{"id":550,"date":"2010-11-12T08:02:24","date_gmt":"2010-11-12T01:02:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/martianuswb.com\/?p=550"},"modified":"2013-03-12T21:49:18","modified_gmt":"2013-03-12T14:49:18","slug":"orissa-india-christians-still-face-boycott-forced-conversion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/martianuswb.com\/?p=550","title":{"rendered":"Orissa: India Christians still face boycott, forced conversion"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>NEW DELHI, November 11<\/strong> (CDN) \u2014 More than two years after losing relatives and property in anti-Christian violence, there is no sense of relief among survivors in India\u2019s Orissa state, as many are still ostracized and pressured to \u201creturn\u201d to Hinduism, according to a private investigation.<\/p>\n

\u201cDespite the state administration\u2019s claim of normalcy,\u201d the preliminary report of a fact-finding team states, \u201ca state of lawlessness and utter fear and sense of insecurity\u201d prevails among Christians of Kandhamal district, which saw a major anti-Christian bloodbath in 2008.<\/p>\n

The team, consisting of local attorney Nicholas Barla and another identified only as Brother Marcus, along with rights activists Jugal Kishore Ranjit and Ajay Kumar Singh, visited four villages in three blocks of Kandhamal on Nov. 5.<\/p>\n

In Bodimunda village in Tikabali, the team met a pastor who said he has been closely watched since Hindu extremists forced him to become a Hindu. The pastor, whose name the report withheld for security reasons, said he had to convert to Hinduism in 2008 \u201cto save his old mother, who could not have escaped the violence as she was not in a position to walk.\u201d<\/p>\n

He is still closely watched in an effort to prevent him from returning to Christianity. While the attorneys and activists were still at the pastor\u2019s house, a man who identified himself as from the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS, India\u2019s most influential Hindu nationalist conglomerate) came to inquire about his visitors. The pastor felt compelled to tell them that they were \u201cbank officials.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the same village, Hindu nationalists have also imposed a de facto ban on any private or public vehicle to ferry Christians or their belongings, said the report.<\/p>\n

The team met the family of a paralyzed Christian, Bamadev Pradhan, whom auto-rickshaw drivers refused to take to a hospital when he recently ran a high fever. Eventually a Christian driver took him to the only hospital in Tikabali, around eight kilometers (nearly five miles) from his village of Bodimunda, but as the Christian was driving back, some local men confiscated his vehicle.<\/p>\n

With the help of the auto-rickshaw union, the driver (unnamed in the report) got the vehicle released after paying a fine of 1,051 (US$24) rupees and promising that he would not transport any Christians in the future.<\/p>\n

Another Christian said area Hindus extremists prohibited Christians from procuring basic necessities.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are not allowed to bring housing materials or food provisions or medicines, and nor are we allowed to buy anything from local shops,\u201d he said. \u201cWe do not have any shop of our own. Here, we are struggling to live as human beings.\u201d<\/p>\n

The team also met a Hindu who had to pay 5,000 rupees (US$112) to get his tractor returned to him, as he had transported housing material for the construction of the house of a Christian.<\/p>\n

In the house of a Christian in Keredi village in Phulbani Block, the team found a picture of a Hindu god. The resident, who was not identified in the report, explained that he had to display it in order to protect his family from harm.<\/p>\n

The team found pictures of Hindu gods also in the house of a Christian in Gandapadar village in the Minia area, Phiringia Block. A woman in the house told the team that local Hindu nationalists had given her pictures of Hindu gods for worship.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have kept them, as they often come to check whether we have reconverted to Christianity,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Almost all Christians the team met complained that the local administration had done little to protect them and suspected that officials colluded with area Hindu nationalists.<\/p>\n

Released on Nov. 8, the report asserts that Christians have been barred from taking water from a government well in Dakanaju village, under G. Udayagiri police jurisdiction in Tikabali Block. The village head, Sachindra Pradhan, has promised to take action \u201cat the earliest,\u201d it added.<\/p>\n

Violence in Kandhamal and some other districts of Orissa state followed the assassination of Hindu nationalist leader Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati on Aug. 23, 2008. The rampage killed over 100 people and burned 4,640 houses, 252 churches and 13 educational institutions, according to estimates by human rights groups.<\/p>\n

The spate of attacks began a day after Saraswati\u2019s killing when Hindu nationalist groups blamed Christians for his murder, although Maoists (extreme Marxists) active in the district claimed responsibility for it.<\/p>\n

John Dayal, a Christian activist in Delhi, told Compass that \u201cthe apparatus of 2008 remains undisturbed.\u201d The Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was part of the ruling state alliance with the regional Biju Janata Dal (BJD) party at the time of the violence. Although the BJD broke up with the BJP in 2009, blaming it for the violence, the former cannot be excused, said Dayal.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile the BJP is mainly to be blamed, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik is not entirely innocent,\u201d Dayal said. \u201cNot just that he allowed the BJP and RSS cadres to run amok when they were part of his government, turning a blind eye to their very visible anti-Christian activities, but he was his own home [interior] minister and cannot really shirk command responsibility for the carnage together with his BJP ministerial colleagues and senior officers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kandhamal district Magistrate Krishan Kumar, who was on a tour at press time, could not be contacted for comment despite repeated attempts.<\/p>\n

Of the 648,201 people in Kandhamal district, 117,950 are Christian, mostly Dalit (formerly \u201cuntouchables\u201d in the caste hierarchy in Hindu societies), according to the 2001 Census. Hindus, mainly tribal people and numbering 527,757, form the majority.<\/p>\n

\n

http:\/\/www.compassdirect.org\/<\/em><\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NEW DELHI, November 11 (CDN) \u2014 More than two years after losing relatives and property in anti-Christian violence, there is no sense of relief among survivors in India\u2019s Orissa state,… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1708,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[172],"tags":[35,32],"class_list":["post-550","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-persecuted","tag-idop-2010","tag-india"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/martianuswb.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/martianuswb.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/martianuswb.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/martianuswb.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/martianuswb.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=550"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/martianuswb.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2575,"href":"https:\/\/martianuswb.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550\/revisions\/2575"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/martianuswb.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1708"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/martianuswb.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/martianuswb.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/martianuswb.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}