Exhibition opens on Orissa riot victims

(August 23, 2010) A group of social activists on Sunday opened an exhibition on Orissa riot in New Delhi showing the miseries victims suffer even two years after the anti-Christian violence. Bollywood Lyricist Javed Akhtar, opened the exhibition, saying the 2008 Hindu radical violence in the tribal-dominated Kandhamal district was “matter of shame” for the nation. Akhtar later told media while all Indians take pride in the values of nation’s secular values, sectarian violence such as Orissa riots continue to occur, challenging the “our democracy and our ideal of secularism.” The scene of the exhibition conveys the uncertainties of the lives of the victims of radical violence that began Aug. 24, 2008, a day after Hindu leader Laxmanananda Saraswati was killed. Hundreds of victims of the seven-week long violence continue to live in relief camps, unable to return to their villages. Exhibition structures made of bamboo look like small huts on which some 80 photographs and selected paintings are displayed. The first visual of the exhibition is an actual bamboo hut with burnt jute hanging on from its walls. Inside it are actual items collected from Kandhamal—a broken crucifix, burnt cloth, bible and household items. The exhibition, conceptualized and designed by social activist Shabnam Hashmi, will remain open till August 24. National Solidarity Forum, an alliance of non-governmental organizations, supports it. Some Christian leaders such as John Dayal saw positive signs in secular groups in the country taking initiative to observe the anniversary of the riots, not seeing the sectarian violence as an issue of Christians.