The Guardian, 19 May 2009
With the Indian elections over, Christian communities in Orissa need the Congress party to deliver on its promise of security
by David Griffiths
India's gargantuan electorate has delivered its verdict, and it is a resounding "yes" to the programme of modernisation and reform pledged by the Indian National Congress. The task list of the newly-elected government is already rather daunting: the Congress party manifesto included such ambitious promises as delivering broadband to every one of India's 640,000 villages within three years, and providing universal access to healthcare and education. To India's allies around the world, it all looks very promising indeed, and the world's largest democracy seems set to shine more brightly on the world stage.
However, words now need to turn to action, and in delivering on its vision of "security, dignity and prosperity", the new government is faced by enormous challenges, including massive social inequality perpetuated by caste discrimination, poverty, and the spectre of terrorism.
Not least among its challenges is bringing redress to victims of the vicious anti-Christian violence that devastated the remote, rural district of Kandhamal in Orissa last year, causing at least 70 deaths and the displacement of tens of thousands. The violence in Kandhamal was a travesty in itself, but its significance ran deeper than that. It was the most recent case of mass communal violence against a religious minority, being instigated and perpetrated by proponents of the extremist Hindu nationalist movement, of which the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) is the ideological mentor, and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is the principal political party. Such violence stems from a vision of India as a land for Hindus only, for which Islam and Christianity are foreign threats, which must be expelled.
To visit Kandhamal, as I did recently, is to see destroyed houses and churches everywhere, and dozens of small communities living under plastic sheeting, outside the villages which were once their homes, wondering what the monsoon will bring and where tomorrow's meal might come from. It is to meet victims still wide-eyed with trauma and fear, and literally to step through the ashes of what they once owned.
Lacking private insurance, most victims are utterly dependent on government compensation. Only two categories of compensation for property are available: 50,000 rupees (about £685) for a fully damaged house, 20,000 rupees (about £275) for a partially damaged house. A recurrent complaint throughout Kandhamal is that, if the house has anything more than half a wall remaining, it is deemed as partially damaged, and the compensation is nothing like commensurate with the damage.
Even if it were, the Christians could not rebuild their homes and their lives without at least being tolerated by their neighbours, many of whom have been radicalised by the Hindu nationalists. In many cases, that is a long way off. One man described a recent "peace meeting", in the village from which he and his fellow Christians had fled. The villagers shouted that the Christians must withdraw their police complaints, and convert to Hinduism, or they would shoot them.
It is not difficult to imagine, then, why many are reticent to register complaints against their attackers. Not only are they fearful of reprisals, but they have very little confidence that justice will actually be done. According to statistics from the Catholic Church in Orissa, more than three-quarters of complaints submitted have not been registered by the police. Even where arrests have been made, they still have not silenced the attackers: the BJP candidate who has just won one of the three state legislative assembly seats in Kandhamal district is currently in jail, facing charges of murder during last year's violence.
In consequence of all this, one of the most striking features of Kandhamal's Christian community is the widespread sense of living in limbo, waiting for an uncertain future. A Catholic priest apologised to me and my fellow visitors for serving tea in beakers. "We purposely didn't buy new cups", he explained wryly, "because we knew they might come and break them again".
On the national stage, "security, dignity and prosperity" have been promised. It is time for the new government to deliver in Kandhamal.
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