Defaming the dead

AFTER six months of quarantine at my daughter’s home, my wife and I shifted back to our own place last Monday. The occasion of the shift has provided a chance for spring-cleaning that would not have been attempted otherwise. Hundreds of unwanted objects of no particular utility have gathered dust in drawers and cupboards and needed to be trashed in one fell swoop! I am in the process of doing this thankless job, cursing those noble souls who rewarded me with mementoes for speaking on subjects that did not interest them! Our Indian culture demands that a present of sorts be offered on such occasions and that the recipient shows due gratitude at least with a broad smile.

It is also our culture not to defame or devalue a dead person. Alas, in the midst of all the packing and unpacking, I am informed that my old friend, and one of my successors to the office of the Police Commissioner of Mumbai, an IPS officer-turned-politician (a dangerous combination), who later became a Minister of State in Modiji’s Cabinet, Satya Pal Singh, spoke in the Lok Sabha on the Foreign Contributions Regulation Amendment Act on behalf of the government. He touched on conversions which incidentally have a massive impact on the established Hindu social order. If he had stopped at that no one could object. But he went on to denounce a dead man, which was a most un-Hindu thing to do!

Graham Staines was an Australian missionary who came to India to work with lepers in Odisha’s tribal belt. He was followed a little later by his intended bride, Agnes, also a missionary, who he married. The couple had a daughter, followed by two sons who lived the spartan life of their parents.

I would not put it beyond a missionary couple to try and convert poor Adivasis. Their original intention was noble — to attend to lepers neglected in most societies. But the compulsion inherent in a missionary to proselytise at some time or other predominates.

I am a practising Christian. I like the basic tenets of Christianity, based on the parables and teachings of Jesus. Justice and service to others are principles that appeal to me very strongly. Yet, I do not believe that mine is the only true religion and I do believe that all religions are explanations for the unknown. If humans stuck to the basic tenets of their beliefs, as enunciated in the Gita, the Koran, the Bible and Guru Granth Sahib, there would be no need to quarrel because all these great religions teach the same universal truths. Hence, changing gods will not help. What will help is if the priesthood of all religions succeed in making their flocks better human beings!

Staines was done to death by extremist elements of the Hindutva brigade. Staines and his two small sons, both pre-teens, were sleeping in their caravan outside the village of Manoharpur in Keonjhar district of Odisha on the night of January 22, 1999, when disaster struck. Communal hotheads doused their caravan with petrol and set the vehicle on fire, condemning Staines and his sons to a gruesome death.

A BJP government headed by the statesman, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, was installed at the Centre. The Odisha government was headed by Naveen Patnaik of the BJD. Thank goodness for politicians like Atal and Naveen. They were good Hindus who did their Raj Dharma and successfully prosecuted the culprits.

Except the charge of conversions, which could be believed even without evidence because of Staines’ mission in life, there was no talk or rumour about any other motive and certainly not of sexual exploitation. Yet, my friend Satya Pal thought it fit to embellish his arguments in the Lok Sabha with an accusation that Staines had raped or molested 30 tribal women!

He further alleged that a senior Congress leader from Kerala influenced the CBI to omit this juicy piece of evidence from the case papers! Perhaps he forgot to ascertain if the CBI was entrusted with the case (I am not sure), and if Advani, the then union home minister, had allowed the intervention of an opposition party member in such a sensitive case.

Further, if 30 women had been molested, could this serial molestation not have attained the notoriety it would invite in the ordinary course? And, after the conviction, when arguments for the severity of the sentences were heard, would the defence not bring up this ‘fact’ which would influence the judge from pronouncing the death sentence, which such a heinous crime would invite?

I reproduce here an extract of an email I received from Dr Ravi D’Souza, the son of JB D’Souza, IAS (retd), former Chief Secretary of Maharashtra: ‘I am shocked and disgusted to hear such remarks, that too by a retired IPS officer. My wife (similarly trained and qualified) and I have worked several years in Odisha. I am familiar with the area Graham Staines worked in, as well as his work. He was running a leprosy home and the only religious activity he was involved in was conducting prayer meetings. He was not a priest and had no power to convert anyone.’

Finally, it was the murdered missionary’s wife, who intervened to save the culprits from the gallows. She forgave the killers, she said, because of her own religious beliefs of not taking a human life. This is a concept I do not expect Satya Pal to appreciate or even understand.

But I would expect him, as an old service colleague, to not tell such untruths to worm his way back into the Cabinet. And that, too, in the precincts of Parliament where what an MP states is exempt from prosecution for defamation.