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From Kandhamal to Karavali: The Ugly Face Of Sangh Parivar

This report looks not only at the instances of violence by the Sangh Parivar, the inaction/collusion of the State machinery and the crude justification offered by both, but more importantly at the mechanisms employed by the Sangh Parivar to gather sizable sections of people behind it in the execution of its design. The Parivar used the social-historical cleavage between the Kandha and Pano communities in Orissa, a veritable fault-line in the bottom rung of Orissa society. In Karnataka it has used emotive symbols: the National Flag, the seat of a swami and the cow. And has also cynically exploited the resentment of social groups left out of the process of development to incite selective and sectarian hatred. Everywhere it has  sought to appeal to the insecurities of a crisis-ridden society by depicting the Christian (and the Muslim) as the wicked 'other' who is out to destroy and destabilise India, set up as the land of Hindus. Thus the very existence of Christianity (and Islam) in India and the very practice of Christianity (and Islam) become objects of hatred so that it is not conversions but Christianity that is attacked. All the pastors and preachers who were attacked, abused, beaten and vilified must have understood this. The question before all those who believe in a vision for India that is different from that of the ideological progeny of Golwalkar, is whether we are alert to these devises and active in countering them by working among the sections of the people vulnerable to them. That is not just a question. It is a task and a practical task of great urgency.