Activists demand change in India’s communal bill

(April 26, 2010) Church and activist groups in eastern India’s Orissa state have demanded drastic changes to a proposed federal bill that aims to check sectarian violence in the country. At an April 21-22 seminar in Bhubaneswar, the Orissa state capital, 52 activists, lawyers and Church people reviewed the Communal Violence (Prevention, Control and Rehabilitation of Victims) Bill the Indian parliament expects to pass this year. Most participants are associated with cases related to anti-Christian violence in Orissa’s Kandhamal district in 2008 that killed more than 90 people, mostly Christians, and rendered some 50,000 people homeless. Seminar participants demanded a new committee draft another bill to tackle sectarian violence. Church workers and activists working among Kandhamal survivors say police and the local administration tacitly supported Hindu extremists who attacked Christians there. The seminar wants the government to draft a new bill using an open, transparent and public process involving jurists, activists, academics and legal experts. Vrinda Grover, a Supreme Court lawyer, told the seminar the bill also provides immunity for political leaders and government officials from punishment for their actions or negligence during sectarian violence.