Bhubaneswar: The worst anti-Christian violence in the history of modern India has yielded some positive results.

At least 27 people from Odisha state’s Kandhamal district, the epicenter of the anti-Christian persecution in 2007 and 2008, have become lawyers after successfully completing bachelor degree in law. One of them has become a judge.

It was “a blessing in disguise,” says Fr. Ajay Kumar Singh, who graduated in law this year.

The graduates include 20 young men and women, six priests and a nun. They have one aim: to help the poor and needy get legal justice.

The initiative to encourage people to take up law studies came from Fr. Dibakar Paricha, a practicing lawyer at Odisha High Court, who hails from Kandhamal.

Fr. Parichha, director of Professional Student Aid Foundation Indi, says people from Dalit and tribal communities suffered injustice in the aftermath of violence because of lack of efficient and unbiased lawyers.

“At the time of communal violence or any ethnic violence, lawyers from other communities were reluctant to fight for these victims in courts. This promoted us to educate young people from Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe and Christian minority communities,” said the priest, who also doubles up as a human rights activist and social worker.

He had studied law before the violence took place. Presently he is also helping in the legal justice of victims who were affected by the riot.

Most lawyers, who worked for the survivors of the violence, were Hindus, who were often “hand in glove” with some perpetrators, or they take side on the basis of religion and caste, Fr Parichha alleged.

When the Kandhamal violence took place, Kandhamal district had 256 lawyers, and only 15 of them were Christians.

The gravity of the crime was so high and the number of cases registered was 827. It could have been more than 3,000 or 4,000 if the lawyers would have guided the victims with sincere heart and mine defending their genuine cause in order avail the justice they deserved, the lawyer priest explained.

“For the lack of unbiased lawyers forced us educate these young boys and girls,” Fr. Parichha said, adding, “No justice could be obtained for the community without lawyers from its own community.”

This gave him the idea that lawyers from the same community would study and help their people to live with dignity. These new groups of lawyers would work for the poor irrespective of their caste and religion, he added.

Hence the Church focused training people from Dalit and tribal communities in law.

“They impart legal knowledge in villages. They are lawyers with difference, not like arm chair lawyers, but lawyers with the spirit of social work, better known as ‘community lawyers,’” Fr. Parichha claimed.

Fr Singh, the new lawyer, agreed. The priests and the nun took law after seeing how innocent survivors continued to suffer even after the violent attacks.

The Kandhamal cases recorded high acquittals of the accused as hardly any lawyer could represent the survivors’ cases. This prompted clergy and religious to study law as to be some assistance to the community, said Fr. Singh, who is also a human rights activist and social worker.

“Of course, the failure of criminal justice delivery system cannot be corrected by them,” Fr Singh said. However, studying and practicing law has given them confidence that justice could be done.

“For me, it is not so much to practice law as much as to understand the failure of criminal justice delivery system and to explore what could be done to secure justice for the victim survivors by engaging different organs,” Fr Singh explained.

Other priests who completed law are Fathers Jarlal Singh, Manoj Nayak, Kulkant Dandasena, Mohn Nayak, and Arun Nayak. The lone nun lawyer is Sr. Justin Senapati from the congregation of St. Joseph of Annecy.

“One of the reasons, why I studied law is to promote peace and harmony through legal justice. Law helps build relationship,” said Fr. Dandasena, who is also a parish priest in a remote village near Kandhamal.

The new lawyers include five girls and 15 boys. Among them three are Hindus and the rest Christians from Kandhamal.

They were supported by an NGO—Professional Student Aid Foundation India in collaboration with Catholic Archdiocese of Cuttack-Bhubaneswar, Odisha, Eastern India.

One of them is a judge in a lower court in Phulbani, the headquarters of Kandhamal district.