Victims of anti-Christian violence in Orissa are too fearful to return home

The Guardian, 23 November 2009

Orissa's forgotten victims

Victims of anti-Christian violence in Orissa are too fearful to return home while their tormentors remain at large

by David Griffiths

"We cannot now return to the village as the murderers would be on the streets with more hatred and anger for us". So said a witness after testifying last month in a courtroom in Kandhamal district in India's eastern state of Orissa, which was the scene last year of ferocious violence against Christians carried out by mobs incited by extremist Hindu nationalists. The case saw three men acquitted of hacking to death a non-Christian tribal leader who tried to stand up to the mobs, and burning to death an elderly widow. They were convicted for destroying evidence, but sent home on bail, pending appeal.

The judicial processes need to run their course, but that witness was expressing an increasingly prevalent fear about the impact that widespread impunity will have on this remote, impoverished, rural area. The violence last year saw at least 75 people killed, many in brutal ways, and 50,000 were displaced. Many of them are still living in miserable conditions, in makeshift shelters or unofficial camps. Their prospects of returning home are hanging on the thin thread of hope that those who perpetrated the violence against them, often their neighbours and fellow villagers, will be brought to justice.

One such camp is called Shanti Nagar, which means "place of peace". It is home to 45 Catholic families and is the fifth place they have been since the violence erupted in their village 15 kilometres away in August 2008. First, they fled to an official government relief camp. After a month, they decided to travel the eight hours to the state capital, Bhubaneswar, where they were housed in a private relief camp for six months. The authorities then encouraged them to return to a relief camp in Kandhamal district and provided them with transportation, but deserted them in a marketplace in Ghumusar Udayagiri town. Here they sheltered for a month and were interviewed by a visiting BBC team. After that interview, they were moved to another government relief camp. When that relief camp closed, they were told that their village was too hostile to allow them to return, and they were given a few bags of rice and shifted to these tents beside a road.

There is no doubt that their village is indeed too hostile to allow them to return. At a peace meeting earlier this year, in the presence of government officials, extremists threatened to kill them if they should try to return as Christians. Conversion to Hinduism is the necessary prerequisite for peace.

The life of those in Shanti Nagar is one of limbo, total uncertainty about the future. Its people are ostracised by the community nearby and cannot get any work. Without income, they struggle for food or other necessities. One woman was forced to sell a bag of rice in order to buy medication. Another recently gave birth with no assistance in a tent, which she shares with several other families.

The only way to break the uncertainty over the future, is for justice to be done – and seen. One man said that if only the culprits were arrested and brought to justice, would they feel confident in returning. He didn't even know if the police had filed their case properly, or whether the attacks they had suffered were being investigated.

It is not surprising, therefore, that there is a massive lack of confidence among the victims in the ability of the state to deliver justice, despite the setting up of special fast-track courts to deal with the riot cases. The fact that the majority of cases tried so far have resulted in acquittal or bail has compounded this. So has the granting of bail to Manoj Pradhan, elected to the Orissa Legislative Assembly from prison in May this year, in 14 cases which include murder and arson.

So time ticks by, and the betrayal of many victims is gradually forgotten. Something has to change, or years from now, Orissa will be just be remembered as another case of tragic mass violence whose victims were thoroughly let down by the state.