Violence in India

I am posting photos of the MCC relief response to the flood in Bihar and Ruth's visit to a village water project instead of photos of the recent violence in India.



Several days ago we woke to the news of a terrorist assault on a railway station, two five-star hotels, and a Jewish center in Mumbai. The terrorists appeared to be especially signalling out American and British citizens but most of the more than 100 people killed were ordinary Indians. The Mumbai assault was a sophisticated operation involving powerful weapons and explosives. It this respect it was very different from the rash of bombings with crude pipe bombs in various Indian cities last summer.

The identity of the assailants in Mumbai and their motive remains unclear. The scope of the operation and the apparent evidence that they entered Mumbai in speedboats points to an outside connection. This was more than a homegrown Indian organization. Their search for Americans and British passport holders, as well as their assault on the Jewish center, point to connections with the conflict in the Middle East.

Life has continued much the same in Kolkata where we live. People in our city are, nevertheless, concerned. Kolkata is a huge city with a mixed population; we could also be targeted. Conversations often turn to what happened in Mumbai and fears that we could be next. Still our neighborhood feels safe and people are friendly as Ruth and I take regular walks in our neighborhood. Last evening we walked the whole way to Park Street, several kilometers away, to do a little shopping.

Another event that recently received lots of media attention was the interfaith violence in the state of Orissa. Hindu extremists had attacked churches and Christian villagers after a local Hindu leader known for his anti-Christian activities was killed. Thousands of people were driven from their homes and as many as 60 people were killed. In the following weeks there were copycat incidents of hooligans destroying church property in neighboring states.

We are frequently asked about how MCC is responding to this violence. Such questions are understandable given the way these incidents have dominated the news. We consider what we should do. After the violence in Orissa, we decided to move forward with a long-term peacebuilding strategy. It will involve grassroots initiatives with local churches and development partners in the region. As much as possible, we want to collaborate with other organizations that have similar goals.

We, however, do not want such violent incidents to make us take our eye off the ball and forget the even greater humanitarian needs in our region. As I write this, Ruth is speaking at the annual meeting of the West Bengal Voluntary Health Association. WBVHA is a long time MCC partner working in community health. The theme of the meeting this year is “Environment, Water and Sanitation."

That theme sounds mundane compared to the “Whirr of War” headline in our Kolkata newspaper this morning. The reality, however, is that 21% of communicable diseases in India are related to unsafe drinking water. India’s population of over a billion suffers from 1,600 deaths daily (the same as if eight 200 jumbo jets crashed to the ground each day) due to diarrhea alone. We need to keep such realities before us as we think about the multi-faceted challenge of human security in our world.

We were struggling to respond to a massive flood in Bihar during the same time that interfaith violence was erupting in Orissa. The scope of the human tragedy in Bihar was many times greater than in Orissa. Millions of desperate and hungry people were displaced by the flood and living in crowded refugee centers. One respected relief organization estimated that it was a worse natural calamity in India than the tsunami had been. Yet it hardly made the news because it didn’t involve the same degree of drama. And that directly affected the amount of resources we could get for our response.

The people and organizations who respond to such humanitarian needs are generally unsung heroes in our world. They don’t make the news and we usually don’t hear much about their work. Yet they have a sense of how important their efforts are because they have a first-hand knowledge of the dire consequences of inaction. And they get so much satisfaction out of seeing the real difference they can make in the lives of needy people.