Fr. George Varakulam C.M. provides an update on several of his earlier reports (1), (2), (3) on the religious violence in India Kandhamal Today- an Overview
Fr. George Varakulam C.M
Kandhamal hills are cooler with a few rains. Much of the dust on the hill tracts are also settled down. Grass on the fields has started sprouting in spite of summer heat still. Soon it would be lush green allover. That is natures’ rhythm of life. But that is not the case with human life that follows a conscious rhythm.
This year, the forests rained mangoes in Orissa. People collected them in the morning and the evening and still there was plenty left. They ate afresh as much as they could. They dried some to preserve and the rest they squeezed into juice to dry and make jelly. The seeds also are dried and kept. That is food for the lean months of July and August. These two months are hungry times in Orissa. The mango-kernels are dried and powdered to make porridge. These with bamboo-shoots and a variety of green leaves gathered from the fields are eaten to beat the hunger. Usually it is a concoction of all these ingredients with a scanty mix of boiled rice that the poor have to survive on during these months of starvation.
Tribals and Dalits of Kandhamal can be considered still a food-gathering community like the early forest-dwellers. In the past the forests gave plenty, even meat. Now the forests have shrunk and give only little. The tribal economy continues to be forest based. Food gathering communities have their own rhythm of life. Food gathering, planting and harvesting are perfectly tuned with rituals and festivals. Life is lived in the bosom of nature. Kandhamal has the least plastics and no cinema theaters.
True, Kandhamal lacks basic human facilities. But there was peace. Different ethnic groups lived in cordial relations. Tribal ethos bound them together in harmony. Tribals are always ethno-relative. Fundamentalists are hopelessly ethno-centric. They burned Kandhamal and threw its life out of gear.
Now it is over ten months since violence rocked Kandhamal. The mayhem continues impacting social life negatively. The people fear each other. The damages are far too many. The fields lay idle. Livelihood is at stake.
However not everything is lost. The spirit of survival and a Christian hope of the future persist. Good will and determination are not lacking. Now the district administration is clearly pro-poor and purely welfare oriented. It is safely away from the communal politics that only divide and destroys.
Life in Kandhamal is limping to normalcy. The relief camps are fewer with fifteen hundred or so people left in all of them. Others, more than twenty thousand, are back in their villages trying to rebuild their lives and homes. The officers in administration are doing all that they can to restore confidence among the victims and the men in uniforms are more becomingly behaving. All these are very positive things noticeable in the area. As I am typing this (June 26), Dr. Chidambaram, the home minister is visiting the relief camps, inspiring confidence among the ‘Remnants’ and urging them to go back to their own villages. ‘Get rid of fear’ is his emphatic message to the fear-stricken. I believe it is by facing fear that we overcome it.
Nevertheless the people in the camps are still hesitant to move out. Not that they are happy to be in the camps forever but what they have gone through holds them back. The way their homes were burned, how they were hunted after, their days in the forest, in the rains and without food and what happened to their kith and kin who are no more, are all hurting memories that haunt them. The sense of losses- their homes, their properties and their loved ones –keep on coming to their minds and suppurate their wounds. I pray that these do not take a revengeful turn.
The worst for the Christians is their feeling that they are unacceptable in their own villages as Christians. During the horror-days of violence hundreds of Christians in Kandhamal had to denounce their Christian religion and promise to become Hindus if only they wanted to be alive. This was not a simple promise but an oath taken after eating ‘blood mixed rice’ which is a sacrificial ritual among the Kui-tribals. They mix the blood of goats or fowls offered in sacrifice with rice and eat it before making any solemn promise.
Some villages have openly declared that they will not tolerate Christians. They have warned the Hindus under heavy penalty not to have any contact with the Christians, not to talk to them, give water or fire and sell any commodities. Moreover, there are hardcore Sangh Parivar-members moving about triumphantly in the villages whose body-language shows no remorse but hatred and fury. Many are behind the bars. Others are in the warrant list. No doubt, Hindutva fury has subdued but not disappeared altogether.
Those still in the camps have also other reasons to be worried about. These are mostly Dalit Christians. They have no homes to go back for they were destroyed. Neither have they any land to support their livelihood. They lived on petty business that depended on the good will of the community. That is gone now. They face an uncertain future relying only on the promises of the Government- land, houses and livelihood-support. Assurances of the Government can be elusive. They have experienced it in the past. Now their mind-set does not permit them to take chances. Even they are skeptical about availing the benefits of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (N.R.E.G.S) that ensures a hundred days of unskilled work because of the hostility existing.
Officials of Tikkabali camp have arranged a ‘stay out’ program for the people of that camp. There are about 720 people still there. The officers are sending groups of 25 to 30 people to our catholic mission at Sonkorakol for five days. Understandably the mission is more congenial to them than the camps. This would be a break from the monotonous life in the camp. It could also be a good incentive for the people to bid farewell to the camp life, they hope. I happened to be with the first group for two days listening to their stories, praying with them and instructing them a little. They played, sang and danced and had better and different food. They enjoyed the days and returned to the camp sadly.
The missionaries have returned to the missions. They try to forget the past and are busy putting together in order whatever is left in the mission to function. Rehabilitation of the people is their first priority. The major difficulty is to gather the people for they are scattered to other parts of the state and outside the state.
The good news is that the local tribals who joined the angry mobs at the behest of some leaders have realized their mistakes. Ultimately they are the ones at the loosing end. Many men face criminal charges. They have gone hiding so much so that some villages are villages of women only. It seems the trouble makers have escaped with the spoils. It is unlikely that the bad story is repeated. Truly, as the saying goes, ‘all the people can be bluffed for some time and some people for all the time but all the people cannot be bluffed for all the time’.
Kandhamal is waking up to a path of peace and progress. Peace can come only with reconciliation. Reconciliation is possible when justice is done. The guilty has to be punished. The truth has to be revealed. Justice Mahapatro, in his interim commission report on Kandhamal violence, submitted on June 30, 2009, has already pointed a finger at the government officers for the violence and its escalation. Fortunately many of them are not in place now and should never be, to join hands again with the political and communal elements pursuing their agenda of hate and violence, if Kandhamal is to have some future.
Now it is time to act in concert. The non-governmental organizations and other socio-religious groups active in the area have a vital role in restoring peace in the area. They should collaborate with the district administration and the concerned departments and the development agencies of the Government for a peaceful Kandhamal where the people can live their dreams.
The Christians are the worst affected. However, their denominational differences are on the way of a common rehabilitation program. It is high time that the Christian denominations eschew their difference and converge on a united path for future activities. The Catholic Church being the dominant group should take the lead in this process. In the long run, it is ideal to create a common Christian forum at the district level for united action.
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Tags: Response to Terrorism
