Tensions rise as Christians go to polls

There is concern over reports that one of the accused organisers of last year's violence, in which 38 were killed, is to contest elections in Kandhamal.

When Gunjan Digal, a 23-year-old Christian, was knocked down and killed last month by a tractor in the Gungibadi village in Kandhamal district of Orissa, police dismissed it as an accident. Religious organisations called it "premeditated murder". Tensions seem to be brewing again in a district where, according to government figures, 38 people were killed and 23,000 rendered homeless last year in violence blamed on Hindu nationalists.

More than 2,500 criminal complaints have been filed in connection with the violence. Against this backdrop, voters in the state went to the polls yesterday and will do so again next Thursday - choosing candidates for 21 parliamentary seats and 147 state assembly seats. Archbishop Raphael Cheenath, in a letter addressed to the Election Commission, wrote that the atmosphere of Kandhamal was still volatile.

He accused the state of being reluctant to arrest "open advocates of communal and caste violence" who he said were "vitiating further the already polarised and communalised society of Kandhamal". The Christian community also has expressed concerns over reports that one of the accused organisers of last year's violence, Manoj Pradhan, is contesting the elections in the G Udaygiri assembly constituency in Kandhamal on a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ticket, in an apparent attempt to sway the deeply polarised population.

The Hindu extremist leader, who is in jail, faces dozens of criminal charges, including murder and arson. Anticipating more political fallout from the past year's violence, the Global Council of Indian Christians (GCIC), a non-profit organisation headquartered in Bangalore, warned that the community could experience discrimination in the elections. The GCIC said more than 70,000 Christian voters might not be able to exercise their franchise in federal and local elections.

"Some 50,000 Christians who fled their villages at the height of the anti-Christian violence and tens of thousands who followed them afterwards into neighbouring states are now without identity papers or voters' cards, which were burnt during the pogrom, unable to go back home," the organisation was quoted by the Asianews website as saying. After the GCIC national president, Sajan K George, wrote to the chief election commissioner and the federal election commission recently urging them to quickly find a way to ensure Christians were on the voters' lists, the authorities in the district distributed new identity cards and duplicates of electoral photo identity cards.

Many Christians, however, were still expected to stay way from the elections as hate speech proliferates. In one such incident last month, Ashok Sahu, a BJP candidate, was alleged to have tried to fan sectarian sentiments in the district by justifying the violence and blaming Christians for the August murder of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad leader, Laxmanand Saraswati, despite the Maoist militia claiming responsibility.

He was arrested on April 14 in connection with a criminal case registered against him on April 10 regarding his recorded speech during election meeting. Some Christian villagers said they flew saffron flags atop their houses to conceal their identity, after right-wing nationalist leaders had urged that local Hindus to do so in an effort to avoid attacks. And about 1,130 Christian families adopted Hinduism at a ceremony in Kalyan district in Maharashtra last month to avoid persecution.

Such a state of affairs only heightens the sense of being targeted among Christians. "For us, these elections hold no meaning at all when the whole system has failed," said Ananda George, a cloth merchant in Bhubaneshwar. "In such a situation there is no possibility at all for the poor, unorganised members of minority or Dalit community to come out in the open to participate in the electoral process, let alone [cast] their votes on the day of polls," Archbishop Cheenath wrote.

Despite numerous efforts to stamp out the age-old divisional politics based on caste and religion, it remains a mainstay of Indian elections.