Life Beyond Kandhamal for Dalit Panos

Relocation as an Option

As the situation in Kandhamal is uneasily calm after about two months of violence on Dalit Pano Christians, most of these survivors of the brutal violence are perplexed to think life beyond these incidents. On the one hand if they have to return back to their houses from the relief camps, they have to face the threat of being re-converted to Hinduism or face the ultimate consequences of it. On the other hand the district administration is slowly trying to persuade them to get back to their villages and start life, as they appear to be normal. Dalit Pano Christians are caught up between these two options before them.

These Dalit Pano Christians are firm in their faith for they believe in no turning back from their Christian faith and are ready to bear the consequence for it, for they have been experiencing the price for embracing Christianity in their lives. There is clarity in their position with regard to their locus standing of their faith, for they believe in a God of freedom and also affirm their Constitutional right in expressing their freedom of choosing a religion of their own choice and conscience.

To return back to their broken, burnt and destroyed houses in their villages, these Dalit Pano Christians are reluctant for they have been witnessing a series of violence, and expect much more to come in the future. When the destroyed houses of the December violence were rebuilt again, the august violence on them sprouted and their houses and property were again either burnt to ashes or destroyed. So these people knew that there is no longer safety in these villages of theirs and have been urging the government to relocate them to other places and villages in Orissa. Their no confidence in the district administration makes them to ask for a re-location. Their fear psychosis to live in terror and bloodshed makes them to ask for relocation. Their suburbs flooded with the Sangh aggression makes them to ask for relocation.

These Dalit Pano Christians ask for relocation not in all willingness, joy and pleasure. With great despair and out of compulsion, for there is no other option left for them but for relocation. Imagine the plight of these people; their tears knew no bounds. They are asking for a relocation at the expense of their homeland, where they were born, brought up, nurtured, lived for years and experienced community living with people of all faiths. They are asking for relocation at the expense of forgoing their ancestral lands, to which they have been so deeply attached with. They are asking for relocation at the expense of their deep-rooted sentiments of their own land with the ethos of the rich cultural setting they have been used to. They are asking for relocation at the expense of the rich flora and fauna they enjoyed with and by distancing from the historical indigenous traditions that evolved from their lands.

Despite all these reasons, is relocation a possibility for these Dalit Pano Christians? Will the government authorities listen to their pleas? The government can relocate them as a community and grant them pattas, land documents in other areas of the State, but all that is required is a political will for doing it. Earlier when the Church delegations have met the Chief Minister of Orissa and the Home Secretary of Orissa, they have promised to relocate the communities that have been badly affected, based on the requisitions made by those communities. Therefore, the State government has to keep up its word and relocate the affected communities to a safe place, providing them all the requirements of land, shelter and job.

If normalcy is to be required in this violent district in Orissa, relocation is a necessity that can help the communities that have witnessed violence and bloodshed. The role of the civil societies in this direction will be to pressurise the State government to relocate these communities to a safe and secure place within the State. Earlier stories of rehabilitation done to the displaced people in India has a record of providing lands that were unfertile and barren, where livelihood is not a possibility. May the State government in Orissa, keep in mind to provide relocation to these ethno-communally affected people at a land that is fertile and safe. May relocation not make these communities isolated, but may they imbibe the community building mechanisms to live in peace and harmony.