Massacre of Christians by Hindu fanatics
Sultan M Hali
Secular India has given further evidence of its “tolerance” and
“secularism” by conducting a planned and well-organized massacre of its
Christian community. In a repeat of the 2002 Gujarat carnage, when more
than 3,000 Muslims, also a minority at risk in India, fell victim to the
violence of Hindu extremists, this time, the Christian society of Orissa
has been targeted.
The recent bloodbath unfolded in the wake of the assassination of
radical Hindu leader Swami Laxanananda on August 23, 2008. Extremist
Hindu radicals blamed the Christian community for the murder, although
the Christian leaders denied the charge. However, on the evening of
August 23, shortly after news came of the Hindu leader’s death, the
first attack took place. Two Catholic nuns were stopped by assailants
who set fire to their vehicle. Simultaneously, another vehicle in which
nuns were traveling in Sambalpur was torched with the nuns inside. On
Sunday, August 24, attacks began on various churches, which were already
sparsely attended out of the fear of assault. Violence escalated
throughout the day, while by 5:30 pm the Catholic social center of
Cuttack Bhubaneswar was attacked and a mob burned vehicles and
documents. Soon afterwards, the mob burned another Catholic pastoral
center in Divya, and then attacked the priests’ residence in Baliguda,
which witnessed anti-Christian rioting over Christmas 2007. Rioters
damaged both a Convent and an adjacent welcome centre.
Similar attacks took place that evening on four Catholic churches in the
Kanjamedi area. A nun doing social work in Kandhamal was gang raped,
while a dozen shops owned by Christian Dalits “untouchables” were
burned. On August 25, Hindu fanatics attacked and caused serious damage
to a Catholic church in Phulbani and the Bishop’s residence and offices
at Bhubaneswar were also attacked. Police protection was not available
to prevent damage. Later that day, Jamai Pariccha, the director of a
Catholic social assistance agency Gramya Pragati, was attacked. His
wife, a Hindu, begged for mercy even as the radical Hindu mob shouted
“He is a Christian, and we will kill him!” Pariccha was hospitalized in
an undisclosed location. An hour later the home of Puren Nayak, a
Catholic teacher in Bhudansahi, was set alight. It is said that Hindus
identified Christian homes to the mob and offered them kerosene as fuel
for the flames.
In the afternoon, 21-year-old missionary Rafani Majhi was killed, having
been burned alive while she was trying to save the orphans at a mission
in Bargarh. Another man was burned alive in Kandhamal. A priest was also
seriously wounded in the attack on the orphanage. Reverend Thomas
Challan and Sister Meena, a Catholic nun, were critically injured during
an attack on another pastoral center, which was destroyed by fire. That
evening, the parish of Sankrakhol was also attacked and burned. The
pastor, Reverend Alexander Chandi, avoided capture by seeking refuge in
a nearby forest. That night, 17 Christian homes were sacked in Raikia
and their furnishings destroyed. The convent of Saint Joseph was also
attacked, and the nuns were able to save themselves only by hiding in
the forest. Throughout the day on August 25, numerous attacks took place
on churches in various areas of the district, both Protestant and
Catholic. In the district of Bargarh, a crowd made up of 2,000 fanatics
attacked and destroyed many churches, targeting priests and nuns. In
Padampur, Father Edward Sequira was brutally beaten and reported in a
critical condition. Confirmation has come from Tiangia of the death of a
Catholic, Vikram Nayak, murdered by an enraged crowd. Two other people
were wounded in the same attack, and died hours later from their
injuries. In the same village, many homes of Catholic families were
burned on August 26, while the inhabitants took refuge in the forest. In
the area of Raikia, three people died from smoke inhalation while their
homes were being burned. To date, the carnage continues unabated.There
is a method in the madness; Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar, one of the
founding fathers of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS); in his book “We
or our Nationhood Defined” rejected the idea that India was a secular
nation, and posited instead that it was a Hindu Rashtra (a Hindu
system), with a great deal of influence over much of the Indian
population. Influenced by Hitler’s Nazism, he writes: “... Germany
shocked the world by her purging the country of the Semitic races – the
Jews.
Race pride at its highest has been manifested here. Germany has also
shown how well-nigh impossible it is for races and cultures, having
differences going to the root, to be assimilated into one united whole,
a good lesson for us in Hindustan to learn and profit by.” Golwalkar,
who has been known as the guru of hate, used the RSS to assassinate
Gandhi since it perceived him as an advocate of Hindu-Muslim unity. On
December 8, 1947, six weeks prior to Gandhi’s assassination, Golwalkar
addressed a crowd of several thousand volunteers at the Rohtak Road Camp
in Delhi, proclaiming: “the Sangh will not rest content until it had
finished Pakistan. If anyone stood in our way we will have to finish
them too, whether it was Nehru Government or any other Government...
“Referring to Muslims, he said that no power on earth could keep them in
Hindustan.
They should have to quit this country... “If they were made to stay here
the responsibility would be the Government’s and the Hindu community
would not be responsible. Mahatma Gandhi could not mislead them any
longer. We have the means whereby [our] opponents could be immediately
silenced”. Golwalkar and his colleagues were put in jail for suspected
complicity in Gandhi’s assassination. Released a year later on a bond of
good behaviour, they retained a dogged commitment to their ideas.
Golwalkar himself argued that “in this land Hindus have been the owners,
Parsis and Jews the guests, and Muslims and Christians the dacoits”. He
asked, maliciously: “Then do all these have the same right over the
country?”
The followers of RSS are continuing their heinous agenda of ethnic
cleansing of India through planned pogroms and massacre of its
minorities. |
