For Christ’s sake!

Bhadrapad Shuddha Ashtami

By Chandan Mitra

I am writing this from Orissa which, quite uncharacteristically, dominated national news space during the last week of August for altogether wrong reasons. Bhubaneswar, the State’s neatly planned post-Independence Capital, is tranquil enough but interior districts are still simmering from the fallout of the heinous assassination of the venerated monk Swami Laxmanananda, 80-year-old messiah of the poor and downtrodden in one of Orissa’s remotest and least developed districts — Kandhmal.

To my surprise, I found passions running high even in the Capital particularly over what people allege is the biased and undeservingly negative publicity the State received in the aftermath of the murder and the violence that predictably followed. It is a trying time for the State’s usually unflappable Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik who appears set to be elected for a third straight term in office when Assembly polls happen next year. The fallout has also been a test for his coalition partner BJP, whose Hindu constituency is outraged by the killing of the Swami.

Fortunately, the BJD-BJP alliance is holding firm despite hotheads periodically seeking to stir up trouble. The violence, which ominously affected villages rather than cities — unlike the pattern of other communal disturbances — is also simmering down. But the questions it has raised dramatically all over again need to be addressed if recurrence is to be contained in the future.

What has agitated average middle class people in Orissa is the manner in which a one-sided perspective is being peddled as fact in the national media, to the courts and even among school children. There is consternation over the one-day strike called by Christian organisations that shut down many schools and colleges across the country. "The Courts are quick to denounce strikes and bandhs everywhere. Political parties are even fined for calling a bandh. Why hasn’t anybody condemned the enforced strike in Christian educational institutions?" asked an angry teacher.

Apparently, some school authorities even distributed a circular among students explaining why the bandh had been called. The letter complained in a high-pitched tone about the attacks on churches, priests, orphanages and ordinary Christian villagers by rampaging mobs. The circular, admittedly also regretted the murder of the octogenarian Swami, but only in a proforma fashion. The purpose of the explanatory letter was not really to explain but to condition young, impressionable minds into a particular line of thinking.

A parent told me about the following exchange with his school-going daughter: "Why is your school closed tomorrow?" he had asked. Pat came the reply, "Because Hindus are killing innocent Christians in Orissa." When he persisted and queried why Hindus are supposedly doing that, his daughter looked nonplussed and confessed she had no idea, but after some thought added, "They did that to Muslims in Gujarat also, No?" The brainwashing of children, especially in urban India, has acquired a new dimension.

Sometimes I get the feeling that a diabolical section of proselytising missionaries are determined to milk the post-Laxmananand violence to the hilt to further their cause. Significantly, as even diehard secular TV channels have revealed, the violence in Orissa, unlike post-Godhra Gujarat, was hardly one-sided. Christian-dominated villages persecuted Hindus as much as vice versa and, in any case the disturbances were confined to just two districts. And, by the way, no nun was burnt to death; it was a Hindu woman who was unfortunately trapped in a hut set on fire by vandals.

No wonder large numbers of Hindus, especially women, converged on a relief camp for Christians in Tiklabari in Kandhmal last Wednesday, demanding that either everybody get official relief or the Christians-only camp be shut. They told visiting politicians and the media that they too had suffered in the violence. Besides, the police was strictly enforcing curfew preventing them from going to work to earn a livelihood. "Why are Christians getting all the attention while we are starving?" the charged crowds demanded to know. I am referring to this incident only to underline that the issue is not as simple as the counsel for Christian organisations made it out in the Supreme Court last Thursday.

It is a measure of the efficacy of the Christian network that within hours of the disturbances happening, the Pope issued a strong denunciation of the "persecution" of Christians in India. Worse, the Italian Foreign Office had the temerity to summon India’s Ambassador in Rome to admonish him and demand an immediate end to the harassment of Christians in this country. Incidentally, both these actions have contributed to the anger of people in Orissa.

I was repeatedly asked why New Delhi had not issued a strong statement telling Rome and the Holy Seer that Orissa is India’s internal affair and they should keep their mouths firmly shut. "Each time there are some problems between Hindus and Muslims, Pakistan too makes gratuitous noises about Muslims in India. But Delhi tells them to stay away from our internal matters. Why does the Government lack the guts to do the same with Italy?" asked an irate journalist, hinting that the reason for being deferential towards Italians, resident or non-resident, would not be very far to seek.

In fairness, though, the venerable Pope, as spiritual head of the Roman Catholic world, has a right to express concern if his co-religionists face insecurity in any part of the world. But the pontiff would have done well to appreciate the gravity of the situation and also recognised the root cause of the friction. There would be no trouble between Hindus and Christians, who are mostly a peaceful community living in harmony with Hindus for centuries, but for the aggressive campaign to "harvest souls", meaning, convert poor Hindus. It is the influx of massive funds, mainly from Europe, to further a renewed evangelical offensive in India that is the cause of mounting tensions between Hindus and Christians in many parts of India.

An Orissa legislator (not BJP) narrated some instances of glitzy audio-visual campaigns by Christian missionaries in the State’s interiors. Although the State Government was forced to ban the entry of foreign evangelists following protests some years ago, there’s no stopping the funds. Promises of good education, jobs and even careers abroad are freely made, tempting many impoverished villagers.

Dispensing with the usual paraphernalia of baptism, some priests apparently preside over mass conversions whereby those willing to change their religion need only to take a dip in the village pond to expiate their past sins. As many independent sociologists have pointed out, new converts in villages become particularly aggressive towards their erstwhile community and the resulting social cleavage eventually spills over into violence. This is probably the strongest argument for enacting watertight anti-conversion legislation.

The Government is required to preserve and promote social harmony, rebuffing the Church’s ambition to "harvest souls". In the final analysis, however, Hindu society too is to blame for the steady expansion of Christian missionary activity. Why are their so few Swami Laxmananands among us? Why don’t Hindu organisations work more effectively in backward and tribal-dominated areas? That is the only way to deny non-Indic religions a foothold in sensitive parts of the country and thereby preserving social harmony.

Source: Daily Pioneer

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