church
INDIA

Orissa: One Year Later
Continuing threats, forced conversions, and a persecution that, though more subtle and hidden compared with the wave of violence in August 2008, leaves no respite. An Indian bishop recounts how the Christians are living in a state where the faith puts them at risk.

by Luca Pezzi

The body of Fr. Thomas Pandippallyil was lying on the edge of the road in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. The arms and legs had been broken, and the eyes put out. He had been on his way, by motorcycle, to say Mass. It was August 16, 2008. Some days later, the terrible wave of violence began against Christians, one that was to turn the spotlight of the whole world on another state of India, Orissa. One year after that persecution, which saw hundreds of churches destroyed, scores of dead, and thousands of wounded and faithful forced to flee from their homes to take refuge in the jungle or in refugee camps, we met H.E. Thomas Chakiath, Vicar General of the Archdiocese of Ernakulam-Angamaly, to find out how the situation is today and what has happened over the past months. “After the outbreak of violence, I visited Orissa,” he tells us, “but I was unable to go to where the attacks had taken place. It was not advisable to visit those areas.”
Bishop Chakaith, 72, lives in the state of Kerala, in the southwestern point of India. Here, Christians make up 20% of the population, compared with a national average of 2%. “Despite the food and the services offered in the camps I visited, the refugees were living in total despair. They had lost relatives and friends, homes and land, and even the hope of returning to their own land.”
In India, there are different cultures, traditions, and ethnic groups. “We live in a totally religious environment, unlike the secularized West,” he explains, “partly because India is the cradle of four great religions: Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, and Sikhism.” Among the many problems of this country, the second most populous country in the world (with 1.15 billion people), is religious fundamentalism. “Hindu fundamentalism, encouraged by the BJP (India People’s Party) and by the Sangh Parivar, an umbrella group of anti-Christian organizations, has made the state of Gujarat a kind of laboratory for experiments. For all its drama, thanks to our prudence and good leadership on the part of the Church hierarchy, in Orissa the violence against Christians has not reached the preceding levels.”

The contradictions. Now, one year later, how has the situation changed for the Christians? We certainly can’t speak of a return to normalcy. There are still reports surfacing in the newspapers and press agencies of recent murders, of recent threats to the faithful, and attacks on Christian buildings, like the two Protestant churches in Karnataka at the end of August. Physical violence has not increased, but the structural violence remains, perhaps more subtle and more difficult to do away with. It is a violence perpetrated by the community, consisting of social discrimination and other kinds of boycotts: “The Christians in the refugee camps find it difficult to return to their own villages. Many Hindus do not want them; they don’t allow them into the shops or accept them for jobs in the camps. Also, the criminal minds behind last year’s events go on freely stirring up hate in the villages. The physical violence will end only when the law begins to catch up with those responsible.”
As recently decided by the government of Orissa, Christian refugees have the right to a subsidy of 20,000 rupees (about $450 in U.S. dollars) for rebuilding their house if it was “partially destroyed.” Half of the sum is allocated immediately, and the rest after work commences. “But many refugees, once back in their villages, receive threats from their neighbors: ‘Either you reconvert to Hinduism and compensate your persecutors, or we will not allow you to begin rebuilding.’ According to the Orissa government, almost 3,000 people will be unable to return to their own homes. I think, though, that their number is destined to increase, at least to double that.”
There are many contradictions in India: “The economy is growing, but a high percentage of families is forced to live below poverty level. This explains the violent reaction of the Maoists in defending the lowest castes and the marginalized ethnic minorities.” Moreover, if on one side there is the secularism of the Constitution (with the clause on religious freedom), on the other side you come across the barely disguised connivance of the police and certain governments with fundamentalist violence. “The political sides play on divisions of religion, caste, and ethnic group so as to get and keep power,” he stresses. But can the government intervene in the decisions of the single states? “In our federal system, law and public order depend on the single states. Central government can interfere only through the Rapid Action Force, extreme solutions that are resorted to in the case of a slaughter. The problem becomes complex when there are cases of abuse of power within individual states, as happened in the massacre of Orissa.

A cultural revolution. Following this logic, “globalization constitutes a threat for religious and cultural identities. In some parts of Hinduism, and especially in the higher castes, there is the fear of being wiped out by this phenomenon coming from the Christian West, by the invasion of militant Islamists with the power of oil. But there is another element: the emancipation of the population in the villages, like those of the marginalized castes and the tribes, is worrying the upper castes. The social growth of the lower classes could invite them to vindicate their rights, of which they were ignorant before. This could upset the whole system.”
It is the “cultural revolution” that Christianity has been bringing with it for 2,000 years. “There is no more Jew or Greek, no more slave or freeman, no more male or female, because you are all one in Christ Jesus.” This is the Church’s mission: “In the total emancipation of man is the glory of God,” concludes Bishop Chakiath. “But we know for certain that Jesus’ road is also one of suffering and of sharing His Cross.”