Bangalore to observe Kandhamal Solidarity Day on August 29
Bhubaneswar (Santosh Digal, Matters India)—Bangalore City is to observe Kandhamal Solidarity Day on August 29 at 5:30 pm at Town Hall in Bangalore, India.
Jagadish G Chandra, an official of New Socialist Alternative (CWI-India) and organizer of the event, said as of now more than 90 people are going to attend the event.
The gathering on August 29 is meant to remember the Communal Carnage of 2007 and 2008 in Odisha’s Kandhamal district. Seven years ago, in August 2008, scores of Christians were killed by Hindu mobs demanding they convert or be killed. Some 300 churches and 6,000 Christian homes were looted and burnt down, rendering 56,000 Christians homeless.
The event is to express solidarity to the victims of communal violence in Kandhamal, from a cross section of classes, castes, religion, gender and nationality instill a ray of hope for the struggles ahead, because during Kandhamal violence Dalit Christians and tribals.
The would also would give an occasion to reflect on the issue of increasing intolerance orchestrated by the Right Wing Hinduthva forces around the country, and how the majoritarianism and communal-ism is creeping into the administration, police and courts, which is rapidly eroding the values of non-partisan, secular ethos that were envisaged in the Constitution of India, said Chandra.
Kandhamal is a question that one needs to revisit today in the relevance of the politics of Hindutva and its present agenda. There is tendency of politics of hate behind Kandhamal. There is a certain Hindutva neurosis and hatred and paranoia about the demographic question. We know that such rumours can be threatening if we look at what happened in Kandhamal.
Kandhamal is a story about the question of justice that only 2 of 27 murder trials had any conclusion, that only 3000 of the over 11,300 named in 800 FIRs (First information Reports) were brought to trial.
Kandhamal has to be seen as a feminist issue, about how the rapes of women were covered up, how the bodies of gang-raped victims were burned. So this communal violence and its effect on women has to be condemned.
Kandhamal is a story that recurs all through Indian history. Whether it is Kilvenmani, Bathani Tola, Laxmanpur Bathe, or the recent Kambalapalli judgement, the ruling class, the upper caste, the majority of right wing Hindus who commit the atrocity are allowed to go scot free. We should force the judiciary to stay true.
As the convenor of Peoples’ Solidarity Concerns-Bangalore from New Socialist Alternative, I am hopeful that all those men, women, young and elderly, believers (of various faiths) and non-believers, Human Rights Defenders who gather to say “No More Kandhamals, Not Here-Not Anywhere”. People United can never be defeated, said Chandra.
