By Robin Sam
THE Justice B K Somasekhara Commission of Inquiry, constituted by the BJP-led Karnataka government to probe into the attacks on churches and prayer halls in Karnataka in 2008, has said in its final report that neither the Sangh Parivar of which the BJP is a constituent, nor the State government had any role ‘directly’ or ‘indirectly’ in the violence.
With due respect to the former judge, I must say the report is yet another attack on the Christian community by the BJP. Only this time it is an attack on the collective wisdom and intelligence of Christians. That the report smacks of blatant bias is obvious. What now needs to be made clear is this: Was Justice Somasekhara a pliant tool in the hand of the BJP government?
The report that was released to the media last week said no individual or organization was responsible for the attacks.
If that makes you wonder if the attacks were a figment of a ‘petrified’ Christian community’s imagination or if some aliens had quietly and deftly orchestrated the violence before leaving the earth without a shred of evidence, then Somasekhara would conveniently blame it on some ‘misguided fundamentalist miscreants’.
You got to give it to this man! He has made it so very simple for the Yeddyurappa government that is already being hauled over the coals for ‘corruption’ and land ‘scam’.
The faceless, nameless ‘misguided fundamentalist miscreants’ don’t have a problem at being cited as the prime accused in the report. Since no individual or organization is responsible for the anti-Christian violence, the government can now move on to other ‘important’ things like tackling a ‘prickly’ antagonist in Governor H S Bharadwaj.
The report has more comic lines than the biggest hit film of David Dhawan. Sample this one: “No real Hindus are behind the church attacks.” That’s not only funny but mischievous outright, Mr. Somasekhara! Heaven knows what you were hinting at now!
The group of ‘misguided fundamentalist miscreants’, he said, ‘mistakenly presumed that they will be protected by the party in power.’ To me it looks like they were not dimwitted or mistaken in their judgment, after all. Hasn’t the Yeddyurappa government baled them out by appointing a judicial commission that nailed no one in particular and yet effectively closed the case?
It appears the retired justice also tried to drive a wedge between Catholics and Protestants in the country. While his report absolved Roman Catholic churches over alleged conversions, it claimed there were conversions by “a few organizations and self-styled pastors,” which were “not necessarily by compulsion or fraud or coercion but definitely by inducements.”
As the DNA reported, the Somasekhara commission has failed to achieve one of its very terms of reference, ‘one of which clearly states: to identify persons and organizations responsible for the above incidents.’
The commission and its report turned out to be a face-saving exercise for the BJP and the Sangh Parivar and a farcical move for the hapless Christian community.
The panel took 28 months, spent Rs3 crore and examined 800 recorded evidences in close to 300 sittings. For the BJP and its acolytes in the Sangh Parivar, this is time and money indeed ‘well spent’!
From the archives: All columns by the editor | Moily wants CBI probe into 2008 Karnataka violence
Robin Sam is the founding editor of The Christian Messenger newspaper. A journalist with 16 years of experience, he has worked with The Indian Express, Sify.com and Yahoo! besides several other publications. He quit his job in 2008 to get into full-time media ministry. You can contact him at editor [at] christianmessenger [dot] in or christianmessenger [dot] in [at] gmail [dot] com
