This month, I was in Odisha as part of a people’s tribunal examining atrocities against Christians, in particular Adivasis. My fellow tribunal members and I joined the organisation Karwan-e-Mohabbat in Nabarangpur, Jeypore, Balasore and Baripada to hear around 300 women and men, of whom the majority, more than 90 per cent or so, were Adivasi.

What is clear from what we heard and saw is that in the last two years, Odisha’s government has stepped aside to allow the Constitutional and fundamental rights of individuals to be trampled over. Organised violence against Christians is permitted and, when the government machinery acts, it is usually to attempt to prevent the victims from getting justice.

The violence has become templated, as has been the case with Hindutva actions across this land. Something begins, often triggered by the passing of a law, and then we are inundated by waves of similar-sounding incidents: beef lynching, love jihad, bulldozer and so on. The other thing that was noticeable was that the pace of the atrocities is accelerating as the templates are digested across the state and then replicated.

In Odisha we observed four broad types of atrocities. The first is the forceful prevention of burial of Adivasi Christians. They are no longer being allowed to bury their dead in the common burial........

© National Herald