Militancy and Christianity in Odisha

[By Ashok Sahu, IPS (Retd.)]

The Christianity as a faith is essentially based on the Love, Peace and the Truth as its basic tenets and central theme. But in the name of protecting Christianity, history of the world is colored many a times with human blood. During, before and after the Crusades, series of wars have been fought for peace, and extreme brutality has been perpetrated in the name of God. In India the conversion of Hindus was resorted to by the missionaries with direct patronage from the alien rulers with intent to bring about a permanent change in the mind set of Indians so that the Union Jack could fly permanently over Indian soil. But it was not that easy to change the Hindu mindset which is the product of centuries old practiced way of living. Though, the missionaries realised that for Hindus living was more important than believing, still they pursued their efforts to convert them to Christianity by dividing their society into 'depressed class' and 'high-caste Hindus and Aryans' having come from out-side and the Dravids and the aborigines as 'animists' . They set up schools to condition the young minds with distorted history. Still, they failed. Then they started having boarding schools and picked up children directly from poor and illiterate families particularly the so called 'depressed classes' and the tribal people whom they termed as aborigines.  Later, the missionary boarding schools manufactured clerics for furthering the missionary conversion among the down trodden.

The Portuguese missionaries were notorious for adopting duress and violence to proselytize the natives in Goa, Daman and Due. In the tribal districts of Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Orissa and West Bengal it was more by taking advantage of their abject poverty and illiteracy. In the North-East the hill tribes were again treated as 'animists' like the African tribes and  got converted 'en masse' in the 1940s due to their basic ignorance. Between 1941 and 1947, 90% of the tribal population in the districts of Naga hills, Mizo Hills, Khasi Hills and the Garo Hills were converted to Christianity and were tutored to secede from independent India by claiming that they never had any historical link with rest of India. Along with Christianity gun culture was also taught and Phizo from Naga Hills and Laldenga from Mizo Hills were given political asylum in the UK. The MNF and the NSCN had bloody fights with armed forces for decades. And, at last, the indigenous people realised that it was a Christian conspiracy to weaken India whose independence was to detriment the colonial interests of the UK.

The NSCN is notorious for running armed training camps along the Indo-Burmese border for all the armed secessionist outfits and also indulge in regular illegal Arms trafficking and Narcotic trade. The separatist groups in Manipur, Assam, Meghalaya and Tripura were all trained by the NSCN factions operating from the Kachin border in Burma. The NSCN's demand for " 'Nagalim' (Greater Nagaland) for Christ" is well known. Now they are trying to convert the Karbi and the Dimasha tribes in Assam on gun point. Because they have realised that unless the 34 major tribes are converted to Christianity they won't accept common leadership of Nagas. There is regular bloody war in the name of Christ in the Assam, Nagaland and Manipur areas in the North-East.

In Orissa, the Christian churches in the districts of Deogarh, Bargarh, Angul, Koraput, Rayagada, Kandhamal and Gajapati have come into recent record for harbouring the armed Maoists and using them for conversion of poor villagers. It is evident during December riots in Kandhamal district when Bamunigaon police station was attacked by armed Christians and subsequent raid in Sikarama village helped in seizure of twenty guns with ammunitions. Particularly, the Pastors/clerics from Karalla, Tamilnadu and Goa operating in Orissa are using the Maoist activists who serve as a shield against reaction to forced conversion in the area. As a result, the number of crypto-Christians is more than those who are enumerated Christians in the demography figures of 2001. Some of the killers of Swamiji on the 23rd August 2008 incident are reportedly hiding in certain Churches under protection by the armed police from the State in Kalahandi district bordering Kandhamal. It is doubtful, whether the state police would be able to conduct a raid in to the precincts of the Church for the proclaimed 'secular credentials' as stated by the Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik.

Against the known nexus between the Maoists and the Church, the reported involvement of one 'Azad' from PLGA, the guerilla outfit of the terrorist group has come to surface after one week of the gruesome murder of Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati, Sadhvi Bhaktimta and two others on 23rd August 2008. The interview to a local newspaper by 'Azad' further strengthens the theory of close nexus between the Church and the terrorist out-fit in Orissa. But the fact remains that the way the attack on the Swamiji and the Ashram was conducted and the way the assailants retreated from the spot is the handy work of local Christian youth with borrowed weapons from the Maoist armory.

On 08/7/2008 there was attack on followers of Swamiji at Tumidibandh by an organized armed group when Madhubaba protested against cow-slaughter. Swamiji had decided to sit on fast-unto death from 22/7/2008 to mobilize public opinion through out the state in protest of government apathy in ensuring security against Christian zealots in the area. Recently, one front organization of the CPI (Maoist) called Loka Sangram Dalit Manch is busy in recruiting suitable tribal youth in the area for their guerilla outfit. Krishna Paraseth, Nakul Nayak, Hemant Nayak and Gajapati Mandal are some of the leading members of the new outfit. In this regard, the failure of the local police is directly proportionate to the future success of the out-fit in the area. The recent developments are only indications for the shape of things to emerge, and a signal to the governments at the Center and the State to prepare the future agenda, as how to deal with the role of Church and the spread of Maoist extremism in the state of Odisha.