This blog is mainly to make my published articles and other opinions on contemporary and contentious issues - national and international - accessible to a wider readership in addition to readers of the papers/journals etc wherever they are published, for their reading pleasure, reactions and comments.
Kandhmal is a failure on many fronts. But from basic policing point of view, the performance of Orissa Police is reminiscent of wanton police inaction as happened in the Nov-84 Sikh riots, as also the government sponsored connivance or tacit collusion in the 1992 Gujarat riots and the 1993 Mumbai riots. Despite worldwide condemnation of police handling of these events considered indelible blots on the nation’s history, and repeated indictments at the hands of various Commissions too, the Indian police it appears has not learnt its lesson. Why so?
Talking of basics, at the outset of violence the focus should have been on strict action against those indulging and spreading violence without waiting for political direction. There needed to have been adequate mobilisation of force, and visits by senior officers to the affected areas, their continued presence there for warranted action, and camping in the theatre of violence till normalcy was restored.
Instead, what was the immediate response of the Orissa police, and how did the police leadership react? They suspended SP Kandhmal - the one man who was known to have controlled the area for the past seven months with an iron hand. While the SP was suspended, the DM who with the SP had constituted an effective team was transferred out.The sinister designs behind this move are now surfacing, but for reasons not known are being suppressed from public knowledge.
On Christmas Day December 2007 gangs of fanatical elements in Kandhmal District had attacked churches and Christian institutions, desecrating statues and Bibles, and burning houses in Christian bastis in a series of pre-meditated and well organised assaults. In the atrocities that continued for a month, 107 churches were destroyed in arson, at least six people died and thousands were rendered homeless. The victims, practically all tribal or dalit Christians, very poor, and exploited. The declared perpetrators, none other than local Bajrang Dal units, the militant wing of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad under the umbrella of the total Sangh Parivar; pursuant to Swami Laxmanananda’s declared agenda of wiping out Christians off the face of Orissa.
Following widespread outrage from all quarters national and international over this carnage, the state government - whose benevolent protective hand over the rabid communal forces was evidently and eminently seen - reacted by suspending the Kandhmal Superintendent of Police, replacing him with young Nikhil Kanodia – a 2003 entrant into the IPS, who had already made a name for himself for controlling with an iron hand another local district infested with Hindu-Muslim communal tension. Kanodia was overnight summoned to State Headquarters to be told he has been specially selected, and sent to Kandhmal to restructure and rejuvenate effective policing in the riot-ridden District. The State govt simultaneously ordered a judicial commission to look into the causes and effects of the Kandhmal riots.
The activities of Laxmanananda in the area, inciting disharmony and communal disturbances in the Kandhmal district over the past many years, had led the Orissa police to open and maintain a police file on him which has grown fat over the years with accounts of riots caused or triggered off by him. Strangely, his activities were not checked by the police even after the December carnage. Instead, he was provided police protection – ostensibly after receiving written threats on his life from local Maoists whose displeasure he had also incurred.
Despite the police protection Laxmanananda and other adult members of his ashram were murdered on August 23. The attackers identified themselves as Naxalites and left a letter at the scene of murder claiming responsibility and stating why they murdered the Swami. On the basis of evidence of AK-47 used in the attack and the letter left behind, Kanodia briefed the media on Aug-24 that Maoist hand was indicated in the Swami’s murder – which position was soon after endorsed and reiterated by the Police Headquarters too in briefings at the State level.
This however did not, it appears, suit the Sangh Parivar in their designs and ultimate objective of targeting Christians. Praveen Togadia, the virulent head of the Bajrang Dal visited Orissa the next day and declared it was Christians not Maoists who killed the Swami. As if in support of his line, the BJD led State government of Naveen Patnaik deemed it fit to place under suspension its specially selected SP Kandhmal Kanodia, and removed him from the scene asking him to report to the Lines in Police Headquarter at Cuttack. What more, no replacement is posted in Kanodia’s place in Kandhmal over the next four days, leaving open the arena for the perpetrators and marauders to act with impunity with a free hand.
Not only was the one man who had kept the communal forces under check over the past seven months ignominiously suspended, he was also conveniently removed from the scene to ensure a clear ground for Bajrang Dal goons to unleash their violence with no State intervention at all to be witness to or enforce law.
If this is not criminal connivance, what else is? And yet the DoonSchool educated and hitherto socially respected Naveen Patnaik denies inaction and blatantly claims innocence stating “Every bone in my body is secular….” This, even while his government is openly attempting now to deflect the blame from the Dal resting it solely on the Swami’s students?
The Orissa police, particularly the police leadership, has failed miserably too – by succumbing to political dictates and not enforcing the rule of law as it should be. If India’s secular fabric is to be preserved and protected, communal violence needs the strong arm of the law, which only an unbiased and independent police establishment can ensure. There has never been more real a need for the police reforms that continue to elude this nation.
**published in The Times of India, 21 Oct 2008 under the title: Missing In Action
The first holocaust for Mangalore Catholics happened in 1784 at the behest of Tippu Sultan. Following his defeat by the British in the 1st battle of Mangalore, Tippu’s wrath had turned on the local Christian community, in the belief that it was their aid and support to the British that cost him his battle. In a ruthless swoop by his marauding armies 85,000 Christians were rudely uprooted from village homes, herded and marched off through arduous jungle terrains of the Western Ghats for incarceration in the dungeons of Seringapatam. Rigours of the journey coupled with malaria and dysentery had decimated the numbers and not all captives reached the destination.
Release came only in 1799 to about 15,000 of the motley bunch that had survived by then – only after the fall of Seringapatam and Tippu's death following the second battle of Mangalore. With release had come a sense of purpose, a common identity, for a people who had hitherto considered themselves migrant Goans. For the first time a distinct “Mangalorean” identity was born. Over the years the close-knit and homogeneous small community of 1799 grew, diverging into fields and destinations anew. Leaving their native shores they spread far and wide pursuing new and rewarding careers elsewhere in India and all over the world. In India, other than that of a President or a Prime Minister, there is no seat of honour, profession, trade or virtue that has not been claimed, graced or enriched by a Mangalorean. This was possible because of the environment of amity and understanding that prevailed in the region.
This communal harmony which was the hallmark of the region was suddenly shattered on September 14, 2008 when goons of the Bajrang Dal went on rampage vandalising Churches, assaulting Christians, and desecrating holy artefacts. Mangalore since then has gone through a period beset by challenges not faced in over 209 years of communal harmony. The current lull in violence has resulted only due to unprecedented solidarity (perhaps totally unexpected by the perpetrators) and protests by the Christian communities of Mangalore, and the support they received from the right-minded from other local communities, leading to nationwide and worldwide condemnation of the heinous acts of the Sangh Parivar and particularly by the Bajrang Dal in Mangalore and elsewhere
While social scientists and analysts will try to unravel the deep rooted prejudices or political agenda that led to the shattering of the harmonious relationship between communities in the area, there needs to be some thought spared to checks and balances to be supplanted which will preclude such gratuitous violence between communities in future.
Mangalorean communities including Christians, Hindus, Muslims and Jains are a peaceful, law-abiding and religiously tolerant people, often of similar ancestry and traditional heritage. Against this background, there is consensus that a small minority of misguided elements cannot be allowed to orchestrate well organized and premeditated attacks on minorities. The Government justice needs to look at the causes for the violence that occurred, identify those who instigated and book the criminals who carried out the attacks. There is need also to examine the role of the police during the violence and their provocative actions during peaceful protests.
What was sorely found missing was the presence and intervention by community peace committees – the need of which no efficient police organization is not acutely aware of and strives to ensure. So a standing nodal agency with representation from major religious communities, major political parties and the police – to ensure preventive measures through regular meetings to monitor simmering tensions, etc is a must.
From the outpourings of the anguished voiced in the media, it is evident that majority of Indians (particularly Hindus) do not believe in the Sangh Parivar's ideology, and yet are forced to go along with it as a necessary evil, partly for lack of an alternative party with strength to lead the country with a viable government. There has perhaps never been a time of greater need to join hands with people of good will among all faiths and even with people of no faith to make common cause on important issues.
The public today are subjected to propaganda spread by aggressors – about conversions and foreign funds. Despite categorical assurances that there cannot be forcible conversions to the Christian faith, and there exists not a single chargesheet or conviction under the highly hyped Anti-Conversion Laws enacted in many States, the canards on this score continue. While no one in government or the Sangh leadership explains why this imbroglio cannot be nailed once and for all with a national debate, the ploy continues to be used as a plank for propaganda and more attacks.
There is need for the entire nation and its people to know what is the Sangh Parivar, what it stands for, its tactics, its strategy, its political policy. As there is need for the hitherto complacent Christian community to be involved more in the political arena – not alone to understand and expose the political policy of the Sangh Parivar, but to know and understand policies of other parties too - to identify such that hurt the interests of all in the sphere of human rights, and constitutional rights that guarantee freedom to practice and preach one’s religion. If not acted in time, there is danger of the Sangh Parivar succeeding in abrogating these very rights, or writing rules to circumvent these.
It is immensely evident that the Bajrang Dal has realized that Mangalore Christians stand for their rights, and that support for them has come forth from every imaginable quarter. Going forward, there is need to focus less on reprisals and recrimination, but on ensuring sustainable peace in times to come and especially for future generations.
In the context of the still ongoing violence against Christians in various states when I wrote about the sinister designs of the Sangh Parivar and their declared agenda, as also of the canards spread by the 84 percent strong majority community drowning the voice of a mere two percent minority Christians, some of my Hindu friends took offence. “Is every Hindu spreading canards against Christians?” they asked me, dubbing my remark as doing great injustice to non-extremist Hindus, who constitute the larger majority within the Hindu community.
They were disturbed no end with my answer “Isn't the silence of the 84% majority on the canards being spread in their name by some amidst them not construed as their voice?”
In recent weeks voices of many a right-thinking Hindu have been raised in public forums – in articles, television debates etc condemning the violence against Christians perpetrated by criminals and goons who openly identify themselves under the over all banner and umbrella of the Sangh Parivar. On this score very powerful declarations of how individually one is ashamed to call himself a Hindu have appeared in the printed medium (Karan Thapar’s “Who is a Hindu” in the Hindustan Times, Shashi Tharoor’s in the Times of India, etc) with many an agitated soul also stopping me during morning walks to tell me how ashamed they themselves are to identify themselves with the religion in the name of which the goons are perpetrating their heinous deeds.
On Christmas Day December 2007 gangs of fanatical elements in Kandhmal District Orissa had attacked churches and Christian institutions, desecrating statues and Bibles, and burning houses in Christian bastis in a series of pre-meditated and well organised assaults. In the atrocities that continued for a month, 107 churches were destroyed in arson, at least six people died and thousands were rendered homeless. The declared perpetrators none other than local Bajrang Dal units, the militant wing of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad under the umbrella of the total Sangh Parivar; pursuant to Swami Laxmanananda’s declared agenda of wiping out Christians off the face of Orissa.
Following widespread outrage from all quarters national and international over this carnage, the state government - whose benevolent protective hand over the rabid communal forces was evidently and eminently seen - reacted by transferring out the then Kandhmal Superintendent of Police, replacing him with young Nikhil Kanodia – a 2003 entrant into the IPS, reputed to have controlled with a firm hand another local district infested with Hindu-Muslim communal tension. Specially selected, Kanodia was overnight sent to Kandhmal to restructure and rejuvenate effective policing in the riot-ridden District. The State govt simultaneously ordered a judicial commission to look into the causes and effects of the Kandhmal riots.
The activities of Swami Laxmanananda in the area, inciting disharmony and communal disturbances in the Kandhmal district over the past many years, had led the Orissa police to open and maintain a police file on him which has grown fat over the years with accounts of riots caused or triggered off by him. Strangely, even while supposedly keeping violence under control, his activities were not checked by the police after the December carnage too. Instead, on State Govt’s direction he was provided police protection – ostensibly after receiving written threats on his life from local Maoists whose displeasure he had also incurred.
Despite the police protection, Laxmanananda and other adult members of his ashram were murdered on August 23. The attackers identified themselves as Naxalites and left a letter at the scene of murder claiming responsibility and stating why they murdered the Swami. On the basis of evidence of AK-47 used in the attack and the letter left behind, Kanodia briefed the media on Aug-24 that Maoist hand was indicated in the Swami’s murder – which position was soon after endorsed by the Police Headquarters too in briefings at the State level – reiterated in a televised interview more recently also by underground Naxalite leader Sabyasachi Panda.
This however did not, it appears, suit the Sangh Parivar in their designs and ultimate objective of targeting Christians. Praveen Togadia, the virulent head of the VHP visited Orissa the next day Aug-25 and declared it was Christians not Maoists who killed the Swami. As if in support of his line, the BJD led State government of Naveen Patnaik placed Kanodia under suspension, and removed him from the scene to the Lines in Police Headquarter at Cuttack. No replacement was posted in Kandhmal over the next four days, leaving open the arena for the perpetrators and marauders to act with impunity with a free hand.
Not only was the one man who had kept the communal forces under check over the past seven months ignominiously suspended, he was also conveniently removed from the scene to ensure a clear ground for Bajrang Dal goons to unleash their violence with no State intervention. The whole exercise smacked of criminal connivance. And yet Naveen Patnaik denies inaction and blatantly claims innocence even as his government is openly attempting now to deflect the blame from the Dal resting it solely on the Swami’s students?
Orissa violence was followed by incidents elsewhere, mainly in BJP ruled southern state of Karnataka, when Bajrang Dal goons struck in Mangalore and around vandalising churches, attacking nuns, and desecrating sacred artefacts. But Mangalore was not Kandhmal. The reaction of the people at large, not only of Christians, stunned the perpetrators. The State Bajrang Dal chief who had himself gone on television to proudly boast and claim responsibility had to be axed by the BJP leadership and faced arrest.
The main canards floated by the Sangh Parivar as reasons for attacks on Christians are about forced conversions and foreign funds. Despite categorical assurances that there cannot be forcible conversions to the Christian faith, and there exists not a single chargesheet or conviction under the highly hyped Anti-Conversion Laws enacted in many States, the canards on this score continue. The myths have been blasted time and again, but the bogey is sought to be kept alive without ever sitting across the table to thrash it out once and for all. While no one in government or the Sangh leadership explains why this imbroglio cannot be nailed once and for all with a national debate, the ploy continues to be used as a plank for propaganda and more attacks.
It is common knowledge that majority of the intelligentsia who has administered this country in the past sixty years has received education in Christian institutions in some form or the other, at some stage or the other. Have they been forced to convert? There are non-Christians who have worked and are working in Christian institutions for generations without ever converting to Christianity - if there was any force or inducement, how come they continued or continue to still benefit the Christian largesse without conversion?
I spent my entire service career pleading with Christian institutions to admit children of my non-Christian colleagues, friends and acquaintances into Christian schools and convents. Why is it the effort of every non-Christian to seek admission not only for their children and wards, but also those of their friends and acquaintances too in a Christian school or convent? Is it because they will be converted?
Talking of Christian concentration in backward and tribal areas: Is it right to fault the missionaries for having ventured into such areas hitherto totally neglected by the country, its successive governments and administrators, and by the very communities who have now suddenly woken up for political vote bank reasons? Was it wrong of them (the missionaries) to have provided succour, healthcare and educated them? Is it the fault of the missionaries that with their newfound knowledge and education, the backward classes and tribals are now being empowered enough to ward off exploitation by the marwaris/ other trader communities/ landgrabbers/ landlords and so on who sucked their blood for generations and hundreds of years?
If the compassion and selfless service of the missionaries, their aid and succour in times of need, medicines and healthcare they provided, and most of all the empowerment through education they enabled - has attracted, motivated or induced the neglected downtrodden from the backward classes or tribal areas to appreciate the "true Christian values" and embrace of his/her own free will the faith of the one that rendered him/her such self-service and gave him such "true values"..... then why should this cause such an irritating 'itch' in the ones of the majority community, or constitute such a threat to their existence as to warrant violence, arson and murder, and sinister designs to eliminate the Christian community from the face of the earth?
Yes, this is the declared agenda of the Sangh Parivar in Orissa and elsewhere, which the 84% majority is silent to, tantamounting to tacit concurrence and approval... Unless right-minded people speak up, the tolerant secular fabric of this country is bound to be destroyed - with a lot of blood on hands that otherwise consider themselves clean. And we will go the way our neighbours have gone - by becoming as is sought to be, a fundamentalist and rabid "Hindu"stan hated by all, and all the way down the drain like the stained-by-shame and disgraced-among-the-world-community as a terrorist-infested fundamentalist "Paki"stan.
Sixty-three million terror-battered and verifiable Pakistanis in a record participation have recently signed up to a unique anti-terror campaign stating “Yeh Hum Nahin!” (This is not us) in an effort to send a strong signal that they neither believe in terrorism nor are a party to it. Do the right-minded of India find the need now to break their silence and speak up too?
**published in Civil Society Magazine - November 2008 issue Vol 6 No.1 (www.civilsocietyonline.com) and carried on various websites
