Conclusion
The issue of claims-making by Indian tribes as to how their religion is distinct from Hinduism, is also a form of claims-making by which tribes that have not converted to other religions such as Christianity may show themselves to be tribal not only in their ethnicity, but also in their religion; and religion in India can be argued to be increasingly seen as synonymous with identity.
That there is something at stake here for those tribes who have converted to other religions is clear - and the stakes may be economic as much as they are socio-cultural. As previously mentioned, in India, classificatory schemas as pertaining to tribes are linked with access to state resources via affirmative action programmes and also public distribution schemes, such as, for example, the Antyodaya card scheme that is supposed to provide free food grains to PVTG households (Dreze et al. 2018). In relation to affirmative action programmes, the case of Dalit Christians and Muslims can be called a cautionary tale, for tribal Christians, Dalits, or those belonging to ‘Scheduled Castes’ which were traditionally discriminated against, can avail of the government’s affirmative action programmes, but lose this access if they convert to another religion such as Christianity or Islam - this translates into very large numbers of people who may continue to face discrimination within the religion they have converted into and who do not have access to government support; for example, it is estimated that in rural India the population of Dalit Christians is 1,490,000 and in urban India it is 860,000 (Doiphode 2022). Indeed, Kartik Oraon, the structure of whose Parha Prarthana Sabhas the Sarna Movement has drawn from, had unsuccessfully introduced a bill in the Indian Parliament in 1968, to de-schedule tribal Christians, i.e., to withdraw their access to the support that the Indian government makes available to tribals9.It can be argued that as much as the movement for a Dharam Code for tribals is a movement to distinguish followers of tribal religiosity from Hindus, it is also a movement to distinguish unconverted tribals from those who have converted to other religions. It can be noted that the same Jharkhand government which had sent a resolution to the Union Government supporting the demand for a religious code for tribals, has instituted a law against religious conversion ‘by force or allurement’ in 2017; this is termed the Jharkhand Freedom of Religion Act, 201710. However, whether and how this will apply to cases of re-conversion of tribals to tribal religiosity after conversion to Christianity (of which there have been reported cases) remains to be seen11; these reconversion ceremonies are reportedly organised by members of the ‘Central Sarna Committee’. What is interesting and perhaps troubling is that it is reported that the members of a right-wing Hindu organisation (Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram) often accompany the members of the ‘Central Sarna Committee’ while they organise these reconversion ceremonies.
The movement by tribals for a code for their religion shows them less as subalterns (those silenced by others) and more as the astute members of ‘political society’ that Partha Chatterjee (2012) describes, i.e., a collective of canny political actors who know where government benefits may lie and how to access them. Can we then call them subalterns who can not only speak but who know how to make a lot of noise? Indeed, in this vein, the movement for a Dharam Code can be described as a ‘call to the state’, i.e., a demand to be visible to the state as an object of intervention in a specific way. A final point here relates to the essen- tialisations that are part of this political claims-making exercise that tribals have embarked upon. As previously mentioned, an inherent danger is the homogenisation of the diversity of religious beliefs that tribals across India can call their own.
A mitigating factor would be an awareness of the strategic nature of any such essentialisations - i.e., to have power over them and to be aware of their constructed nature as Gayatri Spivak advises in her advocacy for ‘strategic essentialism’ (Eide 2016). For this, the disruptive act of tribal women breaking an ancient taboo would be useful. There is a general awareness that a taboo has been broken and that this has lent strength to the movement for a Dharam Code. There is also, currently, an unwillingness to enforce this taboo. It is this sort of flexibility or willingness to sit with the messiness of religious belief that I argue could bode well for the future of tribal religious politics. The presence of tribal women in sacred groves would hopefully serve as a reminder of the constructed nature of the rituals that tribal religiosity is calling its own. Other rituals, whether they be tribal, Christian, Muslim, or Hindu could then hopefully be seen as constructions in the same light, which have meaning for those who invest in them, and which pose little threat to those for whom they do not have meaning. But this is not the way political society operates, and so we can only hope for the birth of something new that will allow us the chance to develop new concepts with which to understand it.Notes
1 https://www.culturalsurvival.org/sites/default/files/UPR%20India%202022%20-FINAL.pdf
2 https://pib.gov.in/newsite/PrintRelease.aspx?relid=191701
3 Participant Observation. Observation made by the author during several field studies conducted in Jharkhand from 2008 to 2020.
4 Participant Observation and participation at the protest movement for religious code at Delhi in 2019.
5 Interviews. Interviews conducted in Delhi during protest movement in 2019.
6 Fieldwork Notes. Notes maintained y the author during fired study conducted among the Asur tribe in 2007.
7 https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/tribals-torn-apart-by-religion/article5934381.ece
8 https://indianexpress.com/article/india/under-the-faith-microscope-jharkhand-passes-an-anti-con- version-bill-but-how-will-it-parse-a-tribe-as-much-sarna-as-christian-4794210/
9 https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/tribals-torn-apart-by-religion/article5934381.ece
10 http://www.bareactslive.com/JH/jhr304.htm
11 https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/tribals-torn-apart-by-religion/article5934381.ece
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