Harvesting hatred

Both Hindus and Christians in Orissa’s tribal belt have become victims of the game of one upmanship in ‘saving souls’… all in the name of Christians opening schools for their converts, and then, Hindu seers hitting back with their own schools. The roots of conversions and anti-conversion campaigns are old, but even a cursory probe into the recent explosion of mind-numbing violence shows that the communal divide is so serious that it is hard to think there can actually be a solution, writes Sutanu Guru with Dhrutikam Mohanty and Ajit Nayak

The differences are so stark that the similarities can be really baffling. One has inherited a powerful political legacy that dropped into his lap without any effort. The other has clawed his way to the top of the heap. One was born with the literal golden spoon in his mouth; the other comes from a genuinely humble background. One counts Hollywood stars and the Page 3 glitterati of Delhi as his friends. The other can’t even get a visa to the United States, and the chances of him attending a power-do of Page 3 suspects is as high as that of Rahul Gandhi contesting Lok Sabha elections on a BJP ticket. One can’t even have a conversation in his mother tongue; the other wears his ‘regional’ identity like a badge of honour. Visions of chalk and cheese spring to mind when you think about the two individuals.And yet, Naveen Patnaik and Narendra Modi preside over two states that have witnessed the rise and rise of the most militant version of Hinduism in the last decade or so. In Gujarat, human rights activists accused Modi of presiding over a ‘genocide’ of Muslims. Nobody accuses Naveen Patnaik of harbouring militant Hindutva sentiments. But human rights activists are accusing him of benign neglect, as Hindutva groups unleash a 'war’ against Christians in the state. To be fair to Patnaik, even the Vishwa Hindu Parishad leader Praveen Togadia accuses Patnaik of leading a government of eunuchs. There is lush greenery everywhere as our car snakes across a reasonably decent road from Bhubaneswar, the capital of Orissa, towards Kandhamal, the latest battleground in the war of religious hatred, intolerance, prejudice, bigotry, mistrust and propaganda. There are forests and verdant hills: a sight that can delight any tourist. There is a deceptive calm as our car crosses town after small town and village after village. And then we see the first signs of how the war is being waged.

A couple of completely bored cops stand near a police van, guarding over a prayer hall that has been completely gutted. Our driver Sukanta belongs to a village in this district, which has about 60 families – three of whom are Christians. “We hid the Christians in our houses when the mob attacked late in the night. Many Hindus then were mistakenly attacked by the mob,” he says. Sukanta suggests we drive down to the relief camp in a place called G Udaigiri.The Hobak High School is where the relief camp is operating from. Far from relief, we see only dismay and hatred. We are surrounded by a mob of more than 100 victims; angry, vocal and mistrustful. One accuses me of being a ‘Hindu’ agent masquerading as a journalist. Abuses are heaped on Naveen Patnaik, on the police and on the media for being inhuman and unfair towards the Christians. There are about 5,000 ‘refugees’ in the camp, with tents fluttering in the breeze, even as a slight drizzle adds to their woes. Ramakanta, who refuses to give his full name thunders, “Our Bible tells us to show the other cheek. But enough is enough. We don’t want to live in this country. Send us to a place where Christians are not persecuted.” A visibly angry woman, who refuses to give her name, says, “They say we are outsiders. But we are part of this soil. If required, we can also fight like Rani Jhansi.” The anger and hatred is so palpable that we feel we might be lynched if we don’t run towards the cops. Mercifully, the rising fury of hatred abates, and we get down to hearing heart wrenching tales of mobs marauding through villages, burning houses and churches, hacking victims to death, driving them into jungles and relief camps for safety. At the end of it, they insist we show them our ‘press’ cards so that they know we are not ‘agents’. Right outside the relief camp, the town is quiet and people are going about their own ways, shopping, bargaining, gossiping and walking. Unlike the Christian victims inside the relief camp, these are Hindus and there is no sign that they are bothered about 5,000 homeless victims living in their midst. The cleavage, the rift, the chasm is so chillingly complete that it is frightening.

On our way to Phulbani town, we see houses, churches, two wheelers, police jeeps and prayer halls wrecked and burnt. There used to be a Christian house right next to the police station in Tikabali; it is now in shambles. Within hours of our car leaving the area, a curfew is again clamped because there is danger of more violence.Just in case you are not already familiar with what really happened here, here is a brief run down. On the day of Janmashtami (the Hindu festival of birth of Lord Krishna), 84-year-old Swami Laxmananda Saraswati and four of his associates were brutally gunned down with AK-47 assault rifles in an ashram in Kandhamal. Swami Saraswati is a highly revered figure in the Hindu community in this region and had been running a campaign against conversions. The state government blamed ‘Maoists’ for the brutal killing. Hindutva outfits like the VHP refused to buy that logic and insisted that it is ‘militant’ Christians who had ‘assassinated’ the Swami. Within days of his death, half of Orissa was in flames, with anti-Christian violence spreading to many districts beyond Kandhamal.Back in Bhubaneswar, we see even more dangerous signs of a divide between the two communities. Dr Swarupananda Patra is a Christian who has worked with Doordarshan and is now chairman of Orissa Minorities Forum. “I have held back my people, you know. If they also take up arms and retaliate, there will be a civil war in this state. We have no faith in this system, even in the judicial system.” Quite surprisingly, Patra lets slip a sentence that reveals the extent of mistrust and prejudice between the two communities. “The Swami was supposed to be a holy man. Then why did not the state send him to the Himalaya? Why was he opening schools for girls in the area?” That is one side of the divide. The other side is revealed by Sarat Mishra, editor of Orissa’s oldest and most respected daily, The Samaj, “You see, in India, secularism nowadays means being anti-Hindu. The fact is that missionaries do offer incentives to converts.” An overwhelming majority of the Hindus with whom we had conversations, even those who denounced the violence against Christians, seemed convinced that it was not the Maoists who killed the Swami.In fact, the Swami has been attacked many times in past by Christian mobs for his struggle against conversions and fight against cow slaughter. The flame of communal passion that ignited after the swami’s assassination was even more intense following joining of the Kui (Khandha), the prime tribal group of the district in the violence. They became violent because the Kui leader Lambodar Kahar also received a letter that threatened to kill him.

Incidentally, Swami Saraswati too got a similar letter two days before he was killed. If you believe the tribal leaders, both the Swami and the Kui leader Kahar received identical letters, written in the same handwriting and posted from the same place i.e. Baruniput of Koraput district on August 12. True or not, the fact is that the locals believe this to be the fact and have turned violent.“I do not support violence in the name of religion but it becomes inevitable when they (Pano) send such threatening letters to me. I am fighting for the cause of Khandas (Kui) and against those who try to snatch away our legitimate rights.” Lamboder Kahar told TSI. Lamboder, president of the Kui tribe, is not against conversion but against the Pano Christians, as they snatch away the rights of scheduled castes, even after their conversion to Christianity, due to the leniency of the law enforcement agency in the state. The Kandhas are scheduled tribes while the Panos are scheduled castes. Listening to dozens of such hate-laced conversations; we can’t help drawing parallels with Gujarat. In Gujarat, more than 50 Hindu ‘pilgrims’ returning from Ayodhya were burnt alive inside a train. The alleged perpetrators were fanatic Muslims of Godhra. The bodies of the victims were paraded in a procession and Hindutva outfits called for a state-wide bandh. Within hours of the funeral procession of the victims and the bandh, communal violence erupted across Gujarat. The rest, as they say, is sordid history. In Orissa too, tension was simmering between the Swami and his supporters and Christian groups for a long time. In fact, in December 2007, the Swami was attacked allegedly by a Christian mob that had triggered a fierce bout of communal violence in and around Kandhamal. When reports of the killing of the Swami started coming in, Hindutva activists promptly blamed Christians for the brutal murder and called for a state-wide bandh. The funeral procession of Swami Saraswati snaked across 160 kilometres of tribal areas in the state. The bandh was total and absolute. And then began the violence against the Christians. More than a dozen have been killed and more than 20,000 have become refugees, having lost their homes to mob violence.

Watching the innocent children, infants, women and others suffer in the relief camps, you can’t help wonder at the barbarity of these acts. You can’t but help think: surely these kids were not responsible for the murder of Swami Saraswati! And then come haunting the images of January 1999, when the missionary Graham Staines and his two young children were burnt alive in the most bestial fashion by a rampaging mob. It is easy to point fingers at outfits like the VHP and the Bajrang Dal for this mindless violence and this systematic targeting of minorities. But that ‘politically correct’ thing will not explain the depths of hatred that we encounter wherever we go. Nor will it change the opinion of people on both sides of the divide, because propaganda has already acquired the status of gospel. Ordinary Hindu folks in Orissa, who have nothing to do with the VHP and the Bajrang Dal, spew such venom at Christian missionaries that even listening to them talk is frightening.Prod a little deeper and the reason for the hatred starts coming out. According to Hindus in Kandhamal district, converts to Christianity and the missionaries deliberately insult and humiliate the Hindu religion. Devotees of Lord Hanuman say their blood boils when he is taunted as a monkey in Christian gatherings. Do missionaries and converts really indulge in this kind of dangerous one upmanship? The problem is not whether they actually insult Hindusim. The problem is that most Hindus now believe they do. Lambasting the VHP is not going to change this. A top cop of Orissa, who doesn’t want to be named, says that the divide has been growing because the zealous new converts turn their backs on local traditions and customs that have been prevalent for centuries. He gives the example of a festival called ‘Rojo’, which is celebrated before the sowing season begins. ‘Mother Earth’ is given rest for four days to regenerate herself, and local folks symbolically sway in swings because they don’t want even their feet to disturb Mother Earth. According to the senior official, recent converts deliberately flout this custom and work on the fields. Once again, you can call it successful propaganda by outfits like the VHP. But then the battle of ideas has never been won by making pious and politically correct statements.

And it has been war in Orissa. Hindutva outfits and Christian groups have been battling it out in the tribal districts of Orissa for decades. Where the Christians had a decisive advantage was in terms of resources and their ability to run schools and health centres in these poverty stricken areas. Swami Laxmananda Saraswati took the battle to the ‘enemy’ and successfully launched schools and education programmes. Starting from the late 1980s, the resurgence of Hindutva outfits also saw the rise of schools called the ‘Saraswati Sishu Mandir’, which have proliferated across the tribal districts of Orissa. The hapless locals have thus become mere pawns in this vicious game of ‘saving souls’.That’s where the parallels between Gujarat and Orissa are so disconcerting. Both are coastal states; both have an ancient history of maritime trade with ports dotting the coast. Both have unchallenged political leaders who have been at the helm for almost a decade and show no signs of fading away. Both states are home to one holy city each of Hinduism – Dwarka in Gujarat and Puri in Orissa. Both states are steeped in local folklore about how invaders destroyed their temples.Narendra Modi and Naveen Patnaik are two completely contrasting personalities. And yet, beyond lambasting the Hindutva outfits, the uncomfortable question that needs urgent answers are: why are ordinary citizens falling prey to such appalling levels of hatred and prejudice? The future of India depends on these uncomfortable answers.