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Odisha: A land that continues to be a ‘Hindutva Lab’
Opinion | Articles | John Dayal | 16-Apr-2026
The state government, the ruling BJP, and its non-state actors show little sign of concern, much less contrition
Odisha is the land where, in the 3rd century BC, Mauryan Emperor Ashoka gave up violence, vowed to follow Gautam Buddha, and took Buddhism all the way to the borders of ancient Persia.
Today, Odisha — a coastal state in eastern India — re-confirms itself as a major laboratory of Hindutva, a political ideology centered on Hindu supremacy. It potentially could get more vicious in the future than Uttar Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, which top the daily headlines in India for violence against Muslims and Christians. On March 9, Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi told the Odisha Legislative Assembly that in the 20 months since June 2024, the state has witnessed 54 communal riots and seven lynchings.Balasore district emerged as the worst-hit, recording 24 riots with 95 arrests, followed by Khurda near the state capital Bhubaneswar, besides Koraput, Malkangiri, and Bhadrak. Police actions led to nearly 300 arrests related to riots and over 60 linked to lynchings.
Back in 2008, in the aftermath of the anti-Christian pogrom in the Kandhamal district and elsewhere, the then Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik openly acknowledged and condemned the involvement of Bajrang Dal and other Hindutva groups in the violence — one of the worst against religious minorities since the partition of India in 1947. His statements in the State legislature singled out pro-Hindu organizations for orchestrating attacks on Christians, prompting him to sever ties with the pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 2008. The BJP had several ministers in the government, including the home minister.
Since then, Patnaik has positioned himself as a secular leader, emphasizing peace and communal harmony, which helped him secure repeated electoral victories on the back of the support from the tribal and Dalit Christians in the state. His party, Biju Janata Dal (BJD), lost to the BJP in the last elections. Patnaik's admissions were perhaps the first time a chief minister had articulated something which was the subject matter of a half a dozen judicial inquiries into religious violence or riots as they are known in India. Patnaik appointed two judicial commissions of his own, each headed by a retired judge of the Orissa High Court. Their reports remain secret.
Civil society activists have argued that official responses, including the appointment of judicial commissions or special investigating teams, amount to mere damage control. They point to governance failures such as delayed chargesheets and police personnel overstaying in sensitive areas, fostering institutional biases.National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data reveal a jump in religion-based communal incidents from 10 in 2021 to 44 in 2023, with underreporting among vulnerable minorities suspected. This surge coincides with the BJP's ascendance in Odisha, raising concerns about ideological emboldening reminiscent of Gujarat's vigilantism era.
The roots of communal strife in Odisha run deep. The 1964 Rourkela riots were among the earliest major outbreaks, where anti-Muslim mobs killed hundreds amid Indo-Pak tensions and industrialisation pressures. Official death tolls stood at 28, but independent estimates suggest over 1,000 Muslims lost their lives. The late 1990s marked a shift toward targeted killings, especially of Christians. There were sporadic instances of targeting of Christians, including forcible tonsuring and conversion to Hinduism in the Ghar Wapsi, a campaign by Hindu hardliners to force minorities to reconvert to Hinduism.
The 1999 murder of Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two young sons in Keonjhar by Bajrang Dal activist Dara Singh shocked the nation. The three were burned alive in their vehicle over unsubstantiated allegations of forced conversions. Singh was sentenced to life imprisonment, though one convict released in 2025 was welcomed as a hero by some Hindu nationalist factions.In the same year as the Staines triple murder, Sheikh Rahman, a Muslim trader in Mayurbhanj, was mutilated and burned alive by a mob associated with similar extremist elements. Shortly after, a Tamil Catholic priest, Father Arul Das, was fatally shot with an arrow while fleeing his burning church, in a coordinated Hindutva campaign.
December 2007 witnessed a brutal eruption of violence in Kandhamal during Christmas, where thousands of Sangh Parivar activists torched over 100 churches and 700 homes, killing three Christians. The unrest was triggered by a bandh organized by a section of the tribal Kui Samaj and Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP or World Hindu Council), protesting the Scheduled Tribe status demands by Pana Christians. Over 837 families were displaced, and 20,000 people sought refuge in camps. The violence escalated catastrophically in 2008 following the murder of the VHP leader Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati — though Maoists later claimed responsibility, Hindutva groups blamed Christians. The targeted violence left between 39 and over 100 Christians dead, with civil society claiming some 150 men and women were killed, including some Hindus working in Christian institutions.
The displacement was massive, perhaps as much as the one in Manipur in the past three years. Police counted 395 churches and institutions destroyed, over 4,500 houses razed in 400 villages, and over 55,000 persons displaced and forced to live in government and church-run refugee camps in various districts, besides neighboring Andhra Pradesh. Widespread sexual violence and forced reconversions, involving humiliations such as tonsuring and cow-dung smearing, were reported. The VHP and Bajrang Dal led these attacks, with police often inactive or complicit. BJP legislator Manoj Pradhan was convicted of inciting the violence.
Tonsuring — a Hindu ritual of head shaving symbolizing purification — has been weaponized as a form of forced humiliation against Christians and Muslims. During the 2008 Kandhamal violence, thousands underwent coerced tonsuring as part of reconversion rituals. This practice persists in recent years, with documented cases including in June 2024 when Dalit men in Ganjam were tonsured and beaten over alleged cattle smuggling. The same year, Tribal Christian women in Balasore were tied up, smeared with substances, and partially stripped. In 2025, a pastor in Dhenkanal was tonsured, force-fed cow dung, and paraded publicly. Despite clear violations of constitutional rights, prosecutions remain rare, underscoring systemic impunity.
Since the BJP assumed power in 2024, Odisha has seen a worrying rise in lynchings, mostly linked to cow vigilantism, which disproportionately targets Muslims and Dalits. Seven lynchings occurred in districts such as Rayagada, Dhenkanal, Deogarh, and Balasore. Notably, in January this year, Sheikh Makandar was lynched in Balasore after being accused of cattle smuggling; the mob forced him to chant religious slogans. In June 2025, a prayer meeting in Malkangiri was attacked by 400 Hindu nationalists, injuring 30 Christians. In October that year, a violent Durga Puja clash in Cuttack led to a three-day curfew, with arson in Dargah Bazar and skirmishes involving VHP and police. These incidents reflect a pattern of escalating communal tension, with social media and rumours fuelling violence.
The 54 riots and seven lynchings in Odisha over less than two years surpass the communal violence levels during the BJD's tenure, and hotspots like Balasore and Khurda have become flashpoints during religious festivals and social media-induced rumours. Violent cattle-related cases stood at 60% of 2,400 incidents reported between 2019 and 2024, triggering migrant exoduses from districts like Sambalpur.
Odisha's demographic profile — approximately 93% Hindu, 2.8% Christian (largely tribal and Dalit), and 2.2% Muslim — mirrors Gujarat's minority compositions, where Hindu majoritarianism has historically marginalized minorities. Gujarat's 2002 riots, which resulted in over 1,000 Muslim deaths, remain a haunting backdrop for Odisha's current era. The Centre for the Study of Society and Secularism (CSSS) notes that 49 of 59 nationwide riots in 2024 occurred in BJP-governed states, highlighting a disturbing pattern.
Chief Minister Majhi's administration has responded with compensation packages (Rs 1 million (US$10,867.34, besides jobs for victims) and enhanced intelligence efforts, but the opposition, led by Patnaik's BJD, dismisses these as superficial amid growing jungle raj accusations. Over half of riot cases lack chargesheets, with documented police biases and slow judicial processes undermining justice. The ideological narrative promoted by Hindutva groups centers on fears of forced conversions and cow protection but masks systemic impunity for perpetrators like Dara Singh and Mahendra Hembram, whose early releases and public receptions embolden extremist elements.
Naveen Patnaik's earlier efforts to rein in such factions post-2008 contrast sharply with the BJP's current pro-Hindu stance, which critics argue facilitates violence and erodes secular governance. Odisha's religious syncretism, epitomized by the Jagannath cult, which blends Hindu, Muslim, and tribal traditions, is under threat. The state's government, the ruling party, and its non-state actors show little sign of concern, much less contrition. Odisha risks deepening its role as a Hindutva laboratory.
The scars of the 2008 anti-Christian killing, rapine and arson are as enduring as those of Gujarat's 2002 anti-Muslim violence.
(The author is a Senior Journalist and right activist. He is also the Spokesperson of the All India Catholic Union. The views expressed in this article are personal).
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