Author: Saurav Basu
Publication: iVarta.com
Date: October 8, 2008
URL: http://www.blogs.ivarta.com/Catholic-Nun-Hindu-Swami-politics-identity/blog-178.htm
The rape of a Catholic Nun in Kandhmal by
suspected Kandh tribals has intensified the Congress-led UPA government"s
fascist intention to dismiss the popularly elected, two term chief minister
Naveen Patnaik heading the BJD-BJP coalition, hypocritically disowning their
own legacy of failure under Congress Chief Minister J B Patnaik when Graham
Staines was burnt to death by Dara Singh, a lone tribal ranger.
Big font headlines in English dailies over
an event which considering the explosive situation prevailing in the Kandhamal
district, barely two days after the popular Hindu Swami Laxmananda"s
Saraswati"s murder, seems intriguing especially since the latter"s
brutal murder along with 4 other Ashram inmates including a woman and a child
were shunted to page 10 by the same. Not satisfied with that, they accepted
with alacrity the supposedly Maoist appropriation of the crime, even when
this claim of a Maoist group had been rejected by their own peers [1] , who
are known to be in cohorts with Christian evangelists.
In India every day over 18 women are raped
- but their sordid stories rarely if ever make headlines. However, in this
case, the vested interests in the media found an opportunity to twist a case
of human suffering to fit their own communal agenda. Even before ascertaining
the facts of the case, they started a campaign of using this one-off incident
to foster their goal of demonizing anything that is Hindu. To anyone who has
been following the incidents in Orissa, it would be absolutely clear that
these very same groups in the media have, from the very beginning, presented
a totally distorted picture of the actual nature of the conflict in the state.
They have used every trick out of their propaganda manual to try to paint
the conflict in such a way as to support their own nefarious thesis.
In Orissa, for decades, there has been simmering
tensions between the Kandh tribals and the Panis - the latter having allied
with the missionaries have persistently persecuted the former and frequently
been party to land grabs. A lot of this forcibly appropriated land has been
used for constructing illegal churches which serve as houses of conversion.
The fact is that the Panis are not even tribals, but they strive to demote
their caste status from SC to ST in order to conveniently usurp the very meager
state doles, meant for the Kandhas in a district where 78% of the population
resides below the poverty line. Even the Statesman, known for this socialist
viewpoint, has in an editorial [2] admitted the deep rooted tribal disaffection
representing the ethnic aspect of the subaltern strife which cannot be reduced
to the terms of the recent pattern of VHP-Christian confrontation. This internecine
struggle between two indigenous communities on considerations of caste and
reservation has been further accentuated by the Christian evangelist propaganda
and consequent exploitation of the situation.
The yet unknown culprits have also been explicitly
identified as "Hindu fanatics" by the very same media which dogmatically
dithers from denigrating terror bombers as "Muslim fundamentalists"
and instead prefers to use politically loaded terms like misguided Islamic
militants or sometimes even "misguided youth"! Not surprisingly,
these Hindu fanatics will discover no guardian angels in the English language
mouthpieces unlike the SIMI which has Tehelka and a host of other sympathizers
in human right forums, academic circles and political parties. M C Sharma
has now been declared to have been killed in a fake encounter/friendly fire
by M J Akbar, the Hindustan times, Muslim fact finding teams [3] and Mushirul
Hasan Vice Chancellor and "JNU recognized secular historian" of
the Jamia Milia Islamia. But it is certain that no Hindu activist, group or
leader will allege the rape to be a fake or consensual; such conspiracy theories
have no place within the domains of a genuine "Hindu mindset" despite
the fact that in the infamous Jhabua rape case in 1999, six of the twelve
accused in question who had been prematurely identified as Hinduvta activists
by the "secular brigade" turned out to be tribal converts to Christianity.
Of course, the secular" media ran away after telling such a massive lie,
when the truth was revealed [4]. No apology was forthcoming.
The confabulating Catholics will vehemently
deny the tribals a place in the Hindu religious fold in order to facilitate
their conversion strategies. They are animists they say, ironically the very
cult Romila Thapar reserved for the Vedic Aryans in her VI class NCERT textbook.
However, the same Catholics in alliance with the "secularists" now
claim Hindus to be responsible for this dastardly drama - the accused tribals
in question have now been conveniently elevated to the status of "caste"
hindus. Perhaps, we are also ignoring that in most Indian tribals, the ideology
of rape is minimal, if not non-existent. All in all, how can tribals who are
only semi Hinduized although attuned to several naturalistic Hindu practices,
be considered as representative of the Hindu right is beyond the comprehension
of the rational mind
The perversions of the Times View (4th October)
is explicit in their illegitimate improvisation where they have the audacity
to declare discovering no difference between the acts of terrorist bombings
in Delhi, Ahmedabad, Jaipur and that of the rape in question. It is preposterous
to suggest that that an isolated solitary rape case in a remote and inaccessible
region and in a highly charged atmosphere caused by the brutal murder of a
popular religious icon is the same as pre-planned conspiracy to destroy the
nation by Islamic fundamentalists, guided by an inhuman and barbaric ideology.
The propagation of such patently false ideas is not only a great disrespect
to the thousands of victims killed and maimed in terror attacks but also exposes
the moral vacuity and the vicious agenda of a section of India"s fourth
estate.
Moreover, it is becoming increasingly apparent
that sections of the "secular" media have their own doctrinal axis
to grind, which includes distortion and suppression of news involving Christian
atrocities on Hindus in Kandhamal. For instance, on the 26th of September,
CNN.com, the leading American news channel reported a Hindu man killed by
a presumably Christian mob in Kandhmal [5]. In contrast, the very next day
on 27th of September, the communist national daily, "The Hindu"
applied their Goebellesque [6] imagination by insisting that some man was
killed by members of the majority community!
Rediff.com reported on 3rd of October that
two Hindus had been hacked to death [7] , however they had no word of condemnation
for any Christian group, which is in total contrast to their behaviour when
a victim is other than Hindu.
France 24 a French daily in one of their inflammatory
articles accused the late Swami Laxmananda Saraswati to be an extremist fundamentalist
eliminated by Maoists for good reason. And yet, Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi
continue to bend over backwards to appease hyperbolic Christian sensitivities
of the West [8] actively engaged in funding the likes of Project Joshua which
relentlessly rushes to Christianize India by the turn of the next century.
While this conflagration rages on, the debate over conversion has been sidelined.
Unconstitutional, unlawful conversion is cheered in the name of providing
health and education services through quacks and Christian geocentric theories
respectively. Any nationalist and Hindu rescuing his faith through reconversion
is deemed communalist and cause of tension, a situation strangely reminiscent
of the Raj"s attitude which V D Savarkar had summed up thus;
"If reconversion movement created tension,
why should the conversion movement not be considered so? I emphasize that
if at all anybody was to be held responsible for the tension, the missionaries
and the maulvis should be held so because they had started the conversion
first.moreover, I was doing sacred work for my nation which is being exploited
in her fallen days by foreign faiths. It was a strange attitude on the part
of a government that allowed robbers to commit robberies and prohibited the
owners from protecting and defending their property"
Ultimately, cynical exploitation of an unfortunate
rape victim"s tragic story and zealously transforming her into a "secular"
mascot in the political crusade against "imaginary Hindu fundamentalism"
is representative of the absolute amorality of its agents
References & Notes:
1. Maoists deny role in VHP leaders murder;
The Hindu, 29.8.2008
http://www.hindu.com/2008/08/29/stories/2008082952080300.htm
2. Violent Ethnicity: Beyond the religious
confrontation in Orissa; The Statesman, 20.9.2008
http://www.thestatesman.net/page.arcview.php?clid=3&id=249945&usrsess=1
3. Interview with Dr. Zafarul Islam Khan;
Rediff.com 29.9.2008
http://www.rediff.com/news/2008/sep/29inter1.htm
4. Secular hoot and scoot, S Gurumurthy, New
Indian Express, 29.6.2004
5. Indian Police probe sectarian clashes;
CNN.com, 26.9.2008
http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/09/26/india.orissa/index.html
6. Violence continues in Kandhamal; The Hindu,
27.9.2008
http://www.hindu.com/2008/09/27/stories/2008092761010100.htm
7. Kandhamal violence worsens, two killed;
Rediff.com, 3.10.2008
http://www.rediff.com/news/2008/oct/03orissa.htm
8. UPA appeasing Christian west, Swapan Dasgupta;
The Pioneer, 5.10.2008
http://www.dailypioneer.com/indexn12.asp?counter_img=1&file_name=story1.txt&main_variable=front_page
- (Author is a doctor by profession and an amateur historian based in New
Delhi, India)
