The brutal murders in a remote hamlet of Orissa are not an isolated event. It is part of the chain of attacks which have been organised in different parts of the country targetting the Christian community, its churches and priests. For more than a year, Gujarat has been the main battlefield for the RSS outfits in their war against Christianity. The Vishwa Hindu Parishad which has a widespread network in the rural areas of Gujarat along with other RSS outfits like the Vanavasi Kalyan Ashram and the Bajrang Dal have been in the forefront of the anti-Christian campaign. The BJP state government has been more or less justifying these attacks by repeatedly stating its opposition to "forcible conversions" which have been the pretext for the launching of the campaign of intimidation and terror. Attacks on Christian priests and churches have been taking place in other states too. The rape of three nuns in Jhabua was preceded by a number of attacks on churches and priests in Madhya Pradesh and Bihar. In Karnataka, a congregation was attacked near Mangalore and the priest seriously injured last month.

HATE CAMPAIGN

The killings in Manoharpur are a direct outcome of the atmosphere of hate and violence which has been building up against the relatively small Christian community ever since the BJP government came to power at the Centre. The RSS has felt emboldened to put into operation its long range plan of eliminating Christian influence in the adivasi areas. The Christian community constitutes just 2.5 percent of the total population of the country. Yet why is the RSS concentrating its attack on the Church today? It sees the Christian Church as the main obstacle to its mission of "hinduising" the adivasi communities who have historically been outside the Hindu religious fold with religious practices of their own. In the North-East, the RSS is engaged in a strategic plan to penetrate the Christian dominated tribal areas. The Vanavasi Kalyan Ashram is the vehicle used by the RSS for setting up a network of institutions in the adivasi areas to propagate its Hindutva ideology and proselytizing activities. This lies at the root of the mounting conflict and violence directed against the Christians in the adivasi and tribal dominated areas. Whether it be the Chotanagpur belt in Bihar, or the adivasi areas of Madhya Pradesh or the Dangs-Surat region in Gujarat or the tribal areas of Orissa, the Hindutva forces are engaged in a war against the Christian community.

In Orissa, the poison being injected in the adivasi areas by the Vanavasi Kalyan Ashram, the Bajrang Dal and other outfits began manifesting in violent outbreaks. In the first week of December 1998, in Gajapati district, a sub-jail was attacked by a mob led by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad at R. Udaygiri. The jail was broken into and two Christian undertrials charged with robbery were dragged out and lynched to death in the presence of police officers. The Orissa state government was forewarned by this incident. It was followed by large-scale arson on Christian homes in the neighbouring areas. The Congress state government was more keen to play down the seriousness of these incidents, than take firm action to deal with the communal outfits who are targetting the Christians in the adivasi areas. The least that the state government can do now is to proscribe the organisations in the adivasi areas who are engaged in anti-Christian propaganda. The state government has the necessary legal powers to act in this manner.

ALL ROUND COMMUNICATION

The situation in Orissa reflects what is happening in our society after the RSS embarked on their gameplan. In the recent years the RSS outfits have been concentrating in the tribal areas in Orissa with the help of the erstwhile feudal rulers of the areas. Despite there being a Congress government in the state, given the steady erosion of secular values, the Congress party is not in a position to give a firm direction to combat the anti-secular offensive.

The symptoms of communalisation have been evident. The January 10 issue of the People's Democracy carried a letter sent by the General Secretary of the CPI(M) to the President of India complaining about the role of a senior IPS officer in Orissa. This police officer, M. Nageswar Rao, who is now the Vice-President of the Behrampore Development Authority made a public speech at the Behrampore Town Hall on December 10 in which he castigated the Constitution of India as being anti-Hindu and held Nehru guilty of minority appeasement. The same officer was openly conducting communal propaganda against the Christian church while being posted as Superintendent of Police of Nawarangpur a tribal dominated district. Yet the J B Patnaik government has not taken any disciplinary measures against this officer. The communalisation of sections of the administration and the police is a process which has been going on for sometime all over the country.

SANGH PARIVAR INVOLVEMENT

The stance adopted by the RSS combine is one of crude blackmail. Its leaders threaten the Christian community -stop your activities in the tribal areas, the code word used is "conversion", if you want the attacks to stop. The RSS Chief Rajinder Singh while formally deploring the attacks on Churches has demanded that Christians should not take out protest processions and raise slogans protesting against the attacks. While calling attacks on Churches un-Hindu, in the same statement he has sought to justify it in the following words "On the other hand the tribals being very simple people are likely to be enraged if they find that conversions have taken place in their neighbourhood surreptitiously or their property has been illegally acquired by the Church through fraudulent means." The RSS paper Organiser has declared in a recent issue, (January 17 1999) that a meaningful dialogue is possible only if the Church stops conversions. Its editor has argued that "The stray incidents in Jhabua (Madhya Pradesh), Ahwa, Dangs (Gujarat), Peth, Nashik (Maharashtra), significantly in areas inhabited by gullible, simple tribals eking out existence in penury are quite `vocal' of the missionaries convenient targetting of the most vulnerable sections of Hindu society.." The theme of "simple" tribal people getting enraged found a chilling illustration in the murder of the Christian priest and his two young sons.

The prime minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, visiting Dangs district after the continuous violence from Christmas Day, echoed the RSS stand by calling for a national debate on conversions. This is nothing but endorsing the arguments justifying the attacks on the Christian community. The countrywide attacks on Christians is not a reaction to "forcible" conversions. It is a planned campaign of intimidation against a minority community practicing its religious faith. What is being attacked is the right to congregate and pray in a church and even celebrate Christmas.

Soon after the news of the outrage in Manoharpur became known, the BJP leadership vehemently came out in defence of the Bajrang Dal and other RSS organisations. They have flatly denied any possibility of the Bajrang Dal or the RSS organisations being involved in the incident. The home minister, L.K. Advani has made a public statement exonerating the Bajrang Dal and personally vouched for the "non-criminal" character of the organisation. Advani, who led the infamous rathyatra and who is an accused in the Babri Masjid demolition case is fully aware of the gameplan of the RSS and its front organisations against the Christian Church. To come out blatantly in defence of the Bajrang Dal after the horrific murders reveals his deep commitment and involvement with the Hindutva crusade. The same Advani had used an earlier opportunity to inform the media that the bulk of the foreign funds coming into the country in the past six months have gone to the Church organisations.

Vajpayee's call for a national debate on "conversions" and Advani's dark hints about foreign funds coming for Christian organisations and the general cry against "forcible conversions" raised by the BJP-RSS leaders all show a common purpose.

The 49th anniversary of the Republic Day has been overshadowed by the growing violence against the small Christian community. It is a grim warning that the secular basis of the Indian Republic is under siege with the very people enjoined to uphold the Constitution themselves protecting and patronising the anti-secular forces.

The opportunist combination which props up the BJP-led government consists of people like George Fernandes, Chandrababu Naidu and Mamata Banerjee, who claim to be secular unlike the other allies of the BJP, the Shiv Sena. While the Shiv Sena and the RSS are going all out to implement their Hindutva agenda, the so-called secular allies of the BJP are getting more and more exposed as unprincipled opportunists who have no other stake but to remain in office. None of them dare to break away from the BJP, even while protesting against the attacks on the minorities.