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January 8, 2009

Christmas stays peaceful in India's uneasy Kandhamal, fears linger

by Anto Akkara
Ecumenical News International

MONDASOR, India ― A teenager danced to the tune of a popular song, enthralling about 500 people gathered on Christmas Day at Mondasor’s Catholic church in India’s troubled Kandhamal district. A year earlier the region had been the scene of vicious communal violence.
 
Federal soldiers stood guard outside the church, now converted into a relief camp for homeless Christians, as several people rushed to pin currency notes on the teenager’s clothing in appreciation of his dance.

Still, despite threats by some Hindu groups, Christmas passed peacefully in the remote district in India’s eastern Orissa state. The eight refugee camps in Kandhamal that now shelter more than 8,000 Christians had special Christmas celebrations while the state government took unprecedented security arrangements.
 
“We want to make sure that Christmas will be celebrated here with peace,” Krishan Kumar, district collector (chief officer) of Kandhamal, told Ecumenical News International on Dec. 24. The district administration deployed more than 10,000 security personnel around churches, Christian villages and refugee camps, and mounted road checkpoints.

The government erected colorful tents in the refugee camps for Christmas services, where residents tried to forget their sorrows, decorating them with balloons and stars. Christmas also brought special cheer to refugees used to only Spartan meals, with the Catholic church offering chicken and cakes on the menu.

Nuns of the Missionaries of Charity congregation founded by deceased Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mother Teresa brought a healing touch, supervising open-air preparations for the special meal in each of the refugee camps, which have few sanitary facilities.

 Kandhamal was again wracked by violence following the killing in August of Hindu leader Swami Lakshmanananda Saraswati. Though Maoist rebels claimed responsibility for the attack, Hindu groups described the murder of the Hindu leader as a Christian conspiracy.

More than 70 Christians lost their lives in the violence, which displaced half of the district’s 100,000 Christians. About 6,000 Christian houses were looted, while 200 churches and dozens of Christian institutions were torched by Hindu groups.

As well as the 8,000 Christians now living in government run relief camps, thousands more sought refuge in jungles and cities outside Kandhamal.
 
In the Nuagam refugee camp where more than 2,000 homeless Christians have taken shelter, Prakash Digal looked dejected, despite the young children dancing around him before the start of the Christmas Eve service.

“How can I celebrate Christmas when my mother has been killed and we could not even get her body for burial?” Digal said as he stood under a star atop a pole near the Christmas tent. Digal said his mother, Lalita, was killed when she went to harvest her paddy crop in her native Doddavalli village on Nov. 21.

“Two days later, one of our friends came and informed us that mother’s body was lying in the village,” said Digal. “But when we went there, the body was not there.”
 
India’s federal supreme court on Jan. 5 lambasted the Orissa government, saying it had failed to protect the Christian minority against orchestrated violence.