Orissa Violence: Kandhamal reports from NDTV

As Kandhmal continues to simmer with sporadic incidents of violence around 30,000 Christian run schools and colleges across the country will be closed on Friday as part of the All India protest by Christians against the violence there. In West Bengal, Christian organisations will demonstrate before the Orissa Bhavan. In reaction to the violence, there has already been a police reshuffle in the conflict-torn district with the former DCP of Cuttack moving in as the new superintendent of police of Kandhmal. The Orissa assembly is expected to take up a no-confidence motion by the Congress against the Navin Patnaik government’s handling of the situation.

Shoot at sight in Kandhmal, 20 killed Shoot-at-sight order issued in Kandhmal More Videos…   Violence subsiding in Orissa, curfew relaxed Amid signs of subsiding violence in Orissa’s riot-ravaged Kandhamal that left 10 people dead, relief camps and free kitchens were opened in six places and curfew was relaxed in some areas. In the wake of many of its MLAs and ministers demanding party’s withdrawal from the coalition government, senior BJP leaders met Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik seeking a thorough probe into the killing of VHP leader Laxmananda Saraswati instead of presuming Maoist involvement in the crime. They said the real culprits should not be shielded at any cost. While their demand was seen as a pressure tactics to regain the party’s diminishing importance in ruling combine, BJP general secretary in-charge of Orissa Vinay Katiyar discussed the matter with state unit to resolve the issue. Claiming the situation in Kandhamal was returning to normalcy, the chief minister told the assembly that free kitchen and relief camps were operating in six block areas while security personnel were asked to conduct flag marches to ensure peace and harmony among the people. The riot-affected people were being accommodated in relief camps with adequate police protection, he said, adding that magistrates and police force were being deployed in all sensitive places. While as many as 11 criminal cases had been registered in different police stations of Kandhamal relating to murder, arson and rioting, the total number of criminal cased were 85 across the state. Noting that the government would not spare anyone who took law into hands, Patnaik said 167 people have been arrested so far.

Statement by World Vision India on the situation in Orissa and Comments made by Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh Spokesperson on ‘Face the Nation’ on 26 August, 2008 at 10 pm on CNN-IBN

Press Release:

Statement by World Vision India on the situation in Orissa and Comments made by Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh Spokesperson on ‘Face the Nation’ on 26 August, 2008 at 10 pm on CNN-IBN

 

Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India, Wednesday, August 27, 2008 – (Business Wire India)
We are deeply shocked by the murder of Swami Laxmanananda Saraswathi and others. We strongly condemn this dastardly act of taking life and law into ones own hands and the violence surrounding this. Violence of any kind is never justifiable and only serves to protract the suffering and misery of common people.

World Vision India and its staff have been falsely accused of being party to these the incidents and the following statement is being issued by World Vision India to state the facts of our position;

– The allegations by Mr. Ram Madhav, spokesperson for the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) who appeared on ‘Face the Nation’ on CNN-IBN at 10 pm on 26 August, 2008 are totally false and baseless. World Vision or their staffs is not a party to or participants in the recent violence in Kandhamal district.

– Here are the facts of the situation;

- Two of our staff from the Daringbadi programme were apprehended by a mob on the night of the 23rd August, 2008 when they were on their way to Bhubaneshwar attempting to get out of the area in fear for their lives, as there were rumours of impending violence as in December 2007.

- The police who were patrolling in the area rescued them. In due course, the police verified their identity and purposes with due diligence, before they let them go.

– The above situation has been deliberately twisted and rumours are being spread that these people were apprehended while escaping the scene of the murder. This has been reported in some media and Mr. Ram Madhav made this allegation without a shred of evidence or proof. It is a lie.

World Vision India has been serving the poor in India over the last five decades through relief and development programmes in close cooperation with communities, the government and other NGOs. In Orissa, World Vision has been working in seven districts. As relief and development agency World Vision works closely with several non-governmental organisations, other aid agencies, global institutions and specialised agencies of the United Nations. Our aid workers work closely with the government, NGOs and the community on education, economic development and health. Wherever, World Vision has been involved we have taken special effort to build local capacities for peace building and communal harmony.

World Vision does not engage in proselytising or using aid and development to tamper with people’s faith. World Vision policy expressly prohibits this. World Vision serves all people regardless of religion, caste, race, ethnicity or gender.

We call for everyone concerned, especially the elected leaders of our country and leaders of civil society to come together and seek peace and restore normalcy as quickly as possible. Divisive rumouring does not contribute to healing our land and is not in the best interest of the poor of our country.      

For press backgrounder on World Vision India click here

Media contact details

Jayanth Vincent,
World Vision India,
+91 98400-64165,
jayanth_vincent@wvi.org

Shoot at sight in Orissa – I am deeply sad says Gladys Staines

Glydes Staines

Sydney, Aug 27

(IANS) She lost her husband and sons to a mob that torched them while they were sleeping in their vehicle in India’s Orissa state. Almost a decade later, Gladys Staines, the widow of Australian missionary Graham Staines, says she is “deeply saddened” as sectarian violence again grips the state that will forever be close to her heart.

“Hopefully, people will learn to respect each other and live in communal harmony across the religious divide. I pray that the government is able to bring peace to the region,” said Gladys, who now lives with her daughter in North Queensland.

“I am deeply saddened by the news of the recent happenings in Orissa, a place which will forever be close to my heart,” Gladys told IANS in an exclusive interview.

At least 11 people have been killed in the eastern Indian state this week after mobs thirsting for revenge for the murder of a leader of the rightwing Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) went on the rampage.

These included a woman killed when an orphanage was burnt and a paralytic patient torched alive. Most of the deaths were in the volatile Kandhamal region.

It was an eerie recall to Jan 22, 1999, when Graham Staines and their two sons, 10-year-old Philip and six-year-old Timothy, were burnt alive by Hindu radical mobs in their vehicle in Keonjhar district.

Four years since Gladys returned to her native land of sunshine and beaches, she is only now beginning to feel settled as her heart remains embedded thousands of miles away in India, where she spent over 20 years of her life.

She is in regular touch with the staff at the Mayurbhanj Leprosy Home and the Graham Staines Memorial Hospital in Orissa.

“I was in Orissa during May this year. It was like a homecoming. I spent 10 days, wish it was longer, enveloped in the warmth of the people who still affectionately address me as `didi’.”

Gladys, who has always believed that “forgiving helps in the healing process”, contemplated for a moment when asked when asked about what must we do to stop this present cycles of killings across the world: “We need to learn to love and respect one another even if some are different to what we are.

“Certainly, god has helped me to forgive. He has created each one of us and he doesn’t want us to be killing each other. Unless we give up the bitterness and prejudices, the cycle of violence will never end.”

In December last year, Gladys had expressed her concerns about increasing sectarian tension in Orissa, where Hindus and Christians have often clashed, in a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

The prime minister had assured her in a written reply: “The government will take all necessary steps to safeguard the fundamental rights and liberties of all sections of our society and protect their religious freedom. We will not tolerate any efforts aimed at disturbing the communal harmony or secular fabric of our country.”

Gladys also feels that the media can flare or calm a situation.

“Responsible reporting of unadulterated truth can go a long way in calming sectarian tensions, but at the same time sensationalising facts can flare up a situation.”

Will Gladys return to live in India or only make regular visits is something she hasn’t pondered upon yet? For now, she has regained her Australian nursing registration and plans to devote herself to caring for the sick in a hospital.

Shoot at sight orders issued to end violence in Orissa

Bhubaneswar, Aug 27 (IANS) Shoot at sight orders were issued Wednesday in Orissa’s Kandhamal district as mobs defied curfew, blocked roads and attacked churches and Christian homes to avenge the killing of a Hindu leader.

“We have given orders to shoot at sight anybody defying curfew and indulging in violence,” Revenue Divisional Commissioner Satyabrata Sahu told IANS as the violence raged mostly in isolated rural hamlets.

But despite curfew in most parts of the district, mobs set up road blocks and also set fire to churches and vehicles, officials and witnesses said.

The latest outbreak of violence was reported from rural areas where the police have failed to reach, Sahu said.

The death toll in the communal violence meanwhile rose to 11 after officials recovered three more bodies of people attacked this week. But local sources said the number of dead could be more.

One body was discovered from Phiringia and another from Raikia in the district.

“One of them had died Monday and the other Tuesday. Both died after mobs attacked them,” said Kandhamal district collector Kishan Kumar.

A third person was rescued in a critical condition and died Tuesday night in hospital, Kumar told IANS.

Stray incidents of violence were reported Tuesday night and the situation was tense in many areas in the district, about 340 km from here, he said.

Police and paramilitary forces marched through the troubled towns of the district Wednesday. Orders under section 144, which prohibits the assembly of four or more people, have been clamped across the area.

Minister of State for Home Sri Prakash Jaiswal and other Congress leaders are scheduled to visit the region Wednesday.

Orissa has been on the boil since the killing of Swami Laxmananand Saraswati, a member of the central advisory committee of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), and four others Saturday evening by suspected Maoist guerrillas at his Jalespata ashram in the district.

On Monday, the VHP called for a statewide shutdown. Since then, 11 people have been killed in the state, 10 in Kandhamal alone.

On Tuesday, Hindus and Christians clashed in the district’s Barakhama village leaving four people, including a woman, dead.

Besides the three bodies just discovered, two people were killed in Tiangia village on Monday – though police could reach only Tuesday as the villagers had blocked the road with massive wooden logs.

Another person, a paralytic patient, was lynched and burnt in Rupa village Sunday night.

Violence also reared its ugly head in Bargarh district, about 300 km from here, when a woman was burnt alive after mobs torched an orphanage in Khuntpali village Monday — when several churches were burnt and rail and road traffic impacted.

Saraswati was leading a campaign against cow slaughter and religious conversion in the communally sensitive district – which with a population of around 600,000 including 150,000 Christians has witnessed numerous clashes between Hindus and Christians in the past.

Radical Hindu groups in the state blamed the Church for the crime and alleged that Christians killed Saraswati because he was opposing religious conversion. Christian organisations deny these allegations.

Saraswati’s supporters have been holding protests since Saturday night, blocking trains and vehicles. Orissa is not new to communal violence between Hindus and Christians.

On Jan 22, 1999, Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two sons, 10-year-old Philip and six-year-old Timothy, were burnt alive by Hindu radical mobs in their vehicle in Keonjhar district.

IANS

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Vishwa Hindu Parishad leader, four others shot dead

Indian state erupts in violence after Hindu shot

By CNN’s Saeed Ahmed

(CNN) — The remote east Indian state of Orissa — historically a tinderbox of Hindu-Christian tensions — erupted in violence this week after gunmen killed a Hindu leader and mobs burned churches in retaliation.

Four days of communal clashes left at least five people dead. Authorities have imposed a curfew and ordered security forces to shoot violators on sight.

Pope Benedict XVI “firmly condemned” the fighting and urged the state’s residents to “re-establish with the members of the various communities the peaceful cohabitation and the harmony that has always been the distinctive mark of the Indian society.”

The Hindu leader, Laxmananda Saraswati, and four others were killed Saturday in the Kandhamal district when up to 30 gunmen barged into a Hindu school and opened fire, Orissa’s chief minister’s office said.

Authorities have not definitively determined who killed Saraswati, but they detained five Christian people after the incident, said Sukanta Panda, spokesman for the chief minister.

The government said the killings may have been the work of Maoist rebels, but hardline Hindus blamed the Christian minority.

They took to the streets in anger, rampaging through predominantly Christian neighborhoods, ransacking shops and torching houses. They chopped down trees to block roads, making it difficult for police to reach trouble spots. Christian residents fought back.

By Wednesday an eerie calm prevailed, but both Hindu and Christian leaders said they were bracing for the worst.

“The state is a mute spectator to the violence that has been unleashed in the Christian community,” Joseph D’Souza, president of the All India Christian Council, told CNN Wednesday.

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Amit Sharma, of the hardline Vishwa Hindu Parishad (World Hindu Council), said Hindu people in the area had taken the death of the Swami (religious leader) “very seriously, and now they are going to pay them back.”

Orissa, on the east coast of India, is a poor state with a population of about 36.7 million: 94 percent are Hindu, with little more than two percent Christian.

However, for thousands converting to another religion — such as Christianity or Islam — is the only way out of the confines of Hinduism’s centuries-old complex caste system.

The caste system dictates a Hindu’s lot in life, elevating some to positions as priests and labeling others as ‘untouchables.’

Some Hindu groups accuse missionaries of bribing or forcing Hindus into converting.

“There is no forcible conversion,” said D’Souza of the All India Christian Council. “This is nothing but pure political hate propaganda against the Christians when the root problem is, of course, caste oppression.”

The simmering anger sometimes boils over — with deadly consequences.

In 1999, a Hindu mob burned to death an Australian missionary, Graham Staines, and his two children while they slept inside their car.

Last Christmas clashing groups killed four people and burned several churches in Kandhamal.

D’Souza said Saraswati “piloted” the Christmas communal violence and had carried out a “vicious campaign against the Christians.”

Sharma, of the World Hindu Council, said missionaries were threatened by Saraswati’s growing influence.

“He was doing a good job of propagating the bright points of Hinduism and the missionaries were not able to convert the tribal people as effectively as they were doing previously,” Sharma said. “So they decided to do away with him.”

Investigators, however, have raised the possibility that Maoists rebels may be to blame.

The rebels, who claim to be fighting for the poor and the dispossessed, have been battling the government in an insurgency that has resulted in thousands of casualties since the late 1960s.

However, Hindu groups insist Christians was behind Saraswati’s death.

“It is clear that the church killed the Swami,” the Hindu council’s general secretary, Praveen Togadia, told reporters. “The rest of what happened is something the government needs to investigate and tell the people of India.”

On Monday, Hindu hard-liners declared a general strike, prompting banks and markets to close across the state.

Mourners marched to a Christian orphanage and set it on fire. A 20-year-old woman, who was teaching children inside, burned to death, Panda said.

The next day, armed Hindus and Christians fired at each other, resulting in four more deaths, he said.

Both sides said the communal violence had destroyed Christian churches and Hindu temples.

The violence spread to the state capital, Bhubaneshwar — about 140 miles (225 km) away.

Father Pius Fernandes said mobs threw stones at a children’s school and ransacked a nearby college.

“I would say the violence is seven times worse [than in December],” he said. “I mean, the government is trying its best. But it’s like a mad frenzy. They are just destroying everything.”

Vatican condemns anti-Christian violence by Hindu extremists in Orissa

Rhys Blakely, Bombay

The Vatican has condemned the burning to death of a Christian orphanage worker in eastern India by Hindu extremists. The murder of the 21-year-old woman was part of a wave of anti-Christian rioting that has now claimed at least 11 lives in the eastern state of Orissa.

The violence was triggered by the death on Saturday of Swami Lakhmananda Saraswati, a prominent Hindu leader. He and four others were shot by suspected Maoist militants, according to police. (Timesonline)

Followers of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), the extremist group for which Saraswati was a figurehead, retaliated through attacks on scores of Christian targets, including murders, rapes and the destruction of dozens of churches, locals say.

Saraswati had been at the forefront of a campaign to prevent low-caste Hindus and tribal villagers from converting to Christianity. The riots took place after claims by Hindu hardliners that “Christian militants” were behind his death.

Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, a senior Vatican official, called the attacks on Christian targets “a sin against God and humanity”. He added: “Certainly religion cannot be invoked for crimes of this type.”

In an official statement the Vatican said it “expresses its solidarity with local Churches and the religious orders involved, and condemns these actions, which are an affront to dignity, peoples’ freedom, and endanger peaceful civil coexistence.”

It also condemned the killing of Saraswati.

The Rome-based Italian missionary agency Misna said that it had received reports that two Jesuit priests had been abducted in the area but had no further details.

The Orissa state authorities tried to calm the violence on Tuesday by imposing a region-wide curfew. After the crackdown was widely violated “shoot-on-sight orders” were issued, according to Satyabrata Sahu, the district administrator.

However, local Christian leaders say that their communities remain in danger.

Dr Joseph D’souza, President of the All India Christian Council, said: “The current number and distribution of security forces in Orissa is nothing like enough to deal with the problem.

“We appeal to the international community to raise their voices to bring peace in an area where more people will die unless something is done urgently.”

Orissa has a dark history of inter-religious unrest, often triggered by Hindu suspicion of Christian missionaries.

Saraswati and his followers were widely implicated in the anti-Christian violence that blighted the Kandhamal district of the state over the Christmas of 2007 in which 95 churches were razed and several people killed. The chapter, said to have been triggered by an alleged assault on Saraswati, was branded the worst anti-Christian violence in India since Independence.

WRAPUP 1-More killed in India religious riots, Pope saddened

* Police ordered to shoot rioters on sight

* More deaths as violence spreads to new districts

* Pope condemns killings

 By Jatindra Dash

BHUBANESWAR, India, Aug 27 (Reuters) – Police were ordered to shoot rioters on sight in an eastern Indian state on Wednesday to tame rising violence between Hindus and Christians that has killed 11 people so far and left the Pope “profoundly saddened”.

Three bodies were found overnight in Orissa’s rural Kandhamal district, where Hindu mobs have damaged more than a dozen churches and attacked Christian homes and an orphanage this week.

The violence, now spreading to new districts, was sparked by the murder of a Hindu leader in Kandhamal, a tribal area where Christian missionaries have been active for years.

The murdered leader had been heading a local campaign to reconvert Hindus and tribal people from Christianity.

Authorities extended a curfew and issued orders to police to shoot on sight any troublemaker in 11 towns of Kandhamal.

Most of the dead so far have been Christians.

Hundreds of police marched through Kandhamal to maintain calm, but the violence spread to nearby districts with Hindus attacking Christians and the two groups clashing in some places.

Religious violence has roiled Kandhamal region for years with Hindu and Christian groups fighting over religious conversion.

Hardline Hindus accuse Christian priests of bribing poor tribes and low-caste Hindus to change their faith. Christian groups say lower-caste Hindus who convert do so willingly to escape the highly stratified and oppressive Hindu caste system.

Pope Benedict condemned the violence against Christians but also deplored the killing of the Hindu leader.

“While I firmly condemn every attack on human life, whose sacredness required respect by all, I express my spiritual closeness and solidarity to the brothers and sisters in the faith who are so sorely tried,” he told pilgrims and tourists in the Vatican City.

 RELIGIOUS TURF WAR?

India’s constitution is secular, but most of its billion-plus citizens are Hindu. About 2.5 percent of Indians are Christians.

But around the Kandhamal area, home to around 650,000 people, more than 20 percent of the mainly tribal inhabitants are Christian converts. 

Orissa police inspector general Pradeep Kapoor said sporadic violence was being reported from the state’s other districts such as Baragarh, Bolangir, Raigada and Gajapati.

Violence erupted after armed men killed the Hindu leader linked to the main opposition Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and four others last week.

Police blamed the killings on local Maoist rebels taking sides in a controversy over religious conversions, but Hindus say Christians were to blame.

The worst violence was reported from Kandhamal’s Barakhama village on Tuesday, where Hindus and Christians clashed and shot at each other, killing four people. That toll could rise as police look for more bodies and clear out burnt debris.

A top body of Indian bishops said some 25,000 Catholic schools and colleges in India would be closed on Friday in protest against the killings.

There have been attacks on Christians in other parts of Orissa and India as well in previous years. In 1999, a Hindu mob killed Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two children by burning them in their car in Orissa. (Writing by Krittivas Mukherjee; Editing by Alistair Scrutton and Alex Richardson)

Church Helps Flood Victims In Bihar

MUZAFFARPUR, India (UCAN) — Several Catholic Church centers and parishes have been affected by unexpected floods in the eastern Indian state of Bihar.

Father Maria Selvam, director of Muzaffarpur diocese’s Social Service Centre, says the floods that started Aug. 20 have affected around 1 million people in the state’s northern region. Bettiah, Muzaffarpur and Purnea dioceses cover the region.
Father Selvam told UCA News on Aug. 25 that a breach on Aug. 28 in a dam on the Kosi River in Nepal triggered the floods, which he said have “trapped” seven parishes and half a dozen mission centers of the diocese. “Still our priests and nuns are striving hard to help people with whatever they have, despite being in trouble themselves,” the diocesan priest added.

Among the affected are some 60 leprosy patients of Sneha Dham (abode of compassion), a hospital in Muraliganj, a village in Madhepura district, 1,200 kilometers east of New Delhi. The Missionaries of Charity Brothers, founded by Blessed Teresa of Kolkata, manage the 26-year-old facility.

When Brother Ignatius, head of the local brothers’ community, spoke with UCA News on Aug. 24, he said the hospital was under 2.5 meters of water. The flooding had forced some 100 villagers to seek shelter there.

The Religious said they stitched plastic bags together to make a canopy on their roof to shelter the leprosy patients. He explained the hospital was able to feed the people, since it usually stores provisions for a month. But it could not renew its daily supply of perishable items such as milk and vegetables.

“Even fuel wood was procured from the market. The floods have blocked all movements of people and goods,” Brother Ignatius said. But he added that the leaders of Muzaffarpur diocese, which covers the area, had assured help.

Father Joseph Moses, pastor of Sakhua parish, who is engaged in relief work, told UCA News on Aug. 25 that they are using boats to bring beaten rice, corn and other items to the affected villagers. “Army helicopters sometimes drop food packets,” he reported, but he did not think these were enough for the flood victims.

According to Father Aby Abraham, pastor of the diocese’s Saharsha parish, half a dozen Church hostels for tribal children are among the worst-affected sites. The youngsters “have taken shelter on rooftops as their schools and hostels are marooned,” the Indian Missionary Society priest told UCA News. “They can’t cook and so have been starving for days.”

Father Abraham said local villagers brought food packets for the children. “It is a common scenario that flood victims loot government relief materials. But in our case the flood victims, though hungry themselves, provided us boats and men to ferry food articles to the hostel children,” he added.

The priest revealed that some villagers told him they would have looted the food packets if they were not meant for the hostel children. The priest and children offered Sunday Mass on Aug. 24 for the villagers, he added.

Father Alex Kurissummootil, pastor of Khagaria, another parish of Muzaffarpur diocese, told UCA News that Church people as well as the government became “complacent” after the region was spared the usual July floods. However, the breach in the 60-year-old Kosi dam caused an unexpected and devastating manmade calamity.

The priest said the river has taken a new course after the flooding, affecting hundreds of villages. “Their inhabitants are in panic since they have never faced flood vagaries,” he explained. “Church relief teams and government official now advise the people to move out to safer places.”

Father Valerian Deepak Tauro, secretary to the Muzaffarpur bishop, told UCA News the diocese has asked for national and international aid agencies to help meet the needs related to the “unprecedented floods.”

Dal Khalsa warns that anti-Christian violence in Orissa was preplanned and more is on its way

Christian leaders say India’s largest incident of sustained anti-Christian violence, which rendered thousands homeless in Orissa State, was preplanned.

The violence began on Christmas Eve, with an attack on a Catholic church in Brahmani village, and continued until January 2. Christian leaders told the National Human Rights Commission that:

• 9 people had been were killed
• 90 churches burned
• 1000 houses torched or vandalized
• Thousands displaced.

The main hindutava terrorists outfits involved violence were

• RSS (Rashtirya Swayamsevak Sangh).
• Shiv Sena.
• Bajrang dal.
• other small Hindu terrorist outfits.

Before the series of attacks warning signs were their that tensions were created between the Christian and Hindu deliberately by the sang parivar family of Hindu terrorist organization.Christians and Sikh leaders had warned about this before.

Below is an statement from SIMRANJIT SINGH MANN leader SAD (A) the main Sikh political party.

 

Full report at http://www.panthic.org/news/125/ARTICLE/3693/2007-11-21.html

During Christmas week, local Christians had urged district authorities to provide police protection. Their pleas went unheeded.

On Christmas Eve, violence broke out against Christians in the Kandhamal district of the eastern Indian state of Orissa, which has become well known for poor governance and class tensions. Hindu fundamentalist groups led by the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP, the World Hindu Council) have attacked Christians and their institutions at will in rural areas.

VHP, the World Hindu Council claims that reasons for the violence were following:

• Forceful Conversion Saraswati told media on December 25 that the reason for the violence was Forceful conversions by area Christians.
• Allegedly attack on Swami Laxmananda by christians.

Bajrang Dal and Shiv sena claims that reasons for the violence were following:

• Forceful Conversion.
• Foreign influence India.
• Christianity has no place in India.

 

Forceful Conversion

But Christians deny the claims and accuse the Hindus of objecting to them celebrating Christmas.
The BBC’s Tinku Ray in Delhi says the issue of conversions is very sensitive in India, where several states have laws that forbid or make it difficult to convert.

• Their has been no proven case of forceful conversion in India by Christians.
• Their has only been senseless killing of Christians and the Dalits by Hindu terrorists .

 

Real reason Hindu terrorists organization want nothing less then a 100% Hindu nation assimilation and killing is part of their plan.we call all communities to rise up to this fanaticism.

This is from the RSS’s own site in which they out line their plan for the future.

This is not an R.S.S. invention. It has been there for centuries. This is recognized also by our constitution. Explanation II given under Article 25 says, “In sub-clause (b) of clause (2) the reference to Hindus shall be construed as including a reference to persons professing the Sikh, Jain or Buddhist religion, and the reference to Hindu religious institutions shall be construed accordingly.” It should be noted that the Hindu Code Bill, though it contains the word ‘Hindu’, is applicable to Sikhs, Jains and Buddhists. We desire that it should be applicable to all.

http://www.rss.org:8080/New_RSS/Mission_Vision/RSS_on_Minorities.jsp

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usliOrhJGu8

Blind faith? Fragile peace blown to bits in Orissa

CNN-IBN

Religion has split Orissa and the divide is murderous. Several people have been killed in communal clashes in Kandhamal district after the murder of a Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) leader on Saturday.

The VHP called for a statewide shutdown in the state on Monday during which churches, prayer houses and vehicles were attacked in many places.

The communal tension began after Swami Laxmananand Saraswati, a member of VHP’s central advisory committee, and four others were murdered by suspected Naxals in Kandhamal district.

Police and paramilitary forces are on guard in towns of Kandhamal district. Section 144, which prohibits the assembly of four or more people, has been clamped across Kandhamal.

Saraswati was leading a campaign against cow slaughter and religious conversion in the communally sensitive district. Rightwing Hindu groups allege that Christians killed Saraswati because he opposed conversion. Christian organisations reject such allegations.

In one of the worst attacks, a Christian woman died and a priest was severely burnt when a mob set fire to an orphanage run by Christian missionaries in Bargarh district on Monday.

The incident again brought shame to the state. Nine years ago, Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two young sons were burnt alive by a Hindu mob in Keonjhar district.

What has caused the communal divide in Orissa? Is religion to blame or politics? Are conversions pitting Hindus against Christians? CNN-IBN’s Sagarika Ghose asked this on Face The Nation.

The guests on the show were: RSS spokesperson Ram Madhav, Reverend Dr Richard Howell, general secretary of the Evangelical Fellowship of India, and Professor Manoranjan Mohanty, of the Council for Social Development.

Madhav was infuriated at allegations that Hindu groups were targeting missionaries and Christians in Orissa. “The situation is quite different. Hindus are at the receiving end. A highly respected saint was killed. There is enough evidence to prove the complicity of Christian organisations in the murder,” he claimed.

Howell rejected the Madhav’s allegation and claimed conversion has become an excuse to attack Christians and malign them. “The VHP gets the maximum amount of money India than Christians. Christians have used money to serve and empower the poor and marginalized. Not a single case has been proved till date in the courts of forced conversion (by Christian groups),” he said.

The issue is not religion but poverty, said Professor Mohanty. “Kandhamal is one of the poorest regions in the country. Seventy per cent people here are below the poverty line; 51 per cent are tribals and 16 per cent are Dalits,” he said.

It is a situation of poverty and landlessness, both among Hindus and Christians. Orissa has become the experiment ground of globalisation, economic reforms, mega projects and Hindutva politics.”

Hindu groups are not to blame for the violence and the state is in turmoil because of Christian missionaries, alleged Madhav. “Every conversion in Orissa has to be registered with the local police or magistrate but no such thing happens. Where is the chance for Hindutva politics when missionaries are going about aggressively and alluring people,” he said.

The Sangh Parivar doesn’t hate conversions as much as it does Christians, alleged Howell. “An ideology of hatred has been propagated by some sections of the Sangh Parivar. They don’t hate Christian service; it is the very identity of being a Christian that is hated. There are just 2.4 per cent Christians in India and we too have contributed to the growth of the country.”

Christians are not hated, insisted Madhav. “Every religion is respected in this country but Christians criticise and attack Hindu religion. It this attitude of Christians which is leading to tension in this country,” he alleged.

The communal divide in Orissa’s tribal districts is the result of poverty and “competitive politics”, said Mohanty. “The shrinking rights of tribals over forests and land and the coming of mega projects is the economic issue there. They are all poor there and poverty is being diverted to communalism. It is competitive politics,” he said.

Madhav called such an analysis wrong. “There is a clear cut division between Hindus and Christians and it is because of their (missionaries) wrongdoing and Congress leaders. A holy person is killed and the very next day the Congress tables a no-confidence motion against the state government—what does it suggest? The Congress is a part of a larger political conspiracy,” he alleged.

Howell announced Christian institutions in the country would close on August 29 to protest against the attacks in Orissa. “I hope the civil society wakes up before it’s too late,” he said.

Madhav said Christian groups were free to shut their schools and institutions but they must also shut “proselytization” activity.

“Do not make this a Christian versus Hindu issue. We must go into the sources of violence,” said Mohanty.

Check the video cli8ps here: http://www.ibnlive.com/videos/72250/.html

Related links:

• Patil tour of Kandhamal expected, district restive
• Orissa’s Kandhamal district continues to be tense
• Orissa clashes premeditated: Minority Commission

Orissa violence continues

More people have been killed in violence against Christians in the Indian state of Orissa while India’s bishops have announced a day of prayer and fasting for peace.

UCA News reports Catholic education institutions across India have decided to close on August 29 to protest continuing violence against Christians in Orissa state.

The Church will also observe September 7 as a day of prayer and fasting for Christians in the eastern Indian state, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India (CBCI) announced at a press conference in New Delhi yesterday.

Cardinal Varkey Vithayathil of Ernakulam-Angamaly, CBCI president, has appealed to all Catholic groups to organise “peaceful rallies across the country to register strong protest against the repeated attacks” on Christians.

Reports reaching the Orissa state capital of Bhubaneswar, 1,745 kilometers southeast of New Delhi, indicate no letup in the anti-Christian violence. Church people told UCA News on August 25 and 26 that at least five people have died in the latest attacks. They recounted how armed men ransacked and torched churches, presbyteries, convents and Christian healthcare centres and hostels in the state.

Hindu radicals took to violence after a Hindu religious leader, Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati, and five of his associates were killed on August 23 in the state’s Kandhamal district.

Maoists reportedly claimed responsibility for the killings, UCA News says, but some Hindu groups have alleged Christians masterminded the killing, a charge all Christian churches and denominations have denied.

Bidhan Nayak, a Catholic social worker in Kandhamal, told UCA News that Hindu radicals killed one person in Badimunda village. He says that violence continues unabated in the district. Despite a curfew, armed Hindu activists roam around the area “in a one-sided attack,” he added.

Fr Alphonse Toppo, vicar general of Sambalpur diocese, told UCA News that a mob burned to death Rajani Majhi, a 20 year old nurse at a hospital for children afflicted by leprosy, in Bargarh parish. The mob also beat up Father Edward Sequeira, the hospital director.

In another incident, two Catholics and a Hindu were killed at Tiangia village in Betticola parish, under Cuttack-Bhubaneswar archdiocese. Dasharath Pradhan, the Hindu, was a Christian sympathiser, Father Manoj Kumar Nayak, who hails from the village, told UCA News.

Meanwhile, the Holy See has expressed “solidarity to the churches and religious congregations” of India, victimised by violence.

It has called on everyone to rebuild an “atmosphere of dialogue and mutual respect.” The Indian Church and the Sisters of Mother Teresa have welcomed the appeal for reconciliation, but in Orissa the acts of destruction, including the burning of homes, churches and Christian institutions, keep rising.

SOURCE

Five Killed As Anti-Christian Violence Continues In Orissa (UCA News, 26/8/08)

Orissa: Vatican expresses solidarity to victims; Indian bishop calls events shameful for the state (AsiaNews, 26/8/08)

Orissa: Hindus torch Christian homes and churches, three die asphyxiated (AsiaNews, 26/8/08) 

ARCHIVE

Indian church workers raped, killed (CathNews, 26/8/08)