Condemn the politics of assassination!

Condemn the sectarian violence against people of Christian faith!

On the evening of August 23, 2008, 83 year old Swami Laxmananda Saraswati and four of his comrades were assassinated by unknown gunmen. The Swami was spending the night in the Jaleshpata Ashrama school on the Kalahandi Phulbani border when the murderous assault took place. People's Voice condemns the assassination of the Swami and his comrades as an act of provocation by forces working overtime to inflame passions and provoke widespread anarchy and violence.

Two weeks after the dastardly assassination of the Swami, the districts of Kandhamal, Bargarh, Koraput, Rayagada, Gajapati, Boudh, Sundargarh and Jajpur continue to be engulfed in sectarian violence triggered off following that assassination. Churches and homes of Christians have been torched. According to reports, at least 47 people have been killed in this wave of sectarian violence, targeted against people of the Christian faith. People’s Voice condemns the sectarian violence against innocent people of the Christian faith.

The security forces of the Orissa government have been silent bystanders to this arson, murder and mayhem, under the plea that the areas are too remote. People's Voice condemns the Orissa government for its inability and unwillingness to prevent sectarian violence and protect the lives and properties of the people.

Kandhamal is part of a region which is abysmally poor and backward. The majority of the people of the district are tribal people, and there is a substantial proportion of Dalits as well. Over the years, this area has been turned into a communal tinderbox. Reactionary political parties and their front organizations have carried out poisonous communal propaganda amongst different sections of the people, and actually organized communal conflagrations in the past. Thus, just last December, there was an abortive assassination attempt on the life of Swami Laxmananda, which was used to trigger widespread sectarian violence. At that time, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, one of whose main leaders the Swami was, accused a leading Congress MP as being behind the assassination attempt. However no one was punished, either for the assassination attempt, or for the subsequent sectarian killings.

The Congress, BJP and other reactionary political parties are extremely busy inflaming passions and dividing society in Orissa at this present time, with a view to electoral benefits in the coming general elections. They want to divide and disorient the working class, the peasantry and the tribal people, so that people do not unite and fight for their own interests. It cannot be ruled out that the assassination of the Swami was the handiwork of one or the other of these reactionary parties.

The people of Orissa are one of the most exploited and oppressed peoples of our country. Their state is home to some of the richest mineral wealth of our country, which all the native and foreign multinationals are rapaciously eyeing. The workers, peasants and tribal people have been waging a militant struggle against the plunder of their land and resources. In such a situation, the reactionary bourgeoisie and the state is keen to smash the unity of the fighting people. The sectarian violence unleashed in the state must be viewed in this background.