Fasting in the context of the Turmoil in Orissa
The Prelude
The unabated violence on Christians in Orissa continues for about a fortnight now, where nearly 20 people are killed, nearly 40, 000 are homeless hiding in the forests, where several houses are burnt, churches and schools attacked and where life is also quite threatening in the government relief camps, for some tried to poison the drinking water to kill Christians and violence on Christians simmering to other parts of the State and to other neighbouring States, the situation is highly volatile and perplexing. As a response to the violence on Christians in orissa, Sunday, the 7th September has been called by the National united Christian Forum (NUCF), a united platform of the National Council of Churches in India (NCCI), the Catholic Bishops Conference of India (CBCI) and the Evangelical Fellowship of India (EFI) as a day of prayer and fasting in solidarity with the victims in Orissa. Several circulars in English and in vernaculars have been sent to all the constituents of the NUCF, and information is that in many villages, towns and cities, the churches and the Christian communities have been preparing to observe the day in prayer and fasting.
The Instrument
I asked a friend of mine in my town about 7th September and immediately he told me about the efforts and arrangements they are making and involved in organising this day of prayer and fasting. I had to appreciate and admire the commitment of Christians for the day of prayer and fasting. As our conversation went on, I asked him, “Why should we fast?” He was so quick to answer and evangelises me, “the reason for all the Christians to observe this day of prayer and fasting is that, when our co-Christians in Orissa are attacked, when our Christian peoples houses have been burnt, when our Churches are attacked, when our Christian institutions have been attacked and when there is a lot of animosity and anger on the Christian missions in Orissa, we as Christians need to pray and fast, for we need to call on the intervention of our God in such a time of crisis to Christians in India.”What is special about fasting in calling on the intervention of our God? I asked my friend. He was as usual spontaneous in replying me, “Prayer is like a tablet, which we take when we are sick for relief & recovery, and fasting prayers is like an antibiotic or an injection, which brings in a quick relief and recovery from our sickness.”
These replies startled me and have further made me to ponder on what it means to fast in such a situation like the Orissa turmoil? I am sure my friend is not just the one who thinks in this wave length on fasting, I am sure there are several of our Christian brothers and sisters, across the latitudes and longitudes of this globe who thinks about fasting in resonance with my friend’s understanding on fasting. Quickly if I have to spin the yarn of my friend’s understanding into the forefront, several layers of textures which are so complexly interwoven into the fabric of Christianity comes into light.
The first layer of the texture happens to be the parochial understanding of fasting. When our co-christians, when our people are attacked, when our Christian missions are attacked… so on so forth, only when ‘our’ is in trouble, that we are called to fasting. Are called to fasting only when ‘our’ and ‘me’ are in trouble? The second layer happens to be the parochial understanding of God. When ‘our’ people are in trouble fasting is calling on ‘our’ God to intervene and battle for the Christians in India. To that extent my friend was quite open enough to call on just the intervention of God in a time of crisis, for he did not spell what that intervention means. I am not surprised that our Christian friends even stretch that intervention of God, like calling on ‘our’ God to take revenge on Orissa. For they quote that every time such incidents happen and when floods or drought or earthquake or cyclone hits that place, our Christians immediately proclaim that the ‘wrath of God’ is on them (where several innocent people die due to these natural calamities). The third layer is the petty understanding of fasting. Is fasting a matter of inward activity within the body or does it have any outward activity in the community? Is fasting giving up eating for a day or does it have something beyond? When we feast all the 365 and half days in a year to the core, just giving up eating for half a day is that all called fasting? What legitimacy do we have in calling it a day of fasting? There is a wide paradox between the fatting and fasting in Christian lives. Is such a fasting acceptable to God? There are many more layers that have been into our Christian living, but for want of time, let me restrict to these three layers and address them from a Biblical perspective. Once again I know and I am reminded that I am entering into a difficult horizon of the conventional understanding of faith and fasting, which has been deeply rooted in all our Christian understandings. However for the sake of the Gospel, I have to risk gospel, so that all of us become the light of the world and the salt of the earth.
The Notes
To further take us through in reclaiming the essence of the Gospel, and to draw our focus what does it mean to fast in a situation like Orissa turmoil, I have with me one of the popular texts in the Bible, the book of Prophet Isaiah chapter 58, verses 6 & 7.
“ Is it not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?
Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin?”
Tuning the Frequency
The above words of the Trito-Isaiah comes with much force today in order to explain what it means to fast, and what activities it include in fasting. These two verses summarise the character of fasting for our Christian ethical living. These are very old sayings in the Bible and happen to be an old rhetoric in the Church tradition to which we had been listening. However, I found these verses very profound for our context of September 7th, when the whole Christians across the globe observe the day of prayer and fasting in solidarity with the Orissa turmoil victims. From these two verses I found eight characteristics of fasting, and which provide a way to what it means to fast in our times. Before I deal with the eight characteristics of fasting, which I call the ‘Octave in Fasting’, let me unravel the truth that fasting is not parochial rather fasting is more communitarian, which is for the society, by the society and in the society. Fasting is a communitarian process, where through fasting it benefits all in the society for the aim of fasting is it brings in justice, peace and equality and never done by a particular sect people because they are affected. Allow me also at this point to disentangle the truth that God is never parochial, rather God is of all people and of all faiths, for it is in God all faiths exist and in God all faiths sustain, for God is just and seeks the same from his people in the society to administer and execute justice to all, and that is where fasting is directed towards.
With these perspectives in mind, let us start to organise the two verses into an octave to draw out the essence, the direction, the meaning, and the message of fasting for our times today. Octave is a famous module, which has been used to explain many categories in the sciences. Music has been a famous one, which has an octave to determine and define its melody. An octave in the Indian version of music is sung as Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Da Ni Sa, likewise prophet Isaiah also gives us an octave in fasting. It is harmony in singing in the octave, and it is disharmony, when some one sings little lesser to the given octave or sings little higher to the given octave. Similarly, octave in fasting also maintains the same. As every musician is aware of the octave in music, so also every Christian should be aware and be used to this octave in fasting for such an octave is an active fasting.
The Rag / Tune
As the frequency is tuned and with the given notes it is now time to draw the scale in the octave of fasting. All these notes in the octave are complimentary to each other and reveal the rich character in fasting.
Sa - to loose the bonds of injustice
Re - to undo the thongs of the yoke
Ga - to let the oppressed go free
Ma - to break every yoke
Pa - to share your bread with the hungry
Da - bring the homeless poor into your house
Ni – to cover the naked
Sa – to hide not yourself from your own kin
The Composition
As the notes have been spelt out and the tune has been given, its now time to reveal the composition, and therefore draw what it means to fast in the context of Orissa carnage. Some practical directions are given below.
Part I
The first four notes can be summarised since injustice, yoke, oppression and breaking the yoke all go in the same line and is broadly discussed under the rubric of injustice for want of time. Therefore in the whole Orissa episode of violence on Dalit Christians, here are some of the bonds of injustices? Here are the un-weaved threads from the bonds of injustice.
a. The injustice of religious fundamentalism,
b. The injustice of violence,
c. The injustice by caste,
d. The injustice by the unjust governance,
e. The injustice of not to exercise the freedom of religion.
These have been the bonds that have griped so tight the lives of Dalit Christians in Orissa during this turmoil. These bonds have so griped, that the Dalit Christians in Orissa are unable to breath the breath of life and are pushed to the edges of death. To be more explicit, the injustice of religious fundamentalism has brewed hatred and anger of the fanatic Hindus towards the Dalit Christians and had to pay the price of their lives. The injustice of violence entangled the Dalit Christians to be attacked, raped, killed, be burnt alive and run for life into forests. The injustice of caste has further pushed into margins the Dalit Christians, and there has been a struggle for them in demanding a Scheduled Tribe Status, for Dalits converted to Christianity has to bear the brunt of injustice from all quarters of the society. The injustice by the unjust governance is exposed in the State governments failure to safeguard the lives of Dalit Christians, though this has been the second of its kind in attacking them. At some places policemen were mere spectators to the violence. When the Constitution of India guarantees all its citizens to exercise faith in any religion, Dalits are denied the right to choose their religion and either termed as ‘converts’, ‘re-converts’ and even sometimes ‘de-converts’.
Therefore the calling to all those fasting for the cause of Orissa is to loose the bonds of these injustices, break the yoke of discrimination and set at liberty all that are oppressed. Fasting does not in any ways mean to loosen the size of the waist clothes by reducing to eat or by not eating, rather to loose the bonds of injustices surrounded and suffocating Dalit Christians in Orissa.
· If fasting means to loose the bonds of injustice, then it means to loose the grips of religious fundamentalism in all religions, including Christianity. We as Christians, who fast should condemn religious fundamentalism in all forms and modes and try to maintain cordial and harmonious relationships with other people of faith in our localities. As we fast, let us give up aggressive and inflammatory talks from our pulpits, criticising the practices and worships of our neighbours. As we fast let us call on the Christian missions to respect the indigenous cultures of the people and not to force the western cultures on them in the name of gospel. As we fast, lets resolve to preach the good news of love that Jesus preached and practised and try to become more like Christ, rather than ‘chruchians’. Let us as Christians initiate inter-faith activities that create peace and harmony in the society we live in. When Christians all across the globe become more spiritual by becoming religion neutral through following the paths and ways of Jesus Christ, religious fundamentalism in addressed, and the bonds of such injustices will loosen both in Orissa and else where, and that’s what it means to fast.
· If fasting means to loose the bonds of injustice, then it means to break the yokes of cruel violence, which has taken the lives of several Dalit Christians. In the context of violence, fasting means to overcome the culture of violence by calling on the State and Central governments to arrest all the perpetrators of violence, who have caused it in the name of religion and all those who have taken law and order into their hands. To fast means to exert pressure on the government to probe into the reality of the killings of the Swamiji and into the killings of the innocent Dalit Christians by the Central Bureau of Investigation along with a probe from the National Human Rights Commission. As we fast, let us resolve to become the ambassadors of just peace in our societies.
· If fasting means to loose the bonds of injustice, then it means to set at liberty from the heinous grips of caste and caste practices, which has further pushed the Dalit Christians to the peripheries of the society. As we fast, let us lobby for the equal rights of the Dalit Christians by exerting pressure on the Central government to give justice to them. As we fast, let us also as Church confess our caste-ridden mindsets and give up caste from our churches. As we fast, let us break the barriers of caste and sub-castes within the Church and live the values of the reign of God. As we fast, let us denounce caste, and affirm Dalit rights as human rights. As we fast, let us demand for a Dalit-Tribal interface, an interface between faith and ideologies and an interface between social movements and the state to address the caste issue in Orissa. As we fast, let us call for a thorough analysis of the caste discrimination done to Dalits in Orissa and call the state and the Church to address it.
· If fasting means to loose the bonds of injustice, then it means to loose the grips of the unjust governance in the state of Orissa. To fast means, to be bold in calling the state government accountable for their failure in safeguarding its people and in maintaining the law and order situation, where violence erupted in the presence of the government policemen. Since the state government has been failing to safeguard the Dalits in Orissa with the consequent attacks one in December and one in August, to fast at a time like this is to come open in writing to the President, the Prime Minister and the Governor of Orissa to impose Article 355 by dissolving the state government and held Presidents rule in the State, for there is no longer a trust in the State machinery. To fast, at a time like this is also call to ask explanation from the ruling Central government, for it has not been able to nail the miscreants and being soft to the fundamentalist groups. As responsible citizens to fast means to pray and vote for a government with secular values.
· If fasting means to loose the bonds of injustice, then it means to loose the grips of the injustice of not to exercise the freedom of religion. To fast at a time like this is to affirm and assert in the constitutional rights of the people to preach, practice and propagate any religion in all freedom. To fast also means to condemn all forcible conversions done with any allurement or inducements in our country by any religion. To fast means, giving up our statistical goals in winning souls or in planting churches rather to get committed to resolve to work towards the quality of life of the people.
Part II
In the context of Khandamal episode of violence, when people are hiding in the forests for life, with out food and shelter, what does it mean to fast?
Fasting means to share our bread with the hungry. Fasting means primarily sharing with the needy. It is not just giving a loaf of bread to the hungry, rather to give up our accumulating attitude and deeds. To fast means, lets give up our greedy attitude, our selfish attitude and our insensitive attitude towards our neighbours. Fasting, therefore means sharing with the needs of our people in Orissa. As we fast, lets collect special offertory as Churches and Christian communities and let us share with the people of Orissa in this time of distress and pain. As we fast, let us collect the relief material and organise it to send to Orissa, for there are people with special needs and their need is to be met urgently and immediately. To fast means, let us as Churches stop accumulating wealth to build huge towers and churches for our own selves, and start sharing with the people in need, our Orissa brothers and sisters now.
Fasting also means to cover the naked. When our people in Orissa are fled with out any thing to wear, the call as we fast is to cover them. To fast means to cover the naked, and also means to uncover the covered, which mean lets, expose our arm-chaired saturated comfort zones in our Churches, for we need to cover the naked in Orissa. To fast means, to be bold in uncovering the covered in order to cover the naked.
Part III
When nearly 40, 000 are hiding in the forests homeless and when nearly 5000 houses are burnt down in Orissa, what does it mean to fast?
Fasting means to bring the homeless poor into our houses. To fast means, to bring those home less Dalit Christians to a roof like ours, which has all the comforts of life. To fast means to re-build their houses just like that of ours and comfort them from their fear, trauma and anxiety, and also to adopt a child who has been orphaned because of this violence and make him/her part of our house. To fast means to open our houses for the homeless, to open up our hearts for those pushed into poverty and margins.
Part IV
When our brothers and sisters in Orissa have become victims of communal violence, what does it mean to fast? Orissa is far off from me, and how does it affect me?
Fasting means to hide not yourself from your own kin, and I believe that people in Orissa are after all our own kith and kin and we at a moment like this, if we hide ourselves from them, it is not fasting. Tomorrow or one day, you may be a victim and there will be none to be with you. Therefore to fast means, to be in solidarity with our people in Orissa, not to hide ourselves from the issue, not to be closed thinking me and my family are fine and am I my brother’s keeper? To fast is to realise that we are our brother’s and sister’s keepers and we need to be with them in this times of trouble and violence.
The Postlude
Let us therefore resolve to fast pro-actively for the cause of Orissa, and express our solidarity with our brothers and sisters in Orissa. The promise for all those who fast as said above is
“Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up quickly, your vindicator shall go before you, the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard. Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer, you shall cry for help, and he will say, Here I am.” Isaiah 58: 8-9.
