Author: Swapan Dasgupta
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: October 5, 2008
The nationwide revulsion at the confirmed
rape of a 28-year-old nun in the troubled Kandhamal district of Orissa may
finally give the UPA Government at the Centre the requisite handle to dismiss
the Naveen Patnaik Government. Having earlier sent a warning to the State
Government under Article 355, the Manmohan Singh Government is now readying
for the next step -- the imposition of President's Rule under Article 356.
For the Centre, the dismissal of a popularly-elected,
two-term Chief Minister is not an easy option. Those with memories may recall
that there was still a Congress Government in Bhubaneswar when the Australian
missionary Graham Staines and his two sons were burnt to death in an inaccessible
corner of Mayurbhanj district in Orissa on January 22, 1999. The Vajpayee
Government, which was then in power at the Centre, sent its most senior Christian
minister George Fernandes to the scene of the crime and to reassure local
Christians. The stress was on confidence-building measures, not political
recriminations. That was because both the Centre and the State Government
knew the murder of Staines flowed from local tensions centred on competitive
religiosity. The now-infamous Dara Singh organised the murderous assault on
Staines and his sons but he was a Hindu freelancer, uninhibited by the constraints
of national allegiances. Given the inaccessibility of the terrain, there was
never any serious suggestion that the sleepy Orissa Police could actually
have prevented the crime. Despite a massive manhunt, Dara Singh took refuge
in the Mayurbhanj forests and evaded arrest for nearly a year.
Those familiar with Kandhamal district will
vouch for two things. First, that the area is thickly forested and poorly
connected. Second, that even before the recent troubles, there was simmering
tension between the tribal Kandhas, who profess their indigenous faith, and
the Scheduled Caste Panos, many of whom have converted to Christianity. The
conflict, often articulated in terms of Hindu-Christian conflict, was primarily
over meagre state handouts. The Kandhas who had resisted the encroachments
of colonial administration and missionaries were resentful of the resourcefulness
of neighbouring Christian communities. The Panos, on the other hand, felt
that they couldn't take full advantage of the State's affirmative action as
long as they were classified as a Scheduled Caste. They wanted to be reclassified
as Scheduled Tribe, a demand that brought them in conflict with the Kandhas.
The tensions were apparent when I visited
the area with Naveen Patnaik during the 1999 election. At that time, local
BJD workers complained bitterly about land-grab by the churches. A particular
cause of resentment was the ability of the various Christian denominations
to buy land along the main roads and build places of worship. Christian schools
were also perceived to be giving an unfair advantage to those who had moved
away from traditional mores. In the context of India Inc these grievances
may appear churlish. After all, why should a community wilfully deny itself
opportunities for upward social mobility -- even if it means disentanglement
from the past? Yet, as we well know from Singur, Nandigram and Kalinga Nagar,
the lure of modernisation isn't always uniformly enchanting. Subaltern classes
often have an ethical code that defies market forces.
It was this code and a curious sense of right
and wrong that came to the fore in the aftermath of the brutal murder of 80-year-old
Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati and four members of his ashram on August 23.
Regardless of whether or not the armed assassins were Maoists, the perception
on the ground was that he had been eliminated by fanatical Christians opposed
to his anti-conversion and anti-cow slaughter drives. The Swami, who had established
his ashram in Kandhamal in 1966, was deeply venerated as an incarnation of
Parashuram by the Kandhas. The anger over his death fuelled a clash between
communities which, quite predictably, translated into sectarian conflict.
In the ensuing violence that has led to some 35 deaths, the better-off Panos
have been the worst affected.
The roots of the conflict can only tangentially
be traced to religious mobilisation. It would be more correct to view the
expressions of hate in terms of alternative worldviews that are -- to use
academic language -- decisively 'pre-modern' and detached from the market
economy. Of course, tenuous state intervention in the form of competition
over limited state resources has definitely aggravated the problem, as has
the mindset which believes that there is one road to personal and community
salvation.
Such conflicts, as has been witnessed in Kandhamal,
are recurrent in India. The Government may have a long-term responsibility
in equitable social engineering but its immediate task is to restore peace,
punish the culprits of serious offences and organise relief and rehabilitation.
There is no evidence that the Orissa Government facilitated the violence or
that it was a partisan player. At best, the State Government can be faulted
for general sloth -- a widespread complaint in the whole of eastern India.
To respond to European pressure and French President Nicolas Sarkozy's preposterous
use of the term "massacre" with an administrative over-reaction
would be a folly. There are better ways of dealing with the problem than sacking
an elected Government headed by a Chief Minister who cannot be faulted for
his integrity and deep sense of fair play.
In trying to establish a moral equivalence
between Islamist terrorism and Hindu terrorism, the Government may win a few
brownie points. In the process, it would be putting a small and generally
law-abiding Christian community in the front line of sectarian fire. Worse,
it would end up equating the Christian community with European nosey-parkers
and fanatical evangelists. If the Government imposes President's Rule in Orissa,
Naveen Patnaik won't even have to campaign for a third term.