Facing religious rage in India transforms playful youths. Fr. George Varakulam. C.MÂ movingly describes this transformation which took place while under siege from religious fanatics.
Here is a true story of goodness before time exaggerates it to be too good to believe .The heroes are some boys. Some of them are in the high school and others who finished the same unsuccessfully. They belong to Padangi village of Kondhamal Odisha. They are happy unsung. So we don’t know all their names. Littu , Bittu, Jittu, Tukuna , Vijoy , Rajibo , Tuna , the last one is a Hindu and a few others.
Padangi mission is 103 years old. The centenary marking renovated church still stands out. Today, Sunday, August 24, 2008. The church bell is silent. Littu and his companions walked to the church as usual for prayer and mass. There isn’t anybody in the church. That is unusual. Something is wrong. Danger smells all around. The air is tense. Some people on the road are panicky. They seem to be in a hurry.
By now, the news has spread. The body of Swami Laxmananda Saraswati is going to be carried in a procession for the last rites through Kuttingia village, just 2 kms from Padangi. Padangi mission is sure to be attacked. Littu and friends remembered the last attack of December, 2007, when the same Swami seems to have been assaulted by some Christians. Something needs to be done immediately.
There was no time to loose. In no time these playful youth were mature adults, proactive. They left their homes to the care of their parents and got out solely to save the mission, if not the mission at least its inmates. They were happy that their priest of the mission, the most priced target of the enemies had escaped. Two elderly sisters too have moved out to safe place. That much of less botheration! However there are 80 girls and 60 boys in the two hostels of the mission and a few others who were taking care of them including two sisters. How to save them from the imminent danger to their precious lives? Safety of the girls posed the greatest challenge for them, especially that of the grown ups understandably.
It is already afternoon. They had cooked some food but nobody ate. The small children had a mouthful but seeing their elder ones not eating but crying, they too gave up. By now, our boys came up with a defense plan. They split into three groups of six to seven and remained in three strategic places for gathering information about the possible attack. Any information reaching one group would be promptly conveyed to the other group by a runner. Evening came. Attack today is most unlikely. However it is better not to take any chances. They vacated the mission buildings of all the inmates, shifting them to three large houses in the village for the night. The boys took turns to have little rest while others kept a thorough watch.
One night is over and August 25, a more frightened day dawned hesitatingly. News of killings and burning down Christian homes are coming one after another. It is around 9.A.M. At Kuttingia, the Sang Parivar started gathering. They are preparing. It is still a small gathering. Padangi village is no more safe for the children and the Christian people. The boys inform the police. The police repeated their usual elusive saying ‘We are here’. (True, they were there only.) The nearby mountain is safer. It is only half an hour’s climb. The children, the sisters and a group of boys go up the mountain. Children of the forest are used to trekking mountains. But with fear, smaller ones could not. They were carried by the boys two each. From the mountain top they could see what is happening down.
One of our boys, Rajibo carried with him, the telephone that works on a direct satellite signal. That was providential. Three boys remained with the children. Others occupied other key places for surveillance and transmitting information. A group got down to cook some food. They prepared some rice and dal and took it up the mountain. The children were hungry. They ate. The smaller ones fell asleep crouching on rocks. Others looked on down to see the inevitable. So far nothing has happened.
After the nightfall it rained. Cold sharpens to bite when it rains. The small children started shivering. The boys got down and grabbed a few tarpaulin pieces and went up. The elder ones, boys and girls held the tarpaulins over the heads of their siblings, huddling them in the middle. Cold and fear kept them awake to another day, August 26.
News of hunting for Christians, killing and burning is pouring in. It is noon and the Bajarang Dal gathered at Kuttingia is suddenly swollen into a huge crowd. They had their preparatory cultic meal, a ritual they perform before beginning every holocaust or massive carnage. The frenzy crowd well armed with firearms, explosives, swords, axes, knives, bows and arrows, crowbars, kerosene, petrol and whatever the least of them could handle, moved towards Padangi.
The mob was an unusual one, about two thousand or more, children on the forefront, followed by women and the real perpetrators fuelling and propelling the mob ahead with their slogans ‘Jay Sri Ram, Jay Bajarang Bali, wipe out Christian….(bad word)’. No sooner they reached Padangi; a few houses went up in flames. Littu saw his own house vanishing in smoke. The mob entered the dispensary of the sisters and our boys watched its asbestos roof splashing in the air mixed with smoke from below. Life saving drugs and first-aid materials so essential in interior villages were gutted in fire. Some among the mob, to be sure, might have been saved from death by this very dispensary that they have now destroyed.
Then the mob entered the convent building and began with the little chapel breaking and burning until the last container of a little wheat flower was spilled to mix with the ashes and charcoal heaps. Little of burning and more of breaking is seen in the girl’s hostel. But their belongings, baggage and clothing were gathered and burned in front of the church including two or three of their bicycles.
Next attack of the mob was on the church. Everything found inside was broken, brought together and put fire to in front of the alter .The heat in the aisle melted two fiber sheets of the roof specially placed for better light in the church. In the sacristy, there is an ash heap of burned vestments, alter cloths and other sacred things along with the wooden shelves.
From the church, the mad procession got into the residence of the priests, ransacked everything valuable and burned down the rest totally. Most heartburning of all was the burning of the oldest chapel kept as a memorial of Padangi mission. After burning the heart of the mission, the mob went to the boy’s hostel and put fire to whatever they could gather. The staircase and the walls of the hostel are darkened like the inside of a chimney. All these burning and breaking might have lasted about an hour.
Our children and the boys on the mountain top watched all these in horror. They were now joined by the Christians of Padangi and Mallipoda villages. They moved a little further so as not to be seen. The mob left around at 5.P.M. As they left, some pointed threatening fingers at the mountain, rightly presuming that our people would there hiding.
As soon the mob left, some of our boys and girls came down making a futile attempt to put out the fire. Nothing could be saved. Heartbroken, they went up and cried bitterly with others. Whatever gone is gone. But their lives are still in danger. The mob has gone back, true, but with threatening fingers at them. Some of them are flesh hungry beasts. They may come, hunting for them to the mountain top and ever they come, the grown up girls will fall prey to their lust en masse. They must move. It is dark all over. They have torch lights but are afraid to use them lest they will be traced. They walk to the next mountain, stumbling and falling. The elder ones carried the young ones on their shoulders, one or two as many as they could. The exodus took more than 3 hours to cover about 3 kms of jungle stretch. They slept overcome with fatigue and exhaustion. But the boys couldn’t. They guarded their brothers and sisters forming three semicircles at different points by way of a defense cover-‘Laxshmanarekha’. It is their second night in the forest undisturbed except for the howling of foxes.
August 27, Wednesday morning, our sojourners woke up late and hungry. Some got fever and cold. Violence goes on unabated is the morning news. Thousands like them are in the forests. Tuna, the Hindu boy went down to the mission. He got some rice and cooking vessels. There was water and firewood. They cooked rice and ate. Then they got the news that they would be chased. They moved further and kept on changing places. Towards evening, Rajibo managed to get the telephone signals. The first thing he did was to inform the parents of children whomsoever he could contact or their neighbors. He then contacted, Fr. Andrew, the superior of Padangi Mission who meanwhile had contacted all the officers from top to bottom, pleading desperately to save the children and the people of his mission.
August, 28th was a day of better hope. Rajibo’s phone calls worked. Five people from Daringbadi, which is about 70 kms far from Padangi, arrived towards evening. Three persons from Raikia, about 25 kms from Padangi also came. On 29th, August, well before the dawn of the day, 70 children were sent back to their homes with the group that came from Daringbadi and 40 with the group from Raikia. They had to walk all that distance, may be a little less through shortcuts but to safety. A few more boys left to their homes walking during the day and message of their safe arrival to their homes reached our boys pleasantly by late in the evening. The sojourn group was smaller now with 21 children and the two sisters and our boys felt a lot relieved. All of them had some food and slept in the forest, the fifth night.
On August 30th, they came down to the burned down mission hostel unseen and stayed there. On Sunday, August 31, after a week of living in terror, they thought that it is all over. Three sisters from Pobingia also arrived at Padangi to join them. Pobingia is only some 30 kms of good road from Padangi. But the sisters could not take that road because of the butchers laying in wait for them. They came round about through the forest walking and resting in some safe villages after five days.
The group had little energy left. They cooked some food and were about to eat when the news reached that there is going to be another attack. With half of the food eaten, they fled again to the forest, this time in three groups. The first group consisting of the sisters and women, the second one some hostel boys and the third one, our boys now emboldened out of helplessness to resist and die if needed to save the other groups. Fortunately there was no attack. Around 4.P.M  Fr. Andrew phoned and informed them that a police van would be waiting in front of the church to take them to safety. It rained heavy afternoon. All got drenched.
Around 5.P.M, there was the police van. Three boys boldly preferred to stay in the mission. Others including the sisters with wet cloths got into the police van and moved somberly to the relief camp. They looked back at their rain washed church dripping still raindrops as if weeping. Their eyes also were filled with tears. Mine too, as I listened keenly to them retelling it after eighty days.
Tags: Youth
