Camps of fear

PRAFULLA DAS
in Kandhamal

Orissa: Christians in Kandhamal district continue to be a scared lot despite the assurances from the State administration.

FIFTY-YEAR-OLD Nalini Nayak is a shattered woman after her husband, Fidem Nayak, was killed by rioters during the recent anti-Christian violence in Orissa’s Kandhamal district. Fidem was a pastor. He left his home in Tikabali along with two youth from his village on August 23 to organise a prayer meeting in a church in the neighbouring G. Udaygiri block the next day, a Sunday. But the worst was waiting to happen.

On the evening of August 23, Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) leader Swami Lakshmanananda Saraswati was killed by suspected Maoists at an ashram in Jalespata in the Tumudibandha area of Kandhamal. It triggered communal violence across the district.

Fidem and the two youth did not return to their village. Nalini received information that the three were hacked to death by rioters when they were returning home on August 25. Nalini’s house was looted and burnt down by miscreants the same day.

Nalini reached the relief camp set up for the riot-hit people in Tikabali town after spending four nights in a jungle with fellow villagers. Now it is almost two months since the violence, but she is in no mood to return to her village to rebuild her home.

“I will not return to my village because there is nothing left there for me. I will also not change my religion to Hinduism. Why should I convert when I have lost everything for no fault on our part?” Nalini said in a choked voice.

Of the 23,000-odd people who took shelter in the 19 relief camps set up for riot-hit families in Kandhamal, over 3,000 were in the Tikabali relief camp when violence was still spreading. With the incidence of violence decreasing in the district, the total number of refugees in the relief camps came down to 13,000 by mid-October; at Tikabali it was 900.

Many of the Christian families who had taken shelter at the Tikabali camp had by now left for distant towns as they were not willing to succumb to pressures from Hindutva forces to convert to Hinduism. Some families, however, have returned to their villages to become Hindus and resume normal life. But those like Nalini are still stuck in the camps.

Some people living in the camp have tried to return to their homes, but in vain. After spending more than a month in the Tikabali relief camp, 30-year-old Basant Digal went to his village along with his wife and sister-in-law in the hope of rebuilding his house. But a mob of around 40 people, many of them women, stopped them on their way.

“We were asked to convert to Hinduism if we wanted to live in the village, so we have returned to the camp. Some members of the group even tried to attack us when we refused to change our religion. We were lucky to escape death,” said Basant.

“Now we have lost all hopes in the administration. The police are going soft on those who killed people and burnt down houses. We don’t know what will happen to us even at the relief camp,” he added. The Christian families that agreed to become Hindus were also attacked in the subsequent days. The family of Sukhdev Digal continued to live in its home in Dagpadar village in Tikabali block until September 26, more than a month after violence started in the region. The family agreed to the condition laid down by Sangh Parivar activists that Christian families which wanted to live in the village should convert to Hinduism. But communal hatred finally took its toll.

On September 26, Sukhdev and two of his brothers, Bispat Digal and Santarai Digal, had gone to fetch relief materials from a village a few kilometres away. Since they could not return to their village before sunset, they took shelter in the house of a friend who belonged to the majority community. Around midnight, Sukhdev woke up to see a mob dragging his two brothers out of the adjacent room in which they were sleeping. The mob hacked his brothers to death. Sukhdev managed to flee under cover of darkness.

“I saw my brothers being killed by the mob, but I could not do anything to save them. There were about 100 of them and most of them were armed,” said Sukhdev.

Sukhdev ran a distance of 15 km to reach the Tikabali relief camp before sunrise. The next day, a police team accompanied him when he went to take his parents in his village to the relief camp. “I have lodged a complaint with the police and I am expecting them to take stringent action against those who killed my brothers.”

Tall claims
Even as the Naveen Patnaik government made tall claims about the situation in Kandhamal turning normal, the ground reality remained totally different.

“The government’s claim that peace is being restored with the help of peace committees formed at various levels is a hoax. Peace returns only in the villages where Christian families have opted to become Hindus, and the authorities know it very well,” said a resident of Ladapadar village in Phiringia block where 22 of the 30 families changed their religion to Hinduism on October 2.

In Ladapadar, Jonathan Digal converted to Hinduism and changed his name to Sujit Digal. “I will change my name officially after the situation becomes normal,” he said. Jonathan, who is now living with his grandmother, last saw his parents seven weeks back. Jonathan’s father Jakhyachandra Digal worked as a pastor in a church and lived in the G. Udaygiri area. Several days after the violence broke out, Jonathan got information that his parents had taken shelter in a relief camp in G. Udaygiri town.

Meanwhile, the VHP, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and the Bajrang Dal have dropped their plans to take out processions in villages across the State in memory of Swami Lakshmanananda. The State government had taken steps to prevent these rallies following a Supreme Court order to protect Christians in the State. The organisations, however, are now busy holding demonstrations in various towns demanding the arrest of the killers of the swami.

Maoist hand
Sabyasachi Panda, a top leader of the Communist Party of India (Maoist), in an interview to a group of journalists (including this correspondent), claimed that his outfit had killed the swami “because he was forcibly converting both tribals and Christians into Hinduism”.

Panda, who blamed the VHP and its allies for fanning communalism by spreading misinformation that militant Christians had killed the Swami, also accused Chief Minister Patnaik of allowing riots to spread in the district. “Communal violence spread to most areas of Kandhamal only because the State government allowed the VHP to take the body of the swami in a procession covering many areas in the district,” Panda said.

Meanwhile, the Crime Branch of the State police has arrested three Maoists for alleged involvement in the killing of the swami. However, the Sangh Parivar is not in a mood to accept the fact that the swami was killed by Maoists.

The violence has been controlled to a great extent in Kandhamal after the arrest of some local leaders of the VHP, the RSS, the Bajrang Dal and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The arrests were made more than a month after the violence in the district, when the Centre kept pressuring the State government to take strong measures to contain the violence. On the other hand, the rioters have started attacking the State police and the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel. These attacks began in protest against the arrest of those who were allegedly involved in the communal violence, which claimed over 40 lives and left thousands of houses destroyed. A constable of the State police was shot dead in a mob attack on the Gochhapada police station. A CRPF jawan was hacked to death later.

More than 600 rioters have been arrested in Kandhamal alone, while around 400 have been booked in other districts. More arrests are likely in Kandhamal, according to the police.

The administration has been finding it difficult to cope with the situation as the Kui Samaj Samanwaya Samiti, an umbrella organisation of the Kondh tribal people, has been demanding the withdrawal of the CRPF.

Interestingly, Lambodar Kanhar, general secretary of the Samiti, is believed to have close links with the ruling Biju Janata Dal (BJD), which is headed by the Chief Minister. Kanhar, who hopes to contest the coming Assembly elections on the BJD ticket, is also trying to attract the followers and supporters of the slain swami. He organised a meeting of the Samiti at Chakapad where the swami had an ashram. Those who attended the meeting paid rich tributes to the Swami.

There is no doubt that the ruling BJD-BJP alliance is out to capitalise on the polarisation that has taken place in the State after the murder of the VHP leader. But the Chief Minister has started making bold statements in order to keep his “secular credentials” intact.

In an interview to a television channel, he went to the extent of terming the Bajrang Dal a fundamentalist organisation. But it is common knowledge that Naveen Patnaik cannot make a hat trick as Chief Minister if his party severs its ties with the BJP.

In his attempt to underplay the communal violence, Patnaik said that the long-standing ill feeling between the tribal people and Dalits had aggravated the situation in the district. He announced a special development package for the district to make the poor of Kandhamal happy. But with 78 per cent of the families in the district living below the poverty line, the package appears to be too small, too late.

Patnaik, who holds the Home portfolio, has handed over to the Crime Branch the investigation into the cases pertaining to the killing of the swami and to the killings, rapes, and damaging of houses, churches, prayer houses and other properties . A total of eight persons have been arrested in the case relating to the rape of a Catholic nun in the K. Nuagaon area of Kandhamal on August 25.

The Chief Minister, whose so-called clean image has suffered a severe beating in the wake of the violence, has refused to transfer any of these cases to the Central Bureau of Investigation despite demands from various quarters. More than 900 cases pertaining to the violence have been registered and the number is growing.

As the situation in Kandhamal remains volatile, only a thorough investigation of these cases and action against the guilty can help the Naveen Patnaik government regain whatever credibility it had.

Project Orissa

PRAFULLA DAS
in Bhubaneswar & Kandhamal
The Sangh Parivar’s brutal attacks on Christians in Orissa’s Kandhamal district are part of a political project.

THE greenery and the low clouds caressing the thickly forested hills, which greet one as one drives into Kandhamal district, are in stark contrast to what lies ahead: deserted villages where houses have been burnt down. Their residents have fled the worst communal violence Orissa has seen, which claimed at least 30 lives.

The carnage began at midnight on August 23-24, hours after Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) leader Swami Lakshmanananda Saraswati and four of his disciples were shot dead at around 8 p.m. at his ashram at Jalespata, under Tumudibandha police station limits, in the same district. The assailants, numbering about 30, used automatic weapons, including AK-47 assault rifles.

The police suspected the hand of the Communist Party of India (Maoists), and Director General of Police Gopal Chandra Nanda told mediapersons as much on telephone at 11 p.m. The news soon spread and in no time protesters from Sangh Parivar organisations, including the VHP and the Bajrang Dal, were out on the streets erecting roadblocks at many places, including the capital, Bhubaneswar, and Cuttack.

Over the next two weeks, thousands of houses were looted and burnt down by the attackers who targeted members of the Christian community. Kandhamal district was the worst affected, with the local administration confirming 16 deaths.

The situation took a serious turn when Sangh Parivar leaders rejected the police theory suspecting Maoist involvement and said militant Christians were behind the killing of Lakshmanananda. As if signalling the violence, protesters set fire to a private bus in Bhubaneswar around midnight on August 23 and also attacked several churches there.

By next morning, at almost all district-headquarter towns, activists of the VHP, the Bajrang Dal, the Hindu Jagarana Samukhya and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) staged demonstrations and blocked roads demanding the arrest of the swami’s killers. The VHP and the Bajrang Dal gave a call for a Statewide 12-hour bandh on August 25. The bandh brought life to a standstill that day. Many trains were held up at stations en route and not a single passenger bus or commercial vehicle was seen on the roads.

Business establishments and banks downed their shutters and all educational institutions remained closed as ordered by the State government. Barring the arrest of some protesters, throughout the State the police largely remained mute spectators to the harassment of people who ventured out of their houses during the bandh.

In Kandhamal, informed sources said, houses belonging to Christians were set on fire and pastors and members of the community were attacked and burnt alive. Scores of churches and prayer houses were burnt down in Kandhamal district. Outside Kandhamal, an orphanage was attacked in Bargarh district.

Rajni Majhi, a 19-year-old Hindu girl who studied in a local college but worked in the orphanage as an auxiliary nurse, was burnt alive and a priest was beaten up badly.

Kandhamal district was virtually in flames by August 24. Serious trouble started when the Naveen Patnaik government succumbed to VHP pressure and allowed followers of Lakshmanananda to take out the funeral procession from the swami’s ashram at Jalespata to the one at Chakapad, passing through hundreds of villages.

The procession started from Jalespata on August 24 afternoon and reached Chakapad the next afternoon after halting at Phulbani, the district headquarter town, for the night. Leaders of the Sangh Parivar, including Suresh Pujari, president of the BJP’s State unit, participated in the procession.

Hundreds of people had gathered en route to pay their last respects to Lakshmanananda. All hell broke loose when incensed crowds in the localities that the procession passed through attacked Christians there. Christians, who were perceived to be Congress supporters, were targeted everywhere; in some places many Hindu families were also attacked because they were Congress supporters. The attackers included activists of the VHP, the Bajrang Dal and other Sangh Parivar organisations, and workers of the BJP and the Biju Janata Dal (BJD), parties that are partners in the government headed by Naveen Patnaik.

The violence also saw attacks on Christians who belonged to the Scheduled Castes and on people who claimed tribal status on the grounds that they spoke the Kui language of the Kondh tribal people. The Kui Samaj, which unites members of the native Kondh tribe in Kandhamal, was found to be very much on the side of the VHP and the ruling alliance.

Silent policemen

Informed sources said the policemen on duty at various police stations made no attempt to prevent the protesters from attacking Christians and their property.

The fact that the police did not open fire anywhere in Kandhamal district to stop the dance of death gave rise to the suspicion that they were acting on the instructions of their political bosses.

The protesters also attacked government officials and offices and damaged vehicles of the police and the civil administration. Prohibitory orders were clamped in the entire district and curfew was imposed in several towns.

As the additional police force made available in the district was engaged in protecting government establishments and facilitating the funeral procession, protesters continued with their aggression by felling trees and blocking roads that led to the interior pockets of the district. In many places, informed sources said, even neighbours turned enemies and burnt alive members of Christian families. People from neighbouring villages also joined in, looting and torching the houses of Christians, who fled into the surrounding forests and hills.

Many of the victims hid in the jungles for up to seven days and came out only when the police reached there and assured them safety. Soon the relief camps that the administration had set up were not enough to hold the homeless and the government set up more camps. At the overcrowded camps people were enquiring about the whereabouts of their near and dear who were missing even 10 days after the violence erupted.

Lakshmanananda’s body was cremated at Chakapad late on the afternoon of August 25 in the presence of three BJP Ministers of the State, several Members of Parliament, legislators, and leaders of the VHP, including Praveen Togadia, and other Sangh Parivar organisations. Togadia travelled from Bhubaneswar to Chakapad by road despite the curfew that was in force in several towns of Kandhamal district. He claimed that Christians were behind the killing of the swami and that conversion was the root cause of the unrest in the district.

In Bhubaneswar, he criticised the Naveen Patnaik government for its failure to protect the swami though the latter had informed the police about a threatening letter that his ashram at Jalespata received a day before the attack.

If Togadia was allowed to enter the district when violence was at its peak, Union Minister of State for Home Sriprakash Jaiswal and other politicians as also human rights activists were denied entry much later. Among those who were prevented from visiting the riot-hit region were Brinda Karat, Rajya Sabha member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), a team of Congress leaders of Orissa and a four-member team of Left Members of Parliament led by Gurudas Dasgupta of the Communist Party of India.

The entry restrictions were lifted on September 3 when Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil visited Kandhamal and reimposed the next day.

Several political parties and organisations demanded a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) into the swami’s killing and the subsequent violence. But Patnaik said the Special Investigation Team set up to probe the killing of the swami and four others was capable of bringing the guilty to book. He did not say anything about the cases relating to the killings and the destruction of property in the violence at various places.

BJP pressure

On the other hand, the BJP put pressure on the government to arrest those involved in the murder of Lakshmanananda. In the face of criticism from the VHP, the party’s legislators even stalled proceedings in the State Assembly for a day in support of their demand. In what seemed like a well-organised drama, a section of BJP legislators also demanded that the party pull out of the government and support it from outside. However, the scenario changed soon and senior leaders of the party met the Chief Minister and assured him that the BJP would remain a part of the ruling alliance.

While all organisations of the Sangh Parivar insisted that conversion was the main reason for the communal tension in Kandhamal, the BJP urged the Chief Minister to implement strictly the laws pertaining to conversion and the ban on cow slaughter.

Meanwhile, the situation in the interior areas of Kandhamal remained tense even a fortnight after the outbreak of violence despite the government’s claim that the law and order situation was under control. Stray incidents of violence continued in remote pockets that remained inaccessible because the roadblocks were still in place.

In the prevailing circumstances in Kandhamal, the return of peace and harmony between the different communities is unlikely unless the government makes its presence felt at all levels of the administration and solves the problems of the poor among the tribal and the non-tribal population.

On the political front, a joint initiative by all political parties could restore peace and communal harmony in the district. But that is unlikely to happen as elections to both the Lok Sabha and the State Assembly are scheduled for next year.

Inquiry commissions

The record of the BJD-BJP government shows that it has never been serious in its approach to ensure peace in Kandhamal. In fact, the district witnessed communal violence for more than a week in December last year following an attack on Lakshmanananda Saraswati a day before Christmas. At least four persons were killed and hundreds of houses of Christians were burnt down. A Hindu village, Brahmanigaon, was also attacked by members of the minority community.

The State government ordered a judicial inquiry into the violence and the commission, headed by retired High Court Judge Basudev Panigrahi, is continuing with its hearings.

Now, the government has ordered a judicial inquiry, headed by Sarat Chandra Mohapatra, a former High Court Judge, into the killing of Lakshmanananda and the communal violence that followed.

By the time the reports of the two commissions see the light of day, Kandhamal’s communal clashes may well have acquired a new dimension because of the interplay of social, political and cultural factors.

Communal card

THE issues that made Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi a champion of Hindutva may be different from those being debated in Orissa today. But Chief Minister and Biju Janata Dal president Naveen Patnaik seems to be following in Modi’s footsteps by playing into the hands of the Bharatiya Janata Party, the lone partner of the BJD in the ruling alliance.

Although Patnaik, as Chief Minister, reacted to the widespread communal violence, his party did not issue any formal statement condemning it. When other parties and organisations held peace rallies after the riots, the BJD did not organise any such meeting or programme.

Above all, BJD workers joined BJP activists to enforce the State-wide bandh called by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and other Sangh Parivar outfits. In Kandhamal, the political divide was very clear, with the BJD and the BJP brushing aside all their differences.

Apparently, realising that he was fast deviating from the path that his father Biju Patnaik followed as Chief Minister, Naveen Patnaik, in a statement in the State Assembly, claimed that the secular credentials of his government were well established and needed no explaining.

Moreover, the State government virtually supported the day-long bandh by ordering the closure of all educational institutions that day. Supporters of the bandh brought normal life to a halt and faced no opposition from the State administration in achieving that.

For reasons best known to it, the State government allowed the VHP to organise the funeral procession of the swami within communally sensitive Kandhamal, which had witnessed communal violence last December. The procession only added fuel to the communal fire that was smouldering for long. Ministers of the BJP and VHP leader Praveen Togadia were allowed to attend the cremation of the swami at Chakapad when Christians were targeted across the district. But some Congress leaders were arrested when they tried to enter Kandhamal.

Patnaik also placed under suspension Nikhil Kumar Kanodia, Superintendent of Police of Kandhamal, when violence was spreading in the district. Kanodia was suspended under pressure from some BJP Ministers, it was said. But what raised eyebrows was Patnaik’s visit to the site of the swami’s murder, Jalespata ashram, when he toured Kandhamal district. The BJD president was prompt to condemn the killing of the VHP leader and appeal to the people to maintain peace, but took 10 days to describe the communal riots as unfortunate. He termed both instances of communal violence in Kandhamal – the one last December and this one – as the two unfortunate incidents during his eight-and-a-half-year rule.

There were two kinds of reactions among the people about Patnaik’s stand on the killing of the swami and the violence that followed. While one section was of the view that Patnaik may not have been in the know of the Sangh Parivar’s designs, another felt that the Chief Minister was trying to cash in on the situation to strengthen the vote bank of the ruling combine ahead of elections. Patnaik may succeed in strengthening the alliance’s vote bank but what the BJD-BJP equations will be after the elections is anyone’s guess.

As of now Patnaik, his critics say, is going the Modi way with his eyes set on the elections.
Prafulla Das

Maoist hand?

WHO killed Swami Lakshmanananda Saraswati? Confusion about the identity of the killers kept growing even as the Sangh Parivar’s demand for the arrest of the killers got shriller. What led to the confusion was Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik’s refusal to hand over the investigation to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

Among the questions being asked were: Were the killers Maoists or a group of Maoists who supported a section of Christians who wanted to eliminate the swami because he was working to bring Christian converts back into the Hindu fold?

Were militant Christians, who were allegedly behind several attacks on the swami in the past few years, behind this attack too? Lakshmanananda had been attacked at least nine times before he was killed.

The modus operandi of the assailants, the use of sophisticated weapons and the brutal manner of the slayings point to the involvement of Maoists. Initially the police said they suspected the Maoists and Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik said the swami had been killed by a group of extremists.

But after Sangh Parivar organisations claimed that militant Christians were responsible for the crime, the police became tight-lipped. Though a few persons were arrested, the police would only say that the investigation was in progress.

In fact, soon after the killing, a report in a newspaper said a member of the Communist Party of India (Maoist) called up the newspaper to claim that the organisation was behind the killing.

Later, a few media houses received letters saying that the CPI(Maoist) was not involved in the incident and that some of its cadre might have committed the crime by playing into others’ hands. However, a few days later, media reports said the central committee of the CPI (Maoist) issued a statement in New Delhi claiming responsibility for the murder.

Whatever the truth, a Maoist hand in the killing has not been ruled out because the swami was expanding his base in Malkangiri district where the left-wing extremists have a strong presence. The swami visited Malkangiri a few months ago to attend a function of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad.

The presence of the Maoists was also felt in Kandhamal last year when members of the Christian community and extremists attacked Hindu families in Brahmanigaon village. The attack took place within a few days of the outbreak of communal violence following an attack on Lakshmanananda on December 24.

The attackers had used automatic weapons. Interestingly, Brahmanigaon remained peaceful during the current riots.

As regards the probe into the killing, sources in the ruling alliance said the government was not willing to hand it over to the CBI as it apprehended that the agency may be influenced by the Central government.

Whoever may be the culprits, many in the ruling alliance in the State would not want them to be arrested before the next Lok Sabha and Assembly elections. Identification and arrest of the killers will deny the Sangh Parivar the chance of making it an issue in the polls in the tribal-dominated districts where the swami had a strong following.
Prafulla Das

Uncertain future

FOR 22-year-old Manasmita Digal of Thengedapathar village everything was normal until August 24 evening. She was watching television along with her mother and sister when she received a call on her cellphone. Things took an unfortunate turn after this.

The call was from a youth from a nearby village who told her to leave her house immediately as a mob was advancing towards her village. Indeed, the mob descended on her village within no time, but by then Manasmita, her mother and her sister, as also other people in the village, had fled into the nearby forest under cover of darkness. The mob damaged the village church and set fire to houses before leaving.

The houses of about 20 Christians and three Hindu families were burnt down. Manasmita’s house was among these.

She works as a teacher in a nearby school and is at a loss to understand why her house was set on fire as she belongs to a Hindu family despite her mother being a Christian.

The violence-affected people of Thengedapathar lived inside the forest for four days braving the rain and the cold before they came to the relief camp opened by the administration at the Tikabali Government High School.

Manasmita and her mother, Sevika Digal, were in tears when they narrated the violence perpetrated on them by the local people who supported the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, the Bajrang Dal and the ruling Biju Janata Dal-Bharatiya Janata Party alliance.

Why was Mansamita’s house burnt down? Sevika Digal, who had worked as a nurse in the SCB Medical College and Hospital in Cuttack, said it was because her husband, Rambishi Digal, was the vice-president of the Kandhamal District Congress Committee. He was away in Bhubaneswar on party work when the riots broke out.

Rambishi, a prominent Dalit leader, had served in the Army for several years before he opted for voluntary discharge and took up politics. When Rambishi contacted the Tikabali police station from Bhubaneswar, he was advised not to return as the situation was tense. With their house burnt down, his wife and daughter were living in the relief camp even a fortnight later.

Similar was the plight of Sunita Digal, a resident of Thanasahi near Tikabali police station. Despite her cries for help, the police did not come forward with help when a mob torched her house soon after the funeral procession of the swami had passed their locality.

In another relief camp, at G. Udaygiri, Sushama Digal from Luiringia village under Raikia block of Kandhamal district broke down while speaking about the riots.

She and some of the other members of her family managed to escape the wrath of the protesters on August 25 evening, but her 50-year-old brother, Jacob Digal, was lynched and burnt alive. They reached G. Udaygiri town after spending four days in the forest.

Sushama said they left behind her aged mother in the village. Even seven days after their village was attacked, many people from Luiringia, who had taken shelter in the relief camp, were not able to trace their family members and relatives. Nobody was sure whether those who were missing were alive.

“Why are we being attacked for no fault of ours. With our people killed in the violence and our houses and belongings burnt down, where should we go now?” she asked.

Thousands of riot-hit families now live in relief camps, while many have reached Bhubaneswar, Cuttack and other towns.

The Naveen Patnaik government may take several months to pay compensation to the violence-affected population to rebuild their homes, but it will have to work hard to keep the rioters at bay, instil confidence in the minds of Christians, and restore peace in Kandhamal.
Prafulla Das

Under a cloud

PRAFULLA DAS

The Assembly Speaker resigns after accusations of sexual harassment against him and the alleged role of a Minister rock the government.

ALMOST everything was going smoothly for Orissa Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik. He had come out unscathed from several controversies surrounding his administration since he assumed power in 2000. He had warded off many accusations effortlessly and maintained his “Mr. Clean” image.

Then, in the last week of March, Patnaik came under pressure as never before when a suspended woman Assistant Marshal of the State Assembly, Gayatri Panda, brought sexual harassment charges against the Speaker, Maheswar Mohanty. Mohanty quit his post amid mounting protests from Opposition parties and women activists.

Patnaik has earned a reputation for being “clean” and he is feared as the leader of the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) as he has never hesitated to take stern action against erring or tainted Ministers.

Patnaik, it is said, would sack anybody from his Ministry in order to save his own skin or the image of the BJD and the BJD-Bharatiya Janata Party government.

However, the first sexual harassment controversy to rock his Ministry saw the tough Chief Minister dither a bit before initiating action against the accused, primarily because it involved the Speaker and a close associate of Patnaik, a Minister who was accused of instigating the woman marshal.

Five days after the scandal pushed his government into turbulence, Patnaik sacked Information and Public Relations Minister Debasis Nayak without giving him a chance to resign on his own. The Chief Minister sent an official note to Governor Murlidhar Chandrakant Bhandare recommending the removal of Nayak. He said he dropped the Minister since he had lost confidence in him.

Mohanty’s resignation took place simultaneously. He said that he quit his post as the issue had rocked the Assembly, which was in session, and affected the dignity of the Chair. His disciplinary action against an “undisciplined employee” (the marshal was suspended) had resulted in her levelling false and baseless allegations against him, he insisted.

In the past, Patnaik has dismissed three Ministers; four of his Ministers were forced to quit under controversial circumstances. Half a dozen of his ministerial colleagues were shown the door at different points of time. Most of the Ministers who were relieved of their responsibilities during the past eight years belonged to the BJD.

The latest controversy began on the night of March 25 when some television channels flashed news clips in which the suspended woman marshal was shown levelling sexual harassment charges against Mohanty.

As soon as the House assembled the next morning, Mohanty read out a statement on his own denying the allegations. He, however, said that since the charges were of a serious nature he would not preside over the Assembly proceedings until the matter was investigated.

While suggesting that a House Committee be set up to inquire into the matter, Mohanty alleged that a conspiracy had been hatched to defame him and that some important persons were behind it. He said he would tell the whole story before the House Committee. The matter did not end there. In fact, Mohanty’s statement added fuel to the controversy.

The Opposition parties soon began to stall the proceedings. They demanded that no business of the Assembly should be held until the Speaker resigned from the post in order to facilitate an independent probe into the matter.

The next day, Opposition legislators occupied the Speaker’s podium as soon as the House assembled. Deputy Speaker Prahallad Dora, who was to take the Chair, waited at the entrance to the podium for more than an hour before finally returning to his chamber.

Despite desperate efforts by members of the ruling alliance and Dora to restore order, the Assembly proceedings were disrupted for four days with the Opposition legislators firm on their demand for the resignation of the Speaker and the institution of an independent inquiry into the scandal. They argued that a House Committee could not look into the matter as the issue involved the Speaker himself. The Opposition MLAs also demanded that the inquiry should probe the allegations made by the Speaker that the smear campaign was motivated by some important people.

While the House witnessed high drama over the issue, outside the Assembly there was no let-up in the controversy.

Panda sent her complaint to a women’s police station through a group of women activists. She alleged that the Speaker had made vulgar gestures at her several times. She even said that he had sent a vehicle to her house in the night and tried to persuade her through his driver and other staff to have sexual relations with him.

Since Panda did not lodge the complaint herself, the police took two days to verify her signature on the one-page plea and finally registered a case against the Speaker under Sections 506 (criminal intimidation), 507 (similar intimidation through telephone), 509 (lewd suggestions and obscene remarks) and 34 (common object) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

As the standoff continued, Patnaik left for New Delhi to attend a meeting of Chief Ministers of the mineral-bearing States. The controversy showed no sign of dying down until he returned on the third day.

Meanwhile, in Puri, the Speaker’s home constituency, BJD supporters of Mohanty took out a rally to protest against the slur cast on their leader, while Congress workers took out a rally demanding the Speaker’s resignation. Mohanty’s supporters squarely blamed Nayak, alleging that he had instigated Panda to make the allegations against their leader.

Some BJD workers also staged a demonstration in Bhubaneswar and made a strong demand for the resignation of Nayak. The cracks within the BJD became visible, and Naveen Patnaik, as the party’s president, was clearly in a fix.

With the controversy raging and demonstrations taking place against Mohanty and Nayak, the Assembly was adjourned sine die on March 31, two days ahead of schedule, after the State Budget for 2008-09 by voice vote. It was then that Patnaik was virtually forced to act tough.

Mohanty tendered his resignation hours after the Assembly was adjourned. The Chief Minister’s recommendation to the Governor was sent around the same time and it was also accepted immediately. But the controversy did not end with the resignation of Mohanty and the ouster of Nayak. It got further complicated.

The Opposition parties, which were in an upbeat mood as they sensed that the controversy had the potential to damage the image of the Chief Minister and his government, demanded a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into the matter. The government readily agreed to this demand. Meanwhile, women’s organisations stepped up their demand that Mohanty be arrested.

In an attempt to cash in on the controversy, the Opposition parties also announced that they would take the matter to the people. With the Assembly elections just a year away, the controversy is likely to affect the prospects of the ruling combine if it does not come to an end soon.

Everything will now depend on whether the suspended marshal fights it out or succumbs to pressure for a compromise.

Deathly inaction

PRAFULLA DAS
in Kashipur & Dasmantpur
The Orissa government’s apathy in providing health care makes cholera deaths a recurring phenomenon.

Young Ruai Majhi, a resident of Kucheipadar village in Kashipur block of Orissa’s Rayagada district, was eight months pregnant when her dreams of motherhood came tumbling down. She got seriously ill with cholera and was initially taken to the nearby primary health centre for treatment. But owing to the lack of adequate facilities there, she was rushed to the hospital at Tikiri. Doctors saved her but not her baby; she gave birth to a stillborn baby at the hospital the next day.

Ruai and her husband, Tankadhar Majhi, are happy that she survived cholera but are aggrieved that the absence of proper health care claimed their first child. “The doctor told me that I should be worried about my wife but not about the child that she was carrying,” Tankadhar said.

Subai Majhi of Ruai’s village met with the same fate. She survived cholera but lost her unborn baby. In the last week of August alone, the deadly disease claimed four lives, including that of a 35-year-old, in Kucheipadar, where tribal people form the majority.

The Kucheipadar health centre speaks volumes about the administrative neglect that leads to many diarrhoea and cholera deaths every year in this mineral-rich region during the monsoons. Established seven years ago, the health centre does not have a toilet, water or electricity. Ironically, there are power supply lines just a few metres away.

The lone post of doctor has also been lying vacant for the past one year. A doctor was posted and electricity provided after activists of the Prakrutika Sampad Suraksha Parishad and residents of Kucheipadar and nearby hamlets staged a roadblock on August 22 demanding help for the cholera-hit population. The authorities, who had been sleeping over people’s problems for years together, suddenly swung into action and got work started on a new tubewell in front of the health centre.

The Naveen Patnaik government makes frequent announcements about filling up of vacant posts of doctors in the backward Kalahandi-Bolangir-Koraput region of the State. But the Kucheipadar health centre had a doctor for just two years in the past seven years.

Against the sanctioned strength of 12 doctors in Kashipur, there are only three doctors at work. Similar is the situation in the Dasmantpur block in the neighbouring Koraput district. This place has three doctors against the required 11.

Although appointments are made, no doctor reports for duty and even the rare ones who join are keen to leave the area as early as possible. The prime reason for this is lack of basic amenities. Many health centres do not have residential accommodation for doctors. Or the houses do not have electricity and water.

In some areas, it is the fear of extremists that keeps the doctors away. Despite the government announcing incentives for them, doctors are not willing to work in the Kalahandi-Bolangir-Koraput region.

Early this year, the primary health centre at the block headquarters of Dasmantpur was upgraded to a community health centre. But it does not have a doctor on permanent posting. Two doctors drawn from two other primary health centres in the block are on duty here, leaving no one to attend to patients in their actual places of posting.

The Kashipur and Dasmantpur blocks did not have enough doctors even two full months after diarrhoea and cholera started claiming the lives of tribal people in the area. Cholera-related deaths in the two worst-hit blocks were first reported in the first week of July. The local administration and the State government reacted to the situation only in the third week of August. By then at least 100 people had died.

The district authorities, who were caught napping when reports started appearing in the media on the deaths, were clueless about the death toll. As correct information was not coming through official channels on the deaths occurring in distant hamlets, officials found it convenient to suppress the actual toll.

The State government claimed that only 178 persons succumbed to diarrhoea and cholera in Rayagada, Koraput, Kalahandi and Gajapati districts by September 4, but unofficial reports put the death toll at over 300. Bhagban Majhi, convener of the Prakrutika Sampad Suraksha Parishad, said that at least 180 persons had died in Kashipur block by the end of August. Majhi, who himself survived cholera, alleged that the authorities were deliberately keeping the figures low to save the government from embarrassment.

In Dasmantpur, leaders of both the Congress and the ruling Biju Janata Dal (BJD) said that as many as 130 people died of cholera and diarrhoea by September 1. They said the health department, which was suppressing the exact number of deaths, would have a tough time issuing death certificates to the kin of those who died in the epidemic.

Squarely blaming the BJD-Bharatiya Janata Party coalition government for its failure to cope with the epidemic, Taraprasad Bahinipati, the Congress legislator representing Koraput, said the authorities had ignored his repeated requests to fill up the vacant posts of doctors in Dasmantpur. “Only a permanent solution to the problems ailing the health sector in the region can prevent deaths in the coming years,” he said. The prime reasons for so many diarrhoea deaths in the region are a weak health care system, absence of safe drinking water and non-availability of employment opportunities. When 20 people died of cholera in Kashipur block in August 2001, the Naveen Patnaik government announced that it would improve the health infrastructure in the region. But it still remains a promise.

Contaminated water and total absence of health care in the region are the reasons for the large number of deaths of tribal people during the monsoons every year. The rural water supply scheme has failed to meet the people’s needs. Hundreds of tubewells are defunct in the Kalahandi-Bolangir-Koraput region.

The latest report of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) makes the government’s apathy clear. It says: “Out of 74,020 wells targeted during the period 2001-06, 65,680 wells were constructed. Of these, 27,316 tubewells (42 per cent) were found to be discharging water with high iron/fluoride/chloride contents, rendering them unfit for drinking. Several piped water supply schemes remained incomplete for one to 14 years due to failure of water sources, deviations during execution, constraints of funds, etc. There was a general disregard to the government’s instructions regarding testing the quality of water through trial bores before installation of tubewells.”

Water is not tested and monitored periodically. “Water quality of 0.40 lakh sources in 0.28 lakh habitations was found unsafe for drinking. Around six lakh people were affected by water borne diseases during 2002-05,” the CAG report says.

This is not all. Many tubewells have water only during the rainy seasons. Local people alleged that though the authorities claim that the tubewells are sunk 100 feet (30 metres) or below, the real depth was around 70 ft (20 m). This is the main reason for water scarcity and contamination, they said.

The less said the better about the employment generating schemes. In Rayagada and Koraput, there are signboards announcing developmental works being carried out under the Sampoorna Grameen Rozgar Yojana (SGRY) and the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS). But the schemes have made no substantive difference to the lives of the people.
Hundreds of hamlets do not have roads. The roads laid in interior areas are in bad shape and the water harvesting structures are not maintained well.

The CAG report also clearly outlines the faulty implementation of employment generation schemes“Review of implementation of Sampoorna Grameen Rozgar Yojana (SGRY) in the State during the period 2001-06 showed serious deficiencies in implementation of the programme.

The Government failed in adhering to the scheme guidelines for efficient financial and food grains management, leading to loss of Central assistance, misutilisation of scheme funds, shortage and pilferage of food grains. Contractors were extensively used in the guise of Village Labour Leaders (VLL) and prohibited works/non-durable assets/idle assets were created. Man-days generation was hypothetically arrived at without linking to the actual generation as per the muster rolls. Serious irregularities existed in payment of wages. There was no dedicated monitoring mechanism at the State level to review and evaluate the implementation of the scheme.”

The Centre for Environment and Food Security (CEFS), a Delhi-based organisation that had conducted a survey of 100 villages to assess the implementation of the NREGS, said that it was not the epidemic of cholera but the cancer of corruption that was killing hundreds of poor tribal people and crippling millions of them.

Alleging that government officials had misappropriated Rs.500 crore of NREGS funds, the CEFS said this amount would have given about 90 days of employment to 10 lakh poor families in Orissa.“It is not just another financial scam. Callous officials of Orissa have robbed 10 lakh hungry families of one meal a day for a whole year or two meals for six months,” it said.

Death at the doorstep

ORIA KANJIKA (35) of Pajar village in Dasmantpur block of Koraput district was shell-shocked when his father died of cholera at the community health centre on August 31. The disease had already claimed the lives of his mother and seven-year-old son in the days before that.

Oria was even scared to touch the body of his father for fear of contracting cholera. His father, Saiba Kanjika, caught the disease soon after his mother’s funeral at the cremation ground on the outskirts of their village.

With only one villager accompanying him to the hospital 20 km away from his village, Oria needed help to take his father’s body back home. But help was difficult to come by.

His request to the hospital authorities to arrange a vehicle to transport the body was met only on September 1 afternoon, a full 19 hours after the death. The hospital did not even have an ambulance. The private vehicle that had been hired by the government for its operations to tackle the epidemic came only after the intervention of District Collector Balakrushna Sahu.

More than anything else, Oria was worried about his wife and a remaining son and a daughter.

Uncertainty and fear of further cholera attacks in the family were writ large on his face.
Oria said the family did not have enough land to eke out a living. They also did not have a below poverty line (BPL) card. “We have been waiting for a BPL card for the past six years,” he said.

As shifting cultivation on his own land did not give him enough yield, Oria worked as a casual labourer whenever work was available in the area. He said there was no work since a watershed project under the food-for-work programme was completed in June.

From the little he earned, he paid Rs.25 every alternate month to a family possessing a BPL card to use it to draw 25 kg of rice at Rs.4 a kilo.

Oria’s is not an isolated case in Pajar village. Four others succumbed to the disease in the village, which has only 85 families, and many were undergoing treatment for cholera at different hospitals.

Tears rolled down Oria’s cheeks when he left for his village in the vehicle that carried the body of his father. Meanwhile, more and more patients were being brought to the hospital from far off hamlets.
Prafulla Das

Where are the NGOs?

THE question that hit the mind as one went round government health centres and cholera-affected villages in the two backward blocks of Kashipur and Dasmantpur in Orissa was: Where are the NGO leaders?

Though hundreds of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) claim to have been working for the welfare of the poor in the interior pockets of Orissa, not one could be spotted over two days on August 31 and September 1. NGO leaders, the latest coinage denoting those leading NGOs, were not visible at all.

On the second day, this correspondent saw a few volunteers of an international voluntary organisation sitting in their vehicles loaded with medicines outside the Dasmantpur community health centre. The visiting NGO team vanished soon after handing over some medicines to the local health department officials.

In Dasmantpur, where NGOs operating in the region were not found in action, the office-bearers of some political parties were playing the role of Good Samaritans. Although the Biju Janata Dal-Bharatiya Janata Party had done very little to prevent the cholera deaths, the president of the BJD’s Dasmantpur block unit, Narayan Bisoi, came down heavily on NGOs.

“All the 16 gram panchayats under Dasmantpur block have been affected by the cholera and diarrhoea that surfaced in the first week of July. The district administration has been trying to extend some help to the affected people during the past two weeks, but NGOs have not reached the spot so far,” Bisoi said on September 1.

In Kashipur the previous day, as NGO workers remained elusive, the only person found rendering voluntary service to cholera patients at the Tikiri primary health centre was Bhagirathi Behera, a local person.

“I have not brought any patient. But I have been cleaning the health centre premises and taking care of the cholera affected for the past 10 days,” Behera said.

On September 4, Sanhati, a federation of 65 NGOs of Orissa, came out with a report of a fact-finding team that it had sent to the cholera-affected villages in Rayagada and Koraput. More than 250 people had died of diarrhoea, it said.

The organisation, which said its team visited the affected villages from August 31 to September 3, blamed the district administration for its failure to implement social security programmes and welfare schemes.

Maintaining a deliberate silence on the role of NGOs in such a crisis, the four-member Sanhati fact-finding team accused the district administration of failing to mobilise civil society organisations to tackle the situation. The team further claimed that there was no cholera since 1987 because of the coordination between the government and NGOs.

The district administration, “for obvious reasons”, was now deliberately avoiding the involvement of the NGOs working in the region to mitigate the disaster, the Sanhati team alleged.

Sanhati’s allegation that the administration was deliberately avoiding the NGOs may be true. However, the NGOs, a majority of which are headquartered in the State capital, Bhubaneswar, and other urban centres, seem to be more concerned about policy decisions than being with the people.

The voluntary work of yesteryear appears to have turned into an armchair affair.
Prafulla Das