Paul KeenanGood news in India was tempered with a sad loss, writes Paul Keenan
A bitter-sweet moment for India’s hard-pressed Indians came on August 2. That day, from the bench of the nation’s Supreme Court, a ruling was announced that even today amid ongoing persecution seems hard to believe.
Finally closing a renewed investigation into the 2008 anti-Christian pogrom in Orissa (today renamed Odisha), Chief Justice Tirath Singh Thakur and Justice Uday Umesh Lalit strongly denounced the clearly half-hearted police investigations that marked the immediate aftermath of the violence that saw 100 Christian deaths, 50,000 displaced and the destruction of thousands of homes and churches of the community.
Having pored over some 800 criminal cases on file, the judges found that 315 had not been pursued at all, while in a further 362 brought before the courts, just 78 resulted in a conviction. Justices Thakur and Lalit ordered the immediate reinvestigation of cases “where acquittals were not justified on facts”. By this the legal experts meant the countless incidences in which alleged murderers and rapists were simply released despite the evidence against them.
Amazement
As if this ruling were not enough to conjure a mix of amazement and joy for Christians in Hindu-dominated India, the judges then went on to criticise the paltry compensation package originally offered to victims of the pogrom as they emerged fearfully from forests after days of violence (where more had succumbed to snake-bites).
Dismissing as paltry the $170 (sometimes less) offered for destroyed homes, and $7,500 to bereaved families the judges ordered an extra $4,500 to the bereaved as well as increased payments for damage together with set payments for anyone injured in the violence.
More than anyone, the figure responsible for ensuring that Orissa’s miscarriages of justice gained their fair hearing before the Supreme Court was the former Archbishop of Cuttack-Bhubaneswar, Raphael Cheenath, whose district of Kandhamal became the epicentre of the pogrom and thrust him into the roles of pastor to a broken people and a champion for justice on their behalf. August 2 was perhaps his victory more than anyone else’s.
Sadly, it was a victory all too briefly celebrated by the archbishop and his people. Just 12 days after the Supreme Court’s decision came the news that Archbishop Cheenath had died at his home in Mumbai at the age of 81. (One ‘reward’ for his service to the people of Orissa was to be forced out to the relative safety of Mumbai by multiple death threats.)
For the purposes of historical record: Archbishop Cheenath was born on December 29, 1934, in Kerala, southern India. He was ordained a priest on September 21, 1963. He was appointed Bishop of Sambalpur in Orissa in 1974. He was appointed Archbishop of Cuttack-Bhubaneswar on July 1, 1985, a post he held until retirement on February 11, 2011.
Inevitably, the archbishop’s funeral, on August 17 at the Sacred Heart Church in Mumbai, heard numerous tributes paid to the clearest example of a ‘shepherd to his flock’, including from his successor in Cuttack-Bhubaneswar, Archbishop John Barwa, whose eulogy described him as “a dynamic leader, a zealous pastor, a great visionary”.
But no message could have been more heartfelt and relevant to the prelate’s legacy than the written message from Servite Sister Meena Barwa (niece of Archbishop Barwa), one of the most high profile victims of Orissa.
As the violence unfolded in August 2008, Sister Barwa was gang-raped and left for dead by Hindu attackers, with her case subsequently coming to public attention thanks to the work of Bishop Cheenath.
“It was Msgr Cheenath who organised the press conference in New Delhi, preparing everything, down to the smallest detail,” she wrote. “He did not speak, but I could feel his pain, his suffering; he was always close to me, silent and full of solidarity and prayer”.
For the wider community, she then added: “Thank you for all you have done for the people of Orissa and especially for the suffering people of Kandhamal.”
When one looks back to the days immediately after the bloodletting of Orissa, and to a single statement made by Archbishop Cheenath then, it becomes almost impossible to envisage him doing any less than he did for his people.
Seeking to minster to Christians who had lost everything, and who would gain no outside help as a result of the local government blocking NGOs from bringing relief, Archbishop Cheenath must have believed he faced a monumental hurdle in holding the community together.
But, as he related of the Christians of Orissa: “They told me, we lost everything, our house, our people, our clothes, but we won’t give up our faith.”
The prelate would be buoyed enough by such a sentiment to tackle the local government’s order in court and score his first victory to bring aid to the community.
It would be pleasing to be able to report that Archbishop Cheenath’s successes have spread beyond Orissa to offer a better day for India’s Christians.
Violence
Alas, there is still a long way to go in a country now dominated by the fundamentalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
As the Supreme Court handed down its scathing judgement, World Watch Monitor (WWM), which reports on Christian persecution around the globe, revealed that anti-Christian violence has risen to an “alarming level”. WWM quoted Tomson Thomas, coordinator for the advocacy group Persecution Relief, which works in India as stating: “The situation is getting worse in BJP-ruled states”. The report adds to WWM’s own study earlier this year which put attacks on Christian communities in India at 30 per month.
Thus it falls to a new generation of pastors to summon the courage displayed by Archbishop Cheenath and to defend the right of Christians in India to be Christians.
Whoever they are, they can only be emboldened by Orissa’s great champion.