'Beat the minorities and win the majority vote'

The violence against Christians in Orissa was a "clearly organized, systematic attack" to garner support from majority community for coming elections, pointed a Church leader from Orissa.

"The whole thing has to be understood in the line of politics. In April, they have announced elections, the politics is that it is a repetition of what happened in Gujarat. They are using the same experiment here in Orissa - beat the minorities and win the majority vote. This is politics," Archbishop Raphael Cheenath, head of Catholic church in Orissa, said.

In an interview with Rediff, Archbishop Raphael lamented, "the Centre nor the state government can take any serious action which would displease the majority community - the Hindu community - on whom every political party depends for their success," adding during "this time, they will not take any serious action against the majority."

Due to fundamentalists' tremendous power, he said, the Constitution has been ignored and not implemented in spite of Christians having strong faith in the Constitution of India.

"Unfortunately, the political parties used the fundamentalists for their gain. Now, over the course of time, these groups have become very strong and now instead of being used, they are dictating to the political parties and to the government."

Unless this trend is controlled, he said, secularism is under threat in India.

The Archbishop rued that while Christians were being hunted by over 2,000 to 3,000 people, "government forces stood idly by and did not show any resistance to prevent."

The attacks on minority Christians in the country came to a halt only when international community including the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom decried the persecution, he said.

He pointed that even Prime Minister Manmohan Singh apologized calling it a 'national shame', when French President Nicholas Sarkozy questioned on Christians being persecuted.

"Since then, the British parliament also made some comments -- they condemned this violence -- and in fact, from the European parliament, five of them had come, but they were not allowed to go and see the places in Orissa where the attacks took place citing security reasons," he added.

Talking on the plights of Christians in relief camps, the prelate said, "There were 24,000 refugees in 14 camps. Now the number has reduced to about 9,000 people and seven refugee camps." Apparently, the people are not returning to their villages or homes, but due to continual threats, "many have left Orissa for Kerala, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, New Delhi and Gujarat and other places."

"The situation is very tense. The people who left Kandhamal district and those who left Orissa itself are not prepared to come back," he said.