Kandhamal crisis: Hatred through the cracks in Harmony

D N Singh

History has virtually repeated itself. But this time the crisis is much worse in that, it has turned into a fountainhead of hatred. In December 2007 it was in Kandhamal that the same Swami Lakshmananand was attacked over a scuffle between two communities. That incident too had resulted in violence, further widening the gap between the Christian and the Hindu communities. Four had died during the week long riot and many more were rendered homeless.The incident of the night of August 24, was the beginning of a terror that has shaken the very foundations of the amity, if there was any left, between the two communities. The swamy along with four of his disciples were brutally gunned down by still-unidentified assailants. The religious fervour at the Palsapeta ashram was soon overwhelmed by an uneasy silence. Hatred came out naked the day next. The idiocies of orthodoxy prevailed over centuries old harmony and brutal vengeance was unleashed by blood thirsty elements. Hundreds of houses, prayer houses and churches were ransacked. Worse than that, the attackers started killing people. This has now opened the floodgates for religious compartmentalization.If we talk of the divide; then the root of the problem in this part is poverty, and that is being capitalized by the zealots for their respective gains. Else the poor tribals or dalits who inhabit in these woods are no buyers of such dogmas. Even the sponsors of such dogmas consciously or unconsciously forget that, in the name of religion they have bred the shoots of an endemic repulsion for each other. That is the feeble base on which Kandhamal district today stands. The fabrics have been torn apart as the entire district today is a witness to the cowardly acts of rapacious groups from both the sides. The venom of hatred has now spilled out to other districts and an incapable administration appear as perplexed as the victims. So far about 17 people from both the communities have died. The minority forum in the state claimed that more than 5000 people have fled to the jungles to escape the terror and about 600 churches are damaged. ( It is a different thing that Kandhamal district has less than 300 schools put together ! ) The areas are still tense and nobody knows what would happen next. But, back in Bhubaneswar the politicians lolling in the luxury of inactivity seem engaged in a verbose battle in the Assembly. It is only the media teams those make rounds of the areas risking their lives. The common man in Kandhamal is simply torn between the fear of the loss of life and the desire to live. It is not the time for the religious groups or the politicians to indulge in inflammatory rhetoric, which will further deepen the crisis. And for the Chief Minister of Orissa the writing on the wall is, trust is fine but, control is better.