The Hindu Right’s contemporary targeting of Muslim and Christian religious minorities may be traced to the 1990s. The Muslim community in Bhadrak was targeted through massified violence in March 1991. In January 1999, Graham Staines, 58, Australian missionary, and his 10 and 6-year-old sons were murdered in Keonjhar district. In August 1999, Shiekh Rahman, a Muslim clothes merchant, was mutilated and burned to death in a public execution at the weekly market in Mayurbhanj. In September 1999, Catholic priest Arul Das was murdered in Mayurbhanj, followed by the destruction of churches in Kandhamal.

Hindutva activists amalgamated their position and established crucial networks within the state government through relief work in the aftermath of the cyclone that left approximately 10,000 dead in Odisha in October-November of 1999.

In 2005, I had the privilege of convening the Indian People’s Tribunal on Communalism in Orissa (name changed to Odisha in 2011) with valued colleagues. Leading up to this, in February 2004, seven Dalit Christian women and a male pastor were tonsured by upper caste and Hindu-identified Dalit neighbours, against their will, signifying their ‘return’ to Hinduism. This event took place in Jagatsinghpur district, in Kilipal village. In August 2004, Our Lady of Charity Catholic Church was vandalised in Raikia and eight Christian homes torched. The Raikia incident led to broad-based economic and social ghettoization of the Christian community.

The report of our people’s tribunal, published in September 2006, detailed mobilisations by Hindutva (ideology and political aspiration of the Hindu Right)-affiliated organisations, including in Kandhamal, and highlighted those in incubation, making recommendations in a preventive and injunctive capacity. Despite the scope of its findings, the report did not summon reflection or action on part of the state or central government.

The mass atrocities of December 2007 and August 2008 in Kandhamal, Odisha, devastated the Christian community and sent shock waves through the  body politic. These episodes of violence primarily impacted economically marginalised Adivasi and Dalit Christian communities.

In 2007, the attacks began on December 25 (Christmas) and continued for several days. Mobs destroyed dozens of Christian churches and hundreds of Christian homes. Following the violence of 2007, majoritarian discourse named Christians as “conversion terrorists,” and numbers and rates of conversion to Christianity were inflated. That Adivasis and Dalits elect to convert to Christianity in India to escape the malignant stronghold of caste oppression, is suppressed. In January 2008, majoritarian activists reportedly claimed that they had succeeded in (forcibly) converting more than ten thousand Christians to Hinduism in Odisha in 2007.

The next episode of Hindu nationalist violence targeting the Christian community took place in Kandhamal district during August 24-26 and continued through October 28. Predominantly middle-class and middle-caste Hindu crowds participated in the violence, perpetrating rape, mutilation, and murder, and engaged in looting and the destruction and torching of property with rods, tridents, swords, kerosene, crude bombs, and guns.

It is approximated that 75 to 123 people were killed and more than 18,000 persons were injured. Approximately 4,901 homes were partly or wholly destroyed. More than 264 churches were decimated. Approximately 25,000 to 40,000 persons were displaced from around 450 villag­es. Thousands sought refuge in near­by forests and makeshift relief camps.

The political actions and inactions of the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) Government facilitated the reach of Hindu nationalists during the violence. The delayed and inadequate response of the Government of Odisha and Government of India enabled the violence to continue for as long as it did. The extent of the violence and coordination of attacks across the mountainous terrain of Kandhamal corroborated that the violence was planned, premeditated, and that, in various instances, the police had prior knowledge of Hindutva groups’ operational plan.

The Government of Odisha carried out misinformation campaigns and ethnicised the violence, failing to hold Hindu nationalists accountable. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and BJD coalition government at the state level aided in cementing institutional support for Hindutva. Odisha 2007 and 2008 rendered visible how Christians, many of Adivasi and Dalit descent, and majoritar­ian Hindus have been divided by the very social and historical proximities that have shaped them.

Justice Denied

In response to widespread targeting during instances of massified violence, the Indian government has routinely utilised ad hoc commissions of inquiry with recommendatory powers. Affected communities have been excluded from conversations regarding accountability, negating the possibility of configuring durable mechanisms to interrupt the climate of impunity, abuse, and mistrust.

In Odisha, the 2007-Justice Panigrahi commission submitted its report in 2015. The report of the Justice Mohapatra commission, following 2008, was submitted by Justice Naidu in December 2015, after the passing of Justice Mohapatra in 2012.

The Commissions following the violence of Delhi 1984, Gujarat 2002, and Odisha 2007 and 2008 have been reportedly compro­mised by alleged political interference and inefficiency. They failed to assess liability, “who did what to whom,” and expose systemic and collective vulnerabilities and their pernicious effects for minority communities and victimised-survivors of sexualised violence.

These recommendatory bodies were not truth com­missions, and differed sharply in form and consequence from transitional and transformative justice approaches. These commissions were not concerned with estab­lishing the legitimacy and ethics of the state system itself or the obligation to secure justice through implementing the right to effective remedy. (Conflicted Democracies, P 106-107.)

The four substantive components of the right to a remedy; the right to justice, right to truth, right to reparations, and guarantee of non-recurrence, affirm the obligations of states to prevent violations and respond to violations when they do occur, through investigations, prosecutions, appropriate punishment, and reparations and psychosocial restitution for victims.

The failures of the state following 2007 and 2008 contributed significantly to the expansion of the Hindu Right in Odisha and beyond, and to the precariousness of vulnerable and minority communities today.

The unchecked spread of majoritarianism in India through the decades during which Hindu nationalists were not in elected office created political and legal contexts whereby the project of Hinduising India can now occupy centre stage in government.

Majoritarian State

The Hindu Right’s popular victory in the 2014 and 2019 elections expanded the power captured by the  Narendra Modi-led BJP.

Inherently Brahmanical, hetero-patriarchal, the government led by Modi incorporates four features: populism, nationalism, authoritarianism and majoritarianism. This illiberal dispensation evidences a disregard for social facts, democratic debate and reasoned dissent, secular institutions, and the rule of law. Asser­tions that internal and external enemies are an imminent danger to the nation, the targeting of dissent as ‘anti-national,’ and minoritisation and Islamophobia fracture the fault lines of an already conflicted democracy.

Seizing land rights of the targeted-Other, occupying spaces significant to them, intensifying social and economic boycott of minorities, and effectuating violence and social death are practices utilised by majoritarian nationalists. Corresponding actions inflicted on minority/marginalised communities, enacted by government, judiciary, state forces and mobs fracture identity and community, material culture, psychosocial well-being, livelihood, and belonging.

Impunity laws, exemplified by the Odisha Freedom of Religion Act (1967) and the Odisha Prevention of Cow Slaughter Act (1960), assisted in criminalising Christian and Muslim peoples in Odisha. Prohibiting cow and cattle slaughter and forcible conversion to Hinduism continue as prevalent strategies used by the Hindu Right. As of 2011, Odisha’s population numbered 39.9 million. Odisha Christians numbered 1,161,708 per the Census of 2011, 2.8 percent of the state’s population (2.4 percent in 2001). Odisha Muslims numbered 9,11,670, 2.2 percent of the state’s population (2.1 percent in 2001). These figures indicate marginal growth since 2001, contradicting the discourse popularised by Hindu nationalists.

“Citizenship” laws today aim to determine who may be accorded  political and civil rights, and target minority communities, especially Muslims. They are akin to the Nuremberg Laws instituted in September 1935 in Nazi Germany. Correspondingly, the Indian government commenced a siege on Kashmir in August 2019, countermanding it’s autonomy. The partisan state unfolds in varying registers, constitutive of states of exception without-end. The rage and arrogance that fuels the Hindu Right draws lifeblood from the heinous annals of history, weaponising religion and demonising difference.

Following the 2014 elections, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh reportedly witnessed “the highest growth since 1925,” with 56,859 shakhas (branches) reportedly operational across India in 2016. In February 2018, RSS leader Mohan Bhagat stated that, if called upon, the organisation was positioned to mobilize an army within three days.

In Odisha, the BJP secured 10 seats in the 2014 Assembly elections. In 2017, there were 91 incidents of recorded communal violence in Odisha. In 2019, the BJP secured 23 seats in the Odisha Assembly elections.

In October 2019, the policy-making unit of the RSS announced that its  annual meeting would be held in Odisha, to further cement the BJP’s position in the state. The same year, the RSS recorded 2,000 shakhas in Odisha and 5,130 Ekal Vidyalaya schools with 125,107 students.

The Hindu Right’s anti-minority rhetoric and violence are matched by the popularisation of revisionist history. The legacy of prolific dissent persists across India, challenging the abject and unconstitutional actions of the majoritarian state and the Hindu Right that target minorities and their allies.

Mourning

What does it mean to be a woman, minority, Other, and marginalised in India today? Are these states of being inevitably consonant with structural and pervasive subjugation? How do affected communities, especially victim-survivors among them, negotiate a life of dignity after events of acute violence and dispossession and navigate seemingly inscrutable processes to secure justice? How do they submit to and heal from an inheritance of suffering?

It is twelve years since the violence of 2008 in Odisha. I honour women survivors of 2008 whom I met in January 2009. Their testimony reveals the depth of their wounds. Words overflow onto each other, describing lucidly the incomprehensible. Speech bears witness to the brutality of the upheaval, and the perverted violence it imposed. Their words haunt and call for remembrance. (Violent Gods: Hindu Nationalism in India’s Present, Pp 357-358):

“In the first days of the riots about 60 people surrounded the body. About 80 people surrounded the body. Five hundred people surrounded the body. His body was aflame. They [Hindutva workers] asked I become Hindu. The body took a long time to die. Some Hindus aided our escape. He was marked from before. They say they must kill us, so we cannot tell what they have done. They killed Christians, buried them, then placed stones over the bodies to stop ‘resurrection.’ At night, I can still hear – become Hindu, become Hindu, become Hindu. They beat him with a crowbar. Another hacked him. People were afraid to give us shelter but still did. They asked him to become Hindu. They hit me. My husband was axed. Torched. I saw him buried. They desecrated his body. After this what life is possible? I have seen his killers. His … was decapitated. They torched her. They were neighbours. Blood everywhere. The police do not arrest the people. Bits of bone. It is hard to get the medical report. We cannot live at home. They killed his mother. We have lost our identity, our ration cards, identification papers, our bodies, our selves. Who are we now?”

Angana P. Chatterji focuses her work on issues of political conflict, majoritarian nationalism, religion in the public sphere, and reparatory justice and cultural survival. Dr. Chatterji’s publications include: Majoritarian State: How Hindu Nationalism is Changing India (2019, co-editor); Conflicted Democracies and Gendered Violence: The Right to Heal (2016, lead author); Kashmir: The Case for Freedom (2011, co-author); Violent Gods: Hindu Nationalism in India’s Present (2009); and the report, BURIED EVIDENCE: Unknown, Unmarked and Mass Graves in Kashmir (2009, lead author).

Related:

Kandhamal: Brotherhood of victims
Kandhamal 2020: We live with the national shame of impunity in perpetuity

The post Remembering Kandhamal appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The riot among the Hindus and Muslims occurred in Rourkela in 1964-65 had lasted only for three days. But, in Kandhamal it has been continuing since last 20-days. It can be considered as the worst ever communal violence witnessed within Orissa. When the Government claims that the situation is peaceful and under control, but the reality is complete opposite. People are left as completely terror-stricken and nobody from minority community feels safe in villages, prefers to stay back in relief camps.

On 11th September 08 the Orissa government informed the Supreme Court that the law and order situation in Kandhamal had "improved considerably" and was now under control. In this regards, a detailed affidavit was submitted by the Orissa Home Secretary T.K. Mishra on behalf of the government, in response to a writ petition filed by Raphael Cheenath, the Cuttack Achbishop. The State Government's Counsel also informed the Apex Court Bench, comprising Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan and Justice P. Sathasivam, that all steps taken by the administration to maintain law had been taken. So far, the government has formed 354 peace committees to help restore harmony. Some 421 criminal cases have been instituted against the rioters and 629 persons involved in the violence have been booked. In the petition, the government also informed the Supreme Court that VHP leader Praveen Togadia's proposed kalash yatra was also barred from entering the district. It is yet to be informed of who the people in the peace committees are and how far they have earned the 'real' confidence of the villagers belonging to the minority community.

The Government and Sangha Parivar are trying to project the entire incident as a reflection of the age-old conflicts in between Adivasis and Dalits and situation under control. This is further palpable from the Chief Secretary's discussion with USA Consul General Ms Beth A Payne on 11th September. The Officer informed to Ms Payne, who has come to meet the Chief Minister Mr Naveen Patnaik and others for some commercial purposes at the Orissa Secretariat, – that it was not a communal violence against Christians, rather group clashes in between adivasis and dalits and now it is under control.

The question arises – what does 'situation is under control' mean, under whose control is it? The information as gathered from the field, it is under the control of the VHP, Bajrang Dal and their hooligans backed by BJP leaders. One civil society fact finding team returned today to Bhubaneswar after visiting the area. As we got from them through informal talks (they will present their official report after 1 or 2 days), they had to take permission from the district authority before entering into villages. The situation is unthinkably scaring and suspicious. Everybody is awfully waiting under uncertainty – as if, it may bring another big trouble next day. Even NGOs and reporters are under constant fear of being threatened.

The already ravished, terrorized, emotionally broken dalits and adivasis are being converted from Christianity to Hinduism in a well-planned manner. A villager (Christian) from Baliguda block called and informed today that they have been given a ultimatum by VHP people that they have to keep themselves prepared with two cocoanuts, non-boiled rice (arua chaula) and other items for attending re-conversion (sanskar) ceremony on 15th September 2008. In case they failed to do so, what will happen – only time can tell? 'In the meantime more than 1000 families have been reconverted within 15-days' according to a reporter, who does not want to disclose his identity.

A couple of days back, the leaders of VHP and RSS have announced to wipe out Christians from Kandhamal District shortly. This was reiterated by Sangha leaders on 11th September before press. Addressing media persons after his meeting with Sankaracharya, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad Chief, Ashok Singhal said while the crucifixion of Jesus helped in spreading Christianity worldwide, the killing of Swami Lakshmanananda Saraswati would end conversions and cow slaughter. He reiterated his vow to put an end to conversions in the country. Also he told that recently thousands of 'forcefully or deceptively' converted people in Kandhamal are coming back to Hinduism after they realized that the Christianity can not give them security and protection. State VHP leader Mr. Subash Chouhan said that religious functions would also be conducted to reconvert all the converts into the Hindu fold. He also said a month-long campaign from September 23 would be launched in which the holy 'soils' from the 'samadhi' of Swami Lakshmanananda would be taken in a procession to all the villages in the Kandhamal where the Christian missionaries had converted a large number of native tribal population into Christianity.

The 'reconversion programme' has been planned and being carried out very systematically in association with many influential persons and institutions. The VHP Supremo – Mr.Singhal had a closed-door meeting with the Puri Shankaracharya, Swami Neeschalananda Saraswati, at his mutt at Puri for over an hour. Also he had meets with the CM and the leaders of RSS, VHP, Bajrang Dal and BJP separately.

When the Government claiming the situation is peaceful and normal in Kandhamal, then why did the District Collector of Kandhamal, Krishan Kumar asked the State Election Commission to postpone the urban local bodies' poll in the area scheduled to be held Sep 19 since the situation had not become completely normal.' The situation is under control but in some areas, it continues to be tense,' he said. 'More than 20,000 people have been living in 18 relief camps and many of them have said they don't want to return home at this moment because they still fear a threat to their lives,' Although the ban order is still in force across the district, thousands of women blocked several roads Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday to demand the release of those (VHP people) arrested on rioting charges. This demand was put before the Orissa CM by none other than Mr.Ashok Singhal. These women, mostly tribals, often take to the streets defying prohibitory orders, admitted by Mr.Kumar. Why the administration is not able to stop these and arrest the RSS, VHP, BJP leaders who are mobilizing these women to organize such rallies near relief camps and creating atmosphere of terror and insecurity for the people in camps.

People belonging to minority communities either in relief camps or villages or outside are under constant fear, insecurity. They do not have other choices than to 'reconvert or die'. Now, the freedom, dignity and right of the adivasis and dalits are in the hands of VHP and BJP leaders and their hired hooligans. The Constitutional rights of a section of Indian citizens, who are said to be the original inhabitants (indigenous communities), are under captivity. Not to speak of taking up any actions to ensure their rights, the Government looks helpless before the designs of fundamentalists. The suspicion of the minority communities about the State of siding with communal forces and compromising its constitutional responsibilities as secular and democratic polity is gaining more ground. Of course the Civil Society still hopes 'the Navin government is not a collaborator, but a helpless and mute spectator'.

The Government and BJD-BJP leaders have strongly refused to accept the demand for CBI enquiry into both the murder of Laxmanananda and that of Christians. Actually whatever level of importance is given for the enquiry of Laxmanananda case, is below expectation. Comparing to it, a little has been done to trace out the murderers of innocent Christians during subsequent violence. The affected people are sometimes threatened by the hooligans not to file their FIRs against their leaders and followers and also discouraged by the local Police at some other time. After 15-days many people have not been able to file FIRs. There is no special arrangement by the administration for filing FIRs by affected ones, security of victims and protection of witness. Even the District authority is not allowing the Civil Society to help in providing legal aids to these hapless people, while the perpetrators of the violence are moving freely and intimidating the poor adivasis and dalits.

In the meantime, the Sangh Parivar prepared a list of about 140 people from Christian community alleging them to be the killers of Laxmanananda without any substantial proof and distributing it among its supporters with a purpose to punish them in case the Government fails to do the same and Mr.Singhal submitted the list to the CM. It has created danger for the lives of these people. The 'rule of the Sangh Parivar' overpowers the 'rule of law'. Immediately after the killing of Laxmanananda, disregarding the views of the Police DG, CM; they declared the Christian Community as responsible for the crime and also they announced the punishment that the 'Hindus would react severely'. And also they implemented the punishment by killing women-men, lynching disabled persons and children, burning Christian houses, shops, churches. The Sangh leaders decided not to undertake autopsy of the bodies of Laxmanananda and his disciples, the Administration obeyed it. The Sangh and BJP made the Government not to go for CBI enquiry. The VHP leaders expressed unhappiness over the investigation into the killing of Swami Laxmanananda by the Crime Branch and alleged that the Government was shielding the culprits. Eighteen days after the death of the Swami police are yet to identify the killers, he said. But they did not show slightest interest about the killing of innocent people subsequently and also they do not want it to be given to the CBI for enquiry. Then, what should we expect now from the Constitutional authorities, opposition political parties and civil society??

(The write-up is based on media reports and field information.)

Countercurrents.org
http://www.countercurrents.org/panda180908.htm
 

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An all India representative fact -finding team of concerned citi zens visited Khandamal district, met with the victims, the district administration and concerned citizens. The nature and extent of
the violence, the relief and rehabilitation of the victims and the role of the state administrative machinery and finally make appropriate recommendations for the return of peace and constitutional governance in
the affected areas.

I. Observations
1. The team through extensive interviews and survey determined that the violence was not spontaneous or due to local reasons but preplanned and communal attack on Christians. Both dalit and tribal Christians.

2. In the areas visited the churches were systematically burned and vandalized. Houses of those belonging to the Christian community were singled out looted and burned, and livestock were taken away. The team also investigated the burning and ransacking divyajyoti and jan vikas offices in Kanjamndi village near a police camp.

3. In the absence of comprehensive official information the team has substantiated information on A. the assault on the priest and a nun in K. Nuagagv village where the nun was gang raped; and both were paraded naked. A Bible preacher in Ludiamunda village was hacked to death when he refused forcible conversion to Hinduism, his paralysed mother was burned alive. C. We observed that
all people who were forced to take refuge first in the forest and then in the camps have not been able to return to their homes because of threats that they will be killed if they do not convert. In several instances,
Christians returning were attacked and some were killed.

II. Observation
Systematic nature of the violence clearly demonstrates that one of the main intentions was to change the villages' composition through a religious cleansing. Underlying element used to
muster local support was to loot and capture the property. Under the pretext of stopping forcible conversions the Christian community was subjected to programme to make them
change their religion and deny their fundamental under the Article 25 of the constitution, to preach practice and propagate their religion.

III. Observation
There is sufficient evidence collected by the team to indicate that the attackers were a combination of locals and out siders. The leadership and motivation was provided by the Visha Hindu Parishad, RSS and
the Bajrang Dal, in which the local business community played a major role. The attacking mobs were armed with guns and other weapons as well as petrol and kerosene. The huge local mobiliza tions suggest to long term planning and ideological indoctrination.

IV. Observation
Even weeks after the violence Khandamal remains in the grip of terror. Large scale fleeing to the forest and camps are continuing while the burning and looting of houses are continuing. The team witnessed hoses in Makwali and Salpagadi were burning in the morning of September 15 and were still smoldering. Because of the continued rein of terror and lack of adequate security people are finding it
impossible to return to their homes. Those who are leaving the camps are generally are fleeing the district for unknown destinations.

V. Observation
The relief camps are poorly organized and unable to meet the requirements of the victims. Malaria and Diahia and other undiagnosed fevers are rampant in the camps in the absence of proper medical care.
At last 20 births have occurre d in camps without proper institutional care. In number of cases there were no adequate provisions for special food for pregnant women and the ailing.

Nutritionally deficient food is being provided to the victims. Death is being reported from the camps. No facilities have been provided for school a nd college going children to continue their
studies

VI. Observation
The state government is guilty of providing misleading a nd distorted data including minimizing the extent of suffering and dislocations. The District administration is not registering FIRs and has conseque
ntly has not made significant number of arrest of the guilty to act as an effective deterrent and improve the security situation for the Christians.

The state government is guilty of criminal negligence for standing by while preparations were made for the carnage and turning a blind eye to the perpetuators of violence by not recording  evidence or taking adequate action for relief and rehabilitation.

VII. Observation
The team believes that there is a prima facie case established that state government is protecting the perpetuators of the violence. The district observation has not taken effective action under the
law for the security of the victims and their rehabilitation.

Recommendations
The team demands
1. The union government must immediately i nvoke its powers under th e Article 355 and 256 and 257 of the Indian constitution to ensure that the state government fulfill its constitutional obligation to the citizens
2. Arrest the perpetuators and mobilisers, also using the power under the Section 153 and 153 A of the Indian Penal Code (IPC)
3. The district administration and the police and the superior officers must be held accountable for their dereliction of the duty.
4. Using its special powers the central government should institute a high level judicial enquiry into the communal violence.

Concerned Citizen's Fact Finding Team
1. Prof. Manoranjan Mohanty, Delhi
2. Ms. Seema Mustafa, Senior Journalist
3. Prof. Amit Bhaduri , Delhi
4. Prof. Kamal Mitra Chenoy, Delhi
5. Ms. Sgarika Chabbra, Delhi
6. Mr. Vincent Manoharan, Delhi
7. Dr. Prakash Louis, Patni
8. Dr. Prasad, Delhi
9. Ms. Guna, Madurai
10. Rajesh Kumar, Bhubaneswar
 

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