By Matters India Reporter

Bhubaneswar: The anti-Christian violence in Kandhamal of 2008 is “still fresh in people’s memory,” Justice A P Shah, former chief justice of Delhi High Court and a former chairman of the Law Commission of India, told a webinar on August 25.

Justice Shah was delivering the inaugural address on the 13th Kandhamal Day remembering the anti-Christian pogrom in Odisha in 2008.

The theme of the webinar was ‘In Defence of Human Rights and Democratic Freedoms.’

Kandhamal anti-Christian violence is considered the most gruesome riot of the 21st century, Shah said.

The killing of Lakshmananda Saraswati, a Hindu religious leader, triggered violence that ravaged Kandhamal, one of the poorest districts of India. The carnage that aimed at obliterating the Dalit Christians resulted in deaths, rape, arson and torching of places of worship.

More than 56,000 people were rendered homeless during the violence that lasted four months. The rioters also tried converting the Dalit Christians to Hinduism. Extreme hostilities, threats, intimidation were routinely carried out.

“The state government of Odisha completely failed to control the violence and even did not acknowledge that this was communal violence of extreme severity. Two commissions were appointed by State Government to look into the matter but were ineffective and seemingly an eyewash,” said Shah.

The investigation that was carried out was biased. Out of 3,300 complaints lodged only 500 were charge-sheeted and only in two cases, murderers were convicted. The security forces deployed to control the spread of violence were quite apathetic toward the suffering of people; they are quite unequipped too to tackle organized violence of such intensity. Witness protection systems did not exist, he said

Compensation was also not paid properly and cases were not reopened. The way the violence was handled indicated the failure of the system, Shah said.

“Communal violence” should be remembered as a horror day when the rights of humans were blatantly violated and innocent lives mercilessly taken, said Shah.

Speaking on the occasion, former Chief Election Commissioner S Y Qureshi, said, “The silent complicity of the state has endangered pluralism. There is a general feeling nowadays, ‘how dare you to say you are insecure.’”

“Charges against Christians are that they are expanding their population through proselytizing and against Muslims are that they are producing too many babies. Impressions have been created that Hindu families have two children and Muslims have 10 children. The fact is the birthrate among Muslims has gone down to 0.4,” he said.

Statistically, according to him, it has been estimated that the Muslim population in India will take another 1000 years to surpass the Hindu population. In 1951, the Hindu population was 30 crores more than the Muslim population and in 2021, the Hindu population exceeds that of Muslims by 80 crores, Qureshi said.

The apprehension that Muslims will become the majority community in the coming days is allayed. Absolute unfair and false propaganda is being circulated. The backwardness of the Bihar state is even attributed to the population explosion by Muslims, he added.

Christians are alleged to be raising their population which is also a myth. In 1971 Christian communities were 2.6% of the population and in 2021, they are 2.3 percent of the country’s population. The myth that Hindus are going to lose their majoritarian status is dispelled, Qureshi said.

During Kandhamal violence, women were raped and tortured; their right to live peacefully was taken away from them under duress. The pain and suffering they have gone through are incomprehensible.

“The riot has given us scope to recommit ourselves. In such a situation, we have to come together. The memory of gruesome violence has faded away from the memory of our political leaders, the growing power and the impunity that the perpetrators of crime are enjoying are shameful and horrific,” said Aruna Gnanadason, a former director of the global programme on Women in Church and Society of the World Council of Churches, Geneva.

According to her, “To be a minority is a threat to existence. Women have woken up to reality. They are consolidating their actions in response to the grim reality. But a lot of women are still not able to make a desirable impact; this remains a challenge for a human rights activist in India. Some communities are routinely targeted.”

“The saga of discrimination continues, recently in the wake of turmoil in Afghanistan, our Prime minister made a declaration to bring all Hindus and Sikhs trapped in the war-torn country safely back to India but he did not mention Indian Muslims who is still there. Malignance is loud and clear. We need to recognize the fact that there is an organized process employed to bring more alienation for this community taking advantage of all situations. We need to plan to reach general justice. Our country has already earned a disreputable tag of “country of concern”, our nation certainly doesn’t deserve this soubriquet,” she said.

Bhasha Singh, an independent journalist and writer, said, “Caged bird can still sing. Those who want to save democracy should know that humanity is still alive. The violence multiplies and is severe if the communities happen to be Dalit, Adivasi and minorities. There is added hatred and crime for these communities.”

Dayamani Barla, a tribal journalist and activist from the Indian state of Jharkhand, said, “Our fundamental rights are openly attacked. Fr Stan Swamy is our inspiration; he has shown us the way and given us purpose to fight against corporatization of land, water and forest with all our might.”

“The institutions formed to safeguard human rights and justice decades back are now in control of power holders. We should strive to reclaim these institutions as they are essential for democracy to function,” said Henri Tiphange, the founder and executive director of People’s Watch.

A New Delhi-based journalist and human rights activist John Dayal said the nation has forgotten the anti-Sikh riot of 1984, the Gujarat riot of 2002 and the Kandhamal violence of 2008.

Supreme Court of India, National Human Rights Commission India and National Commission for Minorities have no role these days. They have a mere ritualistic presence and their only role is protecting the regime, he said.

During the webinar, the Delhi-based Peoples Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) received the first Kandhamal Award for Human Rights.

PUCL has worked tirelessly over the past 30 years to protect the powerless and help create a truly democratic and just society, NSF said in a press release.

PUCL is a human rights body formed in 1976 by Jayaprakash Narayan, a Gandhian and proponent of Total Revolution. Initially, it was called the People’s Union for Civil Liberties and Democratic Rights.

The Individual award for Human Rights was given to Paul Pradhan, a towering Adivasi leader of Odisha, for his lifetime, work in uniting and mobilizing the Adivasi, Dalit and farmworkers of Kandhamal district against exploitation and targeted violence. He died July 10 this year. He was 72.

“We can still retrieve humanity. There is erosion in the values of the institutions that were created years back. Ideology has come from feudal values; caste and gender are the big edifices built to sustain hate. Counter hate, love is natural, hate is constructed,” said Ram Punyani, convener of the National Solidarity Forum (NSF).

More than 300 people across the nation attended the webinar organized by NSF, a consortium of 70 civil society groups in India.