ABSTRACT
What I have sought to analyse is the factors that caused the 2008 anti-Christian violence in Kandhamal, Odisha, and also the responses it received from the state, political parties and civil societies. This chapter also seeks to explain how the state’s complicity and the role of political parties continue to make Christian populations of not just Odisha but also of other regions vulnerable to future pogroms.1 Moreover, there are consistent efforts by some state organisations and various Hindutva and non-Hindutva political forces to present this conflict not as anti-Christian violence but as arising out of land conflict. On 13 October 2008, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik was reported to have said that Kandhamal violence was due to the rift among Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.2 Justice S. C. Mohapatra Commission, in its 28-page interim report, also attributed land conflict as one of the factors.3
