Author: Sandhya Jain
Publication: VijayVaani.com
Date: August 27, 2008
URL: http://www.vijayvaani.com/article_27au2.htm
In a virtual replay of the post-Godhra riots
of 2002, the secular and foreign media has worked overtime to delink the ugly,
provocative murder of 80-year-old Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati and four disciples
on Krishna Janmastami day with the violence that subsequently rocked some
districts in Orissa. This is simply not on.
Swami Laxmanananda was actively involved in
the protection of tribal dharma from aggressive Christian evangelists in the
state's tribal belt since 1966. He was killed in his crowded ashram at Jalespata,
Kandhmal district, while performing Janmastami prayers. The murder came close
on the heels of a letter warning he would suffer for preventing Hindus from
converting to Christianity; in fact, his efforts had caused thousands of tribals
to return to the Hindu fold, to the chagrin of the missionaries.
As the Swami had been previously attacked
on 25 December 2007 for the same reason, he personally lodged a complaint
with the police and enclosed the threatening letter along with the FIR. He
sought police protection, but fell to the determination of his assailants
before it could arrive. A gang of 20 to 25 goons barged into his ashram around
9.35 pm, lobbed a hand-grenade at the gathering of devotees, and fired indiscriminately
with sophisticated weapons, killing Swami Laxmanananda and four ashram inmates,
including Mata Bhaktimayee, on the spot.
Initially, the administration suggested that
the killers could be Maoists, identifying a group known as the People's Liberation
Revolutionary Group. But Hindu leaders vigorously refuted this, accusing Christian
groups of sponsoring the attack, especially as the district witnessed fierce
Christian violence against Hindus last Christmas. A BJP state leader Suresh
Pujari said Swami Laxmanananda had no enmity with the Red rebels, and was
only opposed to religious conversion taking place in various parts of Orissa.
He alleged that those opposed to the saint's anti-conversion activities had
killed him.
However, it may be pertinent to note that
most Maoist activists in the district are also recent converts to Christianity.
Security forces are said to have seized 20 guns from 47 Maoists arrested in
connection with the burning of villages inhabited by Hindus. In this respect,
the murder of Swami Laxmanananda may be said to closely resemble the murder
of Swami Shanti Kali ji Maharaj in Tripura in August 2000; he too was shot
in his own ashram by gun-wielding goons after several dire warnings for anti-conversion
activities in the state's tribal belt. Subsequently, Tripura Chief Minister
Manik Sarkar admitted the involvement of the Baptist church with the insurgency
in the state.
It is surely pertinent that Orissa police
arrested one Pradesh Kumar Das, an employee of the aggressive Christian organisation,
World Vision, from Khadagpur, while trying to escape from the district at
Buguda. Two other neo-converts, Vikram Digal and William Digal were arrested
from the house of Lal Digal, a local militant Christian, from Nuasahi at Gunjibadi,
Nuagaan. They admitted having joined a group of 28 other assailants. Orissa
has also seen an influx of rich American Baptists, for obvious reasons.
In a television debate on the violence that
followed the Ashram murders, Biju Janata Dal MP Tathagata Satpathy asserted
that regardless of the actual efficacy of an anti-conversion ban, there could
be little doubt that there was an urgent need for anti-conversion legislation
as aggressive evangelization was seriously harming the social fabric of the
state.
Violence broke out in the state as public
sentiments ran high when the body of Swami Laxmanananda reached Chakapada
in Kandhamal district for last rites; some shops and vehicles were torched
though Home Secretary Tarunkanti Mishra said the bandh called by the Sangh
Parivar was "total and by and large peaceful."
It is true that two persons, including one
woman, were burnt to death when unidentified persons torched an orphanage
run by a Christian organisation at Phutpali in Bargarh district. The twenty
children at the orphanage were unhurt. One Rasananda Pradhan was also burnt
to death when his house was set ablaze at Rupa village in Kandhamal district.
Nearly a dozen churches were attacked in Khurda, Bargarh, Sundergarh, Sambalpur,
Koraput, Boudh, Mayurbhanj, Jagatsinghpur and Kandhamal districts and Bhubhaneswar.
Yet the secular media, particularly the electronic
media, has highlighted the violence of the post-Ashram murders as though it
were a suo moto, unprovoked assault by the Hindu community, particularly the
agitating VHP cadres, completely glossing over the original sin. Media has
sought to diminish Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati by calling him a 'VHP leader'
opposed to conversions - as though that vindicates his murder! In contrast,
a woman who died in the subsequent violence was erroneously and repeatedly
identified as a 'nun' and projected as a victim of religious persecution.
The truth is otherwise. It is those working
overtime - with foreign funds and foreign missionaries - to annihilate the
native faith of this country who are aggressors and cultural iconoclasts;
this point needs to be understood by all concerned. In the specific context
of Orissa, there is need to revisit the sensational murder of Australian missionary
Graham Staines in January 1999, and honestly assess the tribal anguish that
led to that sad denouement. One of the reasons why there has been no sober
voice on the Staines murder is the tragic fact that his two minor sons died
with him; but now that we are nearly a decade away from that event, we need
to give the tribal agony due respect. A blanket ban on missionaries operating
in tribal areas could go far to assuage tribal feelings. Indeed, the recognition
that missionaries may have gone too far in provoking the increasingly affirmative
Hindu community forced some Christian groups to condemn the murder of Swami
Laxmanananda by evangelist religious fanatics.
No doubt the Judicial Commission set up by
the Orissa Government under Justice Basudev Panigrahi will bring out the truth
about the previous December 2007 violence in which Swami Laxmanananda was
attacked; he escaped four attempts on his life before falling to the last
attack. The Commission's findings will also throw light on the events that
resulted in his eventual murder.
Initial reports suggest that Swami Laxmanananda
was also active in the movement against illegal beef trading, and was demanding
a high level probe into an alleged illegal beef trading racket in Kandhamal.
The multi-faceted Swami devoted considerable energy to the socio-economic
development of local people in remote areas of Orissa. He opened several social
service institutions including schools and hostels for tribal boys and girls,
with free education and hostel facilities. This cut at the roots of the evangelists
and created much ill-will towards him.
A major reason for the heightened tensions
in Kandhamal over the past few months was due to the fact that the important
Kandha (Kondh) tribe was extremely vigilant about protecting its religion
and culture. The second local group, the Scheduled Caste Panas, have mostly
converted to Christianity.
As a result of conversion, the Panas lost
the reservation benefits due to SCs under the constitution. Guided by the
missionaries, they began to agitate for Scheduled Tribe status on the specious
plea that they also spoke Kui, the mother tongue of the Kondhs, which is also
the principal language of the district. This agitation created deep apprehensions
in the minds of the Hindu STs and SCs, that converts would grab their reservation
benefits. Their fears deepened when the UPA-appointed Justice Ranganath Mishra
Commission recommended extension of all reservation facilities to converts
among the Dalits, which would include the Panas in Orissa.
Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati took this simmering
discontent head-on, calling for an open debate on conversions, which were
at the root of the unrest in tribal-dominated areas. He asserted: "I
have told the National Human Rights team that conversion and foreign funding
to NGOs were the reasons behind communal riots in Kandhamal." He asked
the NHRC to probe the fake caste (Scheduled Tribe) certificates fraudulently
obtained by non-tribals and take appropriate action against them.
Now that this valiant warrior for Hindu civilisation
and India's foundational ethos has been struck down, the State and Central
Government owe it to the nation to scrutinize the flow of foreign funds to
Christian missionaries and make public the manner of their utilization. There
must also be a complete ban on the foreign funding of faiths not indigenous
to this soil.