Wadhwa’s balmy effect

When I visited Gladys Staines at Baripada in March this year, she recalled her conversation with Graham Staines merely 10 days before his martyrdom at Manoharpur. They were discussing the atrocities on Christians in Dangs, Gujarat. Graham concluded with a question vibrant with the spirit of his faith: "Should notChristians forgive, even as Jesus did when he prayed for his persecutors?" It was this, Gladys Staines gratefully recalled, that prepared her to respond "Christianly" to her supreme tragedy.

The irony is this. The commission sees Graham Staines as a martyr and his death as a significant event that could wake up the conscience of a whole nation. Those who speak for the political and religious lobbies, on the contrary, see it as a crime whose political scope outweighs its spiritual significance. This is a sacrilege to those who know Gladys, and the spiritual meaning of the work that the Staines couple has been doing in Orissa. The report is far more sensitive to her spiritual nobility and the redemptive scope of her witness than the spokesmen for the community.

The concluding words of the report deserve to be quoted: "The Commission wishes to place on record its deep appreciation of the remarkable fortitude and wisdom displayed by Gladys Staines in the face of such terrible personal tragedy where she losther husband and two little sons…By her conduct, she has put to shame, if they have any shame, not only the perpetrators of the crime but those who directly or indirectly may have sympathy with them…Gladys has shown great resilience with her resolve to stay in India with her daughter to carry on the work of her late husband. The Commission is with her in her resolve and wishes her strength and support in her endeavour to serve the poor and spread the Gospel without any fear.".

In the report, the Manoharpur tragedy is treated as an alarming symptom of the general malady that threatens the country as a whole. In describing it as an "avoidable tragedy", the report enlarges the environment of responsibility for this national shame. So the accusing fingers of the commission point to the state administration that remained a passive witness to Dara Singh’s riotous rise to criminal pre-eminence in Mayurbhanj and Keonjhar districts.

Implicated though he was in 11 criminal cases of serious magnitude, Dara Singhremained free to perpetrate more and more heinous crimes, enjoying at times even the goodwill of the police. The report says: "Purna Chandra Mahanta recalls an incident which took place one day before the Manoharpur incident wherein the police lifted up an intoxicated Dara Singh and put him on the side of a road, even when he was a wanted criminal."

Communally slanted political patronage is the key to such immunity. Significantly, while Dara Singh used to be arrested and let off till the end of 1997, in none of the cases thereafter the police dared to lay hands on him. Not because he was hiding like sandalwood smuggler Veerappan. Even after Manoharpur, he was moving around freely and was available for a TV interview, though he remained invisible and inaccessible to the police.

The report speaks for the nation as a whole when it says, "That an individual rabid fundamentalist playing on the sentiments of poor tribals in the name of religion could commit such a dastardly act is a matter of grave concern forus, one and all." Elsewhere, it says: "The attempt of Dara Singh in murdering Staines was plainly to prevent missionary activity amongst the tribals so that they would not embrace the Christian faith. Such violent acts are aimed at mutilating the Constitutional structure and it is necessary that the collective energy of the people of India protect itself against misguided and ill-informed religious zealots who have been spreading a communal view of religion."

The commission, however, sees no link between Dara Singh and any communal outfit in this specific instance. Yet it does not overlook the evidence pointing to Dara Singh’s ideological affinity to Bajrang Dal and the BJP and the solidarity he enjoyed from them. The report notes: "In the case of Patna Police Station Case No. 80 of 19th October 1997, several BJP and Bajrang Dal activists were arrested along with Dara Singh. There was sharp reaction from the BJP as well as from the local Bajrang Dal on the arrests so made."

This is further borne out byDara Singh’s motive in murdering Staines. The report quotes him: "Let us go and assault the Christian missionaries who have come to Manoharpur as they are indulging in conversion of innocent tribals to Christianity and spoiling our religion and culture." It strains our credulity that an ideologically innocent criminal, tucked away in the tribal belt of Orissa, can be so paranoid about his "religion and culture" (especially culture!) being spoiled by missionary activities.

The report is commendable in the focus it puts on the lamentable plight of the tribals. It speaks of their poverty, their neglect at the hands of the administration and their helplessness which makes them vulnerable to irreligious incentives as in the case of conversion inspired by the hope of healing. The report is eloquent in exposing the unfairness thereof but loses sight of its link with the "avoidable" misery and destitution on which it feeds. Those who know human helplessness in states of prolonged illness unrelieved by health care,and are not strangers to the brooding ferocity of hunger, can understand how in such states people grab any form of help. While it is mean to take advantage of such a state, it is even more dishonourable to keep millions in such sub-human conditions.

Restorative justice’ needs to be translated proactively into a social reality with a special focus on the underprivileged sections of our society. Regrettably, the resentment against the conversion of tribals is the other side of the apathy to their hellish plight.

The writer is Member, Delhi Minorities Commission