India: Survivors of Communal Violence In Kandhamal Under The Threat of Evacuation For Third Time

Around 100 survivors of communal violence, who have been staying in an abandoned NAC market complex at G. Udaygiri of Kandhamal district after the forcible closure of relief camps by the government, have been asked by the local administration to vacate the place. With the news of visit of a European Commission team to the region, the government have ordered to remove the people again as a part of its attempt to project that government had brought back normalcy in Kandhamal and violence affected people are living at their villages peacefully without any threat.

‘The BDO has asked us to vacate immediately and if we refuse police force will be used,’ said the worried survivors of Kandhamal violence. When the violence broke out on August 23, 2008, they were forced to leave their villages and their houses were burnt down. They had to take shelter in relief camps, but they were forced to leave from there also after the new BJD government come to power. Hence they had taken shelter in the market complex like beggars.
‘Where can we go with these two babies?’ asked a crying mother Ms. Menaka Nayak (25). Her youngest baby was born in the camp itself. ‘We can not go back to our village, because they will not allow us to live there if we do not convert to Hinduism. The government is not prepared to provide security and necessary help. On top of it they are trying to throw us out from here also’.

Mr. Moses Nayak, who has been prevented by the Hindu fundamentalists to come back to his village Ratingia as he had refused to change his religion unlike his two brothers, presently solely depends on daily wage based labour works, has no other options than to stay here. An elderly couple from R.Padikia village are also debarred to come back to their ancestral land as they failed to present their two ‘pastor’ sons before the communally motivated village mobs.
Following the dreadful communal violence around twenty thousand people have already migrated to different places outside Kandhamal. There are another five thousand people, who neither can afford to go outside nor can go back to their villages, living like refugees in various places of their home district. Although the district administration is claiming of ensuring security, peace and rehabilitation to the survivors, the reality speaks of a different story. The seventeen families from the villages such as R.Padikia, Kutuluma, Loharingia,Kilakia, Jimmangia, Dakedi, Kiramah, Ratingia staying in NAC market complex are virtually landless and legally not entitled to claim their house damage compensation as they do not have records of rights over the lands they used to have their houses since generations. Whoever have RoR over their small patches of homestead land, are debarred by fundamentalists to reconstruct their houses. Very few people were given compensation and again that amount was not more than Rs.10, 000.

‘Even after seventeen months, there is no indication of justice for the survivors of communal violence in Khandamal’, says Fr. Ajay, Director, Jana Vikas, an leading NGO in Kandhamal who represents National Centre for Dalit Human Rights (NCDHR) ‘There were 295 churches and 6,000 houses burnt down apart from schools, hospitals and other institutions. The victims are none other than poor adivasis and dalits. Urgent action is needed from the government to take care of the needs of the refugees of communalism who have been reduced to the level of beggars and second class citizens. This is not a matter of charity, but a fundamental right enshrined in the constitution of India’. The office building with other accessories belonging to Jana Vikas was one of the first to be burnt down on 25th August 2008.

‘It appears that the existence of refugees of communalism is threatening the image of the Orissa government’ says Dhirendra Panda, well known secular activist from Orissa. ‘That is the reason why they are trying to remove them instead of facilitating their security and rightful restoration’.
Mr.Sarat Nayak from Dakedi, a landless labour who can not go back to his village, complains of the indifference of the school authorities to get his child admitted in any other school. It has been found a numbers of children within age group of 5-14, who are staying in this non-official camp, had to discontinue their studies and there is no visible action by the local administration to bring back these children to schools again.

Let alone other problems, now the first and foremost need is prevent further evacuation of these hapless and hopeless adivasi and dalit victims. Whatever may be the intention, excuses or explanations put forth by the government, the reality is that one hundred victims of communal violence will be thrown out on streets within a day or two. Perhaps, the secular and human rights activists may respond.

Report by: K.P.Sasi, Film Maker