Short circuit fires and communal violence in India

1 May 2015

Short circuits and communal violence

John Dayal                                                        

The Christian leadership in India should perhaps hire better electrical engineers, instead of going screaming to the national media and international forums about increasing persecution of the community in the country. The Delhi police says fires in two Delhi churches were caused by short circuits. The desecration of statues in two churches were petty vandalism, while two others were mere thefts. Nothing communal or targetted about the six cases in the national capital.

                                                                                                                        

In one of the cases where a Grotto in a  Catholic church was vandalised, the police arrested three inebriated Sikh young men whose images had been apparently recorded in the closed circuit TV camera. 

Elsewhere in the country, a love-lorn Muslim rickshaw puller was arrested for decapitating a statue of Jesus and tying the statue of Mary with a dog chain in Agra. And for the rape of a 72 year old Nun in Bengal, police arrested Muslim men said to be illegal migrants from Bangladesh who were apprehended as far away as Ludhiana in Punjab and Bangladesh. This must be one of those coincidences.

The Delhi Police Commissioner, Mr. B S Bassi, has apparently sent a long confidential report to the Ministry of Home Affairs which somewhere got leaked as “exclusives” to every news channel. It is a coincidence that the Bassi Report comes within hours of the United States Commission for International Religious Freedom publishing its annual report for 2014, in which it puts India in the list of Tier Two countries under watch for religious freedom transgressions. Neighbour Pakistan, if it is any consolidation, is a Tier 1 country together with some theocracies and dictatorships .

The police commissioner had said much the same two months ago when he was summoned by the Prime Minister, Mr. Narendra Modi. And indeed, the Union Home Minister, Mr. Rajnath Singh, had done so even earlier, talking to a group that had been beaten up and detained by the police on the eve of the state elections in Delhi. And two months before that, Mr. Modi had told a delegation led by an Archbishop which had come to greet him on the eve of Christmas that Christians were exaggerating this, “making mountains out of molehills,” as he colourfully put it, and their actions would impact  the government’s development agenda.

To substantiate  there twas nothing religious about such crimes, Mr Bassi had earlier

produced statistics to show that 206 temples, 30 gurdwaras, 14 mosques and three churches were burgled in 2014. This would be some contribution to interfaith dialogue on security issues. Far be it from me to call it an attempted white-wash.

There is no clarification by the commissioner, or by the government, on communal and targetted violence against Muslims, though also figures in the US report. But that could possibly be because of a presumption in government and political circles that the US, with all too many resident Islamophobes,  is bothered just about the Christian community which, to quote Chief Justice Dattu, gets so much money from the West.

But persecution is not about the desecration of a church, or the smashing of a Marian statue. It takes many forms. Churches are not burnt in China, but there is fear in the community. Though not as it may be in some Islamic countries where violent death is always a breath away.  Bhutan, with its quotient of happiness, is also as intolerant as the Maldives when it comes to “alien” faiths though no one has been killed.  India records from 150 to 250 cases of some form of violence against Christians every year.

It has always been, everywhere, about defining the other.  But in popular, even academic and parliamentary discourse, Indians are talking of “Indic religions” and “Semitic” religions, holding Baba Saheb Ambedkar’s conversion to Buddhism with  about 500,000 of his followers has nothing out of the ordinary, but every Tribal’s voluntary change of faith a crime that can put him in Jail, together with anyone else caught with a Bible.  A dozen or so Christians, including one pastor, and  a baby of less than a year, spent Christmas 2014 in a  Madhya Pradesh police lockup on the demand of the local political leaders. Madhya Pradesh has a so called Freedom of Religion” Act. But this routinely also happens in states which do not have such a statute. In Chhatisgarh, several villages have passed resolutions banning the entry of religious persons from any community other than Hindus.

Mr. Modi’s government says  there was violence against Christians even during the government of the United Progressive Alliance, chaired by a person of Italian catholic descent, with a Sikh as  prime minister.

How does that minimise the undercurrents if communalism and hatred that are, unfortunately such a deep part of the landscape, and escalating with each passing year? Governments have come and gone, and even the Congress as a strong section that says the party should not be seen as “appeasing” or being sympathetic to Christians and Muslims.

But the common factor is the pungent hatred spewed by the Rashtriya Swayamsewak sangh and the organisations that are collected in its Sangh parivar. Mr. Modi has said everyone should feel safe in the country; but not once has he named the Sangh. Perhaps he cannot. Many of the hate mongers are in his party in Parliament. At least two are in his Council of ministers. It is difficult to believe that they do not have his permission, or at least his indulgence.

Hindutva Terror Network Targets Christians in Indian State

FILLING IN AN INFORMATION GAP


The Hindutva terror groups linked with a series of bomb blasts in Muslim shrines and other places Rajasthan and Maharashtra terror have also killed Christian activists and targeted evangelistic work in the tribal belt of India.

Police investigators have traced the murder of Malwa Christian leader Pyar Singh Ninama to hit men of the terror gangs responsible for bombing the world famous Ajmer Sharif shrine.

According to news reports this morning in the New Delhi edition of Mail Today and Rediff, the Malwa region in western Madhya Pradesh is a focal point and recruiting ground of this terror group which also has as its members retired and serving officers of the Indian Army, who may have sourced the explosives used by the group.

This is the first time official information has come about the network which so far was presumed to be working against Muslims alone.

The following is the text of the Rediff illuminating report: published July 12, 2010:

Most names figuring in the investigations of the 2007 bomb blasts in Ajmer, at Hyderabad's Mecca Masjid, and in Malegaon hail from Madhya Pradesh's Malwa region. Rediff.com's Krishnakumar Padmanabhan traces the common thread that could have brought these men together.

What started as minor skirmishes between two groups vying for power seven years ago in a small Madhya Pradesh cantonment town was the beginning of the phenomenon that is now spoken about as Hindu terrorism.

Recently, the Central Bureau of Investigation and the Rajasthan Anti-Terror Squad made a string of arrests from in and around Indore and established that the 2007 bomb blasts in Ajmer and Hyderabad's Mecca Masjid were the handiwork of the same group of people.

At least three of the accused in the bomb blast case were charged with the murder of a tribal leader from the Congress party in 2003.

As like-minded men began coming together and plotting heinous attacks, the Madhya Pradesh establishment turned a blind eye. Investigators now say the perpetrators found haven in the Malwa region of Madhya Pradesh, as they wreaked havoc in other parts of the country.

In 2003, towards the end of Digvijay Singh's tenure as chief minister in Madhya Pradesh, the Congress party had strengthened its hold in its traditional areas — the party base, the minorities, and the Adivasis.

In Malwa's tribal belt, Pyar Singh Ninama, a local tribal strongman, was the party's face among the Adivasi population. Around that time, accusations began to trickle that Christian missionaries were stepping up efforts to get more Adivasis into their fold. Around that time a member of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, Sunil Joshi, was 'sent' as the Mhow pracharak from Gujarat, where it was said the heat was on him following the 2002 riots.

In Mhow -- an acronym for Military Headquarters of War -- the Sangh Parivar was virtually a family. The most active among them were Lokesh Sharma, his cousin Jitender Sharma -- from the RSS and Bajrang Dal respectively -- and Devendra Pandya, who were working to spread Hinduism in adjoining tribal areas.

On the other hand, Ninama, a converted Christian, was seen as nudging his fellow tribals towards Christianity. The two groups were soon at loggerheads and in one of the ensuing clashes, Pandey's choti (tuft) was allegedly cut off. In apparent revenge, three people including Ninama and his son, were brutally killed.

Cases were filed against Lokesh Sharma, Sunil Joshi, Ramesh Sharma, a businessman from neighbouring Pithampur, and 10 others. While most of them are still in jail and the case is before the court, Lokesh Sharma and Joshi were never caught. Here is where the seeds of what is now seen as Hindu terror were sown.

Investigations by the Central Bureau of Investigation, the Anti-Terror Squads of Rajasthan and Maharashtra have revealed that the lynchpin was Sunil Joshi, who was murdered in December 2007. Lokesh Sharma is accused of planting the bomb in Ajmer.

Locals say soon after the Ninama murder case, Joshi's stock rose among hotheaded youngsters.

In the assembly election that followed a couple of months after Ninama's murder, the Congress party was voted out, and the Bharatiya Janata Party [ ] came to power.

Around this time, some local residents claim Joshi and Lokesh Sharma began to be seen in public quite often.

"Digvijay Singh had often spoken about how the violent activities of the Hindu groups was fast turning to 'terrorism'. He said he had evidence that they were gaining bomb-making capabilities. But then he was voted out at a crucial juncture," says Manohar Limbodia, a veteran journalist.

With what was seen as a friendly BJP government, Joshi began to operate quite openly, mobilising support.

"Joshiji was someone who would say one death from our side should be avenged with five from the other side. The youngsters liked him and his approach a lot," a Bajrang Dal activist in Mhow recalls, speaking on condition that he would not be identified for this report.

As it was becoming evident that Joshi was going down an aggressive path, the RSS publicly distanced itself from him.

"Though the RSS distanced itself from the likes of Joshi, we could see that he had the support from within the organisation and also local BJP leaders. Joshi and his group could not have operated without strong support," a businessman, familiar with the Sangh Parivar in Dewas, where Joshi was murdered, says, again speaking on condition that he would not be identified for this report.

Soon after the Ninama murder case, the police defused a bomb at the venue of a Muslim congregation in Ghansipura, Bhopal, which they now allege was planted by the same group behind the terror attacks.

It was an improvised device with explosive material stuffed in metal pipes, connected to a mobile phone. The bomb was set to explode when the mobile rang, but the police defused it in time.

Had that bomb exploded it would have been the first attack of Hindu terror in the country.

How did those who came together in Mhow establish contact with foot soldiers like Ramji Kalasangra (who allegedly made the bombs used in the Ajmer and Mecca Masjid attacks) and Sandeep Dange (who is alleged to have 'facilitated' the others in executing the blasts) on the one hand and alleged masterminds like Colonel Prasad Purohit and sadhvi Pragya Thakur on the other hand?

"The RSS has many organisations," says Deepak Joshi, son of former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Kailash Joshi and the BJP legislator from Hatpipliya, Dewas. "There are also different kinds of people. First, there are the RSS members. Then there are people who might be involved in the RSS's activities without being members. Then, there are people from sister organisations like the ABVP (Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad), Bajrang Dal, etc. Finally, there are people who believe in the ideology but are not associated in any way with any organisation. There are about five or six RSS events in a year where all the four kinds of people come together. Since they are all from the region and had extremist leanings, that is how these people must have met."

Explaining how various people could have gotten to know each other, he says he had met Pragya Thakur about 10 times. "She has sat in the exact place where you are sitting. The connection between her and me is that we are both from the ABVP. She was very aggressive from those days, and I did not make any efforts to know her better," he adds.

But he shies away from dubbing the phenomenon as Hindu terrorism.

"It is not organised to begin with," he says, "And it does not have the sanction or approval of an organisation like the RSS."

He accepts that the likes of Sunil Joshi did have support at the local level.

"When the police said Sunil Joshi was in hiding, I had met him at an event. He told me he was being framed," says the BJP MLA. "In small places, it is not difficult to meet and get to know people. In Madhya Pradesh, a lot of BJP politicians owe their career to the RSS. And some of them may have shared beliefs with people like Sunil Joshi. In the end, such politicians end up using these people for their personal gains."

How did the Malwa region become the hotbed for Hindu terror?

The Malwa region is predominantly tribal. Indore, which is the biggest city in the region, does not have much of an Adivasi presence. But Dhar is 75 percent Adivasi, Jhabua is nearly 100 percent Adivasi. Balwani, Khargon and Khandwa are 50 percent Adivasi.

The Hindus form the second biggest community. They comprise Malis from Rajasthan, Jats, Thakurs, Baniyas and Brahmins.

"More than the composition, the reason the region has been the hotbed of radical Hinduism is because of the leaders," says Limbodia. "Nagpur may be the seat of power for the RSS, but Malwa is the front. RSS stalwarts like Khushabhau Thakre, Pyarelal Khandelwal and Suresh Soni hailed from the Malwa region and shaped the RSS philosophy. That way, this region is the cradle of the RSS."

"It is not just Hindu terror," says Kamil Seher, a hotel owner in Pithampur, an industrial area. "The Pithampur-Dhar region was the base for SIMI [ ]. They used to train there. Before that, the Dawood Ibrahim gang used to be active here. Now the Maoists are also entering this region. Why, some time ago, even an LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) soldier was arrested from a Pithampur factory, where he was working as a gunman for the owner."

"If you are working in a factory, and you bring in someone from your village to stay with you, how would we know if he is a criminal or not?" asks Seher.

He alleges that though the likes of SIMI leader Safdar Nagori were arrested, those who were pumping money and were the brains of the outlawed organisation got away.

"If with an organisation like SIMI, money power and clout could work, how will anyone be able to get close to the top of the Hindu terror hierarchy, if it exists?" he asks.

While the official RSS line is that those arrested are not part of the organisation, it is reported to be helping the accused's families and has arranged for lawyers to fight their cases.

"The RSS arranged for lawyers in Ajmer and Hyderabad to take up my brother's case," confirms Jitender Sharma, Lokesh Sharma's cousin. "I am thankful to the organisation. But at the same time I understand why they want to distance themselves in public. There is a Congress government at the Centre, and all the three states where the terror charges have been filed are also ruled by the Congress, which wants to link the RSS with terrorism. For the Congress, the RSS is the biggest enemy, not the BJP. They want to finish off the RSS."

Jitender's version of what happened is different.

"I was with the Bajrang Dal and Lokesh was with the RSS. Under Digvijay Singh, Hinduism was under attack. So we tried to get a case filed against him. But it is not easy to get the police to file a first information report against the state's chief minister. So we indulged in chakka jams (blockades), and jail bharo protests on a small scale. The state police had marked us from that time. There were a lot of small cases (filed) against us. But we are not people who will get into hardcore criminal activities. At the most we would have stoned a few shops during bandhs," he says.

Though he does not criticise the RSS, Jitender does not have the same feelings about the BJP and its local leaders.

"Kailash Vijayvargiya, who is the BJP MLA for Mhow, has done nothing. He used Lokesh during elections and after that has turned a blind eye," he alleges.

Jitender is now fighting a lone battle to save his cousin.

"First he was implicated in the Ninama murder case. He lost five years of his life hiding from the police. Only last year he got married and his son was born this year. But he hasn't been able to see his son. We are poor people and now his family is struggling to make ends meet and also spend on the legal proceedings."

Though others do not buy the witch hunt theory, they agreed that the Congress party being in power at the Centre and the three states involved is the prime reason the case is moving at this pace.

"These people first surfaced in 2003," says journalist Manohar Limbodia. "After a few failed attempts, they executed their first attack in 2007. Wasn't four years enough for the state police to act? In fact, had any party but the BJP been in power in Madhya Pradesh, you might not be talking about a phenomenon called Hindu terror today."

"Even before the Ajmer blasts, they all met in a temple in Bhopal. What did the police do? After the blasts too, the Vasundhara Raje government (in Rajasthan) did not do anything," says Naveen Mali, a businessman and community leader in Mhow. "Only after (Congress Chief Minister) Ashok Gehlot [ ] took over did things start moving. True, it smacks of politics, but then something happened and something had to be done."

The Dewas-Indore belt was home for those accused in the terror cases.

"They thought they would be safe as long as they could strike in other states and hide here. They thought they were untouchable. They never expected the police from other states to come looking for them," says Limbodia.

Though Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad chief Hemant Karkare blew the lid off the Hindu terror phenomenon when he cracked the Malegaon blast case, it is the Rajasthan ATS, with its sweeps into border towns and midnight arrests, that has struck terror in the hearts of those hiding in the region.

"The Rajasthan ATS comes and picks up people for questioning and drops them back whenever it wants to. The local police is clueless. They come to know only when the Rajasthan ATS informs them as a formality about who they are taking away with them. Sometimes they don't even do that," says Seher about the arrests that the neighbouring state's police have made in Pithampur.

"The Shivraj Singh Chauhan government (in Madhya Pradesh) is not very strong," says Jitender Sharma. "In Gujarat, (Chief Minister) Narendra Modi ] doesn't allow the ATS to touch anyone. But here, the ATS from other states walk in freely and pick up whoever they want to whenever they want."

Report of Fact Finding Team investigating attack on Saoner Church; and a radical experiment in peacemaking

ALL INDIA CHRISTIAN COUNCIL

Plot No. 142, Telecom Colony, Kanajiguda, Secunderabad - 500015

040-2786-8907 www.christiancouncil.in

President Dr Joseph D Souza Secretary General Dr John Dayal

Secretary General’s Contacts; john.dayal@gmail.com, Mobile 0981102172

Unexpected hate violence against church, and an equally surprising guarantee of community peace

Report of the investigations into the attack on the Church at Saoner, Nagpur, Maharashtra, India on 19 April 2009

Fact-finding team led by Dr John Dayal, Secretary General, All India Christian Council with Mr. Vishal Lal, Open Doors and Mr. Prateek Tongra, All India Christian Council, Nagpur

[The Fact Finding Team acknowledges with thanks infrastructure and other assistance from Mr Nitin Sardar, Truthseekers International and Mr Vijaesh Lal, Open Doors Foundation, and the cooperation of Civil Society movements of Nagpur]

NAGPUR, 26 June 209

Preamble: The attack by some miscreants, owning allegiance to a cocktail of Hindutva outfits, on the outpost the Douglas Memorial Church in Saoner town, a dot on the highway from Nagpur to Bhopal, on Sunday, April 19, 2009 could not have been more unexpected as it took place in an otherwise somnambulant hinterland Vidharbha stretch of Maharashtra. Equally surprising was the mass response. The Other Backward Classes, [OBCs] members of some of which had been arrested in the attack, responded in a uniquely magnificent manner, publicly announcing that in future they, and not the police, would ensure peace, would guarantee religious harmony in the region, and would personally ensure the safety and security of the church, of the school, of the pastor and his family. This fact finding report was therefore deliberately delayed to see if the promise was fulfilled. At the moment of filing of this report, the experiment remains a success, with possibilities that it can be replicated elsewhere in the country where sporadic acts of violence take place against church groups. Engaging the local Dalit and OBC groups, together with the others, in a voluntary people-to-people peace accord would seem to hold out hope for lasting peace even when the sparsely deployed police force would be ineffective or just insufficient, and anyway too late in arriving on the scene.

THE FACTS OF THE CASE:

Other than scholars of Marathi literature interested in the works of the classic writer author Gadkari who was born here in the early part of the last century, not many people even in the state of Maharashtra had heard of Saoner, a dusty, hot township about 40 kilometres from the state’s northern capital city of Nagpur. It was known just as a point where the National Highway to Bhopal and New Delhi branches off to the coal-mine plateau of Chindwara 120 kilometres away. This is basically a small time trading post for forest produce, organic pulses and grain harvested with great difficulty in the plains of Vidarbha, the poorest and most deprived area of India’s most developed province.

On 20 April, 2009, Nagpur and the rest of India woke up to Saoner’s newfound notoriety as the latest in the increasing list of places of Christian prosecution at the hands of right wing Hindutva elements. Said the times of India in a small news report:

“Miscreants attack Saoner church

20 Apr 2009

Soumittra S Bose, TNN

Miscreants apparently belonging to Hindu radical groups attacked over 100-year-old church during morning mass on Sunday in Saoner, about 40 kms from city. Two worshippers, both women, were hurt as fanatics, allegedly from outfits like VHP and Bajrang Dal, stormed the premises of the Douglas Memorial Church at 10.40 am chanting ‘Jai Shree Ram, Jai Bajrang’. Both outfits, however, denied they had a hand in the attack but said it was done by Hindus angry over religious conversions in the area. Children present in the church too were intimidated. The intruders tore up holy books including Bible, ransacked the furniture, broke musical instruments, and damaged the altar. The attackers, chanting ‘Har Har Mahadev’, shattered window glasses of a school bus parked in the campus. The group of 20-25 attackers was armed with sticks, swords and swordsticks, and possibly had firearms too.”

Two days later, the Times of India reported again:

“Saoner minorities feel insecure now

22 Apr 2009 Soumittra S Bose, TNN

When the banner put up by a Muslim organisation during a festival recently was damaged, Saoner residents dismissed it as a one-off happening. After last Sunday’s church attack, the minority communities are afraid it indicates beginning of a new trend. Members of Muslim community, expressing their concern, said that their mind is now full of anxiety as fanatics have started targeting religious institutions. Police statistics show that 60% of around 40,000 population of Saoner town is Hindu while 30% is Buddhist, 10% Muslim and rest others including Christians. Most Christians are attached to the Douglas Memorial Church. “Today a church has been ransacked. Tomorrow another religious place would be destroyed. They created a ruckus during Muslim festival. Sooner or later, somebody will retaliate. We must ensure that a bunch of miscreants do not succeed in vitiating the feeling of harmony. So far, all communities have lived peacefully in friendly manner,” said Jabbir Shaikh who lives on bank of Kolar River. Kusumbai Jhorawane and Rekha Thoke, both regular worshippers at Douglas Memorial church, had witnessed the attack. They are still reeling under the fear. “We are petrified. They can also target us. We shall come here again but the memories shall keep haunting us,” said Thoke. “Though nobody was seriously injured, the attackers were aggressive. We are now feeling threatened,” said Jhorawane.”

The Fact Finding team was in Saoner on 24^th and 25^th April 2009. We interviewed the Pastor of the Church, a wide cross section of society, two other eye witnesses, police officers, local politicians including the member of the State Assembly from the constituency, and leaders of civil society at Nagpur who had come to Saoner for a public meeting on 25^th April. We were also present at the public meeting.

The main narrative of the attack was obviously from the Pastor, Mark Madhukar Sakharpekar, who doubles up as the parish priest of his church, unpaid Principal of the High school run since 1978 from a new building built by him and his father, Pastor Madhukar who was priest between 1975 and 2003, on the compound of the Church which itself was built in 1832 and refurbished in 1902. The senior Madhukar, now very ill, was patently a popular man and his school has become the main high quality educational institution in the area, patronised by the rich and the powerful as also by civil servants, police officers and businessmen who send their wards to study here. In fact, there are less than half a dozen Christian children out of the student body of 700 in the school at any one time. The community is proud of the fact that this school has produced the first generation of English-knowing students who have then done well in colleges in Nagpur. Interestingly, the office of the Principal displays huge portrays of National leaders such as Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru, the mandatory Maharaj Shivaji, and surprisingly, portraits of several founders of Hindutva, including Savarkar. Asked about it, the Principal-cum-Pastor said it was on instructions from the Education Department of the Government of Maharashtra, currently in the control of the Congress party.

The heritage church, however, is in a shabby condition, but did have some wooded pews and a new music system of sorts. Pastor Mark succeeded his father – who was also the one who had ordained him in this independent church which owes allegiance to an Anglican faction headed by the current Moderator, Rev Chandrakant D Salve. The denomination break from the parent Church three decades ago was possibly a reason why senior churchmen from Nagpur maintained their distance from the Pastor even after the attack was so widely publicised in the media. Pastor Mark is married, and his parents, wife and small son live in the small parsonage next to the church and the school. A part of the church property is walled off, and is said to have been usurped some years ago by outsiders. The last baptism in the church took place as far back as 2001, apart from the baptism of Pastor Mark’s own son, Joshua. The large major Christian activity in the region was a Revival meeting by Brother Rajkumar, an Independent evangelist, in 2007.

According to Pastor Mark, the total number of Christians cannot be more than 500 in the administrative region of Saoner consisting of a population of 40,000 in 432 villages, and are served by a Catholic institution run by some Nuns, and an outreach programme of the Believers Church of Gospel for Asia mission. Politically, the region is basically loyal to the Congress or its breakaway factions such as the NCP of Mr Sharad Pawar. Sections of the people are tribals, and there are about three dozen families of South Indians, mostly government or private sector employees.

Our own investigations reveal that there has been increasing right wing activity since the split in the Mumbai based Shiv Sena and the attack launched by one of its factions against Hindi speakers and migrants from Madhya Pradesh and North India. Since Saoner has a large Hindi speaking population because of its location in Vidharbha region and its proximity to Madhya Pradesh, very many young men once loyal to the Shiva Sena found themselves suddenly without a strong and popular political base. Apparently, these Shiv Sena members were quickly mopped up, or constituted themselves into some groups aligned with the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh or the Bajrang Dal, the more militant faction of the Sangh Parivar. They had been flexing their muscles as the State was gearing up for the Lok Sabha parliamentary elections, which the State Assembly elections scheduled for later in the year.

There was nothing subtle about the attack, but apparently some amount of preparedness had gone into it as the assailants were quite large in number, armed, and very focussed. Pastor Mark narrated the sequence of events: There was a congregation of about 50 to sixty Christians at worship, most of them women, many of them Dalits. Even as the pastor was getting ready to give his Homily at about 10:45 a.m., a gang of about 30 young men armed with staves and clubs, several trishaws [steel tridents] and knives, broke through the main door and barged into the church shouting slogans “Jai Shriram,” “Jai Bajrang Bali” and “Har Har Mahadev.” They smashed the benches with the rods, focussed on the musical instruments and attacked the women in the front rows and on the sides of the aisle. A pregnant woman was among those who were manhandled. Pastor Mark said one threw the trident at him, but the man missed his target. The Pastor’s Bible was snatched and torn. The men abused the women and asked them to run away from the church and not to come back. They then came out and vented their ire on the school bus, damaging its windowpanes and windscreen. The violence continued for almost 20 minutes to half an hour. At one stage, the mob wanted to attack the family of Pastor Mark in the parsonage [the retired pastor who founded the school was at that time on his bed, as he is partially paralysed] the family was spared when Pastor Mark begged them not to harm his old parents and his wife and child. The Pastor defied one of the gang leaders as Sonu Baraiya, 35, who runs a cassette shop and is said to be the head of the local unit of the Bajrang Dal. The pastor said another man, Pandit Dube, a resident of the Water Tank area, had a pistol or revolver which he brandished menacingly. Dube was the one who ran to attack Pastor Mark’s mother as she came out of the parsonage after hearing the noise. Pastor Mark said he was repeatedly threatened by the pistol wielding Dube.

Pastor Mark’s narration was corroborated by an old Dalit woman who was in the congregation who gave her name as Mrs Pachhobai Ramnathji Kalse, a widow and a pensioner. Mrs Kalse said she told the attackers she had come of her own attack and there was no allurement or force by the Pastor. She said the attack would not stop her from attending church service together with others of the congregation.

The aggressors had apparently also gone to the local police station to complain that Pastor Mark was converting Tribals in his church. The police eventually came to the Church after the attack and asked Pastor Mark to come to the Police station where they recorded the statements of the Pastor and some other women.

.

The police eventually arrested ten persons and produced them in court.

But the arrests united the Sangh elements in Saoner and Nagpur. The Sangh Parivar and Bajrang Dal in particular had called a Bandh and a closure of markets on 25^th in protest against the arrest of Bajrang Dal activists. A defence committee was also formed in Nagpur which retained high powered lawyers to defend the suspects whose bail petitions were dismissed by the local court. The fact Finding team was in the Saoner court on the evening of 24^th April 29 when the Nagpur senior advocates argued that the police had failed to establish any charges to retain custody of the suspects. The advocates also repeated the charge that there was large scale conversion was going on in the church and that there were in fact more than 5 to 6 people in the church when the incident took place. Counsel charged that the violence was in fact the result of a class between people waiting to be converted and their own relatives who did not want them to convert and leave their culture. Counsel also charged that the police had not taken any action on applications which had been submitted to the local police two days before the violence accusing the pastor of large scale conversions by fraud and coercion. He said the police had not asked converts if they had converted by their own free will. The court did not agree with defence counsel to let all the eleven accused free, but it also rejected the police request for continued remand, or custody, so that they could carry on investigations to trace four leaders of the group who were still absconding. The suspects were remanded to judicial custody and sent to the local jail amidst high drama in the small court room and its courtyard which is close to the police station. There was a sizable police presence to keep a check on about a hundred people, apparently supporters of the arrested persons, who had gathered there.

Nagpur houses the headquarters the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh, the mother organisation of which the Bharatiya Janata party is the political arm. The BJP’s local leadership had at first fully supported the attack on the Saoner church. The Bharatiya Janata party district Yuva Morcha [youth wing] vice chief Shashikant Singh was arrested on 22 April in a case filed against him under Section 153 (a )(1) and (2) for giving an interview to a news channel not only supporting the attack on the church but also giving a “warning” that the “agitation” would be expanded in future. He repeated the threats in statements to the media later in the day. He was sent to police custody till 24 April 29.

In their press statements, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad denied any role by any Hindutva group in the violence against the church. But Sangh-affiliated groups later called for a Bund or strike in Saoner on 25^th April 29 and demanded that shopkeepers pull down shutters that day. Police was called in from neighbouring areas as a precautionary measure.

The Fact Finding team was in fact in the market on the eve of the bandh. It was a bustling day with Tribals from surrounding areas and small farmers occupying almost every available space in the market, all the way to the lane that leads to the Church, selling their produce. There was a talk that there would be a strike next day, but there was no palpable tension. At the same time, pamphlets were distributed in the market, to shopkeepers and prominent citizens that they should, instead of closing shops for the bandh not only keep the markets open but come for a peace meeting called by the town leadership to wash away this “sin” in Saoner by the attack on the church, and also to assure security to the tiny minority community on behalf of the entire people of the town.

The meeting by Saoner Nagrik Manch convenor Adv Jayant Khedkar was held at Bazaar chowk, Jay Stambh, and was chaired my Member of the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly Sunil Kedar who had been elected as an Independent from the Saoner constituency, but later joined the Nationalist Congress party. The Association of local businessmen and traders not only ignored the call of a closure, or Bandh, by the Hindutva groups, but joined in the peace rally together with groups such as Truthseekers, All India Secular Forum, Bahujan Sangharsh Samiti, India Peace Centre, representatives of the local Muslim and Buddhist community, and several OBC groups. A prominent participant was Dr Suresh Khairnar of the All India Secular Forum who had led a civil society Fact Finding Team to Saoner after the violence.

The meeting lasted more than three hours. Almost every speaker expressed his shock that a church could have been attacked in Saoner. They denounced the attackers and said there was no way communal and violent elements would be tolerated in the region. The OBC leaders and members of the trading community were particular in associating themselves with assurances of peace. They volunteered that the church would be repaired at their cost and all damaged furniture and vehicle would be repaired and restored, or brought new.

There was but a small; group of local Christians in the large crowd that sat through the evening and late into the night. Some pastors had come from Nagpur to show their solidarity, but there was no senior church leader from Nagpur.

Church response. Nagpur is home to the headquarters of the major Protestant Churches affiliated to the national Council of Churches. It is also an important Archdiocese of the Catholic Church and has a resident Bishop of the Church of North India and another of the Believers Church apart from possibly as many as 700 independent pastors. It has several major and very popular Christian educational institutions. It was disappointing to learn that apart from some church officials sent to Saoner by NCCI general Secretary Bishop Das, and groups led by senior Truthseekers activists Nitin Sardar and others who were there from the second day after the violence, most senior church leaders chose not to go to Saoner to ascertain the facts for themselves, or in solidarity with the Pastor and members of the attacked church. A small protest was organised in Nagpur by some independent pastors and all church groups, and was well covered by the local media. In lessons learnt from Orissa, local church groups could easily have shown more solidarity. Church unity will be crucial in the Nagpur region in the future for vigilance against persecution and anti Christian violence.

Role of the media: The Marathi and Hindi Language media, which had given some coverage to the charges of large scale conversions made by the Sangh activists against the Saoner church, in fairness, also covered the Christian protests. No media however covered the major path-breaking peacemaking rally in Saoner on 25^th April or the failure of the Sangh-called bandh. Their priorities, it sends, were the dog show held in the city the same day!

POSTSCRIPT: Rev Nitin Sardar of Truthseekers and Dr Suresh Khairnar told the fact Finding Team on 25 June 2009 they were keeping a watch on the situation. Peacemaking efforts were being sustained, and the police was being persuaded, according to Dr Khairnar, to see how wounds were healed and rifts in society closed. The point for the police was to catch the conspirators, but not to harass others. They said the OBC leaders are keeping their end of the bargain to maintain peace and communal harmony in the Saoner region.

Camp and Culpability

Camp and Culpability

“These are concentration camps, not refugee camps” -- an inmate of a camp run by the Orissa Government in Kandhamal for the victims of the anti Christian violence in August-October 2008

By John Dayal

It was almost a year ago. In Barakhama’s village-town in Kandhamal district on March 19, 2008, the death of an old Catholic woman in the local refugee camp for want of adequate medicare, and prohibitory orders banning outsiders from meeting the Christian refugees because of a buffalo sacrifice festival in the grounds close by, marked a tense and troubled Holy Week in Orissa. Despite the elections, more than 3,000 Central Reserve police Force and state apparatus with a suddenly awakened conscience --  after Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik severed his ruling Biju Janata Dal’s political umbilicus with long term partners Bharatiya Janata party – the situation remains equally tense. More than 3,000 Christians are still in government run refugee camps, possibly as many as 30,000 are internally displaced, perhaps more than ten thousand of the originally 50,000 displaced having the left the State for jobs and security in New Delhi, Kerala, Mumbai, even Chennai and Andhra Pradesh.

But to get back to the Barakhama’s refugee camp a year ago – remember violence broke out in Orissa on 24^th December 2007, and the tension continued till Kandhamal exploded once again on 24^th August 2008, a day after the body of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad vice president Lakhmanananda Saraswati was paraded through 200 kilometres of the main roads in the large and forested district. Visiting Christian Priests and nuns, and I despite my credentials as a Member of the National Integration Council of the Indian Government which has the Prime Minister as its Chair, who had come to meet the bereaved family, were unceremoniously ejected by the Assistant Tehsildar, a special magistrate, on orders of the sub collector. He said there was tension in the village and he had strict orders not to allow anyone inside the camp. The posse of the Central Reserve Police had erected a barricade on the road to the camp. There was however no ban on the movements of others, the hostile gangs, in the village.

The old woman, Mrs. Borili Digal, had suddenly fallen ill with fever two days ago, her son Pero Digal told me and Supreme Court advocate, Sister Mary Scaria who came to the camp. The family took the women to the local government hospital where she was prescribed some medicines. “We could not purchase the medicines,” Pero Digal said. His mother died early the next morning. She was buried in a hastily made coffin by the youth in the refugee camp, and then buried in the Christian hillside cemetery about half a kilometre behind the camp. The camp was, and till recently was still located in a government school. Borili Digal’s husband Doya Digal had died ten years ago.

The Barakhama camp then had 345 Christian families whose houses were burnt on Christmas Day 2007 by a mob allegedly led by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad activists under orders of Lakhmanananda Saraswati, listed in police records for fomenting anti Christian violence even before the Christmas 2008, and who had famously asked his followers “No use burning tyres. Tell me how many Christian houses you have burnt.” Seven churches were also destroyed in the violence in Barakhama, part of the total of more than 100 Christian churches torched by marauding mobs between 24 and 27 December last year.

I had been vesting this camp from 2 January 2008, and had seen the living conditions for myself – three families to the tent, one sari given to a family even if it had three grown up women in it – mother and two daughters.

The full force of what it meant to live in a refugee camp would sink in later as the women recounted their tales, and I and Father Nicky Barla, who is also an advocate, tasted the food for ourselves. It stank of grit and large scale corruption The real plight of the women would unfold over the coming months as I visited with women companions. What the male eye had missed, the women activists discerned at a glance. Sanitation and personal hygiene. The government had no provision for privacy in the daily toilet routine, and had not even thought of a woman’s personal needs for hygiene. It would take a former Secretary to the Prime Minister of India to put the plight in words, as I recount later in this article. But both Sister Mary, and Teesta Setalvad, a lawyer-activist, also discovered abortions, incomplete ones, which could lead to blood poisoning. The absolute dearth of women doctors or counsellors from the side of the government had put the entire female population in the government camps, and outside it, at risk of death if not from violence, then from disease. It had also left the women open to sexual abuse and perhaps what in their eyes was even worse, a loss of dignity. As they had to leave the camp to go out to defecate and even to urinate, they would be chased by aggressive mobs, saying they had no place on land owned by tribals! And when we took a young girl with an incomplete abortion to the hospital in Balliguda, the government doctors demanded money for everything from anaesthesia to a test for malaria.

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I have some experience with refugee camps, run by international organisations including the United Nations, by national and state governments, even by the Military, during my four decades as a diplomatic and political correspondent. Not just the permanent camps in Palestine in the 1980s, or those set up in 1971 for the influx from East Pakistan, but more recent ones for refugees from Sri Lanka in Tamil Nadu, Kashmir Muslim and Pandit refugees in Delhi and near Jammu, and of course, the major camps set up in 1984 for the Sikhs who survived the three day pogrom following the assassination of Indira Gandhi, and the camps in Gujarat set up by the Government and by Muslim organisations for the survivors of the 2002 genocidal violence against Muslims following the Godra. I even saw, and recorded the living conditions in the temporary colonies, which could really be called camps, for people which were set up after they had been displaced from their homes which were eradicated by the government bulldozers in Delhi under orders the late Sanjay Gandhi, the younger son of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and the Extra-Constitutional centre of authority under the State of Emergency.

A refugee camp is a terrible place, and indeed robs its inmates of their innate dignity. It also stresses family structures. It means a loss of privacy with the implied direct and indirect gender violence. And no one expects Five Star cuisine in a refugee camp or deluxe apartments. Often community toilets are filthy, and tarpaulin and plastic canvas tents can be hot in summer and hyper cold in winter -- and winter is sever in the high plateau of Kandhamal.. Such is in the nature of these camps.

But they differed from those in Kandhamal in several major aspects. These were issues of security, issues of the government acknowledging its role as caretaker and seeking collaboration, the government culpability for the health, welfare and quality of life of the people living in the camps. The authorities of course had also taken care, by and large, to incorporate almost all refugees in its safety and security blanket.

Security of course is the paramount issue. Most of the camps I have earlier mentioned had the Army and the Central government police forces guarding them at all times. But what was important then was that the security was in force even though the violence, and to an extent the threat of violence, had long ceased. In Gujarat and Delhi for instance, the violence lasted less than a week, but the camps remained largely secure long afterwards too. In fact, outside agencies and NGOs were able to reach and work in the camps from Day Two, so to speak.

The situation in the Orissa refugee camps was very different, and indeed the situation in Kandhamal was unique in the history of anti minority riots in the country. The spat in the meeting of the National Integration Council between chief minister Naveen Patnaik and the then Union Home Minister, the unlamented Shivraj Patil, made quite clear the absolute disjunct and helplessness of both governments in tackling the mobs of the Sangh Parivar. The Centre sent trainee forces, the State failed to deploy even those. For over a month, the writ of the Constitution and the rule of law did not run in the entire district of Kandhamal. Certainly refugee camps set up in those circumstances could expect little security.

Over 29,000 people rushed to the refugee camps, the major ones set up in G Udaygiri, Raikia, Barakhama, Balliguda, and possibly another twenty thousand took refigure in the forests as they were too far and the route to the camps too dangerous. For weeks the camps faced constant threats from armed gangs, and sometimes from gangs of women members of the Hindutva organisations. There were reported bomb attacks, and threats to poison the water wells which were the solitary supply for drinking water. Convoys of support material were stopped, and the government, in the most peculiar orders ever, prevented Christian and international charities from coming to the refugee of the displaced persons.

The conditions in the overcrowded camps worsened speedily. Lack of hygiene made the health of little babies precarious. The government has not kept a count of those babies who may have died. There are grave issues of culpability of the government in not providing medicare. In the G. Udaygiri and Mandasar, the unacceptable numbers of people living in each tent in these camps render their lives miserable in the extreme and inhuman. Wrote the former secretary to the Prime Minister Mr. Venugopal said in a letter to G.V. Venugopala Sarma, Secretary in the State government’s Revenue and Disaster Management Department “In one tent where I spent an hour at G. Udaygiri speaking to the inmates there were 48 persons of whom several were women. Its dimensions were about 25x15 feet. There was hardly space for anyone to move or stretch, what to speak of privacy for women to change. Those women live in the full view of the male inmates, including their own brothers on the one hand and strangers on the other. Their sanitary requirements at a personal level, including of women who have not attained menopause have not been factored in by those who designed or are running these camps. If the official argument is that these women would not know how to use sanitary napkins or pads even if supplied, then they should be provided with whatever they are accustomed to, in consultation with them. It is deplorable that this has not been done. Outside these tents, there are less than 10 toilets for the thousands living in the camp with hardly 5 of them in usable condition. I tried to walk towards these toilets but could not approach them for such was the intolerable mess in the toileting area strewn with human refuse all over. These conditions violate every conceivable human right and dignity of the people kept in these camps relating to residence, health, and equality and therefore to life itself, what to talk of the loss of opportunities to other rights like education of the children? The quality of food in these camps and poor supply of drinking water and water for other needs compound the hazards and woes of the inmates. The inmates are borrowing money at usurious rates of interest to meet their essential every day needs, as verified by me personally.”

There is equal culpability of the government in not carrying out autopsies of injured who died in the camps. It is as if the government did not want to link these deaths with the preceding violence. This is now coming to fore with widows denied relief saying their husbands did not die in the carnage, but later. The government keeps the death figures low, and many a suspect escaped charges of murder or even attempted murder because the death was not registered as arising out of the violence. “These are not refugee camps. These are concentration camps. We can neither leave them, nor live in them as human beings,” refugees have told me.

The government has made persistent efforts to reduce the number of refugee camps, close down as many as it can in as much of a hurry as it can. Though refugees were reluctant to return to their homes because the villagers and the Sangh Parivar wanted them to convert to Hinduism before they would be allowed in, the government regardless of the threat pushed them out. The result has been a series of small shanty slums outside major villages where the Christians huddle together. The government has washed its hands of all of it. an independent fact-finding team, comprising prominent social activists, has urged the State government to keep the relief camps open till normality was restored in the affected villages. Observing that the victims should be able to return to their homes with dignity, peace and security,  Mr. Venugopal told the State government that “there can never be any dignity if people practising a particular religion – here Christianity – are told that they can return to their homes only as Hindus. Such threats are unconstitutional and the State has a duty to intervene proactively to put a stop to that and guarantee peaceful residence to the citizens with a right to their religious conviction,”

The government of course does not provide any employment to the people in the camp, nor does it gave any sustenance allowance other than the food. The result has been that the first tranche of the money given for rehabilitation has been consumed for additional food, clothing and medicines, things which should have been the state’s responsibilities. How will they ever begin constructing the houses are a matter left for the future? I may remind readers that houses demolished in December 2007 are yet to be fully constructed. Most remain roofless as the government dole was just not sufficient.

Experts feel the camps must continue so long as complete conditions of peace, safety and security have not been restored in the affected villages of the District to the satisfaction of the victims. “In addition, a basic requirement for the victims to return to their homes is the dignity that is associated with security and peace. Dignity comes from assurance and self assurance that they may lead the kind of cultural and spiritual life they wish to live as guaranteed in the Constitution so long as those practices are peaceful and do not affect public order and the rights of others. These are well established principles in the constitutional law and life of our country. However, in Kandhamal these conditions do not obtain in large tracts as evidenced by the numbers still present in the camps and the prevailing sense of insecurity. There can never be any dignity if people practising a particular religion – here Christianity – are told that they can return to their homes only as Hindus. Such threats are unconstitutional and the State has a duty to intervene proactively to put a stop to that and guarantee peaceful residence to the citizens with a right to their religious conviction. All these involve the relevant fundamental rights guaranteed to citizens under Part III of our Constitution as in articles 19, 21 and 25, not to mention the articles that guarantee the right to equality before law and equal protection of the laws and the right not to be discriminated on any account,” said a report.

The threat of violence and the tension has kept the men away from work. Work in government projects is not still open to them. They have no source of livelihood. Even those living in Christian camps in Bhubaneswar and elsewhere are no better off in this matter, and in that of the real victims – the children.

The plight of the children was brought home to the high level delegation of diplomats of the European Union who visited Orissa before Christmas 2008. They were banned from going to Kandhamal but could see the camps run outside the district, and some outside the state.

The Indian and European fact Finding teams have noted that the Union and State governments have not been able to ensure implementation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948; the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, 1966; the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, 1966; the Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, 1967; the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, 1967; the Declaration on the Right to Development, 1986 and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, 1989. “We fully realize the administrative difficulties any Government faces in situations of this kind but we also believe that every State Government in India has the capacity to overcome these difficulties if the required political will is summoned. Failure to do this will, in our considered opinion, attract action by the National Human rights Commission under some of the provisions of Section 12 of the Protection of Human Rights Act, 1993,” wrote Mr. Venugopal.

The European team’s specially interaction with a range of people brought out the serious implications for children and highlighted many child rights issues. There were 12 orphanages in Orissa but 7 had been since closed down Some of the newly born babies born during or after the riots had been given names such as “Danga” -- meaning  ‘communal violence’ -- reflecting the events surrounding their birth, I heard as I accompanied some of these teams. Patently, many children have witnessed acts of violence, including attacks leading to death, and had to flee to the forest often for several days. Coping with the trauma and fear, many children have also had to suffer discomfort and lack of food Even in the camps, in the relief camps the visitors could see that several were suffering from anaemia, stomach problems and in some cases malaria.

UNICEF confirmed that they are responding to the relief effort by providing assistance with shelter, water and sanitation, and education programme for children in the camps. They are conscious of the displaced families in private camps, including in the remote and distant areas, and are finding ways to access them. NGOs have told EU their concern for the future of the children and have urged the Union n to consider this in the context of international human rights conventions. The EU was told first hand that once in the relief camps the children were generally unable to go to school and there was little evidence of any tuition in the camps visited. Many will drop out of school for ever, I am sure.

An entire generation has been irreparably affected.

[Also published in Combat Law, New Delhi, April 2009]