Hounds And The Flock

"Conversion is a complex and emotionally charged issue. Fundamentalists exploit it, liberals complicate it, many do not comprehend what the fuss is about, and others shy away from getting involved."                

At the relief camp in G. Udaygiri, Runima Digal clutches the folds of her purple nylon sari convulsively. On August 25, two days after the swami's murder, she, her husband Ishwar Digal and four children had fled from their village Gutingiamallipora. They came to the camp carrying nothing except the clothes on their backs.

Less than a month later, on September 20, Ishwar received a message from his village that his father was seriously ill. Anxious, he rushed home, accompanied by his wife and one child. There, Runima recalls, four local RSS activists told him that if he had plans to return to the village permanently, he had better "reconvert" to Hinduism or face death. Scared to spend the night in the village, the Digals decided it would be safer to return to the camp under cover of darkness. As they took a shortcut through the jungle, some men emerged from the shadows—one of whom Runima recognised—and hacked her husband to death before her eyes. Grabbing her child, she ran to get help, but by the time she returned with the CRPF, it was too late. There were only bloodstains to mark the spot where her husband had been killed. His body had been removed.

Runima's story, with some variations, is repeated at all the relief camps I visit—in Tikabali, G. Udaygiri and Raikia. The Christian refugees—a majority of whom are Panos while a few are Kandhas—are all scared to return to their villages. (Even the sarpanch of the Kurtamagada gram panchayat in Tumribandha, Shrish Malik, could not escape the wrath of the saffron hordes even though he is a Kandha and is in the BJD. His sin? He's a Christian.) They have all been told they can return "in peace"—but only if they return to the Hindu fold. If God couldn't save someone named Ishwar, what can others hope for? Especially as the parivar can't understand what the fuss is about. "There are 8.5 lakh Christians in Orissa: only 20,000-odd are in camps," says Dr Lakshmidhar Das of the Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram. "Why are we being given a bad name for such a small number?"

Most have already lost everything, their homes—at least 4,455 homes have been razed to the ground—reduced to charred shells, their churches ransacked, their hard-earned worldly goods looted or destroyed, their grains burnt and their goats scattered. The manner in which the houses have been targeted show prior knowledge: as in Gujarat, only the homes of the minorities have been torched.

For instance, in Beheragam, eight or nine km from the Chakapada Ashram where the swami was interred, the home of Padmacharan Digal, a retired JCO, along with 40-odd others, were singled out on September 24. "Nearly 1,500 people came, shouting 'Jai Shri Ram' and 'Jai Bajrang'," recalls Padmacharan. "Our neighbours pointed out our homes. With my army savings and pension, I had bought a fridge and TV. It's all gone now." An acrid smell greets us as we visit the charred remains of what was the ex-JCO's home. Only a heap of half-eaten corn cobs strewn across the floor have survived. Padmacharan and his family now all live in the Tikabali camp. Every morning he and others make the pilgrimage back to the village, walking past a ransacked church, a large broken red cross placed artistically on the rubble, looking for some signs of hope.

At the Chakapada Ashram, Saroj Kumar Das, who performed the last rites for the swami, and doubles as a Sanskrit teacher at the BD High School, looks like an unlikely spewer of venom. Dressed neatly in trousers and shirt, he sits cross-legged in the ashram's pillared prayer hall dominated by a portrait of the swami. "Only Hindus love Bharat mata; Christians and Muslims together create riots," he tells me matter-of-factly. "They are traitors. They killed Swamiji, not the Maoists—that's just a cover by the government. Do you know in Daringbadi (a block in the district), they raise the Italian flag on Independence Day? If any Hindu says anything to them, they tell them we will tell Madam (Sonia Gandhi)." What about the rape of the nun? "Can a nun be raped?" he asks, his tone now aggressive. "She is supposed to have said that she was raped in front of 10 policemen. That's not part of Hindu sanskriti. It can only happen in ekant here, not like in the West."

As this man of god expands on this theme, one wonders how CM Patnaik hopes to return the district to peace. This is no longer just a law-and-order problem. Perhaps it's time to pay attention to voices such as that of Jesuit sociologist Rudolf Heredia, who calls for "religious disarmament" and suggests that it is time to acknowledge that while religious commitment is essentially a matter of personal conscience and choice, it also impacts other levels of individual and social life.