» 10/16/2008 15:02 INDIA Sangh Parivar wants to remove every Christian trace in Orissa <http://www.asianews.it/index.php?l=en&art=13497&size=A>http://www.asianews.it/index.php?l=en&art=13497&size=A
by Nirmala Carvalho
Christians are not allowed to pray even in
government-run refugee camps. The ground on which
homes and churches once stood are taken over and
“cleansed” of every trace of violence. Hindus
tell raped nun to marry her rapist. The hue and
cry is still on for Christians.
Emacs!
Bhubaneshwar (AsiaNews) – The Hindu
fundamentalist groups that have been involved for
more than a month in Orissa’s anti-Christian
pogrom are becoming more methodical. Sometimes
with police assistance they prevent Christians
from meeting to pray, try to murder new converts,
and are trying to take over the land where
churches and Christian homes once stood in order
to wipe off the face of the earth any trace of
Christian presence. Whilst Indian public opinion
is shocked by the violence, especially by the
rape of a nun, Hindu radicals want to reintroduce
a tribal law that would have the rape victim marry her rapist.
The destruction of 180 churches and 4,500 homes,
burnt and razed to the ground, and the 50,000
refugees this has generated are but the first
chapter in a programme whose ultimate goal is to
do away with Christianity in this state from the
roots up. Christians are treated like criminals
even in refugee camps set up by the government for those who fled their homes.
After visiting three such camps, Fr Ajay Singh,
director of Jan Vikas, a centre for social action
run by the diocese of Cuttack-Bhubaneshwar, told
AsiaNews that “our people are being treated like
animals. They have been given just one blanket
per family and sanitation and hygiene are simply
non-existent. But what is even more tragic is the
fact that they are not even allowed to pray, and
are instead closely monitored by security forces.
Women are particularly vulnerablethey are not
allowed to get any counselling so that their
emotional health is deteriorating rapidly.”
Outside, in the villages already destroyed by the
Hindu fundamentalist fury, things are not getting
any better. According to eyewitness accounts
collected by the Global Council of Indian
Christians (GCIC), the Sangh Parivar (an umbrella
organisation of Hindu extremist groups) has began
“cleansing” the land where Christians had their
homes and churches, torched to the ground in the past weeks.
They are even pulling out the bricks from
foundations, filling up holes in the ground,
removing marks indicating demarcation lines of
fields owned by Christians so as to divide them up among themselves.
“Their goal is to use fraudulent means to take
over Christian property,” said GCIC Chairman
Sajan K George, “showing that there was no
Christian presence, no Christian house, no
Christian church. I am concerned that they might
start building Hindu temples on land where
Christian homes and churches once stood.”
For him behind this purge there might be another
motive. “Hindu radicals want to hide from public
opinion the evidence of their brutality against
innocent people now that Indians have seen what their attacks have done.”
Indian newspapers are in fact full of stories
describing the tragic events, especially Hindu
violence against women, with the rape of a nun as the lowest point.
In response to public criticism for its inaction
in this case, Orissa state authorities have held
three Hindu activists, Mitu Patnaik, Saroj Ghadai
and Munna Ghadai, who were arrested in Kerala a
month after the fact. All three are from Baliguda (Orissa).
In view of the gravity of the situation Hindu
fundamentalist publications and organisations
have launched a campaign to play down the facts.
Lal Krishna Advani, leader of the
fundamentalist-friendly Bharatiya Janata Party
(BJP), condemned the rape as a “shameful crime”
but other related groups like the Bajrang Dal are
raising doubts, saying that the he nun might have been “consenting”.
Last Monday also saw five thousand radical Hindu
women demonstrate in K Nuagaon demanding that
“the victim marry her rapist in accordance with local tradition.”
As if this was not enough the anti-Christian
campaign has opened a new chapter in its attempt
to stop conversions to Christianity, forcing
instead new converts to re-convert to Hinduism by threats of violence
Last Sunday a student association, the Kandhamal
Chatra Sangharsa Samiti, called for a moratorium
on conversions by Christian NGOs to honour the
late Swami Laxamananda Saraswati whose lifetime
work (for 45 years) was to stop Christian conversions.
It was his murder by a Maoist group that
unleashed the anti-Christian rage because Hindu
fundamentalists blamed Christians for his death.
As part of this campaign Hindu fanatics in
Kandhamal district have prepared a
reconvert-or-die list that includes people like
Pabitra Mohan Katta, a man from Adigar village.
Ten years ago Pabitra was a follower of Swami
Laxamananda and a member of the Vishwa Hindu
Parishad (VHP) before he became a Christian. On
26 August his home was set on fire but he managed
to get out unscathed thanks to his Hindu
brother’s intervention. A few days later his
brother’s home was however torched as well.
Meanwhile some Christians are “reconverting” (see
photo) to Hinduism, forced to burn Bibles and
prayer books, have their heads shaved, coerced
into drinking cow urine (to purify them), placed
for days under the watchful eye of Hindu groups
so that they do not have any contacts with their former co-religionists.
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Lord, may everything we do begin with Your
inspiration and continue with Your help,
so that all our prayers and works may begin in You and by You be happily ended.
We ask this through Christ our Lord.
Amen.
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