THE ORISSA FAULTLINE
Lakshmanananda Saraswati’s killing on August 23 triggered the fire that has spread through south Orissa’s Kandhamal district. But the battelines had been drawn much earlier
ON the night of August 23, the Kanya Ashram in Jalespeta, a village in the tribal-dominated Kandhamal district, was celebrating Janmashtami. But the celebrations were short-lived. At about 8 p.m., a group of 30 assailants entered the ashram and opened fire on its chief, Lakshmanananda Saraswati. The 84-year-old Saraswati fell to the 22 bullets fired at him.
The shots shattered not just the peace at the ashram, they also broke the fragile calm in the area. As news of the murder of the Swami and four others spread, agitated tribals in Kandhamal, among whom Lakshmanananda worked, attacked police stations and the houses of Christians, whom they held responsible for the attack. The violence has spread to other districts as well, and has left 10 people dead and several injured.
Orissa is no stranger to religious violence. Nine years ago, the state was swept by communal violence after a mob led by Bajrang Dal’s Dara Singh set Australian missionary Graham Stuart Staines and his sons Philip and Timothy on fire, as they lay sleeping in their station wagon in Manoharpur village of Keonjhar district. It was also the year that Dangs district in Gujarat witnessed attacks on Christian chapels and houses after the VHP accused missionaries of illegal conversion.
After several years of relative peace, violence returned to Orissa in December 2007 and the Swami was at the centre of it then too. His vehicle was stoned at Darsingbadi village—home to Congress Rajya Sabha MP Radha Kant Nayak—allegedly by a group of Christians. The provocation: the previous day, tribal Hindus in neighbouring Brahmanigaon village had objected to local Christians building temporary gates to celebrate Christmas. The Hindus allegedly said that since they had celebrated their last Durga Puja here, the Christians couldn’t hold their celebrations at the same place. This led to a fight between the Dalit Panas, who had converted to Christianity, and the Kondh tribals, Christians whom the Swami was trying to re-convert to Hinduism. Three people died in the clash, several were injured and hundreds of houses were burnt in the December 2007 riots.
Having arrived in Kandhamal in the late 1960s, Saraswati set up an ashram in Chakapada village and then scaled up his anti cow-slaughter movement and anti-conversion activities. This endeared him to the Sangh Parivar but pitted him against the missionaries who had set up base in the impoverished district 30 years ago.
Saraswati set about conducting yagnas in the tribal heartland with the help of the VHP and organised reconversion programmes. The pastors, he claimed, were trying to convert Kandhamal into a “Christa Sthan”.
Karendra Majhi, BJP leader of the district and MLA of Baliguda, says, “The tribals are obviously Hindus. They follow Hindu rituals. It is logical that they are with us and against the Christians. We don’t want violence but people will react if religious leaders are killed.”
With deep-rooted poverty and massive illiteracy among the 38 per cent SC/ST population of the state, Orissa has been the hunting ground of religious groups. Though it was the first state in Independent India to enact its Freedom of Religion Act, 1967, that prohibited conversions by inducements, the Act was not implemented till 1989 as its rules were not fully framed. The first case under the Act was lodged in 1993, when a superintendent of police booked 21 pastors in tribal Nowrangpur district for breaking the law.
In the last 15 years, with Christian and Hindu groups fighting for the tribal heartland, the battlelines have grown deeper. The religious divide has led to frequent clashes as villagers egged on by self-styled religious leaders burnt houses and places of worship in Kandhamal, Gajapati, Bolangir and Sundargarh districts of the state.
Suresh Pujari, president of the BJP in Orissa, accuses Christian missionaries of converting people illegally, a charge they deny. “We never did forcible conversion,” says Vicar-General, Father Joseph Kalathil of the Cuttack-Bhubaneswar Diocese.
_Debabrata Mohanty

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