[John Dayal is aicc Secretary General and member of India's National Integration Council. He has visited Orissa numerous times since major violence erupted in December 2007.]

STATE GOVERNMENT ACQUIESCES IN SANGH PARVIAR PLAN TO WIPE OUT CHRISTIANITY FROM ORISSA
FOURTH WEEK OF VIOLENCE

Late night I had two very disturbing calls interrupting the unceasing messages and rings from Orissa on my two mobile phones. The first was of two separate gun battles between police and armed mobs. One was a Sangh Parivar posse attacking the Church in Tumudibandh and apparently two of the attackers were killed by the police. The second was apparently a Maoist attack on two villages in the Raikia region, and a gun battle was reported still raging.

The second message confirmed something I had been told some days ago – that Vishwa Hindu Parishad leader and surgeon Dr Praveen Togadia [he is still registered, apparently, with India’s Medical Council] had given a call, almost a contract, to his cadres in Orissa that three prominent Christian leaders, two of them living in Bhubaneswar, had to be ‘eliminated’.  Already, these three have been named in the Oriya language press, and pamphlets with their names have been distributed in villages in Kandhamal and neighbouring district.

These alarming news came hot on the heels of perhaps even more disturbing reports from the highest sources in Bhubaneswar and Cuttack [which is home to the state police headquarters] and confirmed from New Delhi that the State Government -- which Chief Minister Naveen Pattnaik runs in collation with the Bharatiya Janata Party -- has agreed with the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh thesis that the State can move forward only once it is rid of all Christians, specially from Kandhamal and Sundergarh. These are the two districts in the state with a sizable number of Tribals and Dalits. Orissa has just about 2 [two] percent Christians in its population, less than the national average of 2.4 percent. It is also India’s third largest Hindu majority state [because there are few other minorities]. Coincidently, Kandhamal and Sundergarh are the only two districts where the Christian population is more than the state average.

Last night, the police opened fire in Tumudibandh, the small town close to the ashram of the late Vishwa Hindu Parishad vice president Lakhmanananda Saraswati. Apparently, the assailants were bent upon burning a church and other buildings, so it can be presumed they were not Christians. The second police encounter was with alleged Maoists who attacked two villages in the Raikia-Udaygiri region. I am awaiting details and confirmation.

Needless to say, every single Bishop, Priest, pastor and common man or woman who has communicated with me – I am in Delhi, told by my friends not to come to Kandhamal at this time – has said the people are in a state of abject panic. Every eye-witness account adds to their panic. Prayer is their only strength.

In Delhi we still have no information if any church organisation has been able to go, or allowed to go, to render assistance to the people, some of whom are positively starving and on the verge of collapse. In December 2007, it was the District Collector who had stopped Christian aid till the Supreme Court [and Orissa High Court] overruled him months later. This time, it is the sweep and brutality of the violence. This is confirmed by what others in authority say.

“What we are witnessing in states like Orissa most recently is a carefully orchestrated ploy by the BJP and its sister organisations to inflame religious prejudices and passions,” Congress president Mrs Sonia Gandhi told her party’s highest policy making body yesterday. “This has been their [the Sangh Parivar's] strategy all along. Every time their position is weakened, every time elections are around the corner, the BJP, RSS, Bajrang Dal and the VHP launch into the most vicious communal campaign to divide and polarise society, with no regard to loss of lives and livestock,” Mrs. Gandhi said

The Supreme Court has asked for a report on the steps taken by the Orissa state government to protect the lives of the minority Christians. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has announced Rs 3 lakh ex-gratia compensation to each family of those killed. It has also sent 500 Central police personnel, grossly insufficient according to the victims cowering in their villages or still unable to return.

After we met in a delegation with President Mrs. Pratibha Patil and demanded that Article 355 be invoked and the state government told to act, Union Home minister Shivraj Patil did caution the state government that unless it takes adequate measures to book and punish the persons involved in "such incidents", there is a possibility of "unfortunate" happenings in future.

The government admits violence has now gripped 13 of Orissa's 30 districts after Lakhmanananda Saraswati and his associates were killed on August 23 by Maoists.

A SNAPSHOT OF ORISSA VIOLENCE
Districts affected:  14 [Fourteen]
Villages affected:  300 [Three Hundred]
People affected:  Over 50,000 [Fifty Thousand]
     People hiding in forests:  About 40,000 [Forty Thousand]
     People in government refugee camps:  About 12,000 [Twelve Thousand]
     People in private camps and homes:  About 1,000 [One Thousand]
DEATHS
     People killed in police firing [presumed Non Christian]:  2 [Two]
     People dead/missing/abducted [Christians or staff] estimated:  5 [Five]
     People confirmed dead:  45 [Forty-five]
INJURED
     Priests/pastors/nuns seriously injured: 10 [Ten]
     Injured men and women:  Estimated 18,000, most still in forests
PROPERTY DAMAGES
     Houses destroyed:  Over 4,000 [Four Thousand]
     Churches [concrete structures] attacked:  54 [Fifty four] and counting (Editor’s note: dozens of house churches or village churches have been destroyed for an estimated total of 115)
     Schools and colleges attacked:  11 [Eleven]
     NGOs attacked:  4 [Four]