Orissa group discovers enormity of anti Christian violence in Kandhamal district

Press Release

19/09/2008
Red Cross Society, Bhubaneswar

Observations and Recommendations about continued violence in Kandhamal, Orissa

Civil Society Organisations’ Fact Finding Team

The Civil Society Organisations under ‘Odisha Sadbhavana Manch’ formed a Fact Finding Team which visited Kandhamal district from 12 to 14 September, 2008. The team met with the district administration, personnel’s of police stations, a number of affected villages and relief camps. The team interacted with the victims as well as the in- charges of the relief camps. Seeing the nature and extent of violence, loss of human lives and property, the team proposes certain measures and recommendations for peace building process and constitutional governance in the violence affected areas.

Name of the Fact Finding Members

1-Mr kedar Roy
2-Mr. Mahendra Parida
3-Mr. Radha Mohan Das
4-Mr. N.K Rout

Observations
Through interviews, and spot verification of the riot affected areas – Baliguda, G.Udaygiri, Raikia, Tikabali, Phulbani and Kenwagaon, suggests that the violence was not spontaneous nor sporadic as government says, rather it was well planned and executed accordingly.

Police and Administration: When the violence started there was no police presence in the area and no adequate number of forces was deployed to contain the violence, even after knowing the nature of trouble that was going to take place. The police and administration was clueless as to what to do. Even where a few police men were deployed, they were a silent spectators and allowed the hooligans of VHP and Bajrang Dal to ransack and burn the houses of the Christian Community in front of their eyes. It wasn’t a problem of law and order situation as claimed by the government but it was in connivance of the government and the Sangh Parivar the violence was carried out for more than two weeks.

The Role of the Trader Community: The Dalit community’s progresses in their parallel business with the traders who are of outside the area have angered the traders’ community. Thus the trader community played an active role in spreading the communal violence along with outsiders who did not know Oriya. They were instrumental in threatening the victims, looting cattle and household articles, burning houses and in the re-conversion process. Outsiders were also involved in harassing the Fact Finding Team.


Health and Sanitation: Health and sanitation in most camps remains deplorable barring the camp in Raikia Mission School. Several people had fallen sick, and no proper medication was given to them. Two people in Udayagiri camp died of malaria and diarrhea.

Food: The quantity and quality of rice and Dal provided in the relief camps was inadequate and poor. In most camps the victims had to prepare their own food for which no utensils were given due to which food was not provided on time. Whether children of 2 years or people in their old-age, all had to eat only twice a day and that too lunch at 3.00 pm.


Relief Camps: The relief camps were set up in water-logging areas and this put the people into inconvenience. The tents provided for the victims were not sufficient. The camps are over crowded. There was no safety even to the relief camps. One person who went out of G.Udayagiri camp never returned, later his body was found wrapped in a canny bag and thrown in the pond. Women, children and the sick people are most vulnerable.


Fear Factor: The relief campers refuse to return to their homes fearing for their life. It is also found that most people had no homes to return to as they are burnt to ashes. Even those who want to go back to their village the miscreants are roaming around and threaten the people either to convert to Hinduism or leave their place.















Some facts and figures related to Kandhamal violence:

NAME OF BLOCKS NO. OF VILLAGES NO. OF HOUSEHOLDS AFFECTED
UDYAGIRI 36 640
RAIKIA 55 1391
TIKABALI 25 558
DARINGBADI 3 39
PHIRINGIA 25 428
CHOKAPADA 10 90
PHOLBANI 4 129
BALLIGUDA 18 555
TUMUDIBANDH NOT AVAIILABLE
KOTHAGARH NOT AVAILABLE
K NUAGAM 18 274
TOTAL 194 4104

NO OF PLACES OF WORSHIP DAMAGED 50
NO OF SHOPS DESTROYED IN RAIKIA 10
CONVENTS DESTROYED 4
NO OF BOYS/ GIRLS HOSTEL DESTROYED 5
OTHER INSTITUTIONS DAMAGED 6
NO OF PRIESTS ATTACKED 6
NO OF DECEASED PEOPLE IN UDYAGIRI 26



Recommendations:
The culprits of riots must to be immediately arrested.

Relief camps should continue at least till proper compensation and rehabilitation of the affected people is done.

In all the relief camps there should security arrangements, food and sanitation and heath care has to be improved.

The central government should impose president rule in Orissa.

A special register should be maintained at relief camps.

Police should accept FIR in all police stations in their respective riot affected areas.

Immediate survey of damaged houses should be done by government of Orissa.

Conversion or Re-conversion must be stopped immediately.

Those who are initiating riots should be arrested under 120 (b).

Government should immediately implement land reform in Kandhamal.

Sangh and SIMI are a terror dipole

All India Christian Council
PRESS STATEMENT
New Delhi, 15 September 2008
Sangh Parivar must be named together with SIMI in national and media discourse on Terrorism in India
Military precision in Karnataka violence exposes deep conspiracy against religious minorities, specially Christian community
The following statement was issued by Dr John Dayal, Secretary General, All India Christian Council this morning on the anti Christian violence in Karnataka State.
The All India Christian Council and the Christian community in India have been apprehending the Sangh Parivar attacks in Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. We fear there may be many more in other states including the national capital, New Delhi.
The BJP ruled states have become absolutely inhospitable and indeed hostile to the miniscule Christian community. The Sangh Parivar, which has strengthened itself because of the inaction of the Central Government to act against it, has also made it clear it will also flex its muscles in States ruled by the Congress. Sporadic violence in Andhra Pradesh, attempted desecrations of churches in several other States, and a sustained hate campaign against the community in general and its spokesmen in particular, are indications that the Sangh Parivar is making a major and aggressive thrust to grab absolute power for the Bharatiya Janata party in the General Elections early next year on the Hindutva card.
We are surprised that the Sangh Parivar, specially its militant units Bajrang Dal, Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram are not being mentioned in the national Media and public discourse on terrorism at par with SIMI as groups out to destroy the unity and the secular fabric of India. In fact the Sangh Parivar and the SIMI form a dipole, each feeding on the other and threatening innocent citizens of democratic India for their ulterior political motives. Terror is their common weapon. While the SIMI targets citizens at large, the Sangh focuses on Christians and Muslims.
The military precision of the timing of the attacks on Churches in Mangalore and other Karnataka districts in the violence on Sunday and Monday speaks of long range and meticulous planning, not surprising as the Sangh has a very large number of serving and retired police and administrative officers in its ranks.
The Christian response is always peaceful, but we expect the State, the national secular civil society, and the international community, to come to our defence. India without a Christian community will be no more than a graveyard of democracy and all that is decent in our ancient civilisation.
The State government must assume full responsibility. The Chief Minister of Karnataka has failed to live to his promise of communal harmony. The State Home Minister is guilty of conniving in the violence, as he disregarded ample warnings that had come in the wake of the Sangh violence in Orissa.
As far as the civil and policies authorities of the affected districts are concerned, they are working as if the Sangh Parivar is their real master and not the constitutionally constituted government. Christian youth are being harassed in Mangalore, many are threatened and police are desecrating places of worship by entering them this morning on the pretext of maintaining law and order. This must cease forthwith. The police must hunt for the real criminals – the Sangh Parivar.
We demand the suspension of all senior civil officers of the affected districts and the resignation of the Karnataka Home Minster on moral grounds.
Nothing less will send the correct message that Karnataka, fast slipping into the morass of communal anarchy, is the place where the world must invest.

OMINOUS DEVELOPMENTS IN ORISSA

ORISSA 2008 FACT SHEET
STATE GOVERNMENT ACQUIESCES IN SANGH PARVIAR PLAN TO WIPE OUT CHRISTIANITY FROM ORISSA
FOURTH WEEK OF VIOLENCE Sunday 14th September 2008
[JOHN DAYAL’S NOTE: Late last night I had two very disturbing calls interrupting the unceasing messages and rings from Orissa on my two mobile phones. The first was of two separate gun battles between police and armed mobs. One of these mobs was a Sangh Parivar posse attacking the Church in Tumuliband, and apparently two of the attackers were killed by the police. The second was said to be a Maoist attack on two villages in the Raikia region, and a gun battle was reported still raging on Sunday.
The second message confirmed something I had been told some days ago – that Vishwa Hindu Parishad leader and surgeon Dr Praveen Togadia [he is still registered, apparently, with the Medical Council] had given a call, almost a contract, to his cadres in Orissa that three prominent Christian leaders, two of them living in Bhubaneswar, had to be `eliminated’. Already, these three men have been named in the Oriya language Press. And pamphlets with their names have been distributed in villages in Kandhamal and neighbouring districts.
These alarming news came hot on the heels of perhaps even more disturbing reports from the highest quarters in Bhubaneswar and Cuttack [which is home to the state Police headquarters] and confirmed from New Delhi. This was a report that the State Government, which Chief Minister Naveen Pattnaik runs in coalition with the Bharatiya Janata Party, the political wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh, agreed with the Sangh thesis that Orissa can move forward only once it is rid of all Christians, specially from Kandhamal and Sundergarh. These are the two districts in the State with a sizable number of Tribals and Dalits. Orissa has just about 2 [two] per cent Christians in its population, less than the national average of 2.4 per cent. Orissa is also India’s third largest Hindu majority state. Coincidently, Kandhamal and Sundergarh are the only two districts where the Christian population is more than the State average.
Last night, the police opened fire in Tumuliband, the small town close to the ashram of the late Vishwa Hindu Parishad vice president Lakshmanananda Saraswati. Apparently, the assailants were bent upon burning the Church and other buildings, so it can be presumed they were not Christians. The second police encounter was with alleged Maoists who attacked two villages in the Raikia-Udaygiri region. I am awaiting details and confirmation.
Needless to say, every single Bishop, priest, pastor and common man or woman who has communicated with me – I am in Delhi, told by my friends not to come to Kandhamal at this time – has said the people are in a state of abject panic. Every eye-witness account adds to their panic. Prayer is their only strength.
In Delhi we still have no information if any Church organisation has been able to go, or allowed to go, to render assistance to the people, some of whom are positively starving and on the verge of collapse. In December 2007, it was the District Collector who had stopped Christian aid till the Supreme Court overruled him months later. This time, it is the sweep and brutality of the violence.
This is confirmed by what others in authority say.
“What we are witnessing in states like Orissa most recently is a carefully orchestrated ploy by the BJP and its sister organisations to inflame religious prejudices and passions," Congress president Mrs Sonia Gandhi told her Party’s highest policy making body yesterday. "This has been their (Sangh Parivar's) strategy all along. Every time their position is weakened, every time elections are around the corner, the BJP, RSS, Baring Dale and the VHP launch into the most vicious communal campaign to divide and polarise society, with no regard to loss of lives and livestock," Mrs. Gandhi said.
The Supreme Court has asked for a report on the steps taken by the Orissa government to protect the lives of the minority Christians. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has announced Rs 3 lakh ex-gratia to each family of those killed. New Delhi has also sent 500 Central police personnel, grossly insufficient according to the victims cowering in their villages or still to return from their forest refuge.
After we met in a delegation with President Mrs. Pratibha Patil and demanded that Article 355 be invoked and the State government told to act, Union Home minister Shivraj Patil did caution the state government. The Orissa government admits violence has now gripped 13 of the State’s 30 districts after Lakshmanananda Saraswati and five of his associates were killed on August 23 by Maoists.]
A VIOLENCE SNAPSHOT
STATES AFFECTED: Three --- Orissa, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh
IN ORISSA, DISTRICTS AFFEFTED: 14 [Fourteen]
NUMBER OF VILLAGES AFFECTED: 300 [Three Hundred]
NUMBER OF HOUSES DESTROYED: Over 4,000 [Over Four thousand]
PEOPLE AFFECTED: Over 50,000 [Fifty Thousand]
HIDING IN FORESTS: About 40,000 [Forty thousand]
IN GOVERNMENT REFUGEE CAMPS: About 12,000 [Twelve Thousand]
IN PRIVATE CAMPS AND HOMES: about 1,000 [One Thousand]
NUMBER OF PERSONS KILLED IN POLICE FIRING: [presumed non-Christian] 2 [Two]
NUMBER OF DEAD MISSING / ABDUCTED: [Christians or staff] estimated: 5 [five]
NUMBER OF DEAD CONFIRMED: 45 [Forty-five]
NUMBER OF PRIESTS / PASTORS / NUNS SERIOUSLY INJURED: 10 [Ten]
NUMBER OF INJURED MEN AND WOMEN: Estimated [18,000, most still in Forests]
NUMBER OF CHURCHES ATTACKED: 56 [Fifty four] and counting
NUMBER OF SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES ATTACKED: 11 [Eleven]
NUMBER OF NGOs ATTACKED: 4[Four]
Detailed fact-sheet available on request from catholicunion@gmail.com

OMINOUS DEVELOPMENTS IN ORISSA

ORISSA 2008 FACT SHEET
STATE GOVERNMENT ACQUIESCES IN SANGH PARVIAR PLAN TO WIPE OUT CHRISTIANITY FROM ORISSA]
FOURTH WEEK OF VIOLENCE Sunday 14th September 2008-09-14
[JOHN DAYAL’S NOTE: Late night I had two very disturbing calls interrupting the unceasing messages and rings from Orissa on my two mobile phones. The first was of two serrate gun battles between police and armed mobs. One was a Sangh Parivar posse attacking the Church in Tumuliband and apparently two of the attackers were killed by the police. The second was apparently a Maoist attack on two villages in the Raikia region, and a gun battle was reported still raging.
The second message confirmed something I had been told some days ago – that Vishwa Hindu Parishad leader and surgeon Dr Praveen Togadia {he is still registered, apparently, with the Medical Council] had given a call, almost a contract, to his cadres in Orissa that three prominent Christian leaders, two of them living in Bhubaneswar, had to be `eliminated’. Already, these three have been named in the Oriya language Press, and pamphlets with their names have been distributed in villages in Kandhamal and neighbouring district.
These alarming news came hot on the heels of perhaps even more disturbing reports from the highest quarters in Bhubaneswar and Cuttack [which is home to the state Police headquarters] and confirmed from New Delhi that the State Government which Chief Minister Naveen Pattnaik runs in collation with the Bharatiya Janata Party has agreed with the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh thesis that the State can move forward only once it is rid of all Christians, specially from Kandhamal and Sundergarh. These are the two districts in the State with a sizable number of Tribals and Dalits. Orissa has just about 2 [two] per cent Christians in its population, less than the national average of 2.4 per cent. It is also India’s third largest Hindu majority state. Coincidently, Kandhamal and Sundergarh are the only two states where the Christian population is more than the State average.
Last night, the police opened fire in Tumuliband, the small town close to the Ashram of the late Vishwa Hindu Parishad vice president Lakhmanananda Saraswati. Apparently, the assailants were bent upon burning the Church and other buildings, so it can be presumed they were not Christians. The second police encounter was with alleged Maoists who attacked two villages in the Raikia-Udaygiri region. I am awaiting details and confirmation.
Needless to say, every single Bishop, Priest, pastor and common man or woman who has communicated with me – I am in Delhi, told by my friends not to come to Kandhamal at this time – has said the people are in a state of abject panic. Every eye-witness account adds to their panic. Prayer is their only strength.
In Delhi we still have no information if any Church organisation has been able to go, or allowed to go, to render assistance to the people, some of whom are positively starving and on the verge of collapse. In December 2007, it was the District Collector who had stopped Christian aid till the Supreme Court overruled him months later. This time, it is the sweep and brutality of the violence.
This is confirmed by what others in authority say.
“What we are witnessing in states like Orissa most recently is a carefully orchestrated ploy by the BJP and its sister organisations to inflame religious prejudices and passions," Congress president Mrs Sonia Gandhi told her Party’s highest policy making body yesterday. "This has been their (Sangh Parivar's) strategy all along. Every time their position is weakened, every time elections are around the corner, the BJP, RSS, Baring Dale and the VHP launch into the most vicious communal campaign to divide and polarise society, with no regard to loss of lives and livestock," Mrs. Gandhi said
The Supreme Court has asked for a report on the steps taken by the government to protect the lives of the minority Christians. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has announced Rs 3 lakh ex-gratia to each family of those killed. It has also sent 500 Central police personnel, grossly insufficient according to the victims cowering in their villages or still to return.
After we met in a delegation with President Mrs. Pratibha Patil and demanding that Article 355 be invoked and the State government told to act, Union Home minister Shivraj Patil did caution the state government that unless it takes adequate measures to book and punish the persons involved in "such incidents", there is possibility of report of "unfortunate" happenings in future.
The government admits violence has now gripped 13 of Orissa's 30 districts after Lakhmanananda Saraswati and five of his associates were killed on August 23 by Maoists.]
A VIOLENCE SNAPSHOT
STATES AFFECTED: Three --- Orissa, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh
IN ORISSA, DISTRICTS AFFEFTED: 14 [Fourteen]
NUMBER OF VILLAGES AFFECTED: 300 [Three Hundred]
NUMBER OF HJOUSES DESTROYED: Over 4,000 [Over Four thousand]
PEOPLE AFFECFTED: Over 50,000 [Fifty Thousand]
HIDNING IN FORESTS About 40,000 [Forty thousand]
IN GOVERNMETN REFUGEE CAMPS: About 12,000 [Twelve Thousand]
IN PRIVATE CAMPS AND HOMES: about 1,000 [One Thousand]
NUMBER OF PERSONS KILLED IN POLICE FIRING: [presumed Non Christian] 2 [Two]
NUMBER OF DEAD MISSING / ABDUCTED: [Christians or staff] estimated: 5 [five]
NUMBER OF DEAD CONFIRMED: 45 [Forty-five]
NUMBER OF PRIESTS / PASTORS / NUNS SERIOUSLY INJURED: 10 [Ten]
NUMBER OF INJURED MEN AND WOMEN: Estimated [18,000, most still in Forests]
NUMBER OF CHUCHES ATTACKED: 56 [Fifty four] and counting
NUMBER OF SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES ATTACKED: 11 [Eleven]
NUMBER OF NGOs ATTACKED: 4[Four]
Detailed fact-sheet available on request from catholicunion@gmail.com

Hindutva's Private Army in Orissa

From John Dayal, 6 September 2008

ORISSA FACT SHEET

The Hindutva private army in Orissa, and its bloody track record [1964-2998]

Since 2000, the Sangh has been strengthened by the Bharatiya Janata Party's coalition government with the Biju Janata Dal.

In October 2002, a Shiv Sena unit in Balasore district declared the formation of the first Hindu 'suicide squad'.

In March 2006, Rath stated that the 'VHP believes that the security measures initiated by the Government [for protection of Hindus] are not adequate and hence Hindu society has taken the responsibility for it'. (In June 2008, Bal Thackeray said, "Hindu suicide squads should be readied to ensure existence of Hindu society and to protect the nation".)

The VHP has 1,25,000 primary workers in Orissa.

The RSS operates 6,000 shakhas with a 1,50,000 plus cadre.

The Bajrang Dal has 50,000 activists working in 200 akharas.

BJP workers number above 4,50,000.

BJP Mohila Morcha, Durga Vahini 7,000 outfits in 117 sites

Rashtriya Sevika Samiti (women’s battalion) 80 centres

Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh 171 trade unions with a cadre of 1,82,000.

Bharatiya Kisan Sangh 30,000 cared in 100 blocks.

Friends of Tribal Society, Samarpan Charitable Trust, Sookruti, Yasodha Sadan, Odisha International Centre. Ekal Vidyalayas, Vanavasi Kalyan Ashrams/Parishads (VKAs), Vivekananda Kendras, Shiksha Vikas Samitis and Sewa Bharatis cement the brickwork for hate and civil polarisation.

Virulent Hindutva campaigns against minority groups reverberated in Rourkela in 1964, Cuttack in 1968 and 1992, Bhadrak in 1986 and 1991, Soro in 1991.

In 1998, 5,000 Sangh activists attacked the Christian dominated Ramgiri - Udaygiri villages in Gajapati district, setting fire to 92 homes, a church, police station, and several government vehicles. Sangh activists entered the local jail forcibly and burned two Christian prisoners to death.

In 1999, Graham Stuart Staines, 58, an Australian missionary and his 10 and 6 year-old sons Timothy and Philips, were torched in Manoharpur village in Keonjhar as they slept in their jeep.

Catholic nun, Jacqueline Mary was gang raped in Mayurbhanj and Fr. Arul Das, a Catholic priest, was murdered in Jamabani, Mayurbhanj.

Churches destroyed in Kandhamal.

In 2002, VHP converted 5,000 people to Hinduism. In 2003, the VKA organised a 15,000-member rally in Bhubaneswar demanding denial of reservations to Christian Adivasis and Dalits.

In 2004, seven women and a male pastor were forcibly tonsured in Kilipal, Jagatsinghpur district, followed by a social and economic boycott of Christians.

In 2004, a Catholic church was vandalised, figures of Mary and Jesus shattered, and the community targeted in Raikia.

In 2005, Gilbert Raj, a Baptist pastor, was murdered and Dilip Dalai, a Pentecostal pastor, stabbed to death at his home in Begunia, Khordha district.

Lakshmanananda Saraswati, murdered on 23 August 2008, pioneered the Hinduisation of Kandhamal since 1969, his men targeting Adivasis, Dalits, Christians and Muslims through socio-economic boycotts and forced conversions to Hinduism.

The 1987-born VKAs men worked to Hinduise Kondh and Kui tribals and polarise relations between them and Christians.

In October 2005, 200 Bonda Christian tribals forcibly converted to Hinduism in Malkangiri.

In 2008, Hindutva discourse named Christians as 'conversion terrorists'.

In the Christmas 2007 attacks, 107 churches were destroyed, five persons killed, over 1,000 houses destroyed.

The August-September 2008 ethnic cleansing continues, and corroborated data is still being compiled.

The Christian population in Kandhamal is 1,17,950 while Hindus [a phrase which includes Tribals who may still be animists] number 5,27,757. Orissa Christians numbered 8,97,861 in the 2001 census – a mere 2.4 percent of the state's population, at par with the national average.

[Culled from Prof Angana Chatterji’s article, Tehelka Magazine September 2008, and other sources]

Article 355 must be used in Orissa to check massacre of Christians

PRESS NOTE

New Delhi, September 1, 2008

Citizen’s Delegation meets President Pratibha Patil; Demands that Indian Government use Article 355 to force Orissa administration to protect Christians

Violence continues even now, President is told by delegation led by Filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt, Maulana Mahmood Madani, MP, and Orissa Archbishop Cheenath.

300 villages burnt, 4,014 houses destroyed, 50,000 Christians hiding in Forests in a week

A Citizens Delegation met President Pratibha Patil on Monday morning calling upon her to enforce Article 355 of the Constitution of India on Orissa so that the Chief Minister Naveen Pattnaik administration takes adequate measures to protect Christians in the state from Hindutva violence..

The best legal opinion available to the delegation held that while Article 356 calls for imposition of President’s rule when New Delhi takes over reins of power, Article 355 reminds both New Delhi and state governments of their duties to protect States against internal disturbance and should be brought into force now.

The delegation reminded the President that the violence that has continued against Christians in Orissa from 23^rd August till today justifies the use of this Article. The violence far exceeds that of Christians 2007, the delegation told the President, reminding her that she had a big role to play at this juncture..

In fact, violence has spilled out of Orissa into neighbouring Madhya Pradesh. In Orissa, It is not confined to Kandhamal but has affected other districts. In Kandhamal, fifty thousand people are hiding in forests or are in a few refugee camps, hiding from murderous gangs seeking to kill them or convert them to Hinduism, Over 4,000 houses have been completely destroyed apart from now close to a hundred small and big churches which have been torched.

The Citizen’s delegation, the first such to meet the President, was led by film maker Mahesh Bhatt and Jamiat-e-Ulema-e-Hind President Maulana Mahmood Madani, MP, National Integration Council member Dr John Dayal, Orissa Archbishop Raphael Cheenath, Delhi Archbishop Vincent Concessao, Maharashtra Government State Minorities Commission vice chairman Dr Abraham Mathai, Jamiat leader Mohd Faruqi, Al India Christian Council regional secretary Rev Madhu Chandra, Delhi Catholic Archdiocese Federation President Adv Jenis Francis and Mumbai’s Catholic Social Forum secretary general Joseph Dias were the other members.

The President gave the delegation a patient hearing and said she would have their demand for Article 355 examined. She said the government had briefed her on steps, which had already been taken. Mr. Bhatt told the President that the State government was in a coma; its police totally complicit in the violence and the Sangh Parivar was running havoc.

Maulana Madani said it was a matter of security of India’s minorities. It was India’s concern for its minorities that had brought it respect internationally, and it was the object of deep concern globally. Archbishop Cheenath, Dr John Dayal and Dr Mathai briefed the President in detail about the Sangh violence in the state which has continued after the murder of the VHP vice President Lakshmanananda Saraswati.

Following are excerpts from the Memorandum

Citizen’s Memorandum to the President of India

September 1, 2008

Shrimati Pratibha Patil

The President of India

Your Excellency,

You are aware of the still continuing carnage against the Christian community, mostly Dalits and Tribals, in the Kandhamal district of Orissa and in several other districts including the state capital of Bhubaneswar since 23^rd August 2003 following the killing of Vishwa Hindu Parishad leader Swami Lakshmanananda Saraswati, reportedly by Maoist groups who have been operating in the state for some time. The violence has now spread to some other states, especially Madhya Pradesh.

Nine months after attacks in Kandhamal District on Christians of Dalit, Hill peoples and Tribal ethnicity celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace, we are deeply saddened by a repeat of the violence in the month of India’s Independence. The Christmas 2007 attacks claimed the lives of at least four Christians, and we verified the destruction of at least 105 churches and 730 Christian homes. The current spate of violence will exceed these totals as it continues to spread into other districts. Our estimate from Ground Zero is of close to two dozen people dead, one a Hindu girl burnt to death working for a Christian orphanage, a Nun has been gang raped, religious men and women personnel humiliated, beaten, tortured, some close to death, while policemen have looked on, or have been absent.

We appeal for the restoration of law and order. But the root cause must also be addressed.

We, the secular civil society community, perceive that the great nation of India is at a tipping point. The groups, which favour a “Hindu Rashtra”, have made Orissa their laboratory, as they earlier did Gujarat. The so-called saffronisation of the state has been the subject of well-documented academic and socio-political studies.

We entreat you, as President of the Republic, to enforce the rule of law upon Sangh Parivar organisations which blatantly flaunt their divisive agenda. Specifically, we call upon you to bring the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh, and Bajrang Dal under the rule of law.

As Orissa authorities have repeatedly said there was ample circumstantial evidence of Maoist involvement in the killing of VHP leader Lakshmanananda Saraswati and four others on August 23rd. Additionally, someone who identified himself as Azad, a leader of Maoist outfit, People's Liberation Guerrilla Army claim responsibility for the killing as Times of India carries the news on August 30 referring to an interview with a leading Oriya daily on August 29.¹

Yet Praveen Togadia, VHP general secretary, told an international journalist on August 27, “It is clear that the church killed the Swami.”² Gouri Prasad Rath, Orissa state VHP secretary, said, “This attack is the handiwork of the Christians.”³ Subhash Chavan, national co-convener of the Bajrang Dal, said, “The police are trying to hide the truth by blaming the Maoists.”⁴ An unnamed RSS spokesperson said, “This is an attack by the agents of Christian missionaries, whose attempts at forcible conversions the Swamiji countered.”⁵ RSS spokesperson Ram Madhav told CNN IBN on Tuesday night⁶ that Christians were behind the murders. Perhaps based on a media report⁷, Madhav The final word lay with RSS supreme Kupahalli Sudershan who in a Press Statement faxed to the Media called the late VHP vice President a martyr for “stopping Christians from carrying on coversions.”

These types of irresponsible statements must be met with the full force of the law. They are all culpable for penal action under IPC 295A for the crime of creating enmity between communities and religions. This would benefit not only Orissa, but the nation.

We sincerely wish Swami Saraswati was not murdered and he still might be alive if the state government had followed the recommendations of the National Commission for Minorities. The NCM urged the authorities to examine the speeches of Swami Lakshmanananda to determine whether they amount to incitement to violence.^{8 9} We are confident that, if this had been done, the swami would have been jailed and protected from coming to any harm.

Your Excellency, the violence in Orissa continues without adequate police forces to stop mobs which break curfew and harm innocent civilians, chasing our fellow countrymen and women like animals in the forests where they have taken refuge since August 24. Today the irresponsible leaders of hardliner Hindu nationalist groups are damaging our great democracy and secularism of the nation.

We request you to order the Union Government and the State Administration to take legal action against the irresponsible organisations which called the bundh on Monday, Aug. 25, 2008 and have passively watched their members wreak havoc. They must, of course, fully investigate the murder of the VHP vice President.

This is to request you to use your powers as President of India, and the tremendous force of your good offices, to impress on the Central Government to rush adequate Union forces, including contingents of the Armed Forces if required, to restore law and order and governance in the Kandhamal region.

The consequences of any further delay, we the secular civil society fear, may be catastrophic for the small Christian community in the State in particular, for peace in Orissa in general, and for the fair name of India as a secular country.

----------1 http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/Maoists_claim_Orissa_killing/articleshow/3423908.cms

2 “Indian state erupts in violence after Hindu shot”, by Saeed Ahmed, CNN, Aug. 27, 2008.

3 “Orissa on edge, VHP scoffs at Maoist theory”, see above

4 “Orissa tragedy takes a backseat, hunt starts for scapegoat”, by Soumyajit Pattnaik, Hindustan Times, Aug. 25,

2008.

5 “Orissa: Bandh-related violence claims 9,” by Krishnakumar P., Rediff.com, Aug. 26, 2008.

6 “Blind Faith? Fragile Peace Blown to Bits”, CNN-IBN debate, Aug. 26, 2008, 10 p.m. IST.

7 “Widespread anger in Kandhamal”, The Pioneer, Aug. 25, 2008.

8 “This mischievous [VHP & Sangh Parivar anti-conversion] campaign has created an atmosphere of prejudice

and suspicion against the Christian community and Christian priests and organizations. The role of the Sangh

Parivar activists and the anti-conversion campaign in fomenting organized violence against the Christian Community deserves close scrutiny.” From “Report of the NCM visit to Orissa, 6-8 January 2008”,

http://ncm.nic.in/pdf/orissa%20report.pdf.

9 “The recommendation made by the NCM team that visited Orissa in January, 2008 that the State Government

must look into the speeches of Swami Lakshmanananda to determine whether they amount to incitement to

violence does not appear to have been acted upon.” From “Report on the Visit of the Vice Chairperson, NCM to

Orissa, 21-24 April 2008”, http://ncm.nic.in/pdf/VC%20Tour%20Report%20of%20Orissa.pdf.