[Buddha-l] Orissa

[Curt Steinmetz]

Violence against Hindus in Orissa:

The two most recent periods of violence in Orissa both began with 
attacks on Hindus - and violence against Hindus continued after these 
initial attacks in both cases. These attacks against Hindus including 
killings and home burnings.

Thousands of Hindus are currently living in the forests Kandhamal 
province as a result of the violence - whereas government funded 
shelters have been set up for Christian refugees.

The most consistent figure for the total number of people killed in the 
current round of violence is 36, and many of those were Hindus - 
including Swami Lakshmanananda and the four others killed along with him 
at the outset. To put things in some persepctive, the population of 
Orissa province is about 36 million, and the population of the Kandhamal 
region, where most of the violence has occurred, is about 6.5 million.

Just today a protest of hundreds of Hindu women in Kandhamal was 
violently attacked by the police. They were protesting a recent attack 
on one of their fellow villagers, also Hindu, and demanding the arrest 
of those involved.

A group of 70 prominent Hindu teachers and religious leaders have begun 
a hunger strike demanding the arrest of all those involved in Swami 
Lakshmanananda's murder. They claim that the police have been notified 
of the names of people who had previously threatened to kill the Swami - 
but who remain at large.

Hindu religious religious leaders are also protesting the fact that no 
security has been provided by the government for the thousands of Hindu 
Temples in the area of the violence.

In addition to proselytizing, Christians in Orissa and other parts of 
India have long been accused by Hindus of promoting cow-slaughter as an 
overt act of desecration against Hinduism. Conflicts over this go back 
at least to the 1990's.

Hindus are routinely referred to as "right-wingers" or "hard-liners", 
whereas Christians are inevitably portrayed as innocent and apolitical 
or possibly even "liberal" victims of "fundamentalist" Hindus, even 
though Indian Christians, especially those most active in Orissa, are 
often directly connected with some of the most right-wing Christian 
fundamentalist groups in the world.

Some sources:

http://www.hindustantimes.com/redir.aspx?ID=c5aa7470-6975-4260-8733-96102472b802

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kandhamal

http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/uncategorized/fresh-violence-in-orissas-kandhamal-several-hurt-lead_100109564.html

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/Hindu_seers_demand_security_for_Orissa_temples_priests/articleshow/3618789.cms

Curt