‘Congress in Chhattisgarh Has Utterly Failed to Defend Rights of Christian Adivasis’

Brinda Karat tells Karan Thapar that attacks on Christian Adivasis in Chattisgarh have continued for 5 months and have done extensive damage to homes, churches and livelihoods and forced up to 2,000 people to flee their villages.

Senior politburo member of the CPI(M) and former Rajya Sabha MP Brinda Karat, speaking about attacks on Christian Adivasis in Chhattisgarh, which have continued for 5 months and have done extensive damage to homes, churches, belongings and livelihoods and forced up to 2,000 people to flee their villages, says, “The Congress has utterly failed to defend the constitutional rights of Christian Adivasis.”

She has raised this matter in a letter addressed to chief minister Bhupesh Baghel and, in response, the home minister met a CPI(M) delegation on February 7. They asked why no one from the government has met the victims but did not get a meaningful answer from the home minister. She says even the Congress party president in Chhattisgarh, who is also the MLA for Narayanpur, where many of the 60-70 villages where the Christians have been attacked are located, has failed to visit his own constituency. She also says “not a single family or individual victim has received any compensation”.

In a 30-minute interview with Karan Thapar for The Wire, Karat agrees that the clear explanation for the Chhattisgarh Congress government’s failure to intervene and stop the attacks on Christian Adivasis is because “they are following a policy of Hindutva-lite”. Assembly elections will take place in Chhattisgarh later this year.

In the interview with The Wire, Karat readily agreed this was “an indictment of the Congress government”. She said the state administration “not intervening” was giving “impunity” to the Janjati Suraksha Manch, who she says are responsible for the attacks. She says there’s “clear evidence of BJP and RSS involvement” behind the Janjati Suraksha Manch.

However, though repeatedly asked, Karat refused to answer questions about whether these attacks on Christians in Chhattisgarh were a contradiction and undermining of Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra, which was dedicated to spreading communal harmony and communal love. Again, though repeatedly asked, she would not say whether she would take this matter up with either Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge or Rahul Gandhi himself.

Karat says these attacks on Christian Adivasis have occurred in 60-70 villages in Chhattisgarh. She says they began in early October and have continued for 5 months. She says the most recent attack was “day before yesterday”. She says there have been physical attacks on people as well as attacks on churches and pastors. She says women have been particular targets because of their vulnerability.

Although these attacks have been continuing for five months they have not been picked up by the national media and Karat suggested that the local media is “complicit”.

More importantly, the Congress government in Chhattisgarh has not taken any meaningful and effective action to stop these attacks. In the interview, Karat cites Chhattisgarh collectors, who she met, who are aware of what is happening but gave her inexplicable, if not dubious, explanations for their lack of effective response and behaviour.

This article is published on https://thewire.in/