Sashiprabha Bindhani

15th April 2009

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The elements of colonial heritage in the present political paradigm and the exploitative terms in the arena of economic production and resource distribution in Orissa has left staid impacts on the socio-economic-cultural fabric that continue to persist even today. This has resulted in increasing competition among the communities over endowments access and control over resources leading to increasing intolerance and hatred among communities. Communities once known for their peaceful coexistence and communal harmony are now getting involved in heinous acts resulting in communal violence. The recent spurt of incidents that Orissa witnessed, in December 2007 and August 2008, has been quintessential of the same. The communal violence in Orissa deserves attention for several reasons. Not that this has been the first case of communal violence in Orissa witnessed by the country but that the atrocities committed in the State are often reported under headlines of communal violence.

After the nation adopted and enacted the Constitution of India, on 26 January, 1950, the Government started with the process of development of the nation. Ever since the census has been conducted, the official authorities have always recorded the count with the categorization under 3 heads only: - 1) General, 2) SCs and 3) STs. The Centre although records the count of Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Jains, etc. but the same is never recorded under the main Census report.

With the Hindus constituting to about 80 percent of the total population of India, there has always been a clash amongst various communities most significantly in the last century.  The General category amongst the Hindus has always been entitled to all the privileges whereas the poor and the downtrodden people, viz., the lower castes like Dalits, the adivasis, and even the minorities have always been subjected to unequal treatment in the social and economic context. Many argue that these marginalised sections of population have always been tolerating and when the tolerance level reaches the threshold of maximized inequality, it results in communal tension and violence. But in most cases, violence where communities are involved is actually engineered for serving petty interests.  The recent occurrences of ‘communal violence’ (emphasis ours) in Orissa are in no way spontaneous or retaliatory but are pretty well premeditated and coordinated acted out with the tacit approval of the authorities and in fact many a times with their active co-operation as well. The noted incidences reported of communal violence happen to be primarily between Hindus and Muslims or between Christians and Hindus. The catalogue of happenings in Orissa during December 2007 and August 2008 has been due to the conflicts among the Christians and the Hindus.

Violence in Kandhmal during 2007

The perpetrators of the incidents happen to be members of the Hindutva Movement, the Sangh Parivar, wherein, Hindutva is an ideology of Hindu nationalism. The VHP (Vishwa Hindu Parishad) is the activist front which aims to re-convert or eradicate non-Hindus from India with the soldiering being done by the RSS and the Bajrang Dal who use communal violence and terrorism to impose Hindu supremacy. The influence of Hindutva Movement has been experienced by and large in the past and has now steamed up again in Kandhamal district of Orissa since December 2007 and reached its heights in August 2008.

In 2007, the reigning political party, BJD, had a schedule to celebrate the annual function of the party on 26^th December, which was supposed to be attended by all the members of BJD from the entire state. During the same time on 24^th December, the Kui Kalyan Sangh, a committee working for the welfare and upliftment of the ethnic tribe, Kui, had called for a bandh.

This poses a question in the minds of people as to how the District Administration could allow the bandh to be called for.  Few months prior to this celebration electoral constituencies of Ganjam, Boudh and Kandhamal, were rearranged through delimitation process in order to bring about change in SC and ST concentration in these very constituencies. Apart from this, when the alarming situation of handing over the governance to the President was taken up and it was necessitated that President’s rule should be imposed in the State, there was no thought or even mention of the provisions of the PESA Act.

Table-1

NSS Region-wise and Social Group-wise HCR,

Rural Orissa, 1999-2000

Source: Arjan de Haan and Amaresh Dubey (2003), ‘Poverty in Orissa : Divergent Trends? With Some Thoughts on Measurement Issues’, mimeo, Paper presented at the Workshop on ‘Monitoring of Poverty in Orissa’, 26-27 February, Bhubaneswar.

 The State has the highest proportion of Adivasis (tribals), more than two third of which lives below the poverty line. In Kandhamal, this proportion happens to be higher than the state figures. As can be seen from Table-1, the proportion of tribal population below poverty line is as high as 73.02 percent in Orissa compared to the State average of all population at48.01 percent. However, the tribal BPL percentage is around 92 percent in the southern districts in Orissa of which Kandhmal is a part. The communities present are extremely vulnerable to exploitation of all kinds, including indebtedness, bonded labor, trafficking of women and children, women forced into sex work and labour

Kandhamal has been witnessing several forms of communal violence, i.e., the Hindu-Christianity clash for quite a long time. This very form of communal violence reached its azimuth during December 2007.

The circumstances started getting into the tensed phase when the Sangh Parivar issued a call for a bandh on December 25 and 26. This was because it was Christmas time and the Christian community organizations of Bamunigaon village of Kandhamal district of Orissa had obtained the necessary permission for celebrating Christmas. The Sangh Parivar members went on a rampage and destroyed the pandals, stages, etc set by the Christians for Christmas celebrations. It has been reported by many that this particular phase of rampage also saw the involvement of Swami Laxmananda Saraswati. Many houses were set ablaze, properties were destroyed and innocent people were beaten, assaulted, tortured, intimidated, murdered, raped and burnt. People were forced to leave their houses and flee off to the jungles and take refuge in relief camps later on.

As an aftermath of these tensed situations, the Government of Orissa expressed deep concern about the attacks on the Christian community and viewed it as a situation of grave concern and therefore established a judicial commission under the Commission of Inquiry Act. The judicial commission was supposed to do its work by a sole member, i.e., Justice Basudev Panigrahi, a retired judge of the Orissa High Court.  It was directed to him that he should

          i.          analyze the sequence of the events and circumstances leading to the incidents;

        ii.          determine whether the measures taken, the quantum of force used in anticipating, preventing and handling the situation were adequate, inadequate or in excess requirement as per situation, and the responsibility of such acts of commissions or omissions;

      iii.          examine the role, conduct and responsibility of organizations, groups of individuals or persons, if any, in influencing, precipitating or escalating the incidents

      iv.          probe any other matter connected with or incidental thereto, as the commission may consider appropriate.

Justice Panigrahi invited individuals, societies, associations, NGOs and the officers of the Government to furnish statement of facts relating to the subject matter of inquiry.

Herein, came about the critical role of the civil society. Among the civil society groups, most prominent have been the Human Rights Law Network (HRLN) in association with Jan Vikas and other social organizations intervened to cater to the incidents of the rioting situations. They manoeuvred by first contacting the victim and then filed FIRs, 1CC, affidavits, helped them in demanding compensation for damages. They also established legal aid centres at Daringbadi, Baliguda and Phulbani. They filed writ petitions and PILs in the Supreme Court even after they failed to do so in the Orissa High Court. They have also got some verdict in their favour to some of the PIL cases. 

The Commission witnessed that many victims turned up to describe their woe. Many of them restricted themselves to describing of the incidents of violence and the burning of churches and other buildings. Some of them also dared to name the miscreants who were actually involved in these attacks.

Incidents of August, 2008

The month of August, 2008 witnessed the killing of Swami Lakshmananda Saraswati who happened to be the VHP vice-president. The Maoists claimed that they had killed the deceased, whereas, the Hindutva activists, again targeting the Christian community, put the blame on them stating that they have done this in retaliation to the incidents of December. Therefore, the activists were now again seen as an organized mob in the district and started the same heinous activities of arson, torture, harassment, intimidation, coercion to convert into Hinduism, gang-rape, murder, etc. These kinds of activities were not only seen in Kandhamal district but the after effects of the Swami’s death has resulted similar spurts of incidents in various other places like G Udayagiri, K Nuapada, Baliguda, etc. and also throughout the State including the capital city, wherein, the Archbishop house was damaged and he was also under threat.

During these situations, when the conditions had reached the pinnacle, Civil Society groups under the leadership of HRLN again intervened to ply the needed by again filing PILs in Orissa High Court and Supreme Court, FIRs, 1CC, affidavits, provided legal aids to people in dire need of the same like Sister Meena who was raped and paraded naked in the public by the rioters. HRLN protected the victims and also took measures so as to prevent further damages. 

It was observed and concluded from the situations that the alleged reasons behind the violent situations at Kandhamal were manifold.

The following are some of the notable allegations against the Christian community:-

1.       There has been substantial rise in the Christian population of the region between 1961 and 2001 (19,128 – 1, 97,950). It has been alleged that this rise in the Christian population has been due to the conversion of Panas (SCs) to Christianity in flagrant violation of the Orissa Freedom of Religion Act, 1967.

2.      It has been alleged that in comparison to the Hindu tribal population, the Christian tribal population is relatively better-off in terms of living and educational standards, courtesy the church.

3.      It has also been averred that the Christians have grabbed lands of poor tribals illegally and in violation of the Orissa Land Reforms Act and have erected churches on the encroached land.

4.      There has also been an allegation that there is misuse of presidential proclamation 2002, whereby, certain tribes or tribe communities were included in the lists of Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes in relation to various states. Under this notification in the second schedule an amendment was made and amongst other tribes, the Kui tribe was also inserted at Entry No. (k) in Part-XII for the State of Orissa. It is alleged that the aforesaid notification has been misinterpreted by the ‘Kui Kalyan Sangha’ and thereby instigated Christian community to apply before the respective tehsildars to get their Record Of Rights (RORs) corrected as Kui so as to mean sub-caste of Kandha instead of as Pana

5.      It is also alleged that consistent campaigns by the Christian community have instilled a sense of insecurity amongst the tribals of Kandhamal district.

6.      Apart from this, it has also been averred that the Christians have themselves destroyed their places of worship and set the criminal law mechanism to humiliate and pressurize the Hindus.

7.      It has also been alleged that the NGOs financed by the Government and foreign agencies for social welfare activities in the district extend their services to the Christian community only. They are also instrumental in undertaking conversion activities in the guise of social activities.

While many of these myths need to be demystified in the interests of the poor masses which are fighting among themselves in the name of religion and community. As can be seen from the table -1 there is really not much difference between the economic condition of the SCs and STs in the southern districts of Orissa. All these myths need to be addressed through proper research so that the rumour mongers are exposed in a credible manner. 

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