Reconstructed Dangs waits for the inevitable’ upheaval

AHWA, Aug 22: Most prayer halls have been rebuilt. The SRP personnel have gone back where they came from. Reconversions have stopped. Eig...

AHWA, Aug 22: Most prayer halls have been rebuilt. The SRP personnel have gone back where they came from. Reconversions have stopped. Eight months after religious conflicts put the tiny South Gujarat district on the international map, the Dangs very much looks its old self.

The last communal conflict in the region was reported on April 10. For a brief while, it seemed to put the clock back to the time when miscreants made a habit of pulling or burning down prayer halls in the dead of the night, trying to negate the educational and medical progress brought about by the missionaries. But only for a brief while.

The relief may well be short-lived, if Hindu Jagaran Manch president Janubhai Pawar has his way. “We are waiting for the elections to end. We’ve been asked to lie low till then”, he discloses in hushed, menacing tones.

“They are still spreading anti-Hindu propaganda. We’ll strike hard, pull down churches if required”, Pawar adds, without trying to dissociate his outfit from similar incidents in the past. “Even if I’m jailed or hanged, the HJM will take out another rally on December 25.”

Pawar likes to believe his apolitical’. “I’m not with the BJP. Don’t ask me anything about the elections”, he says, and then goes on to correct local BJP office-bearers about the voter strength. The HJM did not take kindly to the re-opening of the renovated prayer hall at Mulchond on July 25, alleging before District Collector J P Gupta that the inauguration violated the code of conduct since the Congress had “used” the occasion to launch its poll campaign.

Gupta, however, disagrees. “It wasn’t (a violation of the poll code). Barely 50 people gathered there for Sunday prayers”, he says.

About the current situation, Gupta says they’re keeping their fingers crossed. “We don’t expect any trouble; we’ve warned all the trouble-makers, irrespective of their political affiliation, to behave themselves.”

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The missionaries, on the other hand, seem certain the peace exists only on the surface. “We aren’t sure how long it will last”, they say, while admitting there have been no attacks in the recent past.

A priest in Subir, where a school was attacked on December 25, confides, “We are very careful (now) when it comes to conversions. Even if tribals ask to be baptised, we don’t rush into it. We don’t want to antagonise the majority community.”

Interestingly, notwithstanding the Hindu allegation that missionary-run schools were “centres of mass conversions”, the demand for such schools in Ahwa and Subir has risen four-to-five times in the recent past. This can be attributed, at least in part, to the missionary schools’ Board results. “Our SSC pass percentage was 92.37, in comparison to the Ahwa centre’s 33.25”, points out a sister of Deepdarshan School.

This is the same school which was stoned by miscreants on December 25, flagging off the sustained unrest in the region. The huge holes in the asbestos roof had been on display for days. Now, evidently, the school has other things to boast about.