Hindus, Christians fight over tsunami victims

Posted January 10, 2005
Bamboo Flat, January 10 2005
Hindus, Christians fight over tsunami victims
Indian Express
Monday, January 10, 2005 at 1248 hours IST

Mohammed Shaheen, who survived the tsunami that devastated Andaman and Nicobar islands, stands outside a relief camp as Christian and Hindu groups argue over who would run it.

"How can you be fighting over victims?" asks a dazed and shocked Shaheen, who has just arrived after a navy ship picked him up from Katchal island, where about half the 8,800 residents are still missing.

A group led by Christian aid agencies says the administration in the islands' capital, Port Blair, gave them the camp. The other group, affiliated with RSS, insists it is theirs.

After a while, they thrash out a compromise: the Hindu group linked to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) will run it for the first week, then the Christian group.

But it's too late for Shaheen. Disgusted, he and his family pack their bags and move to another camp on Bamboo Flat island, 45 km (30 miles) from Port Blair.

"We are more comfortable here, there is no dispute here," he says, standing outside the tented camp on a hillside overlooking a smashed jetty.

BATTLE FOR INFLUENCE

Scores of volunteers from Hindu, Christian and Muslim groups have landed in the palm-fringed chain of islands, more than 1,200 km (745 miles) from mainland India, offering everything from food and water to solace and self-healing tips to the survivors.

"There is a competition going on, both religious and political," said Madhu Krishan, head of Islanders Sangatthan Manch, a group campaigning against an influx of outsiders to protect the fragile ecological balance and the traditions of primitive tribes largely untouched by the modern world.

"There is already too much upheaval, displacement. This kind of competing for influence makes it worse," he said.

Hindu and Christian groups have long been at odds on the mainland with Hindu hardliners accusing Christian missionaries of effectively bribing poor people and tribals to take part in mass conversions.

Christians, who make up barely 2 per cent of mainly Hindu but officially secular India, say all conversions are voluntary and in turn accuse Hindu radicals of whipping up a climate of distrust and fear against the tiny community.

The two sides have also been active in the Andaman and Nicobar islands, whose 350,000 people are largely Hindu, from descendants of settlers who arrived during the British Raj to more recent migrants.

But there are also about 30,000 Nicobarese tribals, the largest of about half a dozen tribes. They are mostly Christian and there is a small number of Muslims living in the Nicobar group, where outsiders are barred without government permission.

Christian groups say scores of Hindu volunteers have been allowed into the outlying islands ostensibly for relief work, while they have been discouraged from travelling.

"We were told volunteers are already in the area, so you needn't go there," said Alex Joseph from the New Delhi-based Christian group, the Discipleship Centre.

But the Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram, an affiliate of the RSS which focuses on tribal welfare, said the tsunami was a humanitarian disaster, and had nothing to do with religion. It instead accuses Christian agencies of partisanship in relief work.

Mukesh Kumar Gupta, secretary of the Hindu group, says he ran a relief camp for five days for about 900 Nicobarese Christians without s single complaint.

But last week, a Nicobarese tribal leader arrived, saying he wanted to shift all the Nicobarese to a bigger camp.

"The survivors were very happy here, they didn't want to move, but some people could not stomach the idea of Christians in our camp. As far as we were concerned, it didn't matter who they were," he said.