When Might is Right: A study of political action in J and K, Orissa and Kerala

We see today in different parts of the country the sight of rulers standing helplessly before organized forces. The Central and State government were reduced to the role of spectators when Muslim separatists ran amuck in Kashmir valley and Hindu communalists in Jammu province. Jammu and Kashmir is a State where an extraordinary situation has been prevailing since long. This limits the freedom of operation of the regime. This does not fully explain the failure of the authorities but it deserves consideration when we appraise the situation in the State.

Orissa does not resemble Jammu and Kashmir even remotely. The wave of violence set in motion by communal elements there following the murder of Swami Lakshmanananda Saraswati has not subsided at the time of writing. Reports say thousands of Adivasis driven away from their villages are still hiding in the forests. The State government discouraged MPs who wanted to visit the trouble-hit areas, saying it cannot guarantee their security.

When we examine the Orissa developments, there are reasons to believe that the violence was pre-planned, as in the case of the anti-Muslim riots of Gujarat in 2002. Swami Lakshmanananda was engaged in wooing back to the Hindu fold tribesmen who had embraced Christianity. Earlier, too, there had been attempts to kill him. Although the authorities said suspected Naxalites committed the murder, the Sangh Parivar ignored it and turned against the Christians. Even after Naxalites owned up responsibility, the Parivar did not revise its position. It appears that just as the Godhra incident was used to carry out a plan prepared in advance in Gujarat, Swami Lakshmanananda’s killing was used as a pretext to put through a plot hatched against the Christians in Orissa’s tribal region.

The burning of Graham Staines, a foreign missionary, and his sons, aged seven and nine, in a vehicle by communal elements in Orissa nine years ago is an event we can only recall with a sense of shame even today. In the circumstances, the authorities must have foreseen the possibility of the situation in the tribal region getting out of hand. Yet they were not able to take effective steps to prevent violence. They could not also bring the situation quickly under control once violence broke out. It may not be quite correct to say that they are not able to keep the miscreants in check. The fact is that they are not able to work for it sincerely. The Biju Jana Dal chief minister, Navin Patnaik, is in office with the support of the Bharatiya Janata Party. At the national level, the BJD is associated with the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance. All this renders the Patnaik regime inactive before the Sangh Parivar’s organized strength.

The Orissa violence must have aroused the most anger and anxiety in Kerala. After all, this is the home of the country’s largest Christian community. Priests and nuns deputed by different Churches in Kerala are actively engaged in social work there. There were reports that their institutions were burnt down and that many of them were hiding in the forests. This makes the Orissa events something more than a mere challenge to secularism from communal forces. It is a problem that directly affects us.

The Communist Party of India (Marxist) and its affiliates are in the forefront in organizing protests against the Orissa events. This, no doubt, is in keeping with their proclaimed policies and traditional positions. But, then, all parties work with their political interests in view. The party, which has been publicly clashing with the leadership of some Churches, evidently sees the Orissa developments as an opportunity to improve its relationship with that religious group. The Christians being hounded in Orissa are mostly Adivasis. That the CPI (M) has never shown to the Adivasis of Kerala the kind of sympathy it is pouring out for the Adivasis of Orissa directly proves this. Here, the party has been with the hunters, not the hunted. The CPI (M) has not been behind anyone else in extending protection to migrants from the plains who encroached upon the tribal territory extensively with the cooperation of the political and bureaucratic leadership in the years since Independence.

The CPI (M) has also adopted a negative approach to the agitation by the landless, most of them Dalits and Adivasis, going on at Chengara estate for a year. The blockade, which the plantation workers’ unions, including the CITU, which is under the control of the party, began on August 3, is an attempt to bring a people to their heels by denying them food and medicine, as the Americans did in Iraq. Not only those who wanted to express solidarity with the agitating landless people but also government doctors who went to provide medical aid were denied access to the estate. There have been complaints that those who came out of the estate to buy food and other essential commodities were stopped and harassed. The police did nothing to check such acts. Instead, it provided total protection to those involved in such activities. P.V.Rajagopal, a well-known social worker and vice-chairman of a commission constituted under the chairmanship of the Prime Minister to study land reform, was also stopped when he went there to talk to the leaders of the agitation. A press photographer recorded that scene. In the picture, a police officer can be seen, standing like a scarecrow in a paddy field. That picture conveys the same message as the news reports from Kashmir, Jammu and Orissa: the regime stands paralysed before an organized force.

When leaders who remained silent as such scenes were enacted nearer home become eloquent about the Orissa violence, one must assume there are political considerations behind it, not human considerations. The organizers of the blockade had declared that they would march into the estate and drive out the agitators on Wednesday, exactly a month after the blockade began. In the light of the situation prevailing there during the past month, this declaration had aroused anxiety. Since the authorities woke up and acted promptly, the workers’ march passed off without any untoward incident. This shows Kerala society can still avoid lapsing into a situation where Might is Right. This is a development that kindles hope. The political and official leadership which foiled the ill-advised move of the labour unions through timely intervention deserves three cheers. The statement of the Leader of the Opposition, who has been silent all this while on the Chengara issue, at this stage that the police is indifferent, is, to put it mildly, strange.

The attack on the police station at Kottackal the other day and the blockading of teachers and officials by student and youth organizations at different places in the State are all activities based on use of force. The political parties that control these organizations must realize this and be ready to give them up. A consensus on such issues is needed more urgently than Special Economic Zones to ensure Kerala’s progress.
Based on column “Nerkkazhcha” appearing in Kerala Kaumudi dated September 4

Orissa: Anti Christian Violence

By Ram Puniyani
02 January, 2008Countercurrents.org

Gladys Stains is a name etched in our memory for wrong reasons. Her husband and two sons were torched to death around a decade ago in Keonjhar Manoharpur Orissa. She wrote to Prime Minister Man Mohan Singh recently, to ensure that communal peace is restored in Orissa. This she did in the backdrop of the scattered attacks on Christians, over 40 churches torched in Orissa (24 Dec. 2007). In the violence which broke out, many of the people have been severely injured. Some of the priest and laity have run for shelter, leaving their homes and hiding in the forests in the biting cold. All this has happened in the Adivasi area in and around Phulbani and Kandhamal. The timing is around the Christmas celebrations, 2007.

It is no coincident that the BJP is part of the ruling coalition in Orissa, and those involved in the vandalism are part of some or the other organization directly affiliated with the RSS. The major such are Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram, Bajrang dal and their local variants. While the media reports are sketchy, the Citizens Inquiry team, which was to visit the area has been denied permission to visit the districts and was escorted out of the area. The attacks on minorities and weaker sections is launched for short term or long term political goals, but the care is taken that a pretext is manufactured and then the attacks are unleashed. In this case it has been said that Swami Lakkhanand was attacked by Christians and so the retaliation. One is supposed to believe that a Swami from the majority community, with sizeable following, will be attacked by the section of miniscule minority!

The Christmas season is the chosen time for anti Christian attacks. Earlier also such occasions have been chosen for beating and attacking the Christian community, notably in Dangs in 1998. This time in Phulbani area the declarations being made by the Swami and associates is that the presence of Christians will not be tolerated in the Adivasi areas. The visible attacks on Christian minorities started from 1996. The areas selected for these attacks have spread over from Gujarat, Dangs on the extreme West, to the Orissa on extreme east of the tribal belt. It is in these areas that anti Christian violence have been going on in scattered form since then. Most of these acts of violence have a bit different characteristic, i.e. unlike the anti Muslim violence which is more in the cities and occurs as spurts of killing hundred or thousands in a single go, here the cauldron is kept boiling continuously. The intensity is that of a slow but sustained intimidation and attack.

The most ghastly anti Christian violence was that done by Bajrang Dal activist, Dara Singh, who instigated the Adivasis and led the burning of Pastor Graham Stewart Stains. He and his organization kept propagating for months that pastor has come from Australia for converting the gullible Adivasis to Christianity, that his work amongst the leprosy patients is just a ploy to do his ?real work? of conversions. The Wadhwa commission, appointed by the NDA Govt. with Advani as the Home minister, in the aftermath of this brutal killing, concluded that the pastor was not involved in any conversion activities and that the percentage of Christian population in the area has remained static despite the Pastor working in the area.

At national level the attacks on Christians have been investigated by different civic groups, compiled in 'The Politics behind Anti Christian Violence' (Media House, Delhi) Most of the reports conclude that the attacks have been deliberately stepped up in the Adivasi areas. The main targets of these attacks are the Christian missionaries working in the area of education. The contrast is very glaring. The city based Christian mission institutions are upheld and respected for their contribution in the area of education, while in the Adivasi areas the same are being hounded out. The reports also observe that the RSS affiliates have been trying to do anti Christian propaganda along with Ghar Vapasi (re-conversion in to Hinduism) campaign. The major work of Ghar Vapasi has been undertaken in the BJP ruled states, or in the states where BJP has been sharing power.

The subtle assistance of the state machinery in the anti Christian tirade is always at the service of RSS affilaites. The Ghar Vapasi asserts that Adivasis are basically Hindus, who had to flee to the forests to escape the conversion by Muslim invaders, so they are 'nationally' Hindus, who have forgotten the Hindu rituals and gods and so have fallen low in the hierarchy of Hindu religion. This ritual of re-conversion is supposed to religiously restore them to their old Hindu glory!

The case of Orissa was specifically investigated by India Peoples Tribunal, led by Justice K.K.Usha (retired) of Kerala High court in 2006 (Communalism in Orissa) This tribunal forewarns about the shape of things to come. " The tribunal assessed the spread of communal organizations in Orissa, which has been accompanied by a series of small and large events and some riots?such violations are utilized to generate the threat and reality of greater violence, and build and infrastructure of fear and intimidation."

It further notes that minorities are being grossly ill treated; there is gross inaction of the state Govt to take action. Outlining the mechanism of the communalization, it points out, "The report also describes in considerable detail how the cadre of majoritarian communal organizations is indoctrinated in hatred and violence against other communities it holds to be inherently inferior. If such communalization is undertaken in Orissa, it is indicative of the future of the nation. The signs are truly ominous for India's democratic future." (p 70)

In these Adivasi areas swamis have made their permanent Ashrams, Lakkhanand, in Orissa, Assemanand in Dangs, and followers of Asaram bapu in Jhabua area to name a few. Also Hindu Samgams, congregations, are being held, the culmination of which was the Shabri Kumbh in Dangs where thousands of Adivasis were brought. In those areas the Hindutva organizations spread the intimidating rumors that those who do not attend these functions will be dealt with in due course.

Interestingly these are precisely the areas which are the poorest; these are the areas where the problem of land, education, water and food is the highest. Anti Christian violence is in the continuation of RSS agenda of Hindu Rasthra, Pehle kasai Phir Isai (First the Muslims then Christians). There is an additional factor in the anti Christian violence.

One concedes that there may be many a Christian groups who might be focusing on the conversion work, within the bounds of Indian constitution, of course. But one has to note that in India, overall population of Christian minorities is declining over a period of last four decades, (1971--2.60%, 1981--2.44% , 1991--2.34%, and 2001--2.30%).

While Christianity is a very old religion here, during last nineteen centuries or so only 2.odd percent have become Christians. The major problem is that the effort of missionaries to reach education to the adivasi areas. Educated Adivasi, empowered Adivasi will be more aware of her rights and that's precisely what RSS combine cannot stand. That the tiny minority can be a threat to the huge majority of Hindus is quiet a concoction. There is a need to deal these violations of human rights firmly, there is a need to curb the hate other propaganda in these areas and of course the need to promote modern education and other welfare schemes in these areas. Christmas which should be a festival of joy is being turned into an annual ritual of violence and mayhem by the RSS combine.

Ram Puniyani is a Professor in Biomedical Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology, Powai. Apart from his teaching and research activities, he pursues a parallel track concerned with issues related to social problems, particularly the ones related to preservation of democratic and secular ethos in our life. More information at http://www.pluralindia.com/drPuniyani.htm