It’s 27 years this month since the murders of Queensland missionary Graham Staines and his two boys Philip (10) and Timothy (6) by a Hindu mob in the Indian state or Orissa, now known as Odisha.
They were trapped while sleeping in their Jeep which the killers set on fire.
Graham Staines had been working with leprosy patients and tribal communities in India for 30 years.
Then President K.R. Narayanan described the killings as belonging “to the world’s inventory of black deeds”.
INDIA’S APATHY FOR ACCOUNTABILITY AND REFORM
However, the ensuing investigation, arrests, and comments by Supreme Court justices highlighted the state’s apathy for any formal accountability or systemic reform.
When charges were finally brought, a total of 51 individuals were initially accused.
As the trial progressed, charges against most were dropped due to what courts described as “insufficient evidence.”
In 2003, a trial court sentenced ringleader Dara Singh to death and awarded life imprisonment to 12 others.
ONLY THREE OFFENDERS WERE JAILED
The Orissa High Court later acquitted all but Singh and one associate, citing “unreliable witness testimony and lack of corroboration.”
One other, a juvenile, was also sentenced in the case and has since been released and reportedly become a Christian.
In 2005, the Supreme Court upheld Dara Singh’s conviction, but commuted his death sentence to life imprisonment, ruling that the case did not meet the “rarest of rare” standard.
The bench, headed by Justice P Sathasivam, also commented: “The intention was to teach a lesson to Graham Staines about his religious activities, namely, converting poor tribals to Christianity.”
This remark was later expunged.
HINDU NATIONALISM HAS ONLY GOT WORSE IN YEARS SINCE STAINES MURDERS
In April last year, Mahendra Hembram, the only other convict in the case, was released from prison for “good behaviour” to a hero’s welcome.
When coupled with the possibility of Dara Singh’s imminent release, these developments suggest India’s brief and reductionist confrontation of the targeted attack has had no lasting impact.
In fact, the entrenchment of Hindu nationalism in India’s collective conscience has only worsened since the Staines murders.
GRAHAM STAINES SERVED PEOPLE INDIA HAD DECIDED WERE EXPENDABLE
Reverend Dr Richard Howell who knew Graham Staines and now runs the postgraduate theological school, the Caleb Institute, near New Delhi, writes in The Christian Post that the missionary’s work was “not episodic charity or public spectacle.”
“It was a sustained presence: medical care, accompaniment and dignity.”
“He stayed where others passed through. He served people India had already decided were expendable.”
“That alone should have commanded respect. Instead, it made him vulnerable.”
WIDOW OFFERED FORGIVENESS, REFUSING HATRED AND FLIGHT
“What followed the murders should have unsettled the nation more deeply than the crime itself.”
“Graham’s widow Gladys spoke words that did not fit the political or emotional grammar of the moment:”
I forgive those who burnt alive my husband and my two innocent children.
She remained in India for years to continue to serve people affected by leprosy, refusing both hatred and flight, before eventually returning to Australia to be near her doctor daughter Esther.
“INDIA DOES NOT KNOW HOW TO HANDLE FORGIVENESS AND GRACE”
Reverend Howell writes: “India knows how to convert violence into grievance and grievance into mobilisation.”
“What it does not know how to handle is forgiveness that refuses to cooperate — forgiveness that does not erase suffering, does not withdraw the demand for justice, and does not ask permission from the powerful.”
“Gladys Staines did not compromise the legal process.”
“Her forgiveness did not cancel accountability.”
“It exposed something more disturbing: That a society intoxicated with righteous fury is deeply threatened by grace.”
“THE STAINES’ GENTLE PRESENCE AND DEDICATION PROVED INTOLERABLE”
“The Staines family members were not agitators or provocateurs.”
“Graham’s work among people with leprosy was deliberately unheroic.”
“It was quiet, repetitive, and patient. It involved bodies most people refused to touch and lives most institutions refused to count.”
“There were no slogans in his work, no confrontations, no public challenges to the state.”
“Yet even this kind of presence proved intolerable to those who believe violence is a legitimate form of cultural defence.”
STAINES KILLINGS WERE AN EARLY WARNING THAT PROVED PROPHETIC
“The Staines killings were not an aberration. They were an early warning.”
“They signaled the emergence of a politics in which vigilante violence would be excused as sentiment, and minorities would be told — sometimes politely, sometimes brutally — that their lives were conditional.”
Nearly three decades later, that warning has proven prophetic.
Richard Howell observes: “What Gladys Staines offered India was not a theological argument. It was a moral mirror.”
“A NATION WHERE PEOPLE ARE MORE UNSETTLED BY MERCY THAN MURDER”
“Her forgiveness asked an unbearable question: What kind of nation are we (India) becoming if mercy unsettles us more than murder?”
“Why does forgiveness feel like betrayal in a civilisation that claims ancient spiritual depth?”
“I knew Graham Staines personally. He was not dramatic. He was not loud. He did not think of himself as brave.”
“That is precisely why his death and his wife’s response continue to matter.”
“A LIFE GIVEN TO THE ABANDONED, TAKEN BY VIOLENCE AND ANSWERED BY FORGIVENESS”
“They puncture the myth that cruelty is strength and expose the poverty of a politics that needs enemies to feel secure.”
“Martyrdom is an uncomfortable word in a secular republic.”
“But if it means anything at all, it means this: A life given in service to the most abandoned, taken by violence, and answered by forgiveness that refuses to become violence’s echo.”
“India does not need to share the Staines family’s faith to learn from their witness.”
“It only needs the honesty to admit that the real scandal was never forgiveness.”
“The real scandal is that it was necessary at all.”
Reverend Dr. Richard Howell is the founder President of Caleb Institute and Chairman of Evangelical Church of God established in 1977. He is the former General Secretary ofEvangelical Fellowship of India (1997-2015) and of Asian Evangelical Alliance for ten years. He was Vice President of World Evangelical Alliance for four years and a founding member of Global Christian Forum.
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