Orissa In Communal Flames

It is unfortunate that once again Orissa state is engulfed in a communal conflagration of an ominous proportion. The state, which was otherwise secular since time immemorial, has in the past decade or so earned the disrepute of being one of the most intolerant states in India - perhaps after Kashmir and Gujarat - ever since the killing of the Christian Priest Steins and his two children in 1999. The violence that broke out following the sad and strongly condemnable killing of the respected VHP leader Swami Lakshmananda Saraswati allegedly by the Maoists has unfortunately taken curios violent turns. The hapless citizens are being made the main target of attack even as the state machinery has been watching the violence from the sidelines as an unsympathetic and callous by-stander.
In fact, the Orissa government ought to have taken adequate preventive security measures to protect the life of Swami, who is a very respectable figure-head in the state, following the murder attempt on him during the last December. Instead, like elsewhere in the country, the law and order machinery has failed miserably to protect the VHP leader as well as allowed the mourners and the perpetrators of arson and violence to take law into their own hands and target all and sundry in a manner typical of untamed mob fury in India. But, then this is no justification for the mindless violence unleashed against the defenceless citizens by some sections of the religious zealots. The government is constitutionally enjoined to protect and safe guard the life and property of the citizens from the mindless rampagers. Sadly, the government’s patent prevarication is primarily responsible for this communal carnage. The continuing violence selectively aimed at a section of the people tantamount to subversion of norms of civilised behaviour, lumpen arrogance and contempt for republican order
On its part, the VHP and other frontal Hindu organisations must refrain from mindless violence and allow the state to discharge its constitutional obligations to protect the poor and defenceless, restore normalcy, and dispense justice before further damage is done to the secular image of the state. Upping the ante, rabble-rousing, arsoning, killing the women and children in the name of religion are against the fundamental sprit of Hinduism and basic tenets of Indianness. Since 1980s the VHP has been reduced to the political doppelganger of BJP and chooses to take up politically saleable issues having potential to yield political mileage for the flagship party. If the real agenda of the VHP is renaissance of Hinduism, which is the crying need of the hour, then organisation must exorcise itself off the image of being an outfit of politicians. Conversely, VHP has to focus on the real problems affecting the religion and endeavour to redress the internal contradictions (of the religion). Hinduism should not be allowed to be hijacked by anyone to derive political mileage and use it as a saffron carpet to the corridors of power. The Saffron violence in Orissa is also a case in point to illustrate as to how surcharged and emotive issues can be misrepresented and politically exploited.