For over 5 weeks, Kandhamal and some other districts of Orissa have been racked by communal sectarian violence, in which people of the Christian faith have been targeted. Dozens of people have been murdered. Churches and homes of people have been burnt down. According to reports, over 40,000 Christians have been turned into refugees, forced to flee from their homes and villages.

Who is responsible for this widespread communal sectarian violence against some of the poorest, most deprived sections of the people? It is the Indian state that is responsible for this. The victims of the violence, as well the working masses of our country as a whole must have no illusion about this.

For decades, the Indian state and the main political parties of the bourgeoisie —Congress and BJP —have been whipping up sectarian passions on the basis of religion and caste identities all across the country. They have been carrying out the same criminal activity among the people in Kandhamal and adjoining districts. What religion a tribal or dalit upholds has been turned from a matter of his or her conscience, to a public issue, to be exploited to divide the people on religious and sectarian lines and sow hatred against each other. “Conversions” and “re-conversions” to this or that religion have become the focal point of political campaigns. The demand for reservations in jobs and educational institutions for dalit Christians, and the demand that dalits of the district be recognised as a tribe, have been used to divide the people and whip up passions. People who have belonged to the same tribe or community for ages, who have lived together, have been systematically set against each other. The reactionary political parties have assiduously cultivated their vote banks on this basis. Within this inflamed situation, the assassination of a local VHP leader Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati was the spark that has lit the terrible sectarian conflagration. As in the past, the politics of assassination has been in the service of the ruling class and their game plan.

The Central and state governments and the major political parties of the bourgeoisie have stood by as mute spectators while people have been raped and killed and converted into refugees in their own land. They are accusing each other of “failing to protect” the victims, as if any of them ever had any intention of doing so! They are quibbling over why paramilitary forces have not been deployed in the area, while the facts show that whatever armed forces were deployed there actually aided and abetted the perpetrators of the sectarian violence.

With General elections  around the corner, the ruling Congress and the opposition BJP are cynically using the communal massacres in Orissa to advance their own narrow political agenda  The Congress Party wants the communal massacres to continue, so that it can drive a wedge between the BJP and its allies, and mobilise the minority communities behind its reactionary banner. The BJP wants to use the communal massacres and the response of the Congress to accuse it of “minority appeasement” and rally religious people of Hindu faith behind its reactionary banner. Neither is concerned about the people who have been raped and murdered, whose homes and churches have been torched. Neither is concerned about the toiling and oppressed people of our country.

Orissa, a state rich in minerals and other natural resources, is home to some of the poorest, most exploited and oppressed people of our country. It has a vast population categorised as tribals. Indian and foreign multinationals, with active intervention of the Central and state governments, have been trying to make super-profits from exploitation of these mineral resources. They have been facing widespread opposition from the people. The Congress, BJP as well as the BJD have been greatly discredited as parties of the Indian and foreign multinationals. In these conditions, the Indian ruling class, and all its main political parties gain a great deal by smashing the unity of the people, organising sectarian violence and rallying the oppressed and exploited people around the very same parties that are responsible for their miseries.

In the wake of the gruesome attacks on people of the Christian faith in Orissa and other states, various political parties are trying to play the “secular” card. According to them, the source of communal and sectarian violence is some organisations affiliated to the BJP. In this way, they want people who are victims of sectarian violence to rally behind these “secular” formations.  People must not fall into this trap.

The source of communal and sectarian violence is the Indian state. The Indian state is communal to the core. All its organs, including the political parties that are an integral part of this state, are communal. They operate on the basis of dividing the people and setting them against each other.

No political party, no organiser of communal and sectarian violence has ever been punished in our country. The perpetrators of the 1984 massacre of Sikhs, the Gujarat genocide of Muslims and of numerous other massacres roam free, enjoying the privileges and positions of state power. The people have demanded punishment of the guilty. Now too, we must raise this demand — those responsible for the attacks on Christians in Orissa must be punished. And we raise this demand, knowing full well that the Indian state, the political parties like Congress and BJP, are part of the problem and therefore can never be part of the solution.