Berhampur, Orissa – The three–day long Sangh Parivar congregation at Chakapad in Kandhamal district concluded yesterday with leaders giving a clarion call for Hindu resurgence.
In the concluding ceremony, more than one lakh people had gathered. VHP chief Mr Ashok Singhal and RSS Sarsanghchalak, Mr K S Sudarshan, among others, addressed the public gathering.
Both Mr Singhal and Mr Sudarshan iterated that the time of Hindu resurgence in India is near.
Mr Singhal, in his speech, termed Muslims as fanatics, and said that both Christian missionaries and Communists, including Naxalites, pose the greatest danger to the country.
He said he was hopeful of a Hindu resurgence in India as the truth was with the Hindus. He said neither Muslims nor Christians have any rich culture or tradition. "They are just trying to destroy the culture and tradition of India," Mr Singhal alleged.
The Dharma Jogna took place in Orissa from April 8–10, in honor of Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar, dubbed as the "second great leader of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS)."
This event is the third of its kind this year. The VHP held a Dharam Sansad, or Hindu leadership summit on February 1–2 at Allahabad. VHP international secretary Pravin Togadia later said a core issue discussed at the summit was the development of a nationwide "Hindu vote bank."
The Dharam Sansad and the Shabri Kumbh both stressed the revival of Hindutva, or Hindu nationalism. The Shabri Kumbh was advertised as an event that would "resist and revert conversions to Christianity engineered by missionaries."
Another Hindu "reawakening" event held on a similar scale in Dangs, Gujarat in December 1998 led to religious rioting and the destruction of several churches. Just a few weeks later, in January 1999, a mob shouted Hindu slogans as they set fire to a vehicle in Keonjhar district, Orissa, where Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two sons, Philip and Timothy, lay sleeping. All three burned to death.
The state passed the Orissa Freedom of Religion Act (OFRA) in 1967 to prevent forced or manipulative conversions. The law, open to problematic interpretations, was overturned in 1973 and adopted again in 1977. In 1999, the state enacted an order enforcing the OFRA, which requires prior permission from local police and district magistrates before a conversion takes place.
The state government is presently a coalition between the pro–Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Biju Janata Dal (BJD). Sources say the BJP hope to achieve a single party government after the next election.