Author:
Publication: Organiser
Date: October 3, 2004
URL: http://www.organiser.org/dynamic/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=44&page=38
Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati is
a grand old man, who has served tribal people, specially Kandhs, in undivided
Phulbani district of Orissa in the last couple of decades. Saffron-clad
Swamiji, with his Ashram at Chakapad, has spread his wings through seva
and sanskar among the tribal people in the region.
With hostility at Riakia in Kandhamal
district over a Church illegally acquiring government land and local traders
opposing it tooth and nail, there were attacks and counter-attacks between
both the sides.
However, the Church, while concealing
its effort to grab the government land, has added a conspiracy angle to
the attack on the Catholic Church at Raikia and has seen the hand of Swamiji
in attack on their Church. Joining the Church fraternity, the Congress
and the communists have demanded arrest of Swamiji. However, there are
chinks in the delegation of political leaders who visited Raikia with Orissa
Gana Prishad president, Bijoy Mohapatra, differing from his Congress and
communist colleagues over demand for the Swamiji´s arrest.
Organiser representative Sanjay
Kumar Jena talked to Swamiji to get his perspective on the issue.
You are accused of being a conspirator
in the attack on Catholic Church at Raikia?
I was at Jalaspatta when news of
the attack on the Church reached me. I am in no way connected with the
incident. But I can well understand the wounded psyche of Hindus against
the Church. That might have made the people to attack the Church.
As far as their personal attack
on me is concerned, let all the Padres, popkaks and palaks of Christianity
come together and I will singularly argue with them. Let them come with
their allegations on what damage I have done to their places of worship
and what they have done to places of our faith. Let there be open debates
so that the people can know the truth.
Hindus are wounded for what?
There was no problem when Christians
were not here in Paikia. With their numbers increasing, they forcefully
took away Hindu girls and forced neo-converts to eat beef. They set several
temples on fire. Be it Birupakhya Mahadev´s temple or temple at Malarimaha
or my Ashram at Rupagoan, the Christians conspired to set them on fire.
They threw mortal remains of cows on mandirs. Kondh tribal´s Goddess
Dharani Mata´s places of worship in several villages were dishonoured.
The sacred sword at a temple at Bramhanigaon was forcibly taken away by
the converts who melted the sword in public and prepared their weapons.
What was the need to do so?
But they are claiming service activities
for the tribals?
Their only motivation is to convert
the innocent tribal people through fraudulent means. In fact one entire
village was converted to Christianity. They serve medicines claiming it
to be the prasad of Jesus. After gaining confidence of the converts in
large scale, they cheat people.
Let me ask the Church why in their
orphanages they are rearing so many boys and girls? In the last so many
decades the children who have grown up in orphanages, where have they gone?
Have they been sent to foreign countries or sold at a price? Let them explain
this.
The Kandh tribal community treats
trees as their God. They do not cut forest out of fear as it is adharma.
But Padres on their own cut one tree after the other saying that worshippers
of Jesus can cut trees and no harm comes to them. The result has been that
the forest cover is depleting day in and day out.
What in your view could bring permanent
peace to this tribal-dominated region.?
First of all the Padres, popkaks
and palaks have to leave the place. A register for people belonging to
Christianity has to be maintained. Christians studying and doing government
jobs with fake certificates of being Hindus have to be identified and deprived
of the privileges meant for the tribal people. Churches built on unauthorised
places like reserve forests and government lands have to be evicted; an
independent probe has to be instituted into the entire episode and culprits
have to be brought to book. Then only can peace return. Otherwise, the
wounded feelings of Hindus would be further aggravated.
