By Saramma Emmanuel
Bhopal: Cardinal Oswald Gracias, archbishop of Bombay, on February 5 favored the demand to declare as martyrs Catholics killed in the anti-Christian violence in Odisha’s Kandhamal district.
The prelate’s support to the Odisha Church’s demand came during the release of a book titled “Kandhamal Introspection of Initiative for Justice 2007-2015” at Pastoral Center, Asha Niketan Campus, Bhopal, the capital of Madhya Pradesh.
Cardinal Gracias and Cardinal Telesphore P Toppo, archbishop of Ranchi, released the book in the presence of more than 130 Latin rite bishops attending the 29th plenary assembly of the Conference of Catholic Bishops of India (CCBI).
The writers — activist lawyer Vrinda Grover and law academic Saumya Uma – have done a commendable job in carrying out an in-depth analysis into the criminal cases related to the communal violence between 2007-2015 in Kandhamal, said Cardinal Gracias, who is the president of CCBI as well as the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences.
Earlier the duo had partnered in publishing another book, “Kandhamal -The Law must Change its Course” which brought to the world’s attention the miscarriage of justice to the victims of Kandhamal anti-Christian violence.
The latest book is published jointly by Media House and United Christian Forum.
Noted activist and journalist John Dayal addressing the prelates said, “The Church people generally consider those died in the anti-Christian violence in Kandhamal as martyrs. However, their belief will become true when the Catholic Church declare them as martyrs”.
The 304-page book is the first comprehensive investigation of the justice process in one of the most traumatic cases of communal violence targeting the Christian community in India.
Human rights groups estimate that around 100 people were killed, including disabled and elderly persons, children, men and women.
More than 600 villages were ransacked; at least 6,500 houses were looted and burnt; at least 54,000 people were left homeless; 395 churches and other places of worship, big and small, were destroyed; 13 schools, colleges, philanthropic institutions including leprosy homes, tuberculosis sanatoriums, and offices of several non-profit organizations were looted, damaged or burnt.
About 30,000 people were uprooted and lived in relief camps and continue to be displaced. During this period about 2,000 people were forced to renounce their Christian faith.
The Kandhamal violence can be viewed in the context of other anti-Christian attacks over the past few decades, particularly in 1997-1998 and 2014-2015. Attacks against Christians in India have been in the form of killings of priests, sexual assault of nuns, and the physical destruction of Christian institutions, schools, churches, colleges and cemeteries by organizations whose main aim is to promote and exploit communal clashes to increase their political power base.
“This book examines whether nine years later, closure and justice have any resonance in the lives of the victims of the anti-Christian violence in Kandhamal’, the authors say in their note. Kandhamal, one of the poorest districts in the state of Odisha, ranks dismally low on the Human Development Index. In December 2007 and again in August 2008, Kandhamal witnessed widespread and organized attacks on the Christian community.
“It is both striking and disturbing that the pattern of impunity and injustice that defines other instances of communal and targeted violence, including the 1983 barbaric massacre of Muslims in Nellie; 1984 anti-Sikh pogrom; 1992 attack on Muslim in Mumbai; the 2002 genocidal assault on Muslims in Gujarat; the violent uprooting of Muslims from Muzaffarnagar in western Uttar Pradesh in September 2013; defines the aftermath of the Kandhamal communal assault,” Vrinda Grover and Saumya Uma say.
The uncertain jurisprudence reflected in these earlier cases of mass crimes discloses that the Courts are yet to fully comprehend the distinct nature of mass crimes; the diabolical complicity of the Sate in a ‘riot’; the lethal intent of the mob; the sexualized targeting of women’s bodies; the partisan and compromised investigations; the destruction of properties and assets of the victim community; all of which reveal the collaboration of the Sate and the genocidal intent of the violence.
“Nine years later, in Kandhamal, justice eludes the victims, their families and the targeted Christian community. Fear and insecurity haunts their daily existence, as their religious identity continues to erode their equal right to exercise of citizenship. In August 2008, the ‘collective guilt’ for the murder of the Hindu preacher Laxmananand Saraswati was thrust on the Christian community in Kandhamal, providing not just an occasion, rather a justification for the targeted violent attack. Even though the Maoists claimed responsibility for the killing of Laxmananand Saraswati, the Christian community suffered an egregious loss of life, limb, property, displacement, education, employment and a permanent social breach in the district,” the authors say.