Rahul Pandita: Kandhamal is still a ticking time bomb
On the night of 7 June this year,
suspected Christian fanatics broke into a small Hindu temple in Daringbadi in
Odisha’s Kandhamal district. The 'Ma Bana Durga' temple, which the locals say
was at least 50 years old, was just a shrine under a tree till two months
earlier when a proper brick-and-mortar structure was created around it.
On
22 June, the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) organised a public meeting at the site
of the broken shrine. A priest performed the puja, as
people from the neighbouring villages began to pour into the site. They
examined the damage, particularly standing for long in front of a portrait of
the Goddess Durga, painted on the wall of the temple, now broken into pieces. “There is no doubt
that the Christian missionaries did this,” said Minaketan Sahu, who had come to
the site from a neighbouring area. “They are the ones who killed Swamiji,
and now they have done this,” he pointed at the rubble.
This was the second
time the shrine/temple had suffered damage; earlier also, in 2007, when clashes
erupted between two main ethnic groups of Kandhamal – the Panos (a Scheduled
Caste community, a majority of them converted to Christianity) and the Kandha
tribals (most of them converted to Hinduism), the shrine was vandalised…
As Saraswati retired
to his room that August evening eight years ago, at 7.45 pm, Simachal Patra,
one of the ten constables deployed by the Odisha Police for Saraswati’s
security, heard the sound of footsteps outside their tent in front of the ashram.
The two other constables present in the tent at that time had eaten their
dinner, and Patra was about to eat. One constable had ventured out after
borrowing Patra’s cellphone, to speak to his family. None of the policemen
carried any firearms.
As Patra stuck his
head out, he saw two men standing outside. One of them was carrying a gun, and
it was pointed at Patra. When he looked to the side, Patra saw a group of armed
men entering the ashram.
Around 20 masked men,
wearing black uniforms, kicked the gate open and headed straight towards
Saraswati’s quarters, opening fire. As he heard the gunshots, Saraswati locked
himself in the bathroom adjacent to his room and started shouting in Odia:
“Save me, save me!” The gunmen broke into his room and killed two of his
associates: Ma Bhaktimayi and Kishore Babu. Then they tore through the bathroom
door and fired at Saraswati.
Another associate of
Saraswati, Baba Amritananda, was shot dead in the adjacent room. One of the
guardians of a girl student who happened to be in the guest room, Puranjan
Gaunta, was killed as well. Outside, the gun was
still pointed at Patra’s head. Then he saw a group of men running towards the
main road shouting in Odia, “It is done, it is done!” At this moment the man
holding Patra hostage threw a letter towards him, asking him to give it to
reporters. And then he also ran into the street. A local reporter who
reached Jalespata soon afterwards says he can never forget what he witnessed
inside Saraswati’s quarters. “There was blood all over and it smelled; it was
as if I had entered an abattoir,” he recalled.
The killers had pumped
several bullets into Saraswati’s body. They had also cut his Achilles tendons
and his wrists. A devotee who reached there and saw Saraswati’s body was so
overwhelmed with anger that he hurled a brick at the then Kandhamal police
chief, Nikhil Kanoria.
The police was quick
to blame the Maoists for the brutal murder. As Saraswati’s body was taken for
cremation from Jalespata to Chakapad, a distance of 150 kilometres, emotions
ran high. Immediately afterwards, riots broke out in which at least 39
Christians lost their lives while their houses and churches suffered
large-scale damage. In October 2013, seven
people - all of them Christians - and a Maoist leader, Pulari Rama Rao,were
sentenced to life imprisonment for their role in Saraswati’s killing. Two other
Maoist leaders - both in jail now - Dunna Keshav Rao alias Azad and Sabyasachi
Panda are also accused in the case….
The tribes of
Kandhamal: In Odisha, the Kandha is the most prominent tribe, the biggest in terms of
numbers as well. In present-day Kandhamal district, the scheduled tribes
constitute 53.6 percent of the population. There are 44 tribes in Kandhamal, 10
of them represented by only one person each. The Kandhas are the biggest
community and by far outnumber the rest of the tribes. They speak the Kui
language that does not have a script.
The Kandhas are
nature-worshippers and believe in a sacred place they call 'Penu Basa'; the
earth is worshipped as a goddess and is called 'Darni Penu'. In the course of
time, a majority of the Kandhas adopted Hinduism as most of its practices
diffused well with tribal culture. In the old times, the
Kandhas are known to have practiced human sacrifice or 'meriah' to
appease their gods. The ritual was first discovered by the British in 1835.
They tried to stop it by convincing the community elders to substitute it with
buffalo (kedu) sacrifice. But after it prevailed, the British under the
then assistant collector, Major-General John Campbell, had to use force, which
did not go well with the Kandhas. So they revolted against the British
administration. From 1836 till 1853, the British are said to have rescued over
1,800 children before the Kandhas could sacrifice them as meriahs.
According to a
research paper by AM Pradhan in the Odisha Review, the Baptist
Mission Society established its first church in 1920 at Kumbharikupa. The
missionaries opened schools in which the mode of instruction was the Kui
language, and church officials were given their titles in Kui as well. The
Bible was translated in Kui and, according to Pradhan, the Roman Catholic
Church published a Kui book Kristo Dharma Kata, which describes the
ritual procedures in the Church.
While many Kandha
tribals converted to Christianity, the community that the Church could attract
the most was the Panos. The scheduled castes constitute 15.8 percent of the
population in Kandhamal. There are 93 SC communities in Kandhamal — eight of
them represented by only one person each, while 26 have less than a hundred
members.
Panos is the largest
SC community; according to anthropological studies, they are a community of
weavers who migrated from the Vizagapatam (Visakhapatnam) area of the erstwhile
Ganjam Hill Tracts Agency (then part of Madras Presidency in British India).
They could speak in Odia and quickly adopted the Kui language as well. At
first, they worked as labourers and weavers for the Kandhas. But, soon, they
became indispensable to Kandhas as a bridge between them and outsiders.
The
Kandhas were unable to communicate with traders or government officials since
they knew no other language. The Panos acted as interpreters for them and began
to conduct business transactions on their behalf. In his 1909 book, Caste
and Tribes of Southern India, Edgar Thurston, the then superintendent of
Madras Museum, writes: “They (Panos) live on the ignorance and superstition of
the Khonds (Kandhas) as brokers, pedlars (peddlers), sycophants and cheats. In
those parts where there are no Odias, they possess much influence, and are
always consulted by the Khonds in questions of boundary dispute.”
But in spite of
enjoying this influence, the Panos were treated as an inferior caste by the
Kandhas. The anthropologist, Barbara M Boal, who worked extensively in the
area, writes: “The Konds (Kandhas) for their part being self-limited to the
only honourable occupations of agriculture, hunting, and war, have always found
them (Panos) quite indispensable for the proper carrying out of Kond ritual and
in the provision of certain necessities of life. They also deal as tradesmen
and at the time of death in the village they fulfill specific functions which
are taboo to the Kond.”
In Kandhamal, in those
times, there used to be a saying: “Kandha raja, Panos mantri”
(Kandha is the king, while the Panos is his minister). With the advent of
Christian missionaries, a large number of Panos got converted to Christianity.
It meant a lot to them when they could be in a Church and sit next to a
‘converted’ Kandha. Association with the mission also meant access to education
and facilities including medical ones.
The ethno-religious
cauldron: By 1969, however, Saraswati had arrived as an alternative. He could not match
the Church's funding, but a mix of welfare and Hinduism proved to be a big
lure. The missionaries looked down upon various cultural practices and rituals
and urged people to discontinue these; but Hinduism offered no such resistance,
except to beef consumption.
The Church was
worried, and to counter Saraswati, it began the practice of outcasting
Christian converts who showed a renewed interest in Hinduism. They would be
barred from taking part in community events such as ‘Prabhubhoji’ (the
holy feast). With the arrival of
Pentecostals, the war intensified and turned aggressive. It was a turf war in a
true sense, between Christian missionaries and Saraswati. The bait was welfare
– food, education, and healthcare; in other words a better life – that should
have been provided for by the State. But in the absence of the State, Kandhamal
became a breeding ground for ethno-religious hatred.
The Odisha Scheduled
Areas Transfer of Immovable Property (By Scheduled Tribes) Regulation 2 had
came into force in 1956, to control and check the transfer of immovable
property (read land) by Scheduled Tribes. But land that belonged to the Kandhas
and other tribes continued to pass into the hands of non-tribals.
According to the
Odisha government, a large number of cases of illegal land alienation by
“trickery and unfair means” are pending against the Panos. Till 31 October,
2015, 22,798 cases of land grabbing were detected in Kandhamal, according to
Odisha government figures.
It is not only the
Panos who indulged in this land grab. Other communities, including the 'caste'
Hindus did it as well. But there were other factors that deepened the fault
lines between the Kandhas and the Panos. The Kandhas felt that the Panos were
asserting themselves more due to their association with the Church. Also,
constitutionally, the Panos being a scheduled caste have reservation
advantages. But once they converted to Christianity, the Panos no longer
enjoyed reservation. The Kandhas allege that the Panos hide their Christian
identity and continue with their scheduled caste (Hindu) identity to reap
benefits from both sides.
Also, many cases have
been reported where the Panos get fake caste certificates to pass off as
scheduled tribes in order to grab government jobs meant for the STs. According
to government figures, there are 1,48,895 Christians in Kandhamal. But the
Kandhas say the number will be more since many Christians are still pretending
to be Hindus (both Panos and Kandhas).
Since 1970, the
Kandhas have been protesting against possession of their land by non-tribals.
These protests turned violent from 1985 onwards, including riots in 1987...
Kandhamal district
is born: In 1994, the district was bifurcated. Though it had been called Phulbani since
1986, the Kandhas now felt that their ethnic identity did not come across fully
with this name and that it should be changed to Kandhamal. The same year,
conflict broke out between the Kandhas and the Panos after one of the Panos
boys entered a temple. In the ensuing violence, 20,000 people from the Panos
community had to leave their villages and take shelter in towns near police
camps.
Succumbing to
pressure, the name of the district was changed to Kandhamal on 13 October,
1994, and, according to the Odisha government, a special drive was launched in
which 5,000 cases of illegal possession of the Kandha land by the SCs were
resolved. The tension continued
through the early 2000s. Disturbances were reported in the summer of 2002 in at
least two panchayats of the Daringbadi block.
In 2007, two things
happened. The Panos demanded ST status, arguing that they spoke the Kui
language as well and hence their caste name be changed from Panos to Kui (since
from 2002, the government had begun to use ‘Kui’ as a synonym for ‘Kandha’).
This would have ensured that the Panos who convert to Christianity also
benefited from the ST reservation (if a tribal converts to Christianity, he
does not lose his ST status). In response, the Kandhas called for a “Kandhamal
Bandh” on 24 and 25 December to protest against the demand of the Panos….
Maoists fish in
troubled waters: Senior police sources say that the Maoists had predicted a massive unrest after
Saraswati’s killings. They had hoped that it would help them receive a surge of
recruits from the affected Christian families. The prominent Maoist leader,
Sabyasachi Panda, according to these sources, had managed to convince 3,000
people to join the Maoist ranks. But at the last moment, due to the timely
intervention of the district administration, these would-be recruits ditched
Panda. Finally, Panda fell out with the Communist Party of India (Maoist) and
was arrested in 2014.
The Justice AS Naidu
Commission, which probed the 2008 riots in the aftermath of Saraswati’s
killings, submitted its report to the state government in December last year.
It has reportedly examined Panda, and Dunna Keshav Rao and Pulari Rama Rao. But
the findings of the Commission have not been made public.
In Odisha, however, no
matter with whom one speaks — whether government officials, police officials,
or journalists — everyone is convinced that the Maoists were just a part of
what they call “a larger conspiracy”. Some speak in hushed tones about the
involvement of certain Christian leaders who had issued open threats to
Saraswati just days before his murder. “You see, even Dunna Keshav Rao is a
Christian,” said a senior police official, “I have no doubt that the Maoists
were acting at somebody’s behest.”
Most people you speak
to in Kandhamal and in Bhubaneswar have already made up their minds about who
that ‘somebody’ is. In Kandhamal,
meanwhile, the tribal leader, Lambodar Kanhar warns about how the situation in
the district is turning explosive. “First of all, I am not a Hindu. We are
tribals and the Panos are appropriating our land,” he says. Kanhar alleges that
even their women are facing harassment at the hands of the Panos community.
“The Kandhas are not willing to be mute spectators,” he says. “Next time there are
riots, there will be mayhem.”
Eight Janmashtamis
after (this year it is on 25 August) Laxmananand Saraswati’s chilling murder on
that festive night of 23 August, 2008 – and the subsequent riots — the
ethno-religious fault lines in the district are sharper than ever... Read the full article:
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