Nearly 2 dozen bishops visit remote community of ‘banished’ Catholics in eastern India
Catholics await the arrival of bishops in front of the Catholic church in Nandagiri, India, Wednesday, Feb. 5, 2025. / Credit: Anto Akkara Bangalore, India, Feb 7, 2025 / 15:00 pm (CNA).
Dozens of Catholic families of the Nandagiri settlement in the remote Kandhamal district of eastern Odisha state in India said on Feb. 5 they were “thrilled” when 23 Catholic bishops from across the country visited and prayed with them.
Christians performed traditional animist dances with men wearing buffalo horns while women in colorful dresses offered flower bouquets to each bishop and young dancers led the bishops into the church.
As Cuttack-Bhubaneswar Archbishop John Barwa introduced each bishop, the 300 Catholics in attendance offered loud applause.
“We have heard so much about your faith and perseverance. We are all happy to come here and meet you,” Archbishop Peter Machado of Bangalore told the gathering, speaking on behalf of the two dozen bishops who visited troubled Kandhamal after the weeklong assembly of the Conference of Catholic Bishops of India (CCBI).
The bishops had their first stop in Kandhamal after more than five hours of traveling by bus from the Odisha capital of Bhubaneswar.
“We are thrilled as the visit of so many bishops is recognition of our suffering and witness,” Chrisanto Mallick, one of the seniors in the Nandagiri Catholic community, told CNA.
Catholics driven out of homes, put on government land
The travails of the 54 Catholic families of Beticola began in August 2008 when they were banished from the village of Beticola and transplanted by the government to Nandagiri during a wave of anti-Christian violence in Kandhamal district, 150-250 miles southwest of Bhubaneswar.
The persecution followed the murder of Hindu nationalist monk Swami Lakshmanananda Saraswati in Kandhamal. Leaders touted the Aug. 23 murder as a “Christian conspiracy” and called for revenge on Christians.
Hindu nationalist outfits banned Christianity in Kandhamal and Christians were ordered into Hindu temples to recant their faith in Christ. Christians who defied the order were even burnt alive, buried alive, and dismembered.
Nearly 100 Christians were killed, while over 300 churches and 6,000 houses were plundered, rendering 56,000 homeless.
During the widespread violence, the Catholics of Beticola fled while their dwellings were looted and destroyed and their church, built in 1956, was razed to the ground.
When the violence subsided, the Catholics tried to return to the village. But they were chased out, with their persecutors vowing never to let them return. The government subsequently put them up in tents on a remote government strip of land on a mountain slope.
Each family was granted plots on which small houses were built for them.
“My family had 20 acres of land and were living comfortably from a farming income when we had to leave Beticola without anything,” Sunil Mallick told CNA.
“Here, we had to restart life from zero and I used to go for work as a daily wager for survival,” said Mallick, who also served as the catechist at the community church.
“The Church extended great support to take care of our needs, arranging admissions in hostel schools even in other dioceses,” said Mallick, whose three children, including his blind daughter, are pursuing higher studies.
Thomas Mallick, another Catholic of Nandagiri, also had to struggle to get work as a daily laborer to take care of his family after being cast out from Beticola.
“But luckily, for us, the Church arranged hostel schooling for our children,” he said. “Not only for my family — all the families here are happy as their children have come up with an education.”
“That would not have happened in Beticola,” he argued. “That way, it has been a blessing for us.”
