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The Rediff Special/Archana Masih and Syed Firdaus Ashraf

Tensions, yes, but flare-ups, no

'Dara Singh! Who's Dara Singh?' comes the quick response from the Orissa Bajrang Dal chief, Pratapchand Sarangi. "We know only one Dara Singh and that is the 'Hanuman' actor. Apart from him we don't know of any Dara Singh." On the other hand, his associate from the Hindu Jagaran Samukhya, Subhash Chauhan, goes a step further and says there is no real Dara Singh, he is just a figment of the Congress's imagination.

According to the information available with the local police, Dara Singh -- a native of Etawah in UP -- was a worker in a Delhi shoe factory, where he became friendly with one Deepu from Keonjhar. When the factory closed down, Dara Singh accompanied Deepu to Keonjhar. Already registered as a petty criminal in Etawah, he took refuge there and started working in Deepu's father's grocery shop.

In the late '80s, when the Gau Suraksha movement of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad picked up momentum, Dara Singh became its active supporter. Working primarily in the Keonjhar area, Dara Singh often interrupted the trucks transporting cows to West Bengal and released them, as cow slaughter is banned in Orissa. There were times when he would even attack the truck drivers -- who were Muslims -- and then set fire to the vehicles.

Since all his targets were Muslim truck drivers, it was naturally concluded that Dara Singh had a history of animosity towards Muslims. However, till his suspected association in the Stains' killing, there was no recorded hostility towards Christians or Christian missionaries.

According to the police, he came into its records in '94-'95. In the Keonjhar district, there are five cases registered against him for restricting cattle movement. He was arrested in 1997 and kept in judicial custody for 20 days. Since then, the police used to keep a check on his activities to avoid a communal flare-up in the otherwise peaceful district.

However, after his release, he shifted his area of operation to the border of the Mayurbhanj and Keonjhar districts in order to avoid arrest.

Asked whether Dara Singh was a Bajrang Dal member, the superintendent of police, Keonjhar district, Arun Ray said, "As far as his membership of the Bajrang Dal is concerned you must check with them. But we have circumstantial evidence that he used to take an active part in the activities of Bajrang Dal."

"But, yes, I can say on the fateful day of the Stains' killing, there was pre-meditation as nearly 60 people had gathered at that spot before the actual killing."

The SP, however, says the district administration was later informed that there were some students in neighbouring Thakurmunda who had heard of the planned killing. Another police official, on condition of anonymity, says Dara Singh must have burnt the jeep without realising the Stains were in it, which has a ring of possibility given his arsonist background.

Interestingly, till then, there had been no reports of major communal tension between Christians and Hindus in the districts of Balasore, Mayurbhanj and Keonjhar.

What we found was that the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and the VHP offices are very loosely linked and don't know much about each other's functions on a daily basis. Moreover, they do not know the names of their own leaders from the neighbouring districts.

The RSS office in Baripada, Mayurbhanj district projects a sad picture, with a faded board announcing its identity. There is only one person in-charge of the office in that region. Locals also reveal that there are no RSS shakhas in the area, no morning drills or any such typical RSS activities.

"The BJP, which had a very minor presence in this region won by a good margin of votes in 1998 because of two factors, Vajpayee and the alliance with the Biju Janata Dal," says Bimal Das, state executive member of the BJP in Baripada.

"The BJP has gained only in the last two years in Orissa. We won seven parliamentary seats thus improving our party position drastically. In the 1995 assembly election, we were able to win only 10 out of the 147 assembly seats," he adds.

The Bajrang Dal office in Cuttack is also relatively unknown, and not many people even know its address or location. In fact, even Bajrang Dal members are not well informed about the places where their organisation does active work in the area.

Some 500 km away in Keonjhar, lawyer and former BJP district president Ashwin Patnaik has the address of a Saraswati Shishu Mandir being run by the RSS in Gunasika village.

Dayanidhi Mahanto, its in-charge, was listening to a transistor near the famous Shiva temple in the village. Pointing to a jeep-converted-to-an-ambulance parked beside him, he said it was run by a Catholic organisation in the village. On his way to school, Mahanto said there were no tensions between Christians and Hindus in the region. As a matter of fact, there were hardly any Christians in the village.

The small school in the centre of the village had on its roll 60 students and four teachers. Mahanto added that regular physical training and the singing of Vande Mataram were part of the school's daily routine. A residential Oriya-medium school, its children came from neighbouring villages.

"The government is doing nothing for these poor children, so we had to take this step to provide education for them," says school teacher Devendra Kumar Mahanto. "We are not concerned whether the children are Hindu or Christian, we only want to educate them. Neither do we teach them anything specifically about the Hindu Dharma. But we think if we make their base strong in this school, they will not be provoked into converting to any other religion either."

The teachers also say that though there was a Catholic organisation in the village, there was no conversion going on. It is difficult for them to point out areas where they occur because missionaries planned such events very carefully.

Meanwhile, locals feel that the Sangh Parivar cannot have a hand in attacking Christian missionaries because the organisation is not well organised in the three districts. "They do not have the required organisational base to launch attacks against Christians," said a senior party member in Mayurbhanj district, "Even the BJP does not have such a strong organisational base, this when the local MPs from both these districts are from the BJP. Party offices only come to life during election time."

Their detractors, on the other hand, say the Sangh Parivar has its own plan, which is to mobilise splinter groups rather than encourage an organised way of functioning. Keonjhar's Santosh Behra, a BJP worker also reveals that since the police has arrested not fewer than 51 suspects in the Stains killing, many members have gone 'underground.' "That could be one reason why they are not visible," continues Behra.

However, instances of minor tension have been reported with tribal Christians abandoning traditional practices soon after their conversion.

Says Dilip Kumar Behra, "There is a tribal festival call Makar in which tribals don't till the land as they say it is undergoing menstruation. But tribal Christians insist on tilling land at that time."

Says the SP of Keonjhar district, "There are tensions, but they are at a dormant stage. The only incident I can recall was way back in 1970. Otherwise, the people over here are peace-loving. But after Stains killing, we are taking all precautions to avoid any major conflict."

EARLIER REPORT:

Journey into Orissa's land of strife

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