In Gujarat, Hindu extremists killed 2,000 people in February-March of
2002. Muslims live in fear there, victims of pathological violence.
Raped, lynched, torched, ghettoised. A year and half later, Muslims
in Gujarat are afraid to return to their villages, many still flee
from town to town. Ghosts haunted by history. Country, community,
police, courts - institutions of betrayal that broker their
destitution. This is India today.

The National Human Rights Commission recognised the impossibility of
achieving justice in Gujarat. The Best Bakery murder trial flaunted
dangerous liaisons between government, judiciary and law enforcement.
Those who speak out are vulnerable. Outcry against the consolidation
of Hindu rightwing forces in India is subdued. In a world intent on
placing Islam and Muslims at the centre of 'evil', Hindu nationalism
escapes the global imagination.

Orissa is Hindutva's next laboratory. This July, in a small room on
Janpath in Bhubaneswar, workers diligently fashioned saffron
armbands. Subash Chouhan, state convenor for the Bajrang Dal, the
paramilitary wing of Hindutva, spoke with zeal of current hopes for
'turning' Orissa. Christian missionaries and 'Islam fanatics' are
vigorously converting Adivasis (tribals) to Christianity and Dalits
(erstwhile 'untouchable' castes) to Islam, Chouhan emphasised. He
stressed the imperative to consolidate 'Hindutva shakti' to educate,
purify and strengthen the state.

Western Orissa, dominated by upper caste landholders and traders, is
a hotbed for the promulgation of Hindu militancy, while Adivasi areas
are besieged with aggressive Hinduisation through conversion. Praveen
Togadia, international general secretary of the VHP, visited Orissa
in January and August 2003 to rally Hindu extremists. He advocated
that Orissa join Hindutva in its movement for a Hindu state in India.
'Ram Rajya', he promised, would come.

In Orissa, the sangh parivar is targeting Christians, Adivasis,
Muslims, Dalits and other marginalised peoples. The network divides
its energies between charitable, political and recruitment work. It
aims at men, women and youth through religious and popular
institutions. The sangh has set up various trusts in Orissa to enable
fund raising, such as the Friends of Tribal Society, Samarpan
Charitable Trust, Yasodha Sadan, and Odisha International Centre.

There are around 30 dominant sangh organisations in Orissa. This
formidable mobilisation is the largest base of organised volunteers
in the state. The RSS, responsible for Gandhi's death, was founded in
1925 as the cultural umbrella. It operates 2,500 shakhas in Orissa
with a 1,00,000 strong cadre. The VHP, created in 1964, has a
membership of 60,000 in the state. Born in 1984, at the onset of the
Ramjamanbhoomi movement, banned and reinstated since the demolition
of the Babri Masjid in 1992, the Bajrang Dal has 20,000 members
working in 200 akharas in the state.

Membership of the BJP stands at 4,50,000. The Bharatiya Mazdoor sangh
manages 171 trade unions with a cadre of 1,82,000. The 30,000 strong
Bharatiya Kisan sangh functions in 100 blocks. The Akhil Bharatiya
Vidyarthi Parishad, an RSS inspired student body, functions in 299
colleges with 20,000 members. The Rashtriya Sevika Samiti, the RSS
women's wing, has 80 centres. The Durga Vahini, with centres for
women's training and empowerment, has 7,000 outfits in 117 sites in
Orissa.

Intent on constructing the 'ideal' woman who decries the 'loose
morals' of feminism, the sangh seeks to train Hindu women to confront
the 'undesirable' sexual behaviour "endemic" to Muslims and
Christians. Such training endorses 'masculanisation' of the Hindu
male looking to protect the fictively threatened Hindu woman.

In October 2002, a Shiv Sena unit in Balasore district in Orissa
declared that it had formed the first Hindu 'suicide squad'.
Responding to Bal Thackeray's call, over 100 young men and women
signed up to fight 'Islamic terrorism'. The Shiv Sena appealed to
every Hindu family in the state to contribute to its cadre. Squad
members, it is speculated, will receive training at Shiv Sena nerve
centres in Mumbai and elsewhere.

Why Orissa? The state is in disarray, the leadership labours to
sustain a coalition government headed by the Biju Janata Dal and the
BJP. The government is shrouded in saffron. As the sangh infiltrates
into civic and political institutions seeking to 'repeat' Gujarat not
many are paying attention. For the 36.7 million who reside in Orissa,
Hindutva's predatory advance aggravates and capitalises on social
panic in a land haunted by inequity.

Orissa houses 5,77,775 Muslims and 6,20,000 Christians, 5.1 million
Dalits from 93 caste groups, and over 7 million Adivasis from 62
tribes. Around 87 percent of Orissa's population live in villages.
Nearly half the population (47.15 percent) lives in poverty, with a
very large mass of rural poor. Almost a quarter of the state's
population (24 percent) is Adivasi, of which 68.9 percent is
impoverished, 66 percent illiterate and only 2 percent have completed
a college education. 54.9 percent of the Dalits live in poverty.
Concentrated in Cuttack, Jagasinhapur and Puri districts, 70 percent
of the Muslims are poor. In March 2002, Orissa's debt amounted to
24,000 crore rupees, more than 61 percent of the gross domestic
product of the state.

In 2001-2002, the government of Orissa signed a memorandum of
understanding with New Delhi to secure a structural adjustment loan
of Rs. 3,000 crore from the World Bank and an aid package of Rs. 200
crore from the department for international development, the overseas
development branch of the government of the United Kingdom. This is
conditional assistance, laden with extensive and hazardous
consequences. People's movements protested this agreement for tied
aid that supports irresponsible corporatisation and works against the
self-determination of the poor.

Consecutive governments, including the present coalition, have failed
to address entrenched gender and class oppressions as exploitative
relations endure between the poverty-stricken and a coterie of
moneylenders, government officials, police and politicians in Orissa,
perpetuating displacement, land alienation, and untouchability.
Floods have affected three million in 2003. Agricultural labourers
are faced with serious food shortages with no alternative means for
income generation. Scarcity has led to starvation deaths and people
have committed suicide. Infant mortality, 236 in 1000, is the highest
in the Union.

In the recent past, Rayagada district has witnessed despairing
efforts to survive - the sale of children by families. In Jajpur
district, a mother, a daily wage earner in a stone quarry, sold her
45-day-old child for Rs. 60 this July. These measures have not evoked
reflection and commitment on the part of the State. Rather,
unconscionable attempts have been made to show that such action is
emblematic of Adivasi and Dalit cultures.

Systematic disregard for the human rights of 'lower' caste, Adivasi
and Dalit peoples is a social and structural predicament. In December
2000, Rayagada witnessed state repression of Adivasi communities
protesting bauxite mining by a consortium of industries in Kashipur
that is detrimental to their livelihood. The industries were in
breach of constitutional provisions barring the sale or lease of
tribal lands without Adivasi consent. In response, state police fired
on non-violent dissent, killing Abhilas Jhodia, Raghu Jhodia and
Damodar Jhodia.

The absence of adequate social reform, the disasters of dominant
development, economic liberalisation and corporate globalisation
further antagonise already overburdened minority and disenfranchised
groups, pitting them against each other. Hindutva targets the
religion and culture of the disempowered as globalisation abuses
their labour and livelihood resources. Such conditions produce the
contexts in which marginalised peoples embrace identity-based
oppositional movements.

The sangh exploits the fabric of inequity and poverty deviously to
weave solidarity built on tales of a mythic Hindu past. Hindutva
defames history, speaking of Muslims as the 'fallen traitors' among
Hindus who converted to Islam. This revisionist history obfuscates
the severity of inequity within Hindu society that led to conversions
historically. Alternatively, Hindutva misrepresents Muslims as
'terrorists' and 'foreigners', Christians as 'polluted'. Adivasis are
falsely presented as Hindus who must be 'reconnected' to Hinduism
through Hindutva. Dalit and lower caste people are raw material for
manufacturing foot soldiers of dissension.

At the same time, caste oppression prevails in the sangh parivar's
mistreatment of Dalits in Orissa, who have been assaulted for
participating in Hindu religious ceremonies. In April 2001, a Dalit
community member was fined Rs. 4,000 and beaten for entering a Hindu
temple in Bargarh.

Poor Muslim communities are often socially ostracised in Orissa.
Cultural and religious differences are diagnosed as abnormal. A
Muslim community member from Dhenkanal said, "When Hindus celebrate a
puja we are expected to pay our respects and even offer
contributions. For them this is an example of goodwill, of how we are
accepted into their society, indeed we are no different as long as we
do not act differently."

A Muslim woman added, "Women face double discrimination, from men of
our own community as well as from the outside". Women fear the sangh
will perpetrate violence on their bodies to attack the social group
to which they belong.

In witch hunting for the 'enemy within' to blame for India's befallen
present, the sangh demands absolute loyalty to its tyranny, requiring
an unequivocal display of obedience. The sangh dictates the rightful
gods to worship, prayers to recite, legacies to remember. Hindutva
imagines its actions above the law. It makes the unification of
Hindus central to its mission. To do so, it organises Hindus to
fulfil their 'manifest destiny', fabricating Hinduism as monolithic
across the immense diversity of India.

Grassroots movements in resistance to the debacle of nation making
are combating the sangh. Where Dalits, Adivasis and others are allied
in subaltern struggles for land rights and sustenance, Hindutva
intervenes, seeking to divide them. Grassroots democracy threatens
upper-caste Hindu dominance and contradicts elite aspirations. To
domesticate dissent, the sangh invigorates militant nationalism. In
village Orissa, emulating Gujarat, the sangh works to create enmity
between Dalits, Adivasis, Muslims and Christians. Progressive
citizen's groups have initiated opposition, including the 'Campaign
Against Communalism' in Bhubaneswar. Their capacity to contest
despotic religiosity is linked to redressing political oppression,
redistributing economic resources and overcoming injustice.

Fear of the sangh parivar runs deep in Orissa, producing
acquiescence. The sangh's methods are sadistic, contributing to
violations of life and livelihood. In January 1999, as the vehicle
with Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two sons, Philip
and Timothy, was torched in Keonjhar district, the mob's homage to
'Jai Bajrang Bali!' pierced the state. Then followed the murder of
Catholic priest Arul Das and the destruction of churches in Phulbani
district. After much delay, last month, the Orissa district and
sessions court delivered a verdict on the Staines' murder case,
sentencing Dara Singh, the primary accused, to death, and 12 others
to life imprisonment.

The Bajrang Dal continues its virulent onslaught in Orissa. In June
2003, the Dal announced that it wouldorganise 'trishul diksha'
(trident distribution), despite chief minister Naveen Patnaik's ban.
Praveen Togadia planned on launching the trishul distribution
campaign in Banamalipur in Korda district to provoke an area with a
significant Muslim population. The Bajrang Dal plans to present
trishuls to 5,000 as part of the Janasampark Abhiyan (mass contact
programme) that anticipates reaching 100 million people in 2,00,000
villages throughout India.

The objective? To spread aggression. Between July and September 2003,
the Bajrang Dal organised intensive programs in Bhubaneswar,
Sundergarh and Jajpur. Aimed at securing a 1,50,000 membership in
Orissa, this is part of a larger campaign that targets Gajapati,
Phulbani, Keonjhar, Mayurbhanj, Koraput, and Nabarangpur districts.

In Orissa today, the sangh mobilises for a Ram temple among people
for whom Ayodhya is a tale from afar. By 2006, the birth centenary of
RSS architect Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar, sangh organisations promise
that Orissa will be a poster state for Hindutva. The sangh's
considerable advance in rural and urban Orissa has helped the BJP
consolidate its position in the state, reflected in its gains in the
state Assembly from one seat in 1985 to 41 presently. In return for
its support, the sangh expects the government to tolerate its
excesses. In March 2002, a few hundred VHP and Bajrang Dal activists
burst into the Orissa Assembly and ransacked the complex, objecting
to alleged remarks made against the two organisations by house
members.

Development and education are key vehicles through which conscription
into Hindu extremism is taking place. After the cyclone of 1999,
relief work undertaken in a sectarian manner by RSS organisations
granted the sangh a foothold through which to strengthen enrolment.
Today, the Utkal Bipannya Sahayata Samiti works on disaster
mitigation with facilities in 32 villages. The Dhayantari Shasthya
Pratisthan manages four hospitals and six mobile centres.

In offering social services and carrying out rural development work,
the sangh makes itself indispensable to its cadre as a pseudo-moral
and reformist force. This continues the sangh parivar's long history
of implementing sectarian development. Targeting the livelihood of
the 'other' is a technique of saffronisation. The Bajrang Dal has
been strident in stopping cow slaughter in Orissa, an important
source of income for poor Muslims who trade in meat and leather.
Muslims have been beaten and threatened by Hindutva mobs. In India,
amid the staggering poverty in which 350 million live, the
participation of government agencies in debating a ban on cow
slaughter is contemptible. This debate is not about animal rights. It
arrogantly contravenes the separation of religion and state. It is
anti-Muslim, anti-Dalit, anti-Christian and anti-poor.

In Orissa, egregious infringements of human rights are taking place
with the disintegration of Adivasi and other non-Hindu cultures
through their hostile incorporation into dominant Hinduism. Sectarian
education campaigns undertaken by RSS organisations demonise
minorities through the teaching of fundamentalist curricula. There
are 391 Shishu Mandir schools with 111,000 students in the state,
preparing for future leadership. Training camps in Bhadrak and
Berhampur aim at Adivasi youth.

Vanavasi Kalyan Ashram runs 1,534 projects and schools in 21 Adivasi
districts. The sangh has initiated 730 Ekal Vidyalayas in 10
districts in Orissa, one teacher schools that target Adivasis. The
primary purpose of the schools is to indoctrinate villages into
Hindutva. The teachers are offered Rs. 150-200 per month as
honoraria, no salaries. The schools are free, supported through
donations from organisations like the India Development Relief Fund.
For Adivasi peoples, this facilitates cultural genocide that imperils
self-determination movements struggling against a violent history of
assimilation. The sangh asserts Adivasi political emancipation is a
process of 'tribalism' that jeopardises the nation.

The sangh drives spiritual centres that use religious scriptures to
incite sectarianism among Hindus. Vivekananda Kendras and Hindu
Jagran Manch are active in Orissa together with Harikatha Yojana
centres in 780 villages and 1,940 Satsang Kendras. There are 1,700
Bhagabat Tungis in Orissa, cultural reform centres run by the sangh
that aim at Hindus and Christians. Another line of attack is to
forcibly convert Christians into Hinduism. Churches and members of
the Christian clergy are apprehensive. In Gajapati and Koraput,
Christians have sought state protection in the past.

In Gajapati district, RSS and BJP workers torched 150 homes and the
village church in October 1999. A Dalit Christian activist said, "RSS
workers tell me that Christianity brought colonialism to India, and I
am responsible for that legacy. How am I responsible? Feudalism,
imperialism, post-colonial betrayal. That is written across our
bodies. How am I responsible?" In June 2002, the VHP coerced 143
tribal Christians into converting to Hinduism in Sundargarh district.
The Dharma Prasar Bibhag claims to have converted 5,000 people to
Hinduism in 2002.

Orissa passed a Freedom of Religion Act in 1967 protecting against
coercive conversions. The law, open to problematic interpretations,
was overturned in 1973 and returned in 1977. In 1989, the state
government activated requirements for religious conversion. In 1999,
Orissa enacted a state order prohibiting religious conversions
without prior permission of local police and district magistrates.
Hindu fundamentalists diligently manipulate these provisions to
intimidate religious minorities. Sangh organisations work with
sympathetic police cadre to ensure that Hindu's do not convert.

The sangh purposefully confuses the distinction between the right to
proselytise and the use of religion to cultivate hate. Hindutva
propaganda accuses Christian communities of the former and labels it
a crime. The sangh justifies its use of the latter in the interests
of a higher truth, the 'righteous' action of reuniting Hindus.
'Reconversion' is working well among the Christian community in
Orissa, Subash Chouhan says, but not with Muslims. "Muslim
reconversions are going slowly because mullahs, maulvis have created
mosques and madrassas in village after village, and guard their
children like chickens. That is the kind of people they are and that
it why it is not so easy to get them back." For Muslims, the Bajrang
Dal anticipates a different approach. Mr. Chouhan said that the Dal
would engage in militancy if needed to "get the job done".

Hindutva stampedes across Orissa, inciting tyranny to establish
itself. As power, culture and history shape the imagination of a
nation, genocide is emerging as India's brutal legacy. In denial, in
silent and active complicity, we allow Hindu extremists to march to
the guttural call of hate. Hindutva hijacks the nation's aspirations.
Its doctrine of 'blood, soil and race' rewrites the circumstances and
complex histories that produced India. While the separation of
religion and State in India is attempted at the constitutional level,
Hindu militancy derives consent from Hindu cultural dominance.

Hindu ascendancy is assisted by the degree to which the authority of
religion and the enabling cultural and gender hierarchies are
enshrined deep within the popular psyche of the nation. This
dominance assumes that to restrict religion to the private realm
would deny India its historical 'consciousness'.

India, a land of 1.2 billion, a profusion of peoples, is bound to the
promise of a different destiny. In the flux between yesterday and
tomorrow, dreams and desires, inequities and intimacies collide to
infuse the hybridity that is India. Her survival is contingent upon
the Hindu majority's commitment to an inclusive, plural, secular
democracy. The idea of a Hindu state in India is filled with
discontent, held together by force. It must never come to pass.

(Note: Information used in this article is derived from multiple sources, including interviews with persons affiliated with Sangh organisations).

(Angana Chatterji is a professor of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the California Institute of Integral Studies).