India: Kandhamal Day to be observed on 25th August - Press Statement from National Solidarity Forum

 NATIONAL SOLIDARITY FORUM

Bhubaneswar / Mumbai

Convener: Dr Ram Puniyani       Coordinator: Dhirendra Panda



PRESS STATEMENT

12 August 2021

 

Kandhamal Day to be observed on 25th August

Remembering victims of targeted violence against Christian Adivasis and  Dalits, expressing solidarity with all victims of hate cand violence in India

NSF announces Kandhamal Human Rights awards for Activists and Groups

Text:

The National Solidarity Forum has instituted two annual awards in honour of  the victims and survivors of the mass violence against Adivasi and Dalit Christians of  Kandhamal and several other districts in Odisha, and some states including Karnataka, in August-September 2008.  The award to an Individual carries a cash component and a plaque.

The award for non-governmental organisations and groups recognises long and sustained work on issues of human rights and civil liberties,  development, harmony and peacebuilding, NSF convenor Dr Ram Puniyani said. The awardees will be announced soon

The National Solidarity Forum was constituted by over 70 organisations and groups which came together in the wake of the violence of 2008, and worked on various issues relating to trauma, counselling, rehabilitation and advocacy for justice. NSF has commemorated Kandhamal Day on 25th August every year with mass meetings in Kandhamal, Bhubaneswar, New Delhi and other places.

In 2020, the meeting was in a virtual mode because of covid, but the three-hour programme featured human right activists and  noted civil society  personalities discussing the challenges faced by marginalised communities with particular emphasis  on the right to life, livelihood and the freedom of religion and belief..

The commemoration of Kandhamal Day and the Awards function will be once again in the virtual mode.

Former Chairman of the National aw Commission and Chief Justice of Delhi High court, Mr Justice A P Shah, former Chief Election Commissioner Mr S Y Qureshi, and the noted film and literature personality, Mr Javed Akhtar, will be the chief guests and  Lead speakers. Ms Bhasha Singh, Dr Ruth Manorama, Dr Aruna Gnanadason,  Ms Dayamani Barla, Mr Henri Tiphagne, and Dr John Dayal have been invited to the National Webinar. The theme for the year 2021 is : In Defence of Human Rights and Democratic Freedoms.

The malevolent violence in the  Kandhamal and adjoining districts of Odisha in 2007 and 2008 stands out for its organised attack on an entire population of Dalits, Adivasis Christians,  women and children among them, whose life, liberty and  human dignity were violated with impunity. In the violence, over 100 Christians were killed, several of them from the Clergy, over 75,000 displaced. More than 5,600 homes were destroyed, apart from 360 Churches and other places of worship, and public institutions including schools, social services and  health institutions which were looted and  destroyed. More than 40 women were raped, molested and humiliated. Several cases of forced conversion to Hinduism were reported. The education of 12000 children was disrupted. Many continue to suffer psychologically from  the trauma of the violence they suffered.

A study conducted by Supreme Court Advocate Vrinda Grover and Law Professor Dr. Saumya Uma, found the conviction rate to be as low as 5.13% of the cases brought to court. It was a mere 1% of the reports made to the police by the victims and survivors. The struggle for relief, rehabilitation and justice continues in courts and government forums.

Kandhamal violence is a unique case of multiple violations of basic human rights and dignity of the most vulnerable groups. Justice is yet to be done and rights to be restored.


Released to the Media. For any information, please contact:

John Dayal:  john.dayal[at]gmail.com

Ajaya Kumar Singh: ajaysingho[at]gmail.com 

Remembrance Day - 12th anniversary of the pogrom against Christians in Kandhamal, Orissa - Appeal for action | 25 August 2020

 

Document and Appeal

REMEMBERING KANDHAMAL

“Kandhamal Never Again, Never Anywhere”

The National Solidarity Forum, representing 70 national and regional organisations, has issued the following Appeal to observe the 12th Kandhamal Day anniversary on 25th August 2020. The Forum observes the pogrom against Christians in the Kandhamal district of Orissa masterminded by the Sangh Parivar, with the then BJD-BJP coalition government looking on. “Kandhamal Never Again, Never Anywhere” has been the anniversary slogan ever since. NSF’s appeal is signed by its core committee consisting of . with core team members; Dr. Ram Puniyani, Dr. John Dayal, Willy D’Costa, KP Sasi, Dr. Stanley, Dhirendra Panda and Ajaya Kumar Singh. The following is the text of the appeal:

KANDHAMAL DAY MEMORIAL

We hope you remember the diabolic attacks on Christians in Kandhamal, Odisha in two consecutive years 2007 & 2008. The well planned attack on Christmas eve of 2007 was a forewarning of what was to come within months. Barely after eight days after celebration of Independence Day, India witnessed the organized communal attacks on Christians, the biggest in the history of India during the last three centuries, that began in Kandhamal and immediately spread to different parts of Odisha and other states.

Over 395 churches and worship places which belonged to the Adivasi Christians and Dalit Christians were destroyed, around 6,500 houses were destroyed, over 100 people were killed, over 40 women were subjected to rape, molestation and humiliation and several educational, social service and health institutions were destroyed and looted. More than 75,000 people have been displaced. Several cases of forced conversion to Hinduism have been reported.

During the communal violence in Kandhamal, there have been more than 3,300 complaints, but only 820 odd FIRs were registered. The rest of the complaints were not even registered. Among these complaints, only 518 cases were charge sheeted. The remaining cases were treated as false reports. And out of these 518 cases, 247 cases disposed of. The rest of the cases are pending before the sessions and magistrate’s courts. And among those cases which have been disposed of, many are already acquitted. According to study conducted by Supreme Court Adv Vrinda Grover and Law Prof Saumya Uma, it is reported that the conviction rate is as low as 5.13% of the charge sheeted cases. If you take complaints as a yardstick of justice process, it is just around 1% only.

None of the criminals responsible for destruction are in jail today. The murderers, rapists, looters and destroyers are today running scot free. However, seven innocent persons in jail for 11 years with fabricated cases, have come on a bail

On August 2, 2016, the Supreme Court led by Justice TS Thakur and Justice Uday Lalit mentioned in their judgement that the quantum and scope for compensation was not satisfactory and found that the court also found it disturbing that the offenders of law were not booked and ordered to review 315 cases of communal violence that were filed. The cases are still not yet reopened even after four years as Supreme Court has not set any deadline. There are houses, churches, institutions and volunteer organisations, whose properties destroyed were never found in the compensation list. There are many yet to receive the house damage compensation despite the SC order. Assets and shops of thousands of people were not listed nor considered.

It is a tragedy that even after 12 years; there are hundreds of families are not able to return back to their ancestral villages for fear of losing life. This has taken a huge toll on their lives. The displaced ones within the districts now live in new colonies without access to resources for livelihood and life. The migrants, who left the district for life & livelihood are caught up badly with the pandemic COVID 19. The widows, the relatives of those killed are fighting a court battle as well as survival besides the fear of the fanatics’ threats.

The Survivors have the following demands:

1. Implementation of Supreme Court Verdict of August 2nd, 2016: Reopen of 315 closed/acquitted cases of violence and completion of compensation support

 

2. Constitute a Task Force to monitor the cases, Initiate & ensure Witnesses Protection Mechanism, Ensure Police officers for free and fair investigation to reopen the cases & appoint impartial and special prosecutors for the cases

 

3. Enhance up to 15 lakh for the death compensation in line of Muzaffarnagar violence cases. Enlist the dead, not made into death list for compensation and for criminal justice delivery system

 

4. Book state and non-state actors’ perpetrators involved in the attacks;

 

5. Announce special package for repair and reconstruction of houses as recommended in a study by former UN Special Rapporteur, Miloon Kothari up to 5 lakh and compensate those who lost their businesses. Enlist those who are not missed out by acts of commissions and omissions for swift compensation packages.

 

6. Immediately establish Odisha Minority Commission

 

7. Facilitate Minority schemes and scholarship in time bound manner and hold the officials responsible for any lapses and delays in implementations.

 

8. Ensure minority community presence in important administrative machinery to ward off biased decision as well as for harmonious and participatory decision processes.

 

9. Scrap Odisha anti-conversion law and Presidential Order 1950 para 3 to make religion neutral and delink it from affirmative action

 

10. Constitute Citizens and community interface with the administration for effectively combating the communal forces

On the call of the National Solidarity Forum many leaders, academicians and activists visited Kandhamal to show solidarity during Kandhamal Day; Aruna Roy, Suhashini Ali, Brinda Karat, Mani Shankar Aiyar, Annie Raja, Medha Patkar, Mohammad Salim, Harsh Mander, Teesta Setalvad, Kavita Krishnan, Prafulla Samantara and many other eminent citizens.

Justice AP Shah, Javed Akhtar, Mahesh Bhat, Admiral Vishnu Bhagwat, KP Krishnan, Harsh Mander, Mahesh Bhat, Miloon Kothari, Syeeda Hamid, Sukumar Muralidhar, Vahida Nainar, Vinod Raina, D. Raja, Swamy Agnivesh, Shabnam Hashmi, Collins Gonsalves, Adv Raju Ramachandran, Anil Choudhury, Paul Divakar have lent their voices and were part of interfaces.

Important resources on the Kandhamal journey include: White Papers by John Dayal in Tehelka; Kandhamal: The Law Must Change its Course by Vrinda Grover; Kandhamal: Waiting for Justice edited by Vahida, Nainar, Vrinda Grover & Saumya Uma; Kandhamal: Introspection of Initiative for Justice 2007-2015 by Vrinda Grover & Saumya Uma; Kandhamal: Unjust Compensation by Miloon Kothari & Shivani Choudhry; Documentary: Kandhamal: Voices from the Ruins, by KP Sasi; Exhibitions by Shabnam Hashmi; Photographs by Sashi Memmury; Photo Essay: Joe Athialy;

The late Justice Hospet Suresh, Teesta Setalvad, SB Sreekumar IPS and John Dayal led first fact-finding team in the aftermath of first violence in 2007.

It is time for us to reflect on what Kandhamal meant people of India — Dalits, Adivasis, minorities and other marginalised sections.

‘There are reported cases of 122 violence against Christians; of which only 23 FIRs registered until June this year 2020. The latest incident involving murder of a young Christian boy named Somaru Madkami in Odisha to instances of physical assaults, threats and intimidation by family members and villagers alike and social ostracism. The year 2019 witnessed at least 328 incidents of targeted violence against Christians. The victims of these violent attacks included 275 tribal, 55 Dalits, 164 women and 117 children. Out of these, 131 incidents involved dereliction of duty by law enforcement authorities. The attacks on Christians have increased consistently like 292 in 2018, 240 in 2017, 208 in 2016, 177 in 2015 and 147 in 2014. As a matter of fact, according to the World Watch List of 50 countries, India is the 10th most dangerous country in the world to live in for Christians as against 28th in the year 2014’, reports by Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) — India

It is not just the Christian minority, but other vulnerable groups bear the brunt of hate crimes. “Amnesty International India documented 721 such incidents between 2015 and 2018. In 2018 year, itself, it tracked 218 hate crimes, 142 of which were against Dalits, 50 against Muslims, 40 against women, and 8 each against Christians, Adivasi and transgenders”. (The Hindu; 10 July, 2019)

Since 2009, people of Kandhamal and outside have been organizing 25th August as Kandhamal Day each year. This year on August 25, 2020 will be the completion of twelve years of Kandhamal communal violence and are still struggling for Peace, Justice and Harmony.

We at the National Solidarity Forum, a network of over 70 organisations in India, appeal to all of you to observe Kandhamal Day on August 25th onwards for a fortnight and support the victims and survivors, whose Freedom of conscience and Religion violated. The organisers intend to promote India democratic & pluralistic values as pronounced by the Constitution of India and good practices.

Therefore, we appeal to you to:

• Support and contribute the struggle of the survivors for justice, peace and harmony and observe Kandhamal Day in your area;
• Organise Webinar events, press release programmes, candle lights in your own houses for harmony;
• Organise film screenings in your area to spread the word. The films on this issue and written materials on this issue can be distributed if you contact the people noted above;
• Use social media and mainstream media to spread awareness on this issue and share information to maximum number of people within your network. Use media for photo & art exhibitions.

We are sure that if all humanitarian forces join hands to build peace, justice and harmony in this country, we will be able to achieve results in these dark times and protect the values of Indian Constitution so that no such violence takes place in India.

National Solidarity Forum:

Dr. Ram Puniyani: ram.puniyani[at]gmail.com

Dr. John Dayal: john.dayal[at]gmail.com

KP Sasi: kpsasi36[at]gmail.com

Willy D’Costa: willyindia[at]gmail.com

 Dr. Stanley William: stanley111[at]gmail.com

Dhirendra Panda: dhirendrapanda[at]gmail.com

Ajaya Kumar Singh: ajaysingho[at]gmail.com

Manoj Kumar Nayak: jvmanojcc[at]gmail.com

Announcement: Kandhamal: Never Again - convention on 25th August 2018 at Constitution Club of India, New Delhi

Kandhamal: Never Again

It’s been ten years since the sheltered calmness of the plateaus of Kandhamal witnessed one of the bloodiest episodes of communal violence unleashed on Christian minorities in India; since Dalits and Tribals found themselves under siege from mobs led by Hindutva fanatics. Dismembered limbs, axed bodies, rape, arson, razed churches, loot and terror plagued the district for months while the state administration stood on the sidelines. The scars it left behind, the rampant impunity, the acquittals, the colossal displacement it left in its wake, and the omnipresence of fear still haunts the survivors ten years on. It is in this context that some of us, democratic rights activists of several hues, are coming together to mark the tenth year since the violence in Kandhamal and to pledge, never again. We feel that it is imperative that we bring to the fore the horrors of this largely forgotten episode so that the appropriate lessons can be learned.

The now termed Kandhamal Day has seen thousands of residents gather since 2008 to remember those who lost their lives in the violence and to express solidarity with others still suffering in its aftermath. This year we would like to join them, to grow their numbers and share their memories.

We are organising a convention  on 25th August 2018 at Constitution Club of India, New Delhi. This convention is being envisaged as a form of interaction and dialogue between various survivors of communal carnage – from Delhi (1984) to Gujarat (2002) to Kandhamal (2008). There would also be photo exhibitions, documentary film screenings and the launching of a people’s archive of the Kandhamal carnage.

We invite you all to join the convention and photo exhibition on "Kandhamal: Never again" at Speaker Hall, Constitution Club of India on 25th August. 

For more detail, Contact - 9871153775

India: Dont forget, Kandhamal, a Wound That Is Yet to Heal | Apoorvanand

The Wire

We Must Not Forget Kandhamal, a Wound That Is Yet to Heal

By Apoorvanand on 25/08/2017

It is true, if painful, that the hurt of Kandhamal is felt only by Christians. But the toxicity of this will surely infect and destroy Hindu souls.

A vehicle burns inside a church in Nuagoan village in the Kandhamal district of Orissa August 25, 2008. Credit: Reuters/Stringer/Files

Kandhamal is yet another wound on the body of ‘Mother India’. It was inflicted nine years ago; the cut is still wide open but the sensation is gone.
The ‘mother’, when reminded, can say that she has been cut at a hundred points and is confused about which wound is deeper, more grievous than the others. Which injury to attend to is her dilemma.
We desire to see our nation as a integrated body, but we know its constituents do not feel too connected to each other. They do not share each others’ joy and pain. It is only natural, therefore, that the task to remind our ‘mother’ nation that the wound of Kandhamal, yet to be healed, falls on Christian communities. The rest of India would not like it to be acknowledged. Many say it is negative memory; and for the majority, the incident is fiction.
Yet, August 25, 2008, is a date India must remember. It was on this date that Sister AA, a nun working in the Dibyajyoti Pastoral Centre of Kandhamal, ran away from the centre with Father Thomas Chellam fearing attack from a violent mob, and was sheltered by Jasobanta Pradhan. But they were forced out of this shelter the next day and dragged to the premises of the Jana Vikas Kendra, an NGO. She was stripped naked, thrown on a veranda strewn with ash and splinters of glass, and gangraped.
This was not the end of her plight and the idea of revenge that the Hindu crowd harboured. She was paraded almost naked in the local market and physically assaulted in this road show of Hindu valour.
I remember the faint yet firm voice of Sister AA, who had come to Delhi to inform the capital of the crime that was perpetrated on the Christians of Kandhamal. There was a macabre desire from the media to see her face uncovered. What did not interest most of them is worth repeating: the details of the horror she had gone through.

“When we reached the market place, about a dozen personnel from the Orissa State Armed Police police were there. I went to them, asking them to protect me, and I sat between two policemen but they did not move…The state police failed to stop the crime, failed to protect me from the attackers. They were friendly with the attackers and they tried their best to make sure I did not register an FIR nor make complaints against the police …. They abandoned me half of the way.”

This feeling of having been abandoned halfway is what comes out of the narratives of the victims from the nearly 600 hundred villages destroyed by mobs, instigated by the members and affiliates of the RSS.
The role of the RSS was noted by the judge who convicted Manoj Pradhan, a former MLA of the BJP, the political arm of the RSS in State v Manoj Kumar Pradhan. As Vrinda Grover and Soumya Uma note in their book Kandhamal: Introspection of Initiative for Justice, “This judgement is also critical as it notes that the RSS and other affiliated Hindu right wing organisations were mobilized and it was their members who led the violent attack against the Christian community.”
The judgement firmly dismisses the argument of spontaneity. Grover and Uma say that it is important to analyse this judgement to understand how and why a verdict of conviction in such cases is reached. It is only done when “the trial court identifies and appreciates the specific contours of communal and targeted violence, in which the crimes are committed.”
Most cases of communal violence result in acquittals. The reason is clear – the courts fail to see that in such incidents, the evidence and testimonies of the witnesses cannot be tested against the yardstick of ‘normal’ or ‘ordinary’ times.
The violence at Kandhamal falls in a different category. As the case of Sister AA shows, nuns were specifically hunted. The crowd took relish in violating them, as it meant destroying their primary oath of remaining a virgin to be in the service of Jesus. The aim was to demean the church, using their bodies.

People  attend a protest against the killings and atrocities on Christians in Odissa and Karnataka, in New Delhi September 26, 2008. Credit: Reuters/Adnan Abidi/Files

Those who think, as was argued to legitimise the violence against Muslims in Gujarat in 2002, that a cause existed prior to the violence are wrong. In the case of Kandhamal, the killing of Swami Lakshmanand Saraswati, a VHP missionary, was presented as a pretext for the spontaneous outburst of his follower Hindus. This is patently wrong, as the judgment convicting the BJP leader clarifies. It was an organised, well planned and well thought out attack on Christians, in which mobs participated because they were led to believe, through sustained propaganda, that the church was out to destroy their religion.
One must see a link between the Kandhamal carnage and the murder of Graham Staines and his sons by a mob led by Bajrang Dal leader Dara Singh. The court, while holding Singh responsible for the killing, also suggested that his anger was somewhat justified as he and his followers were upset that Staines and others like him encouraged religious conversion. In the wake of the murder, the then poet prime minister wanted a national debate on conversion. It seems nobody told him that the issue was, in fact, the murder of a man and his sons.
The violence in Kandhamal would not have been possible had there been no violent campaign against the church and missionaries in the district of Dangs in Gujarat at least ten years prior to the violence of Kandhamal.
The story of Kandhamal is not exciting for the media anymore. It is a boring task to keep repeating the same lament every August, about the absence of tolerance and acceptance of diverse ways of practising one’s religion. It is the singular failure of Hindus in general to appreciate that all regions are not practiced and professed in only one manner.
Why it is important to talk about Kandhamal can be understood if we notice what is now happening in Jharkhand. The state assembly has just passed a Bill practically making conversion illegal and has also launched a hate campaign against Christian missionaries. It is bound to reach, at some point, where Kandhamal was nine years ago. Then it would look natural, spontaneous and justified in many ways. Christians and missionaries would be asked to mend their ways .
Kandhamal, like Dangs and the burning of Staines and his sons, was done in the name of Hindus. We have not seen Hindu moral indignation at this serial violence in their name. Instead, a majority of them lend their support to the leaders of this unending campaign of hate and violence by handing over to them the power to rule.
It is true, if painful, that the hurt of Kandhamal is felt only by Christians. But the toxicity of this will surely infect and destroy Hindu souls.
Apoorvanand teaches in Delhi University.

Review of Book: Kandhamal - Whither Justice for Violence Victims (Ram Puniyani)

Kandhamal: Whither Justice for Violence Victims

Ram Puniyani

Book Review

Book: Kandhalmal: Introspection for Initiative for Justice 2007-2015, Vrinda Grover and Saumya Uma, Media House and United Christian Forum, Delhi 2017

Violence is the bane of Indian society and a manifest agenda of communal forces, which thrive on divisive politics and polarization. This is part of their political agenda. While Hindu-Muslim violence during British period had a particular beginning and characteristics, the same violence became anti-Muslim violence after Independence. The major brunt of communal violence has been borne by Muslim community while Sikhs also became the major victim in 1984. Christian community was not under attack till practically 1999 when Pastor Stains was burnt alive in a brutal way. Following that anti Christian violence kept dogging the society in Gujarat (Dangs), MP (Jhabua) and many other places, the peak of this was witnessed in Kandhamal in August 2008, when on the pretext of murder of Swami Laxmananand, anti Christian violence was unleashed.

Swami was murdered most probably by Maoists and Christians had nothing to do with that even in a very remote way. The way communal violence mechanism has come up in India, pretexts are so created and modulated that religious minorities face the wrath of violence. The body of Swami was taken in the procession in the Christian majority areas of Kandhmal and the expected result of brutal violence, in which killings (nearly 100) and displacements (55000) of Christian minority took place and was accompanied by burning and damaging of Churches (295). Then followed the efforts of victims get proper rehabilitation and justice, which usually deludes the riot victims.

This book is a meticulous chronicling of the process of attempts to get justice, the hurdles and inadequate outcome of the same. The lawyer duo, who have painstakingly followed this process are probably the most competent ones’ to do the job as they have not been just distant observers but very much part of the process of getting justice all through. Their compassion for the cause is very much there to be admired. Earlier; already they have penned two volumes on Kandhamal (Kandhamal; Law must change its course, 2010 and (Waiting for Justice, A Report on National Peoples’ Tribunal on Kandhamal, 2001).

They have examined the role of police and its apathy in controlling the violence (What of that, violence took place in their very presence). They point out the role of state apparatus, in first letting the violence take place and then default on rehabilitation and on giving justice to victims. Both these are part of the Indian system as it is deeply justice and rehabilitation have been undermined due to the prevalent virus of communal thinking. Few and far are the officers, bureaucrats or politicians who stand up to mark come to do what is expected of them.

The book does confirm the findings of other researchers like Dr. V. N. Rai that no violence can continue beyond 48 hours unless state is complicit in that. These book also reaffirms the findings of outstanding scholars like Asghar Ali Engineer and Paul brass about ‘Institutional riot mechanism’ in India where riots are not only orchestrated but they are made to appear as if minorities have begun the violence.

The book sets out with the goal to evaluate whether closure and justice have any resonance in the lives of victims close to a decade after the carnage took place. All the facets of violence, the communalized social common sense, the instigation of mobs, the targeting of women’s bodies, get reflected in the book. Impunity is the dominant phenomenon of post violence scenario, the book points out, “This impunity is neither incidental nor accidental. The gaps in Indian criminal jurisprudence, which does not recognize the doctrine of command or superior responsibility; individual criminal culpability, constructive responsibility and culpable inaction, penal provisions for holding public servants accountable for acts of omission and commission, allows the architects and abettors of the communal conflict, holding positions of public office or public authority to escape accountability. “(Page 23) This in a way sums of the core diagnosis of what ails the Indian system. While it provides adequate legal data, it passionately urges the need to revisit legal regime, polices and investigation protocols to ensure justice to victims of mass carmines.

It is a major contribution to tell us the outline of various steps undertaken by the community to strive to get justice at multiple layers. At the same time it shows the inadequacy of Mahaptra commission in sidelining and ignoring the role of Hindutva forces in inciting hate and perpetrating violence against Adivasi and dalit Christians. The other inquiry report that of Justice Naidu is proving the old adage, Justice delayed is Justice denied. He was to submit has report in 2014 but still there is no news of the report being submitted.

The nature of communal violence has been constantly changing in India and by and large more despicable dimensions get added on to the phenomenon. The books bring to our attention as to how survivors have been framed under different charges. This is like putting salt to the wounds.

An important part the book is to focus on the justice deliverance system and its inadequacies in the present scenario. While this will help the activist’s-lawyers to respond to such situations in future, it’s also a mirror to our society. Can such contributions be taken as a call for reforming the system? That’s a million dollar question in the contemporary times, where communal forces seem to be on ascendance. The ‘victim as the culprit’ is being projected very aggressively while the need is ensure prevention of violence, deliverance of justice and rehabilitation of victims is paramount.

On the other hand the book seems to be over focused on Kandhalmal. There was a need for introductory chapter on Communal violence in India with emphasis on anti-Christian violence. Also it does need a summary and conclusion chapter for average readers to grasp the gist of the book. Overall the authors deserve kudos for the efforts which will give strength to the struggling human and minority rights movements in the country.  

Invitation: "KANDHAMAL: Miscarriage' Book Release by Justice by Former Chairman, Law Commission of India, Justice A P Shah (31 March New Delhi)

Mr. Justice A P Shah

Former Chairman, Law Commission of India

And Former Chief Justice, High Court of Delhi


Will launch the path-breaking research



KANDHAMAL

Introspection of Initiative for Justice 2007-2015

By Vrinda Grover & Saumya Uma



At 5 pm On Friday, 31st March 2017

At the Deputy Speakers Hall, Constitutional Club

Rafi Marg, New Delhi



Discussants: Supreme Court Senior Advocates

Raju Ramachandran & Rebecca Mammen John

and The Caravan Magazine Political Editor Hartosh Singh Bal



You are cordially invited to the Book Launch and discussion on aspects of the difficult search for justice by victims and survivors of Communal and targeted violence



Published by Media House, New Delhi, and The United Christian Forum



For further information, please contact

AC Michael: +91 9818155290 acmichael60@gmail.com

Ajaya Kumar Singh: +91 9437481805 ajaysingho@gmail.com

John Dayal: +91 9811021072 john.dayal@gmail.com

India: The Sangh silences the Songs of Christmas (Ajaya Kumara Singh)

https://sabrangindia.in/

The Sangh silences the Songs of Christmas
Written by Ajaya Kumara Singh | Published on: January 1, 2016

Image Courtesy: PTI
It is not Peace if forced by the Bully

A craftily called bandh call by an Adivasi outfit, that is a front for the Sangh Parivar paralysed transport and forced shops and markets to close, ensuring no prayers at yuletide for the Christians of many villages in the Kandhamals


Kandhamal remains once more, in the headlines on the Christmas and New year of 2015.[1] While the mainstream media reported ‘peaceful’ Christmas celebrations, these reports chose to ignore the fear and insecurity caused by the intimidation let loose on December 25, 2015, Christmas Day,by local leaders belonging to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).

Christians of Barkhama village, 13 kilomteres from Balliguda, the sub-divisional headquarters in Kandhamal district woke to find that the main road had been blocked with heavy stones and felled trees and a mob of more than one thousand persons led by local leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party and Rastriya Sevaka Sangh physically present to prevent any visits to the Church or celebrations. This bandh call given by the Adivasi outfit -- Kui Samaj Samanwaya Samity (KSSS) –is a front of the RSS-VHP and is the same outfit which called for a bandh both in 2007 and 2008. During the Christmas of 2007, brute violence was unleashed against the local Christian community, which further triggered the anti-Christian violence in the districts after August 25, 2008, the worst communal violence against Christian community in India, to date.

The terror-stricken leaders of the Christian community immediately informed the local police personnel as well as Special Forces deputed for Christmas celebrations. While they cleared the road, Christians were not allowed to attend Church. The community remembered the community; yet as youth leader of the village, Kartik Nayak puts it, “We could not celebrate Christmas; in place of happiness and peace, we have to live in fear and insecurity.” Christians from the district have sent a memorandum to Naveen Patnaik, Chief Minister, Odisha to ensure protection and guarantee them a life of dignity. No FIR has yet been lodged by the police authorities.

Barkhama was not an isolated incident this Christmas. The bandh affected several parts in the district. The bandh call given by this outfit was responded with many of its supporters’ (or others in fear) downing shutters of shops in the area. Buses stayed off the roads in several towns such as Tikabali, Sankarakhol, Sarangada and Barkhama ensuring that Christians living in far-flung areas could not attend Church. Christians in the area do not own shops nor have access to private transport. Thus, if bus and shop owners, participate in any bandh, Kandhamal comes to a halt. Some of these tactics played a significant role in contributing to communal violence in 2007-08 too. It may be recalled that almost every attack on Christians in this area has followed this pattern: felling of trees and blocking the roads so that the police or force could not reach the place of attacks.

The mainstream newspapers that ran the headlines declaring peaceful Christmas celebrations need to also report the successful intimidation by Sangh Parivar outfits that, in actuality, prevented Christians from celebrating Christmas; newspapers need to accurately report the fear and insecurity as well as the intimidatory tactics (which the Special forces and the Police did not counter) blocking the people’s fundamental right to attend prayer services. The district administration should take punitive action against the offenders so that this is not repeated.

The Hindu reported, ‘No untoward incident or road blocking reported from any part of the district, says SP Kunwar Vishal Singh. Kandhamal Superintendent of Police Kunwar Vishal Singh is quoted as saying that until evening no untoward incident or report of road blocking had come from any part of the district. Around 1,000 State police personnel were on duty round-the-clock since last 36 hours to maintain law and order. Apart from these, Special Operation Group (SOG) and Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel were involved in combing operations in remote pockets of the district’. How is it then that, despite police and special force, the rule of the Mob ensured that they could force buses off the roads and ensure the shutting down of shops? And what of the memorandum submitted to the authorities, should that not have been reproted?

The Kui Samaj Samanwaya Samity (KSSS), that was at the forefront of this bandh call, was initially only backed by the BJP/RSS. Now, its leaders have formally joined the BJP. For the past eight years, the BJP/RSS has been stoking communal sentiments by mobilising around the Christian feasts like Christmas, and attacking their fundamental rights, in a brazen attempt to garner votes. They succeeded by winning two of the three Assembly seats in 2009, in the first State Elections after the Kandhamal violence.

For the Christians of Barkhama village, this is not the first time that they have been a target. The first was in the early 2000s, the second one in 2007. The third major attack took place in August 2008. The village has more than 350 Christian families. In the first attack, they say, “We lost our houses and besides some people were injured; during the second attack on us, we lost two Christians and not even single house was spared; but reduced to ashes. Despite the presence of Special Forces, RSS members attacked us and killed two Christians; women too were attacked. Further houses were destroyed. Our houses are yet to be repaired and we are yet to get back to normal day to day living (after 2008); and here they are planning to attack us again! We are not sure what would happen to us. We are frightened and hence, we have asked the state administration to take necessary measures to protect our life and property”.

“Eight years after Kandhamal burst on the international news scene on Christmas Eve of 2007 with the first large scale targeted violence against Christians in centuries, the political manoeuverings of the Sangh Parivar in the forests of Orissa remain ominous. The Christian community sees them as coercive, threatening and malevolent”, says John Dayal, member National Integration Council (NIC), of the Government of India. Dayal is also past president of the all India Catholic Union, who has investigated Kandhamal violence from December 2007.

In 2008, targeted violence against Orissa’s Christians had continued for several weeks. For the first four days of intense violence, Hindutva forces went on the rampage and killed over 101 Christians. Dozens of people went missing, never to be located again. More than 56,000 people had been displaced. The violence lasted for four months. The destruction of villages was immense with 415 villages destroyed in Kandhamal alone and 40 in a neighbouring district. Over 350 churches and worship places which belonged to the Adivasi Christians and Dalit Christians were destroyed, around 6,500 houses were burnt or demolished, over 40 women were subjected to rape, molestation. Several educational, social service and health institutions were also destroyed and looted. There were several reported cases of forced conversion to Hinduism by the the Sangh Parivar during and after the violence. [One nun was gang raped in front of a crowd of over 300 people, while nine policemen looked on. This nun ran towards the policemen asking for help but they did nothing, simply standing and watching the spectacle; the incident happened a stone’s throw away from the Nuagaon police station.]

It may be recalled that both Justice Basudev Panigrahi and Justice AS Naidu Enquiry Commissions into Kandhamal Violence and the killing of Laxmananand Saraswati have submitted their reports to Orissa government during the Christmas week itself. The contents of the report(s) are yet to be made public. Justice AS Naidu has been quoted as saying that it was the Maoists who are behind the killing of the Swami in August 2008; while the Panigrahi Commission apparently points to the ‘conversion’ factor being a reason for the anti- Christian violence in December 2007. It is unfortunate, that while BJP/RSS looks for crude opportunities to politically benefit from bartering on hatred and violence, the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) that broke away from the BJP following the Kandhamal violence remains a mute spectator. Even today, eight years down.

(The author is a civil rights activist based in Orissa)

[1] Kandhamal was first noticed nationally after the attacks on Christians during the Christmas of 2007 and August of 2008; See Christmas Mourning https://www.sabrangindia.in/article/christmas-mourning; Murder and Mayhem https://www.sabrangindia.in/article/murder-and-mayhem; Living the Nightmare https://www.sabrangindia.in/article/living-nightmare

India: Seven years since outrage, fear still stalks Kandhamal victims (Jatin Gandhi, The Hindu 9 Sept 2015)

The Hindu

NEW DELHI, September 9, 2015

Seven years since outrage, fear still stalks Kandhamal victims

• Jatin Gandhi

inShare

She struggles with the language, but not the answers, as she recalls her ordeal. Then, suddenly, she lowers her head and tears begin to flow. The seven years since she was raped by a mob in a tribal hamlet in Kandhamal has not diminished the 27-year-old woman’s trauma. Most of the 25 men accused of the crime have been acquitted. Only two still face trial. The fear of being stalked by the accused still haunts her.

“I was raped because my uncle refused to become a Hindu. I told the mob I am Hindu … only he is a Christian. But they said this would teach him a lesson,” she told The Hindu. Violence had engulfed the district after the murder of Vishva Hindu Parishad leader Swami Lakshmananda Saraswati on August 23, 2008.

Kanakrekha, 34, and her two daughters saw her husband Parakhit Nayak being hacked to death and burnt by a mob near their house in Tiangia village. The accused in the case included BJP MLA Manoj Pradhan, who was convicted by a fast-track court for culpable homicide not amounting to murder in 2010. But Kanakrekha and her daughters now live in a slum in Bhubaneswar, unable to return to the village or tend to their house and fields for fear of being victimised by the powerful perpetrators.

Over the years, these women have been reduced to mere statistics: just two of the 56,000 people affected by the 2008 anti-Christian violence in Kandhamal. On Monday, they were part of a delegation led by CPI(M) Polit Bureau member Brinda Karat that met President Paranab Mukherjee to seek re-investigation of the cases and adequate compensation on the lines of the package announced for the victims of 1984.

“As time goes by, a large number of cases have ended in acquittal. Meagre compensation has been paid and the utter failure of the criminal justice system has come to the fore,” Ms. Karat told The Hindu. Of the 3,232 cases that were filed, only 827 were converted to FIRs and eventually life imprisonment has been handed down to only 12 of the accused.

India: Why Kandhamal Should Haunt Each of Us

ndtv.com - 4 September 2015

Why Kandhamal Should Haunt Each of Us
by Brinda Karat

It is seven years since the worst carnage against the Christian community took place in Kandhamal in Odisha. I, along with some others, was there to attend the annual observance, this time in Raikia, of the anniversary organized by the Kandhamal Committee for Peace and Justice in the memory of those killed, injured in 2008 and for those whose lives have been forever marked by the trauma and terror of the communal conflagration that lasted for several months.

The toll was heavy, with 80-100 Christians reportedly murdered, thousands of homes burnt, churches and educational institutions vandalized, over 56,000 people forced to flee their homes to live in the squalor of relief camps. Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik had named the RSS, the VHP and the Bajrang Dal as being responsible. But the victim survivors still wait for justice.

Have a quick look at this fact-sheet meticulously collected and provided by advocate-activist Dibya Singh Pariccha of Kandhamal: the victim survivors made 3,000 complaints to the police of which the police filed only 825 FIRs and, further minimizing the extent of the crimes, filed chargesheets in just 605 cases.

Of these cases, nearly half have been closed due to "lack of evidence". This is a euphemism for witness intimidation which has marked the entire criminal justice process in these cases. Witnesses were terrorized into keeping quiet. A record 11,000 of the rioters were given anticipatory bail. Those criminals who had killed, burnt, and threatened were roaming around freely. Who would dare to speak? There have been convictions in just 73 cases involving lesser offences.

According to reports by inquiry teams, the number of murders were between 80-100. Many of the bodies were burnt. The Government registered only 35 deaths of the community attacked. Of these 35 murder cases, only two have ended in conviction, with a life sentence given to 10 persons. However, courts have released each one of these murder convicts on bail.

Today there is only one man in jail for the rape of a nun. Even in this horrific case, the other two accused in the case were given bail and are now absconding. Space here is inadequate to detail other aspects of the monumental injustices but are available for anyone who cares to know.

Among the crowds in Raikia, there are seven women standing to one side. These are the wives of the men, four Adivasi and three Dalits, all Christian, who have been convicted of the murder of Lakshamananda Saraswati. He was the leader of the often violent and hate-filled anti-conversion campaign against the Christian community in this part of Odisha. His murder was the pretext for the carnage. Pretext because the Maoists had already declared proudly that it was they who had killed Lakshmananda and four of his followers, including a woman. Yet the Hindutva forces targeted the Christian community after his murder, and unleashed unprecedented violence against them.

The women have large families to manage from between four to six children each, except for the youngest who has two children. They work as agricultural workers during the season for Rs. 100 a day or eke out a living through the collection of minor forest produce, earning on an average a small sum of Rs. 50 or 60 a day. I tell them that I have met their husbands in jail that morning. They smile for a second and shake my hand. Their words are translated for me: How much longer before we can see the face of justice? The women have a dignity in their desperation. Much like their husbands, the men I had met that morning.

They had walked into the room, six of them. It was the jailor's office in the Phulbani District Central jail in Kandhamal district of Odisha. There was not much time to talk. Just an expression of solidarity from us. An appeal for help from them. A few words. A few tears, quickly suppressed. They said that even the "babas" had sent them messages in jail saying that they knew they were not guilty. They stood straight when they spoke. I looked at the tallest of them. I recalled what I had read in that atrocious judgement holding them guilty. The police-tutored witness had said in response to a question - "I saw a tall, black man" .. a tall black man, a description which would fit every third Indian man, but it was enough to lock him and the others up on equally flimsy grounds for seven years for a crime they have not committed.

I was asked why I had gone to meet men convicted of murder. Would it not give a wrong message of approval? The answer is simple: I went because they are innocent. This is a case where the law has taken a terribly wrong course. You need just to read the appalling judgement of the lower court to believe as I do that these men are innocent.

Quite recently, (June 25, 2015) one of the police officers who was part of the investigating team had testified before the Naidu Commission, set up to inquire into the reasons for the riots, that documents that have been used by the prosecution to put forward the concocted theory of a conspiracy by Christians to murder Lakshmananda are false. This was a register supposedly from the Betticola church which had been given to the police by a BJP leader Ashok Sahu and quoted in the judgement as proof of the conspiracy. A forensic report now available shows that the signatures on the register are forged. Yet neither the State Government nor the police have prosecuted Sahu for cheating the court, leave alone recognizing that it knocks the bottom out of the case of conspiracy. The officer also informed the Commission that his investigations of the charge that the Christian organisations were funding a conspiracy were found to be false.

The entire case of a conspiracy is itself a conspiracy to defame the community and arrest innocent people. The appeal is currently before the High Court.

But why the double standards? Why give bail to the killers and arsonists and deny bail to those you know to be innocent?

These questions haunt you when you visit Kandhamal. The Kandhamal seven and their families need your help, your solidarity, in whatever way you can. Here are their names: Durjadhan Majhi, Goranath Chalan Seth, Buddhuadeb Nayak, Vijay Kumar Sunsat, Bhaskar Majhi, Sanatan Majhi, Munda Bara Majhi, remember them every time you think of Indian democracy.

Free the Kandhamal Seven.

(Brinda Karat is a Politburo member of the CPI(M) and a former Member of the Rajya Sabha.)

India: Let's Make Sure That Kandhamals Are Not Repeated (Medha Patkar)

http://www.countercurrents.org/patkar130315.htm

Unite! Let's Make Sure That Kandhamals Are Not Repeated

By Medha Patkar

13 March, 2015
Countercurrents.org

On the last Kandhamal Day on August 25th, many organizations held public actions in support of the demands for justice for the victims and survivors of Kandhamal violence. CounterCurrents had published the call for action for observing the Kandhamal Day. In Kandhamal, the same event was observed on 28th. Many dignitaries, activists and leaders attended and spoke on the occasion. Over 5,000 people attended the public meeting. We are giving below the text of the speech of Medha Patkar on the occasion - Editor

Salute to all the comrade sisters and brothers, alive and present here in abundance. Greetings to people on the dais and all those who have gathered here from different organisations. Comrade Annie Raja, who has been the symbol of woman power is also with us. Annie stands for the rights of women labourers and fights against the oppression faced by women.

Saumya Uma , who guides women on how to fight legal battles when they face oppression and how to approach the courts when they face injustice, is also with us. Saumya has written a book voicing the women of Kandhamal containing stories of the suppression of women and how women are made the target of attacks even during the course of communal violence. She has given a voice to these women and this voice of Kandhamal women and will reach the nation and the world, as lessons from the grave history of Kandhamal, a history we would all wish not to repeat in secular India. We also have amongst us Charul and Vinay who have exposed the reality of the Gujarat genocide, the reality which Mr. Narendra Modi has been trying to hide from the public eye by spending 21,000 crore rupees to come to power. He is outside the jail, and Maya Kodnani and Babu Bajrangi were arrested. However, what the voices of Vinay and Charul have done cannot be achieved even by a hundred speeches. Let us give them a loud round of applause. (Applause). We also have amongst us Pradeepto bhai and Subhasini Ali from CPI (M) and all these people who oppose communalism and casteism are today here with us, in solidarity with the people of Kandhamal.

The Solidarity Youth Movement, an organisation from Kerala which stands up against the oppression on the basis of caste, religion or oppression of people from destructive development, is also here with us .Where on the one hand companies like Cocla Cola corporation is depriving the people of water, others are snatching land from the villagers and destroying crops in the name of development. In such a situation, the Solidarity Youth Movement has risen and taken with them thousands of youth in Kerala on such issues related to development and globalization. Today we have with us T. Mohammad and his team from this youth organization. Hindu Muslim, Sikh Isai- Aapas Mein Hain Behen - Bhai (Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Christian - Are Sisters and Brothers). We also have with us Roy David, who has been advocating for Adivasi rights from cultural to political issues. Fr. Ajay Singh and his colleagues along with KP Sasi and his team are the reason behind all of us being here today.

I am very happy and I am equally sad. I am happy to see that even after six years of the Kandhamal carnage, you have so much enthusiasm, so much energy, courage and the strength to stand up against the Orissa government and the Government led by Narendra Modi. The fundamentalists (whichever religion they may belong to), the people who raped Sister Meena and those who destroyed over 300 churches, 6500 homes, and forced 56,000 people to leave their homes and live on the streets, who destroyed their fields and crops and other means of their livelihood, have turned masters into slaves. We have all come here to salute you and I have not been able to come here before, even though people spoke of the communal violence of Kandhamal from different places, will have to be punished. I had to come here with Thomas Cocherry earlier, but I missed that opportunity because I had to reach Nandigram. The second time, I was to accompany Sister Celia. That time also, I could not make it.

Kandhamal is one of the many places of communal violence that have been mentioned by Charul and Vinay. Be it Meerat or Mumbai, Surat or Ahmedabad, Jaipur or Kandhamal, Muzaffarnagar or Khandwa. wherever there are riots in the name of religion, humanity is under attack. Humanity is buried and man exposes himself as a barbaric animal. However, much we shun such incidents, it may not be enough. Whichever religion they may belong to, if they declare violence in the name of religion, incite people, be it Praveen Togadia or anybody else, we must deplore all of them.

It is very important that we understand, as per the question raised by Subhasini Ali that after all, what is religion? Religion is a way of life, religion means law; religion means some fundamental principles and nothing more than that. Some revere the form of Bhagwan or Allah, some offer namaaz and others do the rituals of puja and our Adivasi brothers find their religion in the trees and the mountains and the rivers. The Dalit community considers Dr. Ambedkar to be their deity. And Buddha, Kabir, Periyar, Vivekanand and Mahavir - none of them advocated for violence, rape, destruction nor doom, to be spread on the basis of their respective religions. But their followers have taken a path which goes against religion. And wherever this happens, it is not only the homes and the fields that are destroyed, religion itself stands destroyed. If saints and preachers have begun acting along the lines of Asaram Bapu and if rape and harassment happens within a religious institutions, then we can not forgive them.

It is therefore imperative to understand what actually happened in Kandhamal. What happened to the people affected by the incidents of violence here. Especially to women and children. Soumya ji will elaborate on the plight of women during the communal violence in Kandhamal. But what we have to keep in mind is that we are living in a male dominated society, which suppresses the voices of women, which becomes one of the main causes of communal violence. The voices affected by violence have not died. They have been buried deep down. The hurtful cries of women that we have listened to, at a time when we are being used as mere objects for oppression, must be heard. Sometimes it is religion which treats women as objects and sometimes it is the market that treats women as objects.

I always remember, when the riots broke out in Maharashtra’s Nasik district in Malegaon, we reached on the next day. Both the religious groups claimed that their women had been violated and that was the reason why they participated in the riots. But this was far away from the truth. We went around the villages and spoke to people from both the communities. We spoke to Nian Ahmed from Malegaon and the leaders from Bhavsar. There was vast difference between what the men and women had to say on the issue. The Hindu women from Bhavsar colony said that although men bearing weapons had come after them, they were given protection by the Muslim women living in the neighborhoods. And in Nihalnagar, the Muslim women said that they were given protection by the Bhavsar colony consisting of Hindu women. This is a reality that happens every time. The weak is targeted by the fundamentalists who use religion for their expression of power and violence spreads further. `Why should we keep quiet when our women are under attack and when our religion is under attack’, they asked. But the reality was different.

In Kandhamal, Dalit Christians and Adivasi Christians were targeted. The efforts by Christian missionaries were overlooked. The violence erupted when claims such as murdering of Swami Laxmananda were made, which resulted in the riots and the aftermath. On what basis were such claims made? If people have been wronged, or if it is felt that the missionaries were committing mistakes, there is a legal system in the country. They can resort to such action. Why violence? As Annie Raja mentioned, Praveen Togadia was nearby. He arrived immediately on the 25th here. The State decided when the police should arrive. Whether it be the resistance during the Narmada Bachao Andolan or the struggle of the slum dwellers in Mumbai, when the people’s resistance is met by the police, the resisting community always gave the slogan “Sarkar Humse Darti Hai, Police Ko Aage Karti Hai” (the government is afraid of us, the people. And that is why they have sent the police)

But the police is either not sent to the location or removed from the location of the incidents of violence. This is what happened in Gujarat. The government was missing as a state authority for three days. Nobody would like to speak about those three days. Nobody would like to remember about those three days. Because the person responsible for this is now the prime servant of the country. But remember this, if there is violence, then both the Government and the religious fundamentalists should be questioned about their actions. Where were you? What were you doing? And what have you done? And in Kandhamal also, both should be questioned. We should not remain silent about this. And who had the power of the Government in Orissa at a time when Orissa was governed by BJD-BJP? It is natural that both colluded to not put an end to the violence. There may be a relief now, that the BJD-BJP alliance is not as strong as before.

Our rally was around Biju Patnaik’s statue, I observed that a photographer had climbed on a tree and wanted an angle to show that the rally was behind Biju Patnaik’s statue. It is disheartening that the BJD which was formed on Biju Patnaik’s name did not stop the communal carnage in Kandhamal. Under the BJD government, the violence was not put to an immediate stop, not before thousands were destroyed and displaced. And even after 6 years, due compensation has not been given and the criminals have not been arrested!

The police force was nowhere to be seen. The police officials responsible for facilitating violence were not given punishment. Those who raped Sister Meena have yet not been punished. The displaced have yet not been rehabilitated. So, can we shout these slogans? Naveen Patnaik Government, Hosh Mein Aao (Wake Up, Naveen Patnaik Government!). Orissa Sarkar Hosh Mein Aao! (the Government of Orissa, Wake Up). These voices must reach Bhubaneshwar. You have come here with such courage, you know there are video cameras around and we must make sure that these voices reach Naveen Patnaik – a man who says that he believes in dialogue. He has spoken to Annie Raja at some occasions, so this would have reached the Modi government- but are you afraid? Then why don’t you join me in shouting this slogan? I am not singing a song, it is a only a slogan. Let us shout with all our strength: Orissa Sarkar Hosh Mein Aao - Hosh Mein Aao Hosh Mein Aao (the Government of Orissa, Arise and Awaken).

It is important that we make ourselves heard, because This issue is not limited to Kandhamal. There are conferences everywhere on the unity and integrity of the country. The symbol of our national unity, the tricolour national flag, is unfurled every 15th of August and 26th of January. The Constitution of India drafted by Babasaheb Ambedkar has guaranteed the right to life, secularism and fraternity. Despite all of this, what is necessary is that the rulers understand that without secular values in our society and in politics, the integrity and unity of our country, social-political and economic equity, our development and democracy and our identities are also under threat today. These principles would not be secure if secularism and equal treatment to all religions are not realized. Whether it be the Maoists or anybody else responsible for the killing of Swami Laxmananda, without investigating on the matter, the violence had erupted within two days. Who was responsible for that? Who was instigating this violence? As it happened in Gujarat, one train, the Sabarmati Express was set on fire. After that, thousands of people were killed. To investigate the issue it took many years. It was clear that the episode was plotted. Today, some journalists were asking me, each year, in the month of August, the VHP people organize rallies and say that Christians are the culprits. The people who came with you also are also organizing rally saying that the Sangh Parivar are the culprits. Whom should we believe? Brothers and sisters, our demand is here. Here is a list of demands from the People’s Tribunal on Kandhamal. People from many political organisations gave recommendations. Many sensitive and secular groups came to visit and enquire about the human rights issues in Kandhamal. They did not take the side of any one group. Here are their demands. All their demands are in these books. Please read them (shows the Report by the People’s Tribunal on Kandhamal to the audience). Here, it is written, what action should be taken, what are the laws to punish the criminals. The law may have been from the British era, but it has been here. And people are not getting justice. Because politicians are doing politics in the name of the religion. Whichever group’s number is higher, their votes are more. The Christians are only 3%, Muslims are 13%, Adivasis are 9%, and 14% in Gujarat. Why should they support them. When the political parties think in this angle, then although there may be ample evidences and records, people are not going to get justice and culprits will never be punished. Innocents are put behind the bars.

Few minutes ago I met a person, whose uncle is in jail. He says his uncle was innocent. Call him. He was dragged from home in connection with murder of Swami Laxmananda. He says he knows nothing except labour. He works as a labourer and owns a small piece of land. He was asking me how he could get justice. I do not know how much truth there was in his words. But I feel he is speaking from his heart. Why there has been no investigation? Why? Why nobody asks this question? This is my question.

So therefore Patnaik Government has to be responsible for providing justice. They are elected by the people. They are electing you. And you must carry on with your duties. Within the framework of the constitution and the laws, you have to punish the violent elements. We must restore the rights of the innocents. When we know of names, their villages, when everything is there, at least register their statements. Register all complains as FIRs. By now even the police is aware of various judgements made by the Supreme court. Recently, in the Nirmala Devi v/s Uttar Pradesh case, the Supreme Court gave judgement on registering the complain as an FIR. If it is not done, then we have to declare war against them. Until and unless thousand such cases are registered as FIRs, we are not going to rest. Only on the completion of this work can we move ahead. Friends you have done the right thing today morning, by inviting Solidarity Forum, SFI, Communist Party of India and others. Many more parties will come. We all will go and meet Pranab Mukherjee. You have a memorandum; we will make it more powerful. We have the coordinator of the National Alliance of People’s Movements (NAPM), Prafulla Samantaray. He was unable to attend today’s meeting, but he have his support and Brother Lingaraj is there. People struggling at POSCO are here, brother Prashant is here, we have many friends from Odisha, from Baliapalo, Kashipur, Koraput, Balangir and people who are fighting against the 84 projects at Kainjhar, Nayagam, Nuagam, Nayagarh and other Organizations of Phulbani. If at least one representative from each Organization is ready to come to Delhi, then we can reach President’s house. Today there is Pranab Mukherjee, we do not know of tomorrow, what will happen tomorrow. Today Governor Zamir is there. I am declaring from here, NOW is when we do something. He is a man of Pandit Nehru’s era. For national integration, he at least will take steps against communalism. Honourable Governor, take immediate action. Your tenure may end soon. The time of Sheila Dikshit is over, of Shankar Narayan is over, you only have a few days. Do something worthwhile for the people of Kandhamal. If time permits we will meet him at Bhubaneswar.

It is of utmost importance to understand that the people of Odisha are suffering violence in many forms. Displacement in the name of development, snatching away of land, water, forests from the Adivasis and the hidden natural resources being exploited, like steel from Keonjhar. Is what happening with POSCO not violence ? The sea shore has to be provided to KC Paul Company. The aluminum company was brought to Kashipur. How many names and instances are needed to make this point clear? How many names need to be taken? Dams are constructed in areas like at Sutlej, people are displaced from their homes, treated unjustly and tortured. But the people of Odisha and their courage are astounding. I salute you with my heart. Whenever I give this slogan `Vikas ke Naam Vinas Chaliba Nahi’ ( No Destruction Will Be Allowed in the Name of Development), a new energy comes to me, a new strength! c Shall we give this slogan: No Destruction In the Name of Development (chorus)! This is a very important message.

There were messages in the songs of Charul and Vinay. Comrade Annie Raja also brought to the front how in the name of caste, the state divides the society. They divide it into pieces. They even divide farmers against farmers. In the name of party, people are divided. Farmer against farmer and labourer against labourer are all common division strategies. Various castes are pitched against each other. When people become mere pieces and are pitted against one another, their capacity to fight and unite against injustice reduces. Their land, water, forests and rights, all become unsafe. Therefore my friends, let me stop my speech by saying that it is time that the displaced people and the marginalized people come together as a strong force, so that these forms of injustice can be effectively dealt with in a united manner.

Medha Patkar is an Indian social activist. She is the founder member of Narmada Bachao Andolan and was National Convener of National Alliance of People's Movements (NAPM), an alliance of progressive people's organisations. She was a representative to the World Commission on Dams, to research the environmental, social and economic impacts of the development of large dams globally.

(Transcribed and Translated by Chandra Kanta Naik, Social Activist from Odisha and Edited by Ananya Gaur, Media Student, Tata Institute of Social Sciences)

Book Review: Continuing Agony of Kandhamal; violations against women

The Economic and Political Weekly, Vol - L No. 6, February 07, 2015

... While young Christian women were raped as and when the mob found them, the followers of the swami made a special effort to hunt for nuns. Two elderly nuns report how the mob broke into their convents and shouted “Where are the sisters?” The case of a nun who was gang-raped and paraded semi-naked on the road had made headlines then. This report shows that apart from nuns, female community workers too were especially targeted. One of them suffered the same fate as that unlucky nun: dragged out on to the road and assaulted, then taken to a building, gang-raped and again dragged out on the road in a semi-nude condition. Another community worker was chased into the jungles and hunted for four days. A third was threatened with “You are doing a lot of leadergiri. Come we will cut you into pieces. Bring your daughter, we will rape you and her in the middle of the road.’ ...


Breaking the Shackled Silence: Unheard Voices of Women from Kandhamal (first edition) by Saumya Uma, published by National Alliance of Women, Odisha chapter, 2014.

Jyoti Punwani (jyoti.punwani[at]gmail.com) is a Mumbai-based freelance journalist and human rights activist.

Can you imagine how a mother would have felt when her son
repeatedly told her that he was going to die? I banged on the
door of my Hindu neighbours and pleaded with them to help me,
but out of fear that they too would be attacked, no one opened
their doors…I sat with his body for three days, safeguarding it
from dogs.

– Testimony of a 70-year-old Hindu woman from Kandhamal

It was not the “other” community that killed this woman’s (quoted above) only son, it was her own. Angered by his attempt to stop them from killing Christians in his village, which included his sister’s husband, the Hindu mob cut his legs, hands and penis and left him to die.

Those who rule us today at the centre and represent us abroad are the very people under whose mentorship this mob acted. The incident took place in August 2008 in Odisha, in the wake of the murder of Swami Lakshmanananda Saraswati of the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP), notorious for his opposition to Christian missionary activities in the extremely backward area of Kandhamal. Along with him, four of his disciples, including a woman, were killed. Eight persons including a Maoist leader were convicted for his murder five years later. But immediately after his murder which took place during the Janmashtami celebrations, Christians became the target of his enraged followers. Over the next three months, Hindu mobs killed 34 Christians (as per the police; the Odisha church authorities say they could account for 75 deaths), and raped and sexually assaulted an unknown number of women while leaving an estimated 30,000 displaced.

Exceptional Brutality

The National Alliance of Women, Odisha, has brought out a report on the experiences of the women survivors of the violence. Breaking the Shackled Silence has been researched and written by Mumbai-based lawyer Saumya Uma, who has been working with the Kandhamal victims since the violence.

The brutality with which the Hindu male mentioned above was killed was not exceptional. Most of the women whose menfolk were killed describe how they were dismembered. One of the women, just 32 years old, was lucky enough not to have witnessed it, but she too was not spared the horror. She found her husband’s body with his legs, hands and head cut off. Worse was to follow. She went to get the police; when she returned, the head was missing; it was found later hanging from a tree. Imagine the confidence of the killers and the message they wanted to send.

In the January 1993 phase of the Mumbai riots following the demolition of the Babri Masjid, Shiv Sainiks hunted down Muslims they found on the streets, lynching them in broad daylight and then burning them by placing logs of wood on them almost as if to Hinduise them in death by cremating them. In Kandhamal too, in at least two of the cases cited in the report, women found the remains of their husbands in the form of bones and ashes. A cow bone had been placed at the site where one of them had been killed. Significantly, both these men were pastors. A third victim worked with the village church. His wife fell at the feet of the mob, pleading with them to “cut off (her husband’s) hands and legs, but let him live. My daughter is physically challenged, how can she live without a father?’’ They responded by cutting off his neck, stabbing him in the stomach and cutting up his body into three parts. They then began looking for his wife and daughters with the intention of raping them.

While young Christian women were raped as and when the mob found them, the followers of the swami made a special effort to hunt for nuns. Two elderly nuns report how the mob broke into their convents and shouted “Where are the sisters?” The case of a nun who was gang-raped and paraded semi-naked on the road had made headlines then. This report shows that apart from nuns, female community workers too were especially targeted. One of them suffered the same fate as that unlucky nun: dragged out on to the road and assaulted, then taken to a building, gang-raped and again dragged out on the road in a semi-nude condition. Another community worker was chased into the jungles and hunted for four days. A third was threatened with “You are doing a lot of leadergiri. Come we will cut you into pieces. Bring your daughter, we will rape you and her in the middle of the road.’’ Both these women managed to escape the mob. A fourth who also ran into the jungles nearby with her family was blamed by her husband’s brother for inviting the Hindus’ wrath because of her work in a Christian organisation. She wonders now “If the mob had caught me first, maybe those others (who were raped) would have been spared.’’

Rape as punishment for having converted to a “foreign” religion, for being too assertive, for others’ misdeeds: our Hindutva heroes made sure they covered all possible reasons to violate women. One mob told a Hindu woman as they carried her off that they were taking revenge on her because her uncle had not converted to Hinduism despite being given several deadlines. She knew these men, they were Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) members from her village. Their RSS compatriots later persuaded her not to file a complaint as that would bring shame upon her.

It is important to stress that these murderers and rapists were RSS men, because the organisation never fails to flaunt its moral superiority, its adherence to the ancient Hindu “way of life”. The actions of its followers in Kandhamal however, were no different from its own characterisation of Muslim invaders. Like the armies of yore, our heroes went forth, saffron flag held high, swords and trishuls in hand, to vanquish the men, ravish the women, and destroy places of worship. Shiv Sena chief, the late Bal Thackeray, had described the violence of his “boys” against Muslims in 1992-93 as a dharmayuddh (religious war). But the RSS, as befits its ideological seniority in the Hindutva brigade, went one step ahead of the Shiv Sena in their dharmayuddh: they converted their captives. Kandhamal saw a 21st century version of the spread of Hinduism by the sword.

Hollow Conversions

But these were hollow conversions. One elderly woman recounts how, forced to attend weekly satsangs, she would silently pray to her own god. After the violence died down, many of those forcibly converted went back to the church. In this competition for faith, it was obvious which one inspired genuine belief. This return to the faith of their choice by the Christians was even more courageous given that despite the arrests of some of the rioters, the intimidation by their supporters continued.

For women, this intimidation took the form of threats of sexual assault and rape. The brother of one nun got a phone call telling him that if his sister spoke to the European Union (EU) delegation that was then visiting Kandhamal, she would be gang-raped. The sister of the man who had been decapitated (mentioned above) escaped a rape attempt in her village after she accompanied her brother’s widow to the police station to lodge a complaint. The community worker who was taunted for her “leadergiri” returned to the village later to visit her uncle. Seeing her, a shop owner called her uncle and told him “Tell her I will cut off her breasts, insert a sword in her vagina, cut her into pieces and throw her in the river. Where will she go?’’

Women affected by violence have spoken out earlier, but this might be the first time that so many women raped during communal violence have done so. These interviews were conducted last year; after that, the women raped in the Muzaffarnagar riots in August-September 2013 also spoke out. It is the easiest thing to get men to talk during riots; it takes special effort to make women do so, and Uma must be thanked for making their voices heard.

The report, however, is not only about sexual assault during the Kandhamal violence and its long-term physical and emotional after-effects on the victims – it is also about loss of confidence, hatred of men, and an omnipresent fear of everything from loud noises to crowds which rule their lives. As one woman who had herself not been raped but knew three who had been, said

For sexual assault, it is not sufficient for the perpetrators to
be imprisoned for life or even punished with death. Even if they
give compensation to the woman, will it undo what they did to
her? …The women remain in hiding as if they were criminals;
their relationships are strained; engagements and marriages are
broken for no fault of theirs; they live a life of fear; they
are shunned by their communities. What justice can be done?

Women Pay the Price

The report is also about how women are affected by communal violence as a whole. A common effect of communal violence is the reduced freedom of women thereafter; in this particular case, it is even more damaging because education for girls had become the norm for daughters of adivasi and dalit Christians, though their mothers may not have been educated. The report estimates that the education of 10,000 children was disrupted due to displacement and fear after the violence. Interestingly, one convent was saved from being damaged because someone from the mob restrained his companions. The head of the convent ascribed this to the fact that the local Hindus’ daughters too studied there.

Christian girls keep dropping out if they cannot get admission to boarding schools or hostels, says the report. However, though they lost a year due to the violence, eight adolescent girls interviewed have continued with their studies, despite facing harassment from Hindu boys (and in the case of four of them, Christian boys too) both to and from school. The report notes that their parents support them but have made it clear that they cannot protect them from such harassment, advising them to simply ignore it.

Male survivors of communal riots have to live for some time with taunts, fear and the loss of livelihood. Their children have to cut short their education. For a while, they become dependent on their extended families. But they pick up the pieces and start afresh, even though some may never regain their original economic status. The difference with women survivors, especially those young and widowed by the riots, is that they become forever dependent on their parents or in-laws.

The Kandhamal story is unique because many of the Christian women were working, some in church organisations, some in self-help groups, the majority used to make products out of forest produce at home. That avenue has closed because the Hindus do not allow them to use the forest produce. Most of those spoken to lived contented lives in their own homes with a little land. That contentment has gone forever since many of them cannot return to their homes, because of the hostility with which the Hindus view them, especially since many of the Hindu men have been arrested and even convicted.

Though the church has helped rebuild lives, most of the women remain jobless and destitute. This despite a number of central government schemes designed to help destitute women. Some widows appealed to the collector for a piece of land that they could jointly cultivate, or for jobs of any kind, to no avail – the collector said he could not provide jobs for so many uneducated widows. Some of the women living in Nandagiri, a rehabilitation site for victims, said they would be happy with goats and poultry, instead of the daily wage labour they had to depend on.

These are such small demands that it is well within the powers of a collector to grant them. But the government and police in Odisha have behaved much like their counterparts in other states in their response to communal violence. Here too, the police remained passive as Hindutva mobs went about doing whatever they wanted. The official figures supplied by the superintendent of police (SP) of Kandhamal district bear this out: out of 39 killed, two were policemen and only three were rioters. When the community worker who was gang-raped and dragged to the road in a state of semi-nudity went to the police station, the police asked her to hand over whatever clothes were left on her body as they would need them for evidence. It was a stranger at the police station who gave her some clothes.

In court, the rape victims have faced the usual badgering from defence lawyers, but in two cases the judges intervened to stop that. But the rape trials here were made more traumatic because of the presence of a large number of supporters of the rapists in the courtroom while the victim testified. After all, the rapists belonged to a well-organised body, they were not just criminals! Despite this, in Kandhamal, the conviction rate for rioting, at 28.5%, has been above the national average of 21.5% (according to the SP quoted in the report).

Hindu Women

This report, unlike many others of its kind, makes it a point to talk to Hindu women too. They face fears of another kind – their husbands have been or might be arrested. Before the 2008 violence, a Hindu-Christian riot had taken place in December 2007, in which they had also been at the receiving end of the violence. In 2008, these women many of whom belong to the Durga Vahini, had been part of the mobs, allege the Christian victims.

Before the violence, the two communities – the Hindus who are adivasis and the Christian who belong to the scheduled castes (SCs) and adivasis were part of the same self-help groups, and the Christians worked on the Hindus’ lands. Their perception of each other is therefore significant. The Hindu women who were animists till they were Hinduised by the RSS, feel the Christian women are unclean because they go to church even while menstruating and do not bathe before they enter the kitchen. The Christian women are proud of their qualifications and communication skills, and resent the untouchability practised by the Hindus “They do not touch us…if they sit with us, they will have a bath and only then enter their houses.’’

However, the most significant difference is in their perceptions of peace. For the Christian women, peace means a return to the trust they shared with their neighbours, the return of their property, a guarantee that the Hindus would never attack them again, a freedom from fear. For the Hindu women, peace means freedom from domestic violence and alcoholism.

Will the peace the victims of Kandhamal desire ever be restored? It seems unlikely since their attackers might get more aggressive now that their patrons rule the country. But the work of Saumya Uma and women’s groups, which comprise women of all faiths and from almost all states, should help these victims feel that the church is not their only saviour and that all Hindus are not what most of their neighbours turned out to be.

India: The Temptations of Peace [expectations for justice of victims of Kandhamal riots in Orissa] - Javed Iqbal

Tehelka.com

The Temptations of Peace
Just as the experiences of living through the 2008 Kandhamal riots vary considerably from person to person, so do their expectations for justice. Text and Photographs by Javed Iqbal

Exorcising ghosts Jagannath Pradhan (right) stood up against the mob in 2008, while Mohesh Nayak lost his brother in the riots


On 25 August 2008, Jagannath Pradhan, a self-identified Adivasi Hindu from Budedipada village in Tiangia panchayat, Odisha, stood in front of the rioting mob and said that if they were going to destroy the houses of his Christian neighbours, they should start with his. In another part of the village, Dasarath Pradhan also stood up against the mob’s diktat, but was eventually killed. Apart from Dasarath, five others — Tirinath Digal, Parikith Nayak, Dibyo Paricha, Bikram Nayak and Father Bernard — were killed in Budedipada village.

Six years later, standing next to Jagannath, Mohesh Nayak remembers hiding in the forests as the mob of 40-50 people went on to kill his brother Bikram in the fields. Manoj Pradhan, who led the mob, was later convicted for the murder, and then elected to the Assembly in 2009 from G Udaygiri on a BJP ticket. He would eventually be released on bail and lose the Assembly election held this year.

At Sulesaru village, Deomali Pradhan is the only member of his Christian family who returns home. The sole reason for coming back is to attend the sessions court at Phulbani and fight for justice. He has renovated only a small part of his house; the rest still provides testament to the violence that tore his community apart.

He recalls how Siddeshwar Pradhan, a man with links to the Sangh Parivar, was killed by the mob, again for the same reason, for protesting against the senseless violence. Siddeshwar’s son Niranjan confirms his father’s saffron links and that the accused, who led the mob, was an RSS member. All the accused were arrested but were later released by the high court on bail.

Deomali also remembers how all 27 families fled Sulesaru when a mob of 60-70 people came to the village on the night of 25 August 2008, two days after the killing of Swami Lakshmanananda Saraswati and four of his supporters. Maoist rebels allegedly killed him on the order of Sabyasachi Panda, who was recently arrested. Bajrang Dal and Vishwa Hindu Parishad leaders blamed Christian missionaries for the murders. Once the Maoists took responsibility, the Sangh Parivar claimed that the Christians had paid the Maoists to commit the killings.

The killings started immediately after Lakshmanananda’s death, as the police and local authorities merely looked on. The official death toll was 38, while unofficial estimates pegged it at 93. There was widespread destruction of churches and houses, with an estimated 50,000 people displaced to the jungles and relief camps.

According to Deomali, his neighbour Potishti Nayak, 65, refused to flee along with her family and perished with the flames that engulfed her house. Another neighbour, Akbar Diggal, was found murdered at Totoma church.

On 27 August, people such as Deomali attended a rally held at Phulbani for communal harmony and justice. The rally drew around 4,000 people. At 10 am, the people stood quietly in two lines in front of a temple, waiting for the organisers to give the signal to start the march.

The Indian Reserve Battalion showed up and positioned themselves around the protesters a few moments before the rally moved on quietly, apart from the sloganeering by a handful of people using a dissonant loudspeaker

The residents of Phulbani took a curious interest, looking out of their windows or coming to their porches to watch the marchers pass by. It took around 10 minutes for the protesters to enter the football stadium and settle down.

The speakers were introduced in Odia by the organisers, starting with CPM leader Subhashini Ali, whose line about the Niyamgiri villagers rejecting Vedanta and choosing their right to live on their own terms, drew the loudest applause from the mostly Kondh crowd. The next big response came when the CPI’s Annie Raja exhorted the police cordon at the rally that if even “four or five of these uniforms” had been present in the villages in 2008, then this rally would not have had to take place today.

Later, lawyer-researcher Saumya Uma released her report, Breaking the Shackles: The Unheard Voices of the Women of Kandhamal. It details testimonies of women who lost family members, who were sexually assaulted, who faced conversions and threats, and had to deal with the legal system among other things.

She spoke in Hindi and her words were translated into Odia for the mostly Kondh and Pano crowd.

“We wish the speakers had spoken in Kui or Odia,” says Mohesh Nayak. “What about justice though? They (the attackers) are put behind bars but they come out after three years or so. It doesn’t matter going to the courts.”

Unlike Nayak, Deomali was more positive. “If we don’t speak up now, this will happen again,” he says. He diligently expressed how he agreed with the statement attacking the absent police, and the promise made by Medha Patkar that the memorandum for justice in Kandhamal be delivered to President Pranab Mukherjee.

However, people from many affected communities could not make it to the rally. For instance, in the resettled village of Nonadigiri, about 50 families who were evicted from Beticola said that it cost each person 100 to undertake the journey and they couldn’t afford it. In the past, vehicles had been organised, but not this time. They are Adivasi Christians who had large landholdings, yet both their homes and fields at Beticola lie empty. They recall communal violence and a fractured community from 1985, and the beating of Pastor Lameshwar Kahar in 1999 by the Bajrang Dal after the church had proposed a medical centre in the village.

“They were afraid that the medical centre would be used to convert people to Christianity,” says Kirtichandra Mallick, who had just returned from a funeral at Beticola to his rehabilitated village of Nonadagiri.

In Beriaguda, another village where the people had been rehabilitated, they pooled in money to attend the rally. Their houses were destroyed in 2008 and they lived for six months in tents before they petitioned the collector and met other local villagers and returned home.

Shashibhusan Pradhan, a self-identified Hindu Adivasi and a Kui leader from nearby Uperadandakiya village, was instrumental in establishing peace in the community. The people of Beriaguda, where two destroyed churches dot the landscape, claim that he led the mob in 2008.

“I told the rioters that we should not destroy any homes now; we should do it later,” says Sashibhushan, also called English Bhushan, due to his propensity to start speaking in English in the middle of his Odia-Kui sentences. “I said it because I knew tempers were high and maybe later they would calm down and nothing would happen. But they attacked me instead.”

Shashibhushan has a Christian wife. He claims proudly that his panchayat recently witnessed an arranged marriage between a Christian and a Hindu family. “Years ago, it was the church who said that Christians should not marry Hindus,” he recalls. “But not today.”

He did not attend the Phulbani rally, but would do so next year, though only if he is allowed to speak from the podium.

Others such as Asith Kumar Singh were not even aware of the rally. The 29-year-old engineer, who worked for five years at Vedanta’s Lanjigarh plant, says that “the Adivasis shut down the plant often but never bothered us workers”. He now works with another mining company.

He remembers the violent days but believes in keeping quiet. “My friends were there in the mob… just hundred metres away,” he says, recalling the incidents on 24 August 2008, a day after the killing of Lakshmanananda.

He recalls how they argued among themselves that they can’t destroy Asith’s house because they had been greeting his mother in the morning for years. So they decided among themselves for a compromise. “They called me repeatedly and said that we will spare your house, but you have to come to us so that we can break your arms and legs,” he says. Fortunately, rioting is a fickle business, and the threat was forgotten. But Asith’s family soon fled Phulbani and has never returned.

Similarly, Namrata, whose badly burnt face became one of the images of the Kandhamal riots, is now living in a small town with her family. She was just 10 years old when she was badly burnt in an explosion. Her elder sister quickly came to her aid and took her to the relief camp in the jungle where their family administered first aid. Her family did not attend the Phulbani rally, and she feels safe in her school, hoping to finish her arts course.

“If the people had not listened to the Bajrang Dal leaders, none of this would have happened,” says Jagannath.

Being orphaned at a young age, tending to his family as a youth, Jagannath says he knows the problems of the people. His father was an animist, and even as he refers to himself as a Hindu, he overtly condemns casteism.

“The water in the pond is all the same,” he says. “Why is it different when you put it in different pots?”