What PREM Does: Rehabilitation of Post-Violence Kandhamal
on Richard Johnson (India), 06/Mar/2011 07:35, 34 days ago
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This is the fifth in aseries of postsabout the development work ofPeople's Rural Education Movement(PREM) in the state of Orissa, India.On December 24, 2007 a controversial Hindu monk namedSwami Lakshmanananda Saraswatiwas detained and beaten by a group of Christians on a rural road inKandhamaldistrict, Orissa. The Swami had gained infamy in the area for preaching toconvert(or reconvert) tribal Christians to Hinduism. Later that day, Hindu supporters of the Swami attacked and vandalized Christian homes in the nearby village of Baminugam. Violence spread over the next week as mobs of Hindus and Christians attacked and burnt each other’s homes and shops, leaving several dead.The following summer, the supporters of Swami Lakshmanananda gathered at his ashram to celebrateJanmashtami—the festival for the birthday of Lord Krishna. On August 23, 2008, at least 30 men armed with AK-47s broke into the ashram andkilled the octogenarian Swamiand four of his followers, including a small boy. Local police and state security officials quickly blamed the attack on Naxalites—Maoist insurgents—known to be in the area and the only group likely to be so well armed for such an attack. ButHindu nationalist politiciansin Orissa moved swiftly to place blame on Christians and their political leaders in Kandhamal.On August 25, a mob of the Swami’s supporters, urged by right-wing politicians, went on a rampage in Christian villages, burning, looting, killing andallegedly raping; in four days at least 38 people were killed and at least 12,000 people from 300 villages had fled their homes, eventually forming refugee camps. Christian homes, churches and organizations were also attacked inother parts of the state. Some reports say as many as50,000 were forced to flee. By early September, the violence had abated, while the top Maoist leader in the region had sent apress releasetaking credit for the attack on Swami Lakshmanananda. But in an area barely larger than Prince Edward Island, where more than 90% of the 650,000 people live in one of 2500 rural forest or hilltop villages, Kandhamal was still a locus of fear, mistrust and misinformation. PREM’s Involvement Alongside local people’s organizations and otherNGOs,PREMstaff and volunteers went to the communities affected by the Kandhamal violence to study how to develop a framework for rehabilitation. They held consultations with many different demographic groups—Hindus and Christians, upper castes and Dalits, tribals and non-tribals—and then began hosting seminars, workshops and other platforms for dialogue, involving multiple groups from the same community and neighbouing communities. They facilitated local, national and international efforts to mobilize resources for rebuilding homes and buildings. They organized campaigns and rallies for peace, with booklets and painted signs in different villages promoting tolerance and harmony. And they utilized local traditions—song, dance and spoken-word performance—as key elements of all interventions, emphasizing unity. As an added innovation,PREMhas developed Participatory Poverty Assessment interventions by which entire communities work together to evaluate the levels and types of poverty they face—education, health, income, food security, land ownership and use, discrimination, etc—in order to build a unified framework for addressing poverty across all demographics.After such a tragic event whose wounds were inflicted deeply and brutally, the results of rehabilitation are difficult to appraise; especially while there are still hundreds of court cases pending involving those alleged to have attacked, looted, burnt, raped, destroyed and murdered. Parts of Kandhamal are still tense, and lines of socio-political division that have existed for centuries are unlikely to be erased even after such a gut-wrenching, soul-searching calamity. PREM’s belief is that through building unity through communal action against poverty, the best hope is a shared hope. Photo credits:Burning Church:OutlookmagazineDestroyed Home:The HindunewspaperRefugee Camp:NDTV onlineDemonstration of Christians:NowPublic Media