DOWN THE DARK ROAD

Ravik Bhattacharya

CASTE CONUNDRUM
THE trigger to the violence in Kandhamal may have been Saraswati’s murder but it has been stoked by a simmering resentment between the district’s two main communities: the Kondhs and the Panas. At its heart lies a tale of caste equations and a fight for land.
Though both the tribal Kondhs and the Dalit Panas converted to Christianity, the distance between the two has grown in the last decade. The Kondhs may be more in number but the Panas are more prosperous and that has now become a major cause of conflict. Matters have worsened in the last few years with the Panas demanding more rights. According to the law, the Kondhs who converted to Christianity continue to have a right to their land but the Dalit Panas who converted to Christianity, lose their SC status.
The Christian Panas have been demanding the same status and rights as the Christian Kondhs. The Panas say that since they speak the tribal language Kui, they too should get the benefits given to the tribal Kondhs. The Panas’s fight got a fresh impetus when in 2002, an amended Presidential order in Orissa declared the ‘Kuis’ to be STs. In June 2007, an NGO called the Phulbani Kui Janakalyan Sangha filed a petition in the Orissa High Court, seeking tribal status for Dalits since they speak the local tribal language, Kui. The organisation forwarded a certificate from the then minister for coal and mines, Padmanava Behere, to press for their cause.
Brahma Behera, president of the Pana Samaj, says, “The Panas speak the same language as the Kondhs and should get the same rights. The recent tension was just waiting to happen as land rights and religion are being mixed up.” On July 12, 2007, the HC asked the government to look into the matter and make the necessary corrections. The state government, however, said that speaking tribal language was not enough to give a community a tribal status. The state government’s explanation came too late for the Kondh tribals, who, opposed to the tribal status for Panas, launched a protest under an umbrella called the Zilla Kui Samanvaya Samity. The Kondhs also grudge the Panas their prosperity.
In fact, in the disgruntled Kondhs, Saraswati, the Kendriya Margdarshak of the VHP who had been working here for the past 40 years, saw an opportunity for re-conversion and he set about trying to woo them back into the Hindu fold.
And with his killing on August 23, the string of conversions, reconversions and competing for rights in Orissa’s tribal heartland snapped.
_Ravik Bhattacharya

(Indian Express)

Fire in Kalinga

It is religious conversion, argues Subhasis Mohanty, which is responsible for the recent communal flare-up in Orissa In the hue and cry that has been raised over the communal flare up in Orissa’s Kandhamal district, the truth has somehow been lost. It is the rampant conversion initiated by Christian missionaries and the sustained opposition to it that led to the killing of the 86-year-old monk and VHP leader Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati. This first sparked the violence.

The Maoists have been blamed for the killing — a Maoist leader has even claimed responsibility – yet the theory seems difficult to believe. As a senior official said: “If the Government tells the truth, a communal riot would erupt across the State and it would not be possible for the Government to check it.”

Religious conversion is the root reason for the violence. The problem is not new to Orissa. Though it was the first State to pass an anti-conversion law, conversion activities continue unabated.

There has been an upsurge in the Christian population in Orissa in the last 25 years — from 1.7 per cent to 2.4 per cent. The number of Christians in the State now stand at 8,97,861. Similarly, the Christian population in Kandhamal — where much of the recent violence happened — has also increased dramatically.

This wasn’t the first attack on Saraswati. The monk had been attacked earlier as well – in 1971, 1995 and even on December 25, 2007. He had launched a yatra in which he exhorted converts to come back to the Hindu fold. He had also started a literacy programme in the tribal dominated district.

After Laxmanananda died on the night of August 23, Hindu mobs attacked churches and prayer houses. A number of villages were torched. Christians too retaliated. Though officials put the death toll at 10, the number could be higher.

There is an ethnic side to the clashes as well. The conflict broke out between Kandhas and Dalit Panas. The Kandhas are mainly ST and most of them are Hindus. Nearly 70 per cent of Dalit Panas (SCs) are Christians. The Panas have now started demanding reservation for themselves, which is being severely opposed by the Kandhas.

The situation arising out of the death of Saraswati has already led to cracks in the BJP. The rank and file want the party to withdraw support to the State Government, with a section of it even staging a dharna. Buckling under sustained pressure from its members and party workers, the BJP leadership has asked the State Government to act tough on stopping conversion and cow slaughter. BJP State president Suresh Pujari called on Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik and submitted a four-point charter of demands. The demands included the immediate arrest of the people who killed Saraswati, and an immediate ban on cow slaughter and conversion.

Meanwhile, worried over the deteriorating law and order situation, chairman of the Ambedkar Lohia Vichar Manch, Sangram Mallick, filed a PIL in the Orissa High Court. Acting on the PIL, the Court directed the State Government to provide protection and all help to the people living in riot hit Kandhamal and its vicinity.

Demanding a CBI probe into the incident, the Utkal Christian Council has also filed a PIL in the High Court demanding that proper security be given to them.

While leader of the Opposition, JB Patnaik, alleged that there was total anarchy in the State, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik insisted that normalcy was slowly returning. “The culprits would not be spared,” he said.

Even though the State Government has deployed forces including the CRPF and RAF in the sensitive areas, violence has been continuing in different parts of Kandhamal. (The pioneer)

In a crucified state

Biswamoy Pati

Orissa is in the news yet again. Except that unlike in December 2007, the news of Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati’s death is real. Nevertheless, very much like the last time, the VHP has gone berserk again. Political murders and killing of Christians (as ‘imagined murderers’) or vandalising churches is unacceptable to any democratic society. The violence inflicted has been meticulously planned and executed over two-three days when the Orissa government and its affiliated agencies seemed overwhelmed by what was going on.

When Mahatma Gandhi had visited coastal Orissa in 1921 he had said: “I was prepared to see skeletons in Orissa but not to the extent I did. I had seen terrible pictures but the reality was too terrible.’ (Young India, April 1921). In fact, if he had visited western Orissa or the Kandhamal region today, he would have echoed this sentiment.

We are talking about a region that has a predominantly tribal and Dalit population, with 70-75 per cent of the people living below the poverty line. In fact, western Orissa is an amazing ‘hinterland’ of contradictions. Along with acute poverty, the region also harbours mega-projects associated with the mining of bauxite needed to produce aluminium. Unfortunately, successive governments in Orissa have been extremely careful about saving their ‘marriage’ with international capital, but have ignored the serious impact of these mega-projects on people’s lives and the region’s environment.

The current BJD-BJP government has suppressed popular initiatives that have questioned the displacement of people and highlighted hazards to the environment. At the same time, it is puzzling that the government is neither interested in nor is serious about maintaining law and order in this western hinterland. And going by Saraswati’s murder and the subsequent killings, political scientists may well argue that what is being witnessed today indicates the breakdown of civil society. However, the deeper question is: has this tract ever seen civil society?

Whoever is responsible for the murder of Saraswati is definitely not interested either in tribals or Dalits. This heinous act would most certainly boost the VHP in a manner comparable to LK Advani’s rath yatra. After all, Saraswati was a major Sangh parivar functionary who had been working among poor tribals since the late 1960s. He had been associated with the schools and ashrams, working with the idea of improving the lot of the poor tribals.

This needs to be located in a context where the government has virtually abdicated its responsibility of providing basic features of civil society like education and health. In the absence of any land reforms or serious governmental interventions to improve the condition of the poor, the schools and ashrams provide meagre alternatives, along with institutions run by Christian missionaries and NGOs.

Ironically, the activities of the VHP correspond to what they accuse the Christian missionaries of doing in western Orissa. Both work to attract and convert people to their respective faiths – something that is allowed under the Indian Constitution. Moreover, both have access to resources — internal and external — to be used towards the uplift of the poor. But then how does one explain the way in which the term ‘conversion’ appears to be synonymous with Christian missionaries? This might appear to be a profound question. But this is precisely where the Sangh parivar’s hegemonic hold needs to be loosened.

This is sustained by poverty, lack of land struggles and reforms and the virtual non-existence of either civil society or the state in this area; further clothed by a finely-crafted ‘reality’ created by the VHP. One could cite two clear examples to illustrate this point: (a) that tribals are Hindus and Christian missionaries are the villains, who are spreading Christianity through inducements and converting the poor and ignorant tribals; and (b) that the VHP has the right to re-convert them to their original faith. It is indeed amazing that most of the reports on Kandhamal wrongly assume that tribals are Hindus. In fact, what the Sangh parivar has been attempting in Orissa — their post-Gujarat laboratory — is large-scale conversion of tribals to Hinduism.

This is skilfully combined with terrorising sections of Dalits – who had opted to convert to Christianity after suffering social discrimination – to reconvert to Hinduism. This ‘common sense’ makes the conversion of tribals appear as ‘re-conversion’. And this has been skilfully woven with terror directed against Dalit Christians over quite some time. More significantly, the majoritarian orientation of such conversion drives and their ancillaries – viz the ghee-burning shuddhi karan (re-conversion) rituals as seen through the electronic media — hides the real agenda.

This ‘common sense’ has enabled the VHP to make serious inroads in Orissa, even as the world debates the conflicts among Dalit (Panas) Christians and the adivasis (Kandhas) over diverse issues. The real problem in Kandhamal is related to the aggressive drives to convert tribals to Hinduism, including terror directed at Dalit Christians, who are the stumbling blocks in the path of the Sangh parivar and the VHP.

(Biswamoy Pati is the author of Identity, Hegemony, Resistance : Towards a Social History of Conversions in Orissa, 1800-2000)

(Hindustan Times)

India’s Christians: politics of violence in Orissa

A wave of Hindu nationalist attacks on Christians in eastern India is rooted in local issues of caste and conversion but also part of a larger political strategy, says Jacob Ignatius.

A catastrophic flood across the northeast Indian state of Bihar has displaced tens of thousands of people and caused untold damage to the meagre property and livelihoods of some of India’s poorest citizens. The challenges of delivering aid and protecting the health of those affected by this emergency – which is spreadingto the state of Assam and across the border to Bangladesh – are immense. But alongside this natural and humanitarian disaster, another less visible crisis has been unfolding: attacks on India’s Christians in parts of the impoverished eastern state of Orissa. 

On 29 August 2008, 45,000 Christian schools were closed across India to protest against the anti-Christian violence that had affected (mainly) the Kandhamal district of Orissa in the previous week. This was unprecedented in the history of independent India, for never before have Christians felt so compelled to stand publicly and unitedly against the forces of communalism in India. Moreover, the impact of this response is heightened by the fact that Christian schools – which provide education to both Christian and non-Christian children – form a significant part of India’s education system.

The unrest in the state of Orissa started on 23 August 2008 after the murder of a 90-year-old rightwing Hindu nationalist leader called Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati; four of his associates were also killed in the attack. Although the police suspected Maoist guerrillas for the murder, members of the radical Hindu group Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) blamed Christians and went on the rampage - killing several people, and destroying a Christian missionary-school, house-churches and other buildings. The Asian Centre for Human Rights (ACHR) estimates that fifty people (most of them Christians) have been killed. Thousands of Christians have fled their homes to seek shelter in the forests or government camps. The murder of the Hindu leader is clearly reprehensible, but this is a matter for the judicial authorities and – even were the culprit found to be a Christian – would not justify what effectively became an assault against an entire local Christian community.

An area of tension

The latest trauma is part of a history of Hindu-Christian clashes in Orissa over the last decade. In January 1999, the Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two sons were burned alive while sleeping in their jeep. Around Christmas 2007 there were Hindu-Christian clashes that have some parallels with the latest events. The main conflict then was between two communities: Kandh tribals (who are mainly, though not exclusively, Hindus) and Dalit Panas (many of whom have converted to Christianity over the years). Christian missionaries have been active in the area for many years; with the entrance of radical Hindu groups, vehemently opposed to the conversion of Hindus to Christianity and cow slaughter, the potential for communal tension has deepened.

Muslims have traditionally borne the brunt of attacks by Hindu extremist groups but since the late 1990s there has been a marked increase in the number of attacks on Christians. Between 1950 and 1998, only fifty anti-Christian attacks were recorded. In 2000, the figure shot up to 100, and then rose further to at least 200 incidents annually in 2001-05; perhaps it was no coincidence that this came after after the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came to power at the federal level (until their defeat by the Congress-led coalition in May 2004). In 2007, the number of attacks on Christians exceeded 1,000 for the first time.

Hindu radicals often make the allegation – in part-excuse for the actions of extremists – that Christians are forcibly or fraudulently converting Hindus to Christianity. There probably are some erring missionaries who are attracting converts by false inducements, but to imply that all do so is inaccurate and unfair (see Subhasis Mohanty, “Fire in Kalinga“, The Pioneer, 2 September 2008). Many missionaries do great charitable work, often providing a helping hand in areas deeply affected by poverty.

In several Indian states governed by the BJP, anti-conversion laws are now in place. These laws are largely intended to prevent the flow of people from Hinduism to other faiths. Many low-caste Hindus have converted to Christianity willingly to escape the rigid and repressive caste system; the Dalit Panas of Orissa are an example. In this context the anti-conversion laws – which sanction interference in a person’s right freely to choose a faith – have become a weapon used by radical Hindus to beat Christians. In areas like Orissa, the tensions that result are intermingled with disputes over land, legal status and local power (see Ravik Bhattacharya, “Down the Dark Road“, Indian Express, 31 August 2008).

Christians officially constitute only 2.3% of the Indian population. Christianity is believed to have been brought to India by St Thomas, Christ’s own apostle, to the shores of Kerala in 52 CE (common era). Much later, colonial powers such as the British, Portuguese, Dutch and French made strenuous efforts to convert the population. These were usually without success; Christianity has never grown to be a dominant religion in India and it is unlikely it ever will. Yet Hindu extremist groups like the VHP are fixated on the issue of conversions to Christianity – in part from dogmatic opposition to people leaving their religious fold, in part from insecurity about members of the lower castes trying to break free from the caste system. Hence, the majority of attacks on Christians are directed against the formerly low-caste converts such as the Dalit Panas of Orissa (see Biswamoy Pati, “In a crucified state“, Hindustan Times, 2 September 2008).

A strategy of fear

India is a deeply religious place where the boundaries of religion and politics are somewhat porous. The country is not today blessed with philanthropic politicians of the stature of Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru who always strove for communal harmony. There is a disturbing tendency among some of their successors to exaggerate the religious divide between communities in order to polarise voters along religious lines and win the votes of the majority community. This can both encourage and justify attacks on members of minority faiths, many of which are orchestrated in advance and carried out with the connivance of the authorities. In their aftermath, very few people are prosecuted (see Rajeev Bhargava, “The political psychology of Hindu nationalism“, 5 November 2003).

The next Indian general election is looming – it must be held by May 2009, and could even be sooner. The BJP seems to have returned to its policy of hard-lineHindutva (Hindu nationalism) to capture votes. The ruling Congress Party professes commitment to India’s famed secularism, but it often fails to match action with rhetoric (see Rajeev Bhargava, “Words save lives: India, the BJP and the constitution“, 2 October 2002). This is disappointing because to break the cycle of communal violence more needs to be done than just issuing statements and pointing the finger of blame at the BJP. A good start would be consistently to bring the perpetrators of communal violence to justice.

Hindus are in their vast majority tolerant and peaceful – as are members of other faiths in India. It is political manipulation and fear-mongering that turns peaceful coexistence into terrible violence, as in Orissa. The political instigation of of anti-Christian sentiment by the Hindu rightwing for electoral gain is another danger to Indian democracy. In the interests of a peaceful, progressive and just India, it must be opposed.

This article is published by Jacob Ignatius, , and openDemocracy.net under a Creative Commons licence.

(Australia.To)

Orissa violence: Archbishop moves SC seeking CBI probe

New Delhi, Sept 02: The Supreme Court would hear on Wednesday a petition filed by Archbishop of Cuttack seeking a CBI probe into the violence against Christians in Orissa.

The matter was mentioned today before a Bench headed by Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan, which agreed to give it an urgent hearing.

The Archbishop also sought a direction that the NHRC be asked to conduct an inquiry to find out the organisation behind the Kandhamal violence.

The petitioner claimed that the Rapid Action Force has been deployed only in urban areas and it has to be moved to the rural areas which have borne the maximum brunt of the unrest.

The petition also sought a compensation of Rs 4 lakh each for those whose houses were destroyed in the violence.

Volatile situation in Kandhamal

Meanwhile, the situation in Orissa’s riot-hit Kandhamal district continued to be volatile today with at least 80 houses being torched in fresh violence as the government accelerated relief and rehabilitation efforts for which Rs 2 crore has been sanctioned.

A high-level team of officials, including Home Secretary T K Mishra and Director General of Police Gopal Chandra Nanda, visited the violence-scarred district to review the situation and assess the extent of damage, official sources said.

The visit was to work out strategies for containing arson and violence in the communally-sensitive district as well as stepping up relief and rehabilitation operations for the affected, they said.

At least 80 houses were torched in fresh arson in several villages of Tikabali and Sarangada areas since yesterday noon despite considerable improvement in situation that prompted authorities to suspend day curfew, the sources said.

Describing force scarcity as a big handicap in containing arson, Inspector General of Police, Intelligence, R P Singh, said only 2,500 personnel from various forces including CRPF were available to combat violence in villages across the district.

“As the arson continues to trouble rural pockets, there is only one jawan to tackle the situation in every village,” a senior police officer pointed out.

Several women were also seen indulging in arson at some places, Revenue Divisional Commissioner (RDC), southern division, Satyabrata Sahu said, adding more measures were being taken to tackle the situation.

Bureau Report (Zee News)

Schools face Hindu backlash after closing to protest Orissa violence

By Catholic News Service

<!– end –><!– start –>Published Sep 2, 2008

<!– end –><!– start –>

Christians gather outside a shelter in Raikia village in the eastern Indian state of Orissa Aug. 30. Thousands of people, most of them Christians, have sought shelter in makeshift government camps in eastern India after anti-Christian violence has killed at least 14 people.

(CNS photo/Parth Sanyal, Reuters)

NEW DELHI (CNS) — Hindu groups demonstrated in front of Catholic institutions after schools closed in protest of anti-Christian violence in India’s eastern Orissa state.

More than 40,000 Christian educational institutions throughout India closed Aug. 29 in a nationwide protest against Hindu groups targeting Christians in Orissa.

In turn, Hindu groups protested the closures and the state government of Karnataka, dominated by the pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party, said it would take action against the schools for closing without permission, reported the Asian church news agency UCA News.

Father John Xavier, vicar general of the Gwalior Diocese in Madhya Pradesh, told UCA News Sept. 1 that Hindu demonstrators had tried to enter the grounds of several local schools. They threw stones and destroyed property, including buses.

Elsewhere in Madhya Pradesh, Joseph Christuraj, spokesman for the Jabalpur Diocese, told UCA News Sept. 1 that activists burned effigies of Pope Benedict XVI and shouted anti-Christian slogans in front of a diocesan-run school Aug. 30.

The spokesman for the Catholic Church in Madhya Pradesh, Father Anand Muttungal, told UCA News that activists of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, the worldwide Hindu council, tried to plant the group’s flag on the campus of a school in the Satna Diocese.

During all the demonstrations, Vishwa Hindu Parishad slogans asked Christians to explain why they killed Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati.

The anti-Christian violence began Aug. 24, a day after suspected Maoists killed the 85-year-old Hindu religious leader and five of his associates in Orissa’s Kandhamal district. Hindu groups blame Christians for the killings, but Christians have denied responsibility. As of Sept. 1, Christian sources in the state confirmed the deaths of 25 people, mostly Christians, and said another four deaths were being verified.

Vishweshwar Hegde Kageri, Karnataka’s minister for primary and secondary education, said he was upset that Christians closed their more than 2,000 schools in the state without getting permission from the government. He told reporters in the state capital Bangalore Aug. 29 that he has directed his officials to take action against the institutions that closed.

“Educational institutions should not be made tools for such issues. This will impact the sentiments of young minds and affect educational activities,” he said.

But Bethany Sister Ann Teresa, national president of the All India Association of Catholic Schools, told UCA News the educational institutions have the freedom to declare any five working days as holidays for their own reasons.

“This freedom is enshrined in the education policy of the state, which the minister is unaware of,” she said, adding that the state government is looking for opportunities to harass Christian institutions.

Archbishop Bernard Moras of Bangalore told UCA News Sept. 1 that the state government was “only bothered about creating more trouble for Christian schools and colleges … not solving their problems.”

Meanwhile, a delegation of Christian, Hindu and Muslim leaders met Indian President Pratibha Patil in New Delhi Sept. 1 to ask her to force the Orissa administration to protect Christians.

Church leaders earlier had met the prime minister but the violence continued.

“Had the federal government acted in time, so many lives would not have been lost,” said Cardinal Varkey Vithayathil of Ernakulam-Angamaly, president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India. He blamed the federal coalition, led by the Congress Party, for failing to intervene effectively and contain the violence.

“It is the duty” of the federal government to act when “a state government fails to protect the lives and property of citizens,” he told a rally of about 5,000 Catholics Aug. 31 in Cochin, the commercial capital of Kerala state in southern India.

Christians cower from Hindu backlash in Orissa

By Krittivas Mukherjee

TIKABALI, India (Reuters) – On a starry night last week, as Lal Mohan Digal prepared to go to bed, a mob of raging, machete-wielding Hindu zealots appeared above the hills of his mud house and swarmed over this bucolic hamlet in Orissa.

By dawn, Christian homes in the village were smoking heaps of burnt mud and concrete shells. Churches were razed, their wooden doors and windows stripped off.

“We could hear them come shouting ‘Jai Shri Ram’,” Digal said, referring to the rallying cry of Hindus hailing their warrior-god.

The mob poured kerosene on the thatched rooftops of the village homes, then threw matches. Church spires were hacked down.

The Hindu part of the village was untouched. For four days Digal and his stricken Christian neighbours hid in the teak forests, before being herded to a government-run relief camp.

The violence replicated itself in village after village, as the rural Kandhamal district of Orissa convulsed from some of the worst anti-Christian attacks in India.

At least 16 people, mostly Christians were killed, churches destroyed and 10,000 Christians were forced to flee their homes as violence spread.

Christians responded with some — not proportionate — violence. Almost all the villages Reuters visited bore evidence of attacks on Christians.

Relief shelters were packed with Christian refugees, most of them women and children as their men folk were too scared to emerge from forest hideouts.

At one temporary camp in Raikia village, some 8,000 people crammed into two floors of a government office, sleeping on the bare floor and surviving on rice and lentils given twice a day.

“It was the hate campaigns of the Sangh Parivar which led to untold misery for Christians,” said Sam Paul of the All-India Christian Council, referring to an apex body of Hindu radicals.

There has not been a long tradition of rivalry between Hindus and Christians, who form less than three percent of officially secular India’s 1.1-billion population.

On the contrary, the missionaries have a reputation of running some of the finest schools in India.

Intolerance has risen, though, in the last two decades with a revival in Hindu nationalism in India, and a new agenda to fight “foreign faiths” said to be undermining Hinduism.

With political power, Hindu nationalists in several states have made religious conversion either unlawful or extremely difficult. Orissa has seen some of the worst violence against Christians.

“There is an atmosphere of fear,” said Krishan Kumar, the chief administrator of Kandhamal, a land dominated by “Adivasis” or traditionally animist forest-dwellers where Christian proselytisers arrived on horseback more than a century ago.

 ROLE OF STATE QUESTIONED

The missionaries built schools and hospitals, and their work persuaded many Adivasis and ethnic Panas, who belong to a Hindu lower caste, to convert to Christianity.

The region turned into a hotbed of communal strife after hardline Hindu groups, who accuse Christian missionaries of converting people under duress or through inducements, arrived half a century ago to counter an expansionist evangelist drive.

Last week’s violence was largely a backlash against the murder of a Hindu proselytiser who ran a local campaign against Christian conversion. Maoist rebels said they had carried out the murder, but Hindus blamed Christians.

Pope Benedict has condemned the latest violence and the Italian government has told India it was “very worried and sensitive to” the attacks on Christians.

The United Nations has warned India could face more religious violence as delays to bring justice and prosecute perpetrators of attacks on minorities were encouraging an atmosphere of impunity in the country.

In Orissa, international and local human rights groups say the state government was a “silent spectator” to the violence, and Christian villagers say police often failed to protect them.

“When the mob arrived it asked police to drop its guns to the ground,” said Phillomina Digal, who lives by a police station.

“The policemen were outnumbered and went into the police station. The mob set my house on fire, burnt our tractor and also another government vehicle. Then they all celebrated and left.”

Orissa’s police say they swung into action as soon as the riots broke out, but could not reach many affected villages because rioters had blocked roads with tree trunks and boulders.

 A religious turf war is only part of a problem that is as much ethnic as it is political.

Rivalry between Adivasis and Panas has flared up in a contest for government jobs and benefits reserved for underprivileged groups. Hindus have backed the Adivasis against the largely Christian Panas to exploit that resentment.

“Adivasis and Panas had always lived peacefully,” said Brahmananda Behera, who heads Kandhamal’s Pana group.

“Certain religious groups have played politics and disrupted that harmony.”

The politics of conversion have inflamed the divide, and could portend more problems elsewhere in India.

“Kandhamal is an ethnic and communal laboratory,” said a senior state official. “Every side is trying out its own moves.” (Reuter)