottunkal. But in recent times, the youngest person to be named a Cardinal has become internationally known, in media and political circles, as the official voice of the Christian community in India in the face of persecution and violence as a plain-speaking President of the supra-ritual Catholic Bishops Conference of India, and chair of the National United Christian Forum. The NUCF consists of the CBCI, the National Council of Churches in India, and the Evangelical Fellowship of India.

The first one to hit the headlines globally as facing up to  Prime Minsters and political thugs was the late Alan de Lastic, of European and Burmese descent and friend of Mother Teresa,who was Archbishop of Delhi in the 1990s, and president of the CBCI before his untimely death in an accident while on a visit to Poland. Archbishop Alan stood upto the powerful, and very popular, Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee at a very critical time in India’s recent history when the Bharatiya Janata party, engine by the aggressive religious nationalism of the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh, history had formed a government for the first time.

Archbishop Alan faced some serious issues — Nuns were raped in Jhabua and the Sangh Parivar launched a vicious propaganda campaign, aided and abetted by crooks in the administration as much as by right wing supporters in the media, to meddle in the investigation and judicial process, and then to put the blame on the Christians. His firmness and compassion gave heart to the victims, and strengthened the  church and activists. He led the Dalit Christian agitation with a unique peaceful civil disobedience leading to his courting arrest on Parliament Street in November 1997. In 1998 Christmas season, Sangh gangs, some of them infiltrators from Maharashtra, destroyed almost three dozen village churches in the forested South Gujarat region of the Dangs.  The Archbishop despatched a Fact Finding team, and  his complaint to the Central Government forced the then prime minister, Mr. Atal Behari Vajpayee to take a helicopter to the Dangs. And when Mr. Vajpayee sought to side track the discourse, calling for a national debate on conversions, Alan told him that while the Church was not afraid of a debate on this issue, the matter had been settled in the Constituent Assembly in a  thorough discussion and brooked no reopening which would seriously  risk injury to the Constitutional  guarantees of freedom of faith. Mfr. Vajpayee dropped the matter.

Cardinal Cleemis will be the first to say he is nowhere close to the stature of Archbishop Alan, but it is a coincidence that he too is called upon to speak when the BJP is again in power after a ten year hiatus,  propelled by a  far more aggressive and pugnacious RSS. Mr. Narendra Modi’s government has reopened the pursuit of a national law against conversions, this time to divert attention from the Sangh-backed hate campaign and violence targetted at the Christian community. There has been a gang-raped, still not satisfactory investigated. There have been two murders, and more than 170 other acts of persecution, Ghar Wapsi and  terrorising of Dalits and Tribals in the months Mr. Modi has been in power.

The Cardinal has led from the front. In the process, he has had no hesitation in using words very different from the polite phrases he used when he made his first formal call on the new prime minister. He had asked for a “chance” for Mr Modi and not to pre-judge him because of his record as the Gujarat Chief Minister or his association with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). This had created some consternation in civil society, and in the Catholic community which was observing the BJP government trying to coerce  anyone it thought would  be a hurdle in its crony capitalist policies.”The remarks would only help Modi to get more acceptability,”  CPM leader Pinarayi had said in Kerala.

Cleemis proved his critics wrong. He called special meetings at the CBCI, consulted with theorists, lawyers, scholars.  In brilliantly sharp public communications, the CBCI said  “The recent controversies in the name of religious reconversions portray a negative image about India. Communal polarisation and the bid to homogenise India are posing threat to all minorities – women, Dalits, and all linguistic, cultural and religious minorities. Ghar Wapsi is a political process, carried out by the powerful exponents of religious nationalism – much against the principle of Secularism. It does not even have the legitimacy of freedom of political expression.”

It is his punchline that has given hope to civil society that the church will not  be cowed into  silence or submission. Shaken by the gang-rape of a 72 year old Nun in West Bengal in March this year, even while  Maharashtra and Haryana were  announcing laws with harsh punishment for anyone found in possession of beef, the Cardinal said “India should be as concerned about the welfare of its people as it is about its cows.” Archbishop Alan would have approved of the cutting-edge comment.

NUN’S MURDER POSES QUESTIONS FOR STATE AND CHURCH

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

JOHN DAYAL

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This was the congregation Valsa chose to be her destiny.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Say NO to the Bigt N

People’s life and livelihood versus nuclear power for industry

JOHN DAYAL

It is the life and the livelihood of the poorest of the poor versus a nation’s ambitions in nuclear energy for industry and super-powerdom in Koodankulam in south India.

A lakh of men, women and children demonstrated earlier this month at the, several of them launching a ten daylong hunger-strike, demanding a stop to the Russia-assisted construction of a 1,000 megawatt nuclear power plant which has triggered a nagging controversy both on its physical safety, following the Fukushima disaster in Japan, and its impact on the environment affecting the livelihood of several million boatmen and fisher-folks along the Coromandel coast.

It made international news was the presence of a large number of Catholic Priests and Nuns, many of them born in the area and umblically connected with the people whose cause they so openly espoused. Catholics and other Christian denominations form a significant part of the coastal population of Puducherry, Tamil Nadu, and of neighbouring maritime states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Kerala, most of them subsisting on fishing and prawn farming, both sensitive to a warming of sea currents because of unchecked waste water discharge.

According to a UCAN report , the people came from 20 Catholic villages and a dozen others around Koodankulam from the districts of Kanyakumari, Thoothukudi and Tirunelveli. The agency interviewed some of the demonstrators.“Russian nuclear technology has failed in Chernobyl. Why should we use it here to endanger our lives,” said Bishop Yuvon Ambroise of Tuticorin and chairperson of the Office for Justice, Peace and Development (JPD) at the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India. Bishop Ambroise said the country should look to Europe and Japan as an example.“India should follow Germany and Japan, who recently announced that they are giving up their nuclear facilities after the Fukushima disaster.” “Our lives are in danger because of the nuclear plant,” said Bishop Peter Remigius of Kottar. “We want the facilities to be used for useful purposes.” Medha Patkar, who mothered the Narbada Bachao movement against big damns said questions remained over why the government had approved the facility in an inhabited area despite environmental concerns.

After more than a week, the agitation was called off when the Union government and the administrations of Puducherry and Tamil Nadu, the two affected States, called a temporary halt to work on the nuclear plant and promised talks with the local people. The Tamil Nadu Cabinet of chief minister J Jayalalitha is to pass a formal resolution and send it over to the Union Government. Prime minister Manmohan Singh will have to take a call on the issue after he returns from New York where is attending the General Assembly of the United nations. It remains a moot question if the government will indeed halt further work and eventually shut down the existing units of the plant. Fears are it will not.

Nuclear energy, for war and for peace, remains locked in a fierce stranglehold of hyper nationalism and the needs of the growing economy in a country whose people aspire to be a global superpower in the not too distant future. This nationalism has made real debate on safety and security issues all but taboo in the country, with just a handful of activists and academics involved in any genuine debate. Years of nuclear isolation, when its only technological support was from the then Soviet Union, accentuated India’s paranoia that the world wanted to keep it away from cheap power for its growth. A clandestine nuclear military experiment exploded India into the Big Power club when the regime of the late prime minister Indira Gandhi carried out an underground blast in the early 1980s in the desert sands of Rajasthan. Two decades later, the government of Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, leading a National Democratic alliance collation headed by his own Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata party, carried out a series of explosions in the same testing grounds. Pakistan, neighbour and traditional enemy, followed suit with its own nuclear experiments. Both countries today have an estimated more than two hundred strategic nuclear warheads mounted on ground and air-borne missiles, and possibly also on warships. This show of might, and an end of the soft military alliance with Russia, has helped India reach pacts in nuclear material with the US and Europe who look on the expanding Indian market with deep interest.

Electricity for industry and homes remains a critical need for India, which does not have great reserves of oil, and only limited reserves of high grade coal for hydrocarbon-fuelled thermal power plants. With most of its northern rivers flowing through unstable seismic regions prone to earthquakes, the safety of existing hydel power plants has been called into question. The collapse of the tunnels in the Teesta river project in the north eastern state of Sikkim in the recent earthquake had revived the paranoia first evoked when a quake hit the Koyna dam in Maharashtra some years ago.

Jawaharlal Nehru and his scientific advisers thought succour lay in clean nuclear energy. In 1962 Homi Bhabha, the father of atomic energy in India, projected 20,000 mw in nuclear generation capacity by 1987 based on imported reactors. The target, and future targets, could never rally be achieved. The Department of Atomic Energy which owns the largely indigenous nuclear power program now has a target of 20,000 MWe for 2020 and expects to have 63,000 MWe nuclear capacity on line by 2032. It aims to supply 25 per cent of electricity from nuclear power by 2050. Because India is outside the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty due to its weapons program, it was for 34 years largely excluded from trade in nuclear plant or materials, which has hampered its development of civil nuclear energy until 2009. Due to these trade bans and lack of indigenous uranium, India has uniquely been developing a nuclear fuel cycle to exploit its reserves of thorium. Its current energy derived from nuclear plans is 5,000 mw.

According to the government’s own assessments, quoted in the media, electricity demand in the country is increasing rapidly, and the 830 billion kilowatt hours produced in 2008 was triple the 1990 output, though still represented only some 700 kWh per capita for the year. Because of the massive transmission line losses, this resulted in only 591 billion kWh consumption. Coal provides 68 per cent of the electricity at present, natural gas 8 per cent, hydro-electric units giving 14 percent more The per capita electricity consumption figure is expected to double by 2020, with 6.3% annual growth, and reach 5000-6000 kWh by 2050. By the way, there are many who blame coal based units for pollution and question the security and safety, even the displacement potential, of dams meant for irrigation and power.

The crippling of the Fukusima plant in Japan in the earthquake and tsunami in March 2011 has for once brought the safety debate into the public domain. The International Atomic Energy Agency’s global expert fact-finding group has in its June report said “there were insufficient defence for tsunami hazards” the likes of which devastated the Coromandel coast of India, as also Indonesia, Thailand and Sri Lanka, some years ago. The Nuclear Power Corp. of India has undertaken safety evaluation of 20 operating power plants and nuclear power plants under construction, suggesting a series of safety procedures, specially for plants along the coastline.

The nuclear power lobby says the Russian VVER reactors of 1000 MWe are considered to be quite safe, unlike the Chernobyl graphite RBMK reactors. They have many safety features built in to them, and have an operating life of 40 years. The reactors at Koodankulam have an added “passive cooling” system for additional safety. The more advanced VVER 1200 reactors, with more safety features, are being built in Russia, and would be available for the future expansion of Koodankulam. While 30 VVER-1000 reactors have been built, 19 more are planned or are under construction. China has built two such reactors at the Tainwan nuclear power plant and is constructing six more. The VVER 1000 built in China has 94 per cent of its systems automated, i.e. the plant can control itself under most situations. The IDEA has referred to the Tainwan station as the “safest nuclear power plant in the world”.

The lobby says the Koodankulam reactors can be considered to be adequate from the safety standpoint. “There would be no rational reason for stopping the project at this stage, when it is over 95 per cent completed.” The plant is far from major seismic activity, it is said, and therefore the risks are manageable.

This is challenged by anti Nuclear activists such as the pioneering journalist Praful Bidwai who has carried out a safety campaign for more than twenty years.

The environment impact on the ocean is a more urgent issue. The Koodankulam thermal power plant will require large amounts of cooling water, an estimated 70 cubic metres per second, which will be heated up while going through the coils of the nuclear power plant and will be discharged into the sea. The impact of this warm water on the marine environment is said to be difficult to assess, and would depend on the sea depth, flow rates, and ecology. There have also been some allegations of the health effects of radiation on people living in the vicinity of nuclear power plants elsewhere in India.

But India has clearly indicated it will not abandon the quest for nuclear energy. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is emphatic about the future of India’s nuclear energy programme, saying “there would be no looking back on nuclear energy,: and in fact proposing expanding India’s civil nuclear energy with adequate safety measures. Indian civil society is not convinced if the measures will really be adequate to prevent a future disaster. Koodankulam and the fishermen in its neighbourhood remain apprehensive.

WWW integral to Democracy, and vice versa

10 July 2010

John Dayal

Poland is a young people, and a younger nation in terms of centuries. Slav tribes came together not more than a millennium ago. They became Christian as recently as in 966 AD – remember, St Thomas made his first converts in Kerala and Madras circa 54 AD, the first century after Christ – and made its first international show with the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1569. And at various times, it defeated the Teutonic German knights, but was brutally conquered by Hitler, freed by Marshal Stalin, but held ideologically captive by the Soviet Union, freed once again by a combination mass movement led long distance from Rome by home boy Pope John Paul II and by ship builder Lech Walesa of Gdansk. That was about thirty years ago, just. It is home to Auschwitz where a million Jews were incinerated, but is also where Chopin was born, and Copernicus and Madame Curie. Let us say, Poland knows a bit about democracy, and the lack of it, and the difference between the two. Not surprisingly, when in the middle of its Presidential Elections this month, it held the Tenth anniversary meeting High Level Meeting of the Community of Democracies, the event was alternately dominated by events showcasing Polish culture and ethos on the one hand, and US arrogance on the other, specially as displayed by the very vocal Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and one of her predecessors Madeline Alright. Between the two, they put up the US as the global underwriter of democracy, and financier of pro democracy movements in third world countries, Clinton announcing a support fund with an initial Dollar donation of Five Million.

But as part of the observances was an interesting sub-conference on the use of the Internet and emerging communication technologies to assist NGOs and Civil society groups in their struggle for democracy. Also discussed was the role of parliamentarians, and women’s groups and civil society participation in economic development. The concluding documents of the group discussions said “developing mechanisms to ensure that the voice of NGOs, Think tanks and other actors is heard is essential to foster the democratic ideal.”

The issues would have interested India, but alas, of the three civilians and one diplomat at the conference from home, only one attended this session. Egyptians and Latin Americans spoke of the use they had made of the Internet in globalising their struggles. Others spoke of Internet censorship, by China and Pakistan, for instance. And a representative of an international Search engine-turned portal tried to forecast the future where the Internet in an advanced version would be an important tool for “equality, fraternity and the pursuit of happiness,” or words to that affect.
For NGOs in India, there was much to reflect upon. We boast the second largest number of Internet users in the world, but poverty, still prehistoric infrastructure maintenance, low penetration where it matters among the rural, the forested tribal communities and the religious minorities -- the huge victim group in other words – it remains a moot question if Indians can pin their democratic hopes on the World Wide Web, yet. The blame cannot be put on Airtel , Idea, Reliance, BSNL, Aircel, Tata Indicom, Vodafone, MTNL, and Loop Mobile, though they too care tuppence for the 600 million consumers, almost half of the total national population connected by wire or wireless. Another demon is the cost. India still rates as one of the most expensive in communication and Net access.
The ghost culprit is the Government of India. It is, I admit, no monster compared to China’s regime, but let us not forget that Kashmiris cannot often still carry hand mobiles every so often, villagers lose touch for want of electricity, and above all, things are not clear about shadow organizations such as the Computer Emergency Response Team ("CERT-IN") are meant to ensure Internet security. Officially, the Ministry of Home Affairs, all courts, the military and civil intelligence bureaus can use it, as they say in officialese, to enhance the security of India's Communications and Information Infrastructure through proactive action and effective collaboration.
Nothing legal yet about website censorship, but news reports on a weekly basis speak of interest groups fingering some site or the other, foreign or national. Records show, and I should be I suppose indebted to CIA portals for this information, not just pornographic but also anti-establishment political websites have been blocked. In 2001, the Bombay High Court appointed a committee to oversee issues relating to online pornography and Cybercrime. A court panel called for licensing of cyber cafés, putative identity cards for cyber cafe visitors, and long books for internet service providers. Good for internal security and since the Indian State and its police defines what is national good, bad news for a free society. Not that in India we need India to scare us. Self Censorship in India ensures that most of us, the Media included, quietly toe the government line where it matters, afraid we may be branded Maoist supporters, if not Maoists of Jaish operatives. Our hard disks remain squeaky clean, our ‘Net signatures absolutely innocent of real democratic shouts. Time for some debate on Internet freedom, and its importance for Civil Society – without drawing on the 5 Million Dollar American fund.
[An editorial in FNB news for the soul]

Christian Council suggests major overhaul of bill against communal violence

The following is the text of the letter

Dr. Manmohan Singh

The Prime Minister of India

Your Excellency Dr. Manmohan Singh:

Greetings from the All India Christian Council.

We applaud your government for its desire to protect the idea of India – a secular government with equality for all. We welcome the intention to pass a Bill on

communal violence which will add to India’s strong body of laws.

However, the Christian community has deep concerns about the Communal Violence (Prevention, Control and Rehabilitation of Victims) Bill, 2009, from the drafts we’ve

read. We humbly request a serious re-write of this legislation. Our main concerns:

1. The Bill doesn’t adequately address the question of hate campaigns and the “communalisation process” (i.e. hate speech published in local language media) that

precede communal violence. This well-studied phenomenon of activities, some already illegal but not often prosecuted, is a root issue.

2. The Bill doesn’t take into account the demography and pattern of living of various communities. Specifically, anti-Christian violence is normally dismissed by

public officials as “sporadic” (although there may be a serious incident daily in some areas). Because other minorities live in concentrated or contiguous areas, those

“communally disturbed areas” are more easily identified. In Orissa, Kandhamal would likely not fit the Bill’s definition but we know what happened there in 2007-2008.

3. The Bill doesn’t give States guidelines on reparations and compensation. We need a uniform national policy as well standards on the assessment of damages after

riots in order to prevent ghettoisation.

4. The Bill doesn’t fully address police and administrative impunity properly or adequately. The “good faith” clause, which exempts police and public servants from

prosecution unless there is permission from the executive branch, is a major concern.

We share concerns, especially voiced by Muslim groups, that the Bill doesn’t fully acknowledge the individual victim, treats communal violence as spontaneous rioters

versus rioters (instead of acknowledging the possibility of premeditated or state-sponsored violence), and gives much power to state

governments which, historically, have occasionally acted in a biased manner. We need to see stronger checks and balances.

Also, we acknowledge that some shortcomings are systemic legal issues better addressed by your government in separate legislation or orders. The most important, in our

humble opinion, include:

• Establishing witness protection programs and guidelines

• Strengthening of National Commission for Minorities and state minority commissions

• Action against police who refuse to register FIRs

• Permanently debarring government officials guilty of involvement in communal violence – or any crime – from government jobs and from contesting any office

• The rights of “internally displaced persons” in relief camps should mirror UN Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement e.g. including immediate education

for displaced children

Many provisions of the current version of the Bill are acceptable. But we request you to consider the input above so that a weak Bill is not passed which requires the

almost impossible process of securing future amendments.

Our community has learned from recent waves of communal attacks in Orissa and Karnataka as well as ongoing onslaught on house churches, individual pastors/priests and

nuns, and the terrible hate campaigns in newspapers which are officially sponsored by several state governments. Our suggestions are rooted in the reality of rural

India where the vast majority of our members – thousands of Protestant, Catholic, and independent Christian organisations – live and work to improve our beloved

society.

Yours Sincerely and Most Respectfully,

Dr. Joseph D’souza, President, aicc, Hyderabad, dsouza@aiccindia.org

John Dayal, Secretary General, aicc, New Delhi, john.dayal@gmail.com

C.C.:

Shri M. Veerappa Moily, Union Cabinet Minister for Law & Justice

Shri P. Chidambaram, Union Minister of Home Affairs

Shri Salman Khurshid, Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Minority Affairs

Smt. Sonia Gandhi, Chairperson, Indian National Congress Party

-------------------

Hindustan Times report today:

Amended law to let Centre take charge in riot-hit states

Aloke Tikku, Hindustan Time

r

New Delhi, March 17, 2010

The government’s final version of the communal violence law empowers the Centre to take charge of an area where riots have broken out once it sends in central forces,

if it finds the state government concerned reluctant to act against the rioters.

The new law still does not allow the Centre to send armed forces on its own to a riot-hit spot. But once a state has asked for central forces to quell violence, the

Centre will have the right — under certain circumstances — of setting up a unified command, comprising these forces and the local police.

The amendment was cleared by the Cabinet last December and is expected to come for parliamentary approval next month.

The Communal Violence (Prevention, Control and Rehabilitation of Victims) Bill, however, says the Centre can declare an area “communally disturbed” and take direct

charge only if the state concerned refuses to act against the violence being perpetrated to such an extent that the secular fabric of the country, or internal

security, is endangered.

To guard against political misuse, the law stipulates that the Centre must

draw the attention of the state government to the deteriorating state of affairs, and set a deadline for it to take necessary steps to suppress the violence.

Until now, central forces deployed in a state worked under the control of the local district administration. But henceforth, in special circumstances, it will work

under the unified command, which will report to the Centre.

The amendment was conceived of in the backdrop of the 2002 Gujarat riots, when it was widely believed the state government had done little to discourage the rioters.

Even so, it is bound to anger state governments who will see it as an encroachment on their powers. Eight of 12 states that responded to a survey by a parliamentary

panel had even opposed an earlier, milder version.

Sangh Agenda in Education

GITA IN SCHOOLS

Madhya Pradesh CM wants Gita in school curricula

Hemender Sharma / CNN-IBN

Published on Wed, Mar 10, 2010 at 09:11

Shivraj Chouhan declared that his govt was contemplating introducing the Gita in schools.

Bhopal: First it was sun worship and yoga in government schools and now the Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan has made it a mission to introduce the Bhagavad Gita in school curricula.

“I had met swami Arganad and there this thought had come why not introduce the Bhagwad Gita as a moral science subject. I am very seriously contemplating on this,” said Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan.

Proponents call it an inspired plan. Chouhan critics call it yet another step by the BJP to saffronise schools.

"The Shivraj Singh led government wants to do everything that will annoy the minorities. That is their aim,” said Congress MLA Arif Aqueel.

Students feel that they may not be old enough understand all that the Gita teaches, but they certainly seem to be mirroring the government's enthusiasm.

Chauhan himself defends the move saying "Any Good thing that can be there in any human being is written in the Bhagwad Gita”.

But Chouhan will find it hard to answer the counter point from Congress MLA Arif Aqueel.

“I don't have any problem with introduction of the Bhagwad Gita but than why not the Quran, the Bible or the Guru Grant Sahib?,” said Arif Aqueel, Congress MLA.

The Chief Minister though assures that the Gita will not be introduced in syllabus in haste. But it’s surely a move that will please RSS Chief Mohan Bhagwat, who recently announced in Bhopal, that non-Hindus cannot be Indians.

-------------

Vivek Joyti Mar 9, 2010

Ekal Kumbh Resolves To Reach One Lakh Tribal Villages

from savarkar vinayak

date Tue, Mar 9, 2010

A massive Ekal Kumbh organized by Ekal Vidyalayas was inaugurated by the Sarsanghchalak of the RSS Shri Mohan Bhagwat in Delhi on October 30. More than 12,000 vanvasis & girivasis (Forest & Mountain dwellers) of Ekal Vidyalayas assembled in Swarna Jayanti Park of Rohini in North west Delhi. Vanvasis from almost all the states of India participated in the three day conclave.

Started in 1988 from Jharkhand, the Ekal Vidyalaya Movement has made its presence in 27110 villages of 22 states of India. Presently. 7,78,965 students are getting their education through these schools. With the objective of making India ‘Sikshit, swasthya and samridh’ (literate, healthy and prosperous), the Ekal Vidyalaya has also undertaken the responsibility of imparting education for health care, community development and promoting village folk for constructive activities.

The three day conclave formally concluded with the address of Sadhvi Ritambhara on the first of November with the resolve to reach out to one lakh tribal villages. A grand exhibition depicting real India living in rural and forest areas was also inaugurated by the Yoga guru Baba Ram Dev on 29th October evening. Many NRIs also participated in the conference hosted by the Bharat Lok Siksha Parishad, Delhi. All the sessions were organized and conducted by vanvasi volunteers exclusively.

Eight townships were setup in the 24 acres of land in Swarna Jayanti Park. A common conference hall, grand exhibition hall, reception booth, health centre and office etc. occupied another 20 acres of the park area. Speaking on the occasion Shri Mohan Bhagwat appreciated the work being done by Ekal Volunteers in providing education in the remote areas of India. He said, “It is only education that would make the country great. In fact, through Ekal Vidyalayas, we are not only running schools but trying to make India of our dreams”. Addressing the gathering Baba Ramdev described the Ekal Movement as Master Plan for country’s integrated development “The body of human being is nothing but a temple and Ekal Vidyalaya is nothing but worship of the God”, he added. Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) President Shri Ashok Singhal expressed his concern saying that the benefits of Independence have not reached the villages whereas 60 percent of national resources should have reached there.

AS NATION PREPARES TO CELEBRATE REPUBLIC DAY, IN KANDHAMAL, SURVIVORS OF COMMUNAL VIOLENCE FACE A THIRD DISPLACEMENT

Around 100 survivors of communal violence, who have been staying in an abandoned NAC market complex at G. Udaygiri of Kandhamal district after the forcible closure of relief camps by the government, have been asked by the local administration to vacate the place. With the news of visit of a European Commission team to the region, the government have ordered to remove the people again as a part of its attempt to project that government had brought back normalcy in Kandhamal and violence affected people are living at their villages peacefully without any threat.

`The BDO has asked us to vacate immediately and if we refuse police force will be used,' said the worried survivors of Kandhamal violence. When the violence broke out on August 23, 2008, they were forced to leave their villages and their houses were burnt down. They had to take shelter in relief camps, but they were forced to leave from there also after the new BJD government come to power. Hence they had taken shelter in the market complex like beggars.

`Where can we go with these two babies?' asked a crying mother Ms. Menaka Nayak (25). Her youngest baby was born in the camp itself. `We can not go back to our village, because they will not allow us to live there if we do not convert to Hinduism. The government is not prepared to provide security and necessary help. On top of it they are trying to throw us out from here also’.

Mr. Moses Nayak, who has been prevented by the Hindu fundamentalists to come back to his village Ratingia as he had refused to change his religion unlike his two brothers, presently solely depends on daily wage based labour works, has no other options than to stay here. An elderly couple from R.Padikia village are also debarred to come back to their ancestral land as they failed to present their two ‘pastor’ sons before the communally motivated village mobs.

Following the dreadful communal violence around twenty thousand people have already migrated to different places outside Kandhamal. There are another five thousand people, who neither can afford to go outside nor can go back to their villages, living like refugees in various places of their home district. Although the district

administration is claiming of ensuring security, peace and rehabilitation to the survivors, the reality speaks of a different story. The seventeen families from the villages such as R.Padikia, Kutuluma, Loharingia,Kilakia, Jimmangia, Dakedi, Kiramah, Ratingia staying in NAC market complex are virtually landless and legally not entitled to claim their house damage compensation as they do not have records of rights over the lands they used to have their houses since generations. Whoever have RoR over their small patches of homestead land, are debarred by fundamentalists to reconstruct their houses. Very few people were given compensation and again that amount was not more than Rs.10, 000.

`Even after seventeen months, there is no indication of justice for the survivors of communal violence in Khandamal', says Fr. Ajay, Director, Jana Vikas, an leading NGO in Kandhamal who represents National Centre for Dalit Human Rights (NCDHR) `There were 295 churches and 6,000 houses burnt down apart from schools, hospitals and other institutions. The victims are none other than poor adivasis and dalits. Urgent action is needed from the government to take care of the needs of the refugees of communalism who have been reduced to the level of beggars and second class citizens. This is not a matter of charity, but a fundamental right enshrined in the constitution of India’. The office building with other accessories belonging to Jana Vikas was one of the first to be burnt down on 25th August 2008.

`It appears that the existence of refugees of communalism is threatening the image of the Orissa government' says Dhirendra Panda, well known secular activist from Orissa. `That is the reason why they are trying to remove them instead of facilitating their security and rightful restoration’.

Mr.Sarat Nayak from Dakedi, a landless labour who can not go back to his village, complains of the indifference of the school authorities to get his child admitted in any other school. It has been found a numbers of children within age group of 5-14, who are staying in this non-official camp, had to discontinue their studies and there is no visible action by the local administration to bring back these children to schools again.

Let alone other problems, now the first and foremost need is prevent further evacuation of these hapless and hopeless adivasi and dalit victims. Whatever may be the intention, excuses or explanations put forth by the government, the reality is that one hundred victims of communal violence will be thrown out on streets within a day or two. Perhaps, the secular and human rights activists may respond.

[Original report by: K.P.Sasi, Film Maker]

Kandhamal victims unite, knock at Government’s doors for justice; action for grassroots reconciliation, security and confidence

A meeting of Priests, Pastors, community leaders and activists held at Berhampur on 7th December 2009 has endorsed the formation of the Sampradayik Hinsa Prapidita Sangathana [Association of Victims of commuinal violence in Kandhamal] formed earlier in Phulbani after a series of meetings in which human rights and civil society activists from Bhubaneswar and Cuttack also took part.

All these meetings were the first of their kind since Hindutva violence against the Christian community in Kandhamal and other districts of Orissa left over 5347 houses looted and burnt, 295 churches destroyed, women and girls raped, and more than 75 people murdered in the name of religion and ethnicity. Large-scale displacement and migrations followed with over 50,000 people becoming refugees in their own motherland.

Two fast track courts set up in the aftermath of the violence have lost the confidence of the people with murderers, one of them a BJP legislator Manoj Pradhan, being released in several cases with eye witnesses too scared to dispose against the culprits. About 2500 complaints had been registered but only 823 FIR have been registered. All the cases were classified into murder (27 cases), attempt to murder cases, rape case, etc.

The major task of the new association, working closely with clergy and civil society activists irrespective of religion, is to restore public confidence and to ensure that the victims and witnesses felt safe enough to depose in court. This grassroots action will also help in the process of reconciliation and hopefully allow people to come back to their villages which are now barred to them by Hindutva activists who are forcing them to first convert to Hinduism before assimilating in the old habitations.

However, the association has expressed its deep distrust in the current justice delivery system, saying the Fast Track Courts are working perhaps too fast in trying to finish off the cases without looking closely at the evidence. Of cases involving 12 murders, there has been conviction just in one case, for instance.

The association has also decided to boycott the Justice Mohapatra commission probing the murder of VHP vice president Lakhmanananda Saraswati and the violence that followed his death at the hands of a Maoist group on 23rd August 2008. They said the commission has preconceived notions and has already formed its conclusions without even waiting for evidence.
The meeting at Berhampur, presided over by Archbishop Cheenath, was also attended by other Bishops and church leaders including Bishop Sarath Nayak of Berhampur and Believers Church bishop Bardhan, National Integration Council Member John Dayal, Human rights activist Dhirendra Panda and senior lawyers from the Christian Law Association, Human Rights Law Network, and the All India Christian Council and all church groups represented in the region.

Meanwhile the Archbishop of Bhubaneswar-Cuttack and Kandhamal, Most Reverend Raphael Cheenath, SVD, has also met the Collector and submitted him a memorandum highlighting the same issues of instilling a sense of security among the villagers and giving them adequate compensation, rehabilitation and employment.

It was made clear at the various meetings that security of the people remained the main concern. The sense of insecurity is also leading to a gross miscarriage of justice in the two Fast Track courts. As victims have complained to the Orissa High Court separately, witnesses are being coerced, threatened, cajoled and sought to be bribed by murderers and arsonists facing trial. Shoddy police investigations have already created a crisis in the dispensation of justice, and even genuine eye witnesses are reneging in court as they see the court premises full of top activists of fundamentalist organisations and often the same persons who had burnt their houses. The police remain mute watchers, as always.

The witnesses are threatened in their homes, and even their distant relatives are being coerced. This requires urgent and immediate action by the District administration and the Police to ensure that the process of justice is not thwarted and sabotaged.

There are major lacunae in the relief and rehabilitation of the victims of mass arson. Not a single Christian place of worship or Christian NGO has been compensated for their tremendous loss, but the poor victims are also being mocked by the inadequate compensation. The violation of principles of rehabilitation is at several levels. The first is in identifying the houses as fully or partially damaged. Secondly, houses by the dozens have not been enumerated by the government surveyors. Thirdly, the victims of the 2007 arson, especially in Barakhama have been criminally left out of the reckoning and for those 225 or so poor families, it has been second year without adequate shelter.

It costs about Rs. 85,000 to reconstruct a house and yet the government gives only Rs 50,000 in separate tranches. It is the duty of the state to give the full money. Just to save the people from the vagaries of the weather, the Church has sought to pitch in, but their resources are meagre and more than 2,500 families cannot be helped by the Church.

There is no information from government or the district administration about the livelihood of those affected by the violence. The administration without delay must conceive and execute a scheme so that every family effected by violence has at least one person, if not more, in gainful employment in government projects so that they can live a life of dignity, and to prevent large scale migration and pauperisation of victim families.

It was felt special projects for the women victims, and especially young girls, are also required urgently in Kandhamal. There are already rumours of human trafficking. I pray they remain rumours.

The administration has to act swiftly on the issue of allotting land for homes to those persons who have fallen into the gap of the Forest Act, and have no land to build their houses. They have to be identified, allotted land so that they can live in peace without facing the perpetual threat of being ousted.

The administration, civil and police, have also to act with their full strength to stop the hate campaign that has been unleashed in the last one year, and which has penetrated distant villages, creating schism and hatred between communities. The law of the land must be implemented severely to contain and deter those indulging in this activity.

Rebuilding Civil Society in Kandhamal for Justice and Reconciliation

4TH DECEMBER 2009

From John Dayal in Kandhamal:

Of the 12 murder cases tried inthe fast Track courts in Phulbani, Kandhamal district or Orissa, India, the accused have been let off in 11 murders, and convicted in just one. A member of the State Legislative assembly on the Bharatiya Janata party ticket, Mr Manoj Pradhan, has been let off in th four cases in which he has been tried so ar. He and his henchmen have been accused by witnesses of terrorising them, or seeking to bribe them.

A belated effort is now being made to revive civil society and the process of justice and reconciliation towards a lasting peace in Kandhamal, which remains the worst single case of persecution of Christians in South Asia. Most of the over 5,000 houses destroyed in the December 2007 and August 24-October 2008 mayhem remain un-built, and several thousand of the 50,000 Christian refugees are still to return home. Many cannot as they have been told they have to convert to Hinduism before they will be accepted in the villages. The threats and coercion continue till today.

The police and administration, as usual, look on. The one change is the Chief Minister, Mr Naveen Patnaik’s acceptance, in an answer in the State legislature, that it was the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh and its sister organisations of the Bajrang Dal and Vishwa Hindu Parishad which were responsible in the anti Christian violence, the first time the government has accepted this reality. Two judicial commissions of enquiry, plodding on in Cuttack and Bhubaneswar, are yet to admit this fact.

The following is an update:

I. The Harsh Reality of Orissa and especially of Kandhamal is:

1. No one raised a voice when violence hit the Christians in December 2007 and August 2008, not even the governments

2. Civil Society in Bhubaneswar and Cuttack, if it existed, played dead, and nation was not moved.

3. Barring a few Left parties who could protest, the Political Apparatus remained silent and invisible, including so called friendly parties and groups

4. The Media was violently biased, specially the Oriya Media

5. Fact Finding groups either misunderstood the causes, or just blamed either Conversions or Dalit-Tribal conflicts as the cause of the violence, and even people’s enquiry commissions incouding An Oriya Judge and Teesta Setalvad have yet to give their reports on the 2007 violence.

6. Post violence, civil society and peace institutions have yet to be revived.

7. Church was shattered, deeply wounded and overwhelmed by the magnitude of the violence. Barring the PILs in the Supreme Court, no real pressure on Government to construct all houses fully, pay sustenance allowances etc, and government jobs.

II. Post Violence;

1. Church is focussed on helping complete houses instead of using the law to let government complete the houses. As a result, though the Catholic Church says it will help complete 1200 houses, Believers Church 900 Houses, Eficor about 300 houses, and CNI a similar number, another 2,500 houses remain without help. Also without help are the 250 or so victims of the 2007 violence, especially in Barakhama, who have been left to thereon devices.

2. Although there has been much work by religious groups in distributing Holy Bibles and clothes, and in counselling victims, there has not been commensurate work in enhancing the sense of security.

3. The result is that complainants and witnesses to violence feel very insecure and are susceptible to coercion, blackmail and perhaps allurement.

4. The result has been that despite the effort of well meaning young lawyers, especially of the CLA and HRLN, not much progress has been made in getting convictions especially in the murder cases involving BJP political leaders.

5. In many villages, refugees have not been able to return because the threat of forcible conversion to Hinduism remains.

6. The government peace committees remain on paper, or are loaded against Christians

7. Not much headway has been made in getting the Collector to secure land for non Tribals so they can construct their houses.

8. No headway has been made at village level towards reconciliation

III. Reviews:

1. Civil Society groups have met sporadically to assess the situation, including those coming from Delhi, but there has not been much sharing of info and concepts.

2. The first major initiative was taken by Fr Ajay and Mr Dhirendra Panda to call a meeting on 3rd November 2009 in Bhubaneswar to assess the satiation. Almost the entire political spectrum, excluding the BJP, BJD and Congress, were present, incouding women groups, tribal and Dalit groups and specialists. Several victims were also present. Dr Dayal, and Advocate Sr Mary Scaria, Ms Lansinglu Rongmei, Mrs Tehmina Ram Arora and Ms Vrinda Grover met several times in New Delhi to discuss the legal issues.

3. As part of the follow up of the decisions and recommendations of those meeting, some activists held meetings in It was also decided o get senior advocates and observers to be present for some time in the Fast Track courts so that grounds could be prepared for intervention in superior courts.

4. As a follow-up of those meetings and after consultations with senior Bishops of Orissa of various denominations, it was felt that the Church had a major role to play at the grassroots level to reconstruct social and civil society structures to give courage and strength to the victims. This can be done only at the homeland village level and not by outsiders from Bhubaneswar or elsewhere in the country.

5. It was therefore decided to call a meeting in Berhampur, the nearest big town, of all religious workers – Priests, pastors, catholic religious, NGO workers, catechists and others – on 7th December 2007 for a full day discussion cum workshop to discuss the issue and to encourage the religious groups to begin grassroots work apart from the religious work and relief they have been doing.

6. It was decided to bring experts to help brief the religious on these issues.