Orange County - Mujibur Rehman on violence against minorities in India

Kandhamal, one of the 30 districts of Orissa, was  created in 1994 by the then Chief Minister Biju Patnaik, father of  present CM Naveen Patnaik. According to the 2001 Census, 52 per cent of Kandhamal’s population are Scheduled Tribes (STs) and 17 per cent are Scheduled Castes (SCs). Out of 100,000 Christians, 60 per cent are converted from SCs, locally known as Pana Christians. The region is called Kandhamal because it is land of the Kandha tribes. The word ‘Kandha’ means hills. The per capita income in the district is Rs 4,730, whereas Orissa’s per capita income is Rs 5,264. It has only 15 sanctioned police stations with a capacity of 647 personnel looking after 648,000 citizens.

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While Naveen Patnaik runs a coalition government with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), his father had opposed alliances with Hindutva parties. In the 1989 national election, when all major non-Congress parties had electoral alliances with the BJP, Biju Patnaik opposed the move, and yet won a majority of the Lok Sabha seats in the state for his party. The electoral history of Orissa elections indicates the rise of the BJP from the 2000 election. In 1980, the BJP garnered only 1.36 per cent of the vote; in 1990, the BJP fielded 63 candidates, garnered 3.56 per cent, won two seats and lost deposit in 54 seats. In the 2000 election, however, 38 out of 63 of its candidates won, and it got 18.20 per cent votes, and in 2004, it won 32 seats and got 17.11 per cent votes. But the BJP’s presence has created advantages for Hindutva organisations to consolidate their base. While Naveen Patnaik may claim that the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) represents the legacy of Biju Patnaik, the fact is the most important legacy of secularism is being deeply compromised by the BJD by first being part of the coalition and then not being able to control the recurring violence against Christians.
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Orissa’s religious violence is intriguing because Oriya sub-nationalism was never rooted in Hindu religion. Instead, it grew around the Oriya language. It was Lord Jagannath and his cult which defined the mainstream Oriya  religious traditions. The statement  once made by an unknown Bengali writer, “Oriya ekta bhasa naye (Oriya is not a language)” became a rallying cry for a separate state movement leading to the creation of Orissa on April 1, 1936. Madhusudhan Das, a noted barrister, led a mass political movement through his political party, Utkal Sammilani, which was independent of the Congress Party. The idea of Orissa, along with Sindh, as a separate state, was floated in a White Paper prepared by British in 1933, as a sequel to the report of the Simon Commission. Thus, Orissa is the first state to be created on the basis of a separate language and inspired state reorganisations across linguistic lines in post-independent India.


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