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Demand to scrap welfare benefits for India's tribal Christians

Hindu nationalist group in northeast Assam state calls conversion to foreign religion threat to indigenous faith, culture
Indian tribal Catholics taking part in the annual Christ the King festival in New Delhi on Nov 26, 2017

Indian tribal Catholics taking part in the annual Christ the King festival in New Delhi on Nov 26, 2017 (Photo: Bijay Kumar Minj / UCA News)

Published: March 27, 2023 11:52 AM GMT
Updated: March 27, 2023 12:07 PM GMT

A Hindu nationalist organization has asked the Indian government to end welfare benefits to indigenous people who have embraced Christianity and Islam, which they say are foreign-origin religions.

Binud Kumbang, working president of the Janajati Dharma Sanskriti Suraksha Mancha, an affiliate of the pro-Hindu Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh working among indigenous communities, told a gathering in northeastern Assam state, that “conversion of indigenous people to foreign religions has been a threat” to the faith and culture of indigenous people, who constitute 8.6 percent of India’s 1.3 billion population. 

“The converted people completely give up their original tribal culture, customs, rituals, and traditions,” he told the gathering in Guwahati city of Assam on March 26.

Kumbang and his organization claim to be working to liberate indigenous communities "from the clutches of foreign religions."

In India, Christianity and Islam are considered foreign-origin religions, while Buddhism, Sikhism and Jainism are said to be of indigenous origin. 

Indigenous people are classed as scheduled tribes while Dalits, former untouchables, are called scheduled caste. As part of the affirmative action plan devised in 1948, the federal and provincial governments provide social benefits like reservations in legislative bodies, educational institutions, and job quotas in state-run institutions for them. 

However, Dalits, who converted to Christianity and Islam, are currently denied the benefits and the top court in the country is hearing a two-decade-old petition challenging the 1950 presidential order. 

Like in the case of Dalits, Kumbang wanted to amend the provision in the law to deny affirmative action benefits to indigenous people who converted to Christianity and Islam.

Archbishop John Moolachira of Guwahati, where Kumbang held his rally, said such a demand is not in the interest of indigenous people. 

“A person changes his/her religion according to one’s personal choice. Nobody forces anyone to convert and therefore, demanding to scrap social welfare benefits for someone based on his/her religious faith is unjust and against the provisions of the constitution that does not discriminate,” Archbishop Moolachira told UCA News on March 27.

The government and other interested parties must make serious efforts to protect the tribal people's diminishing culture, traditions and language rather than blaming religious conversion for everything, the archbishop added.

“The demand to end reservation benefits seems to be part of an agenda to threaten indigenous people from adopting a religion of their choice,” said a Church leader who did not want to be named.

Indigenous tribal people have been demanding to recognize their animist practices through the inclusion of a special religious code in the Indian census so they can be enumerated as a separate and distinct group. The federal government has been counting them as part of the majority Hindu religion so far.

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ISAAC GOMES
With reference to Janajati Dharma-Sanskriti Suraksha Manch (JDSSM) working president Binud Kumbang’s high-decibel demand that tribals who have converted to Christianity or Islam be delisted from the official list of Scheduled Tribes (STs) and all the government welfare benefits to them be stopped, it must be mentioned here that list of Scheduled Tribes (STs) is notified by the President of India, after following a well laid out procedure. The notification of a particular tribal group as STs is done by the President of India based on Article 342 of the Constitution of India as follows: (1) The President may with respect to any State or Union territory, and where it is a State, after consultation with the Governor thereof, by public notification, specify the tribes or tribal communities or parts of or groups within tribes or tribal communities which shall for the purposes of this Constitution be deemed to be Scheduled Tribes in relation to that State or Union territory (UT), as the case may be. Thus, the declaration of STs in a particular State/ UT is first notified by the President of India through an order (2) The notified list of Scheduled Tribes is applicable or valid only for a particular State or UT and NOT uniformly across all states/UTs. These orders can be modified subsequently only through an Act of Parliament. The criteria followed for notifying a community as STs are signs of (a) Primitive Traits (b) Distinctive Culture (c) Geographical Isolation (d) Shyness of contact with the community at large and (e) Economic Backwardness. Tribal communities live, in various ecological and geo-climatic conditions ranging from plains and forests to hills and inaccessible areas. There are certain STs, known as Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTGs). They are characterised by pre-agriculture level of technology, stagnant or declining population, extremely low literacy and subsistence level of economy. The tribal population of India, as per 2011 census, is 10.43 crore, constituting 8.6% of the total population. 89.97% of them live in rural areas and 10.03% in urban areas. The sex ratio of STs is 990 females per thousand males. Broadly the STs inhabit the Central India and the North- Eastern Area, with more than half being concentrated in Central India. There is no ST population in three States (Delhi NCR, Punjab and Haryana) and two UTs (Puducherry and Chandigarh), as no Scheduled Tribe has been notified in these regions. (Source: Vikaspedia) Therefore, the demand of Janajati Dharma-Sanskriti Suraksha Manch, urging the government to remove tribal people who have converted to Christianity or Islam from the official list of STs, is unconstitutional and is specifically intended to stir up unrest and division among tribals and the Indian civil society at large.
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