Rev. Dr. Richard Howell

It might be considered natural for mothers in Kandhamal, Orissa to teach their children hate and revenge! For it was the evil in people that led to the barbaric killing on 23rd August 2008, of Lakhmanananda Saraswati, the vice-president of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad. It was followed by almost 5,000 houses being torched which rendered over 50,000 people homeless, about 1,200 people continue to live in relief camps even a year after the massacre. How many children will grow up listening to stories and grow up with revenge and hatred not only inscribed in their names but woven into the very fabric of their lives!

However, for reconciliation to take place the inscription of hatred must be carefully erased and the threads of violence gently removed. This is one important lesson of Jesus’ proclamation of the reign of God. Christian struggle against the oppression in Kandhamal must be guided by a vision of reconciliation between the oppressed and the oppressors, otherwise it will end in “injustice-with-role-reversal.”

To be a leader you need social power, to have social power you need a following, and to have a following you must take on the cause of the oppressed. While Jesus had no ambition to political leadership he undoubtedly kindled hope in the hearts of the oppressed and demanded radical change of the oppressors, as any social reforms would. But Jesus built into the very core of his message, God’s unconditional love and people’s need for repentance. From the perspective of contemporary discourses on Orissa killings of innocent these two things together-divine love and human repentance addressed to the victims represent the most surprising and, as political statements, the most outrageous and at the same time most hopeful aspects of Jesus’ message.

Victims need to repent of the fact that all too often they mimic the behaviour of the oppressors, letting themselves be shaped in the mirror image of the enemy. They need to repent also of the desire to excuse their own reactive behaviour either by claiming that they are not responsible for it or that such reactions are a necessary condition of liberation. Without repentance for their sins, the full dignity will not be restored and needed social change will not take place. If victims do not repent today they can become perpetrators tomorrow who, in their self-deceit, will seek to pardon their misdeeds on account of their own victimization?

At the same time the dominant values and practices must be broken also in the hearts of the privileged, they certainly need to repent. This is like stating the obvious, however it must be asserted, for the privileged used the ideological machinery to script narratives that shift blame away from themselves.

The message of Jesus insists that repentance is not only necessary for the oppressor, but that for them it means more than just purifying desire and mending ways, more even than making restitution to those they have wronged. A genuine repentance of the oppressor will lead to restitution which seeks to offset the injustice of the original violation.

Genuine repentance may be one of the most difficult acts for a person, let alone a community, to perform. For good reasons, Christian faith thinks of genuine repentance not as a human possibility but as a gift of God.

However, this does not absolve the State of its responsibility to protect its citizens. The Government authorities have a divine responsibility to prevent evil and to do justice. The government both at the Centre and the State have to ensure that the systems are in place to provide justice to the victims to ensure lasting peace in the region.