0.1 Interaction: Nature and Scope

These interactions have caused observable changes in many communities, impacting vari­ous aspects of their lives; while in some communities these changes may not be very distin­guishable from indigenous traditions.

Interactions may not always result in having a tangible impact on socio-cultural life especially when it is irregular. In most of the cases, however, interaction brings changes in the socio-cultural life of people to different degrees. Cultural interactions can also lead to

identity-formation and assertion. Many revival movements like the Sapha Hor movement, the Donyi-Polo movement, the Bhagat movement, and even protest movements against the British colonial rule, language movements, etc. are examples of this. The assertion of identity is often not a response against the incoming forces of change; rather it is a realisa­tion that takes shape after the changes have taken place. Gharwapsi, a post-colonial phe­nomenon, is also a form of assertion of a prior identity; the operating force may be either persuasion or realisation.

Interaction between communities by itself is not an inducement to adopt elements from neighbouring communities; it is however a prerequisite to cultural assimilation or cultural integration. The process of assimilation or the adoption of culture, religion, language, beliefs, or practices by a smaller or ‘weaker’ community of a more dominant community can occur due to many reasons ranging from coercion or persuasion on the one hand, to a more spontaneous process of integrating practices as a means to ‘keep up with the Joneses’ on the other.

The impulse to keep up with the Joneses is more spontaneous and self-induced, but is not also a simple desire to emulate the neighbours to acquire status. Often, it carries with it benefits due to cultural conformity. Expectations and aspirations in a cultural context, upon finding a parallel in a major or neighbouring culture, are likely to induce people to emulate these, if new or better benefits are envisaged. We can take the example of the Jitia ritual of the neighbouring Hindus performed by a section of the Oraon tribe (Roy 1928:247-249). The ritual conducted by mother’s wishing for long life of their sons finds its reflection in Oraon patriarchy in which ‘son preference’ stands paramount. Adoption of this ritual is not evidently for status emulation; but it is a mother’s concern for the long life of sons in a male dominated society. It should not be deduced that the Oraon people look down a female child, for her role is crucial in reproduction and the workforce component on which patriarchy has its standing. Nevertheless, in adoption of practices of a ‘superior’ neighbouring community, the status consideration cannot be ruled out, though it is not a manifest cause.

India is an ancient country and the communities living here, whether migrants like the Muslims, Parsis, and Siddis of Christian era, or others before them, have a history of migra­tion.

The argument, therefore, is that interaction between communities in general and tribe and non-tribe in particular in India is a reality. Studies based on a category model⁶ in the absence of reference to historical process of interaction, undoubtedly, would lead to par­tial and misleading representation of a social category such as a community. As is argued, communities have been existing from time immemorial in an interactive mode.

Another dimension of identity has a cross community display of similar worldviews in religious practices even in the absence of interaction; but it is related to a similar stage of evolution, particularly agriculture. Agricultural tribes observe the ritual of eating new rice after completing the harvest. The Khamti tribe in Arunachal Pradesh celebrate kin-khao mao like nawa khani of the Oraon of central India. Even first fruits are offered to deities by the gathering tribes. After harvest the Khamti, a Buddhist tribe, perform Hongkho Khao, bringing goddess Lakshami home; similarly, the Oraon perform Kharapuja or Kharihani. Worship of the threshing floor, Kharihani suggests bringing paddy to the threshing floor from the field and making it ready for storage. What is interesting is that agricultural fes­tivals are not confined to tribal communities only. Nuakhai in Western Odisha is a festival of all communities, both tribe and non-tribe (see Pasayat 2007). The practice of worshiping threshing floor after its preparation and after completion of threshing activity is a house­hold ritual observed in coastal districts like Bhadrak and Jajpur. It may be the case in other districts also.

Then the question arises how to conceptualise the religion of a tribe, i.e. tribal religion in the context of interaction within and without, and commonality beyond a community?

Studies on ‘tribal religion’, particularly in contemporary India, engage our attention to emerging conceptual and theoretical inconsistencies in the interface between a tribe and its religions. Empirically, a mismatch is noticed in one-to-one correspondence between tribe and its religion. The emerging mismatch questions the notion of ‘tribal religion’ studied in a holistic perspective. Members of a tribe, as observed, do profess wholly or partly Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism, Christianity, or Indigenous faith and beliefs (tribal religion).

Evidently, religion slips away from its constituent place which it occupies in a ‘culture’, and thereby, loses its efficacy in asserting a religious identity of the community. It is not a surprise to notice absence of religion in contemporary identity (autonomy) movements of a tribe, though several tribes demand for the inclusion of tribal religions in census records.

It is worth noting that contemporary tribes are in transition, displaying spectacular changes in their social, economic, and political life-ways. So, religion is not the only field of change in tribal communities. But this change marks a visible distinction in identity constructs, for the changes in other fields, despite breeding inequalities, have not created conflicting and horizontally exclusive divisions like different religious groups in a tribe. Even a language shift does not create a sense of intra-tribe division. Members of a tribe or the tribe as a whole, by shifting to a new tongue due to one or the other reasons, take pride in the language tradition of their root as a cultural heritage. Members of a tribe may speak different tongues, but they do not disown their root language like they discard traditional faith and practices after conversion. Understandably, a religious shift creates a binarity of core philosophy between old and new faiths. The point is that religious divisions in a tribe understandably lack feelings of a cultural wholeness, though each group shows its com­munity consciousness beyond religious affiliation. When a single tribe displays religious divisions, ethnographers record not a tribe based religion, but different religious traditions. Arguably, the notion of ‘tribal religion’ appears to be a misnomer in its community-specific connotation corresponding to emerging religious divisions in a tribe. Similarly, one religion, say Christianity, Buddhism, or Islam, has created a space across communities, and in this context, such a religion pursued by a tribe interrogates the community dimension of its religion.

The notion of ‘tribal religion’ also carries theoretical inconsistency in a generic sense right from its conception. Contrary to its specific sense that tribal religion belongs to a tribe, the generic understanding connotes a collective representation of religion of all tribes. In India, colonial administration constructed the social category of ‘tribe’ in contrast to caste­based occupational groups called Hindus. Arguably, tribal religion was conceptualised as binary opposite to Hinduism. Similarly, the construct of tribe in general was the ‘other’ to Europeans and thus, to their Christian religion. Therefore, in their ‘Civilising Mission’ conversion to Christianity, particularly of tribal communities, was one of the main objec­tives. Moreover, there is no record available to establish tribe-Christianity interface in the pre-colonial period.

On the contrary, during the pre-colonial period, several tribes had interaction with neigh­bouring Hindu traditions and a few had adopted Hinduism. During the period of reference, there were tribes professing Islam and Buddhism also. Evidently, what the tribes were not exposed to during the pre-colonial period was Christianity. It is, therefore, argued that tribal religion was conceptualised practically in contrast to Christianity. Interaction with prevalent pre-colonial religions does not mean that tribes were assimilated or integrated with them. There were also tribes outside Hindu, Islam, and Buddhist folds. What these tribes professed is what we call tribal religion. However, they were but a small constituent of the category of tribe and their numbers are shrinking in our contemporary time due to religion-shift.

Some major tribes organise revival movements to protect traditional religion against onslaughts of external religions. In revivalism, what evolves is an institutionalised syncretic tradition of two or more religions. Not only in revivalism, but in other religious denomina­tions like Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, or Buddhism in a tribe, what we see practically is religious syncretism - a conglomeration of features of tribal religion and the institutional­ised religion in different degrees. Moreover, revivalism is not tribe specific; in Sarana and Donyi-polo religions it engages more than one tribe. Further, a crucial point about the influence of Hinduism is that the emerging tradition in many tribes does not adopt Hindu nomenclature for the religious tradition, but continues with its old name. Revival religious traditions, in contrast, are found adopting new names like Heraka, Sarana, Bhagat, Sapha Hor, Heraka, Donyi-polo, Rangfra, etc. It should be mentioned that traditional tribes in general did not have a name for the faiths and beliefs they professed.

Revival movements are not post-independence phenomena. Such movements were organ­ised as a means to mobilise people against colonial rule. Interestingly, leaders of Bhagat and Sapha Hor movements went to the extent of denouncing their traditional gods and spiritual beings considered to be their protectors. Needless to say, new gods were incorporated in the traditional pantheon.

In the present context, a tribe fully or partly converted to new religions revisit them through the lens of an indigenisation perspective. For the fully converted tribe, indigenisa- tion of the new religion might display tribe-specific nature, but the problem underlies where two or more new religions exist in a tribe. Tribe specificity in the former case still raises the question of understanding the notion of tribal religion as a constituent of culture in general. There is no denying the fact that a wide range of diversity exists across tribal communities in the sphere of faith and beliefs. The diversity takes different patterns even with exceptions such as the example of the Mirs of Gujarat who profess both Hinduism and Islam simulta­neously to please both groups. Undoubtedly, the emerging issue of interface between tribe and religion is a very complex dynamic.

We arrive at a point where the notion of ‘tribal religion’ does not empirically stand adequate to explain a tribe’s contemporary religious pattern. It is to be noted that several disciplines like history, philosophy, sociology, theology, contemporary religion, and even historical and fictional novels in literature engage in the study of contemporary religions of tribes apart from anthropology that is used to approach the subject in the cultural perspec­tive. These new disciplines have their respective perspectives other than the cultural one. In view of this emerging trend, fresh debates and discussions are imperative for a critical academic scrutiny of contemporary ‘tribe and religions’ interface in place of the notion of ‘tribal religion’. Tribe and religions framework carry greater scope to engage with contem­porary religious dynamics among the tribes without sacrificing the notion of tribal religion. Moreover, they give a sense of openness to engage in ‘tribe and religions’ contrary to the narrow scope of ‘tribal religion’ in terms of one-to-one correspondence.

Naturally, the present religious dynamics among the tribes opens up an interesting area of academic engagement. Therefore, the context of contemporary religions of tribes needs critical enquiry. In view of this, the present study formulates a few preliminary ques­tions to engage in two handbooks. The first one is entitled The Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Readings on Tribe and Religions in India: Emerging Negotiations. The questions are:

1. In a syncretic tradition are there practices which contradict the core of institutionalised religion? (Buddhism does not prescribe sacrifice. But Khamti villagers were found dur­ing field study in the 1980s sacrificing a hen to the village deity of the traditional pan­theon annually for good crops and good health without the involvement of Buddhist priest). Do two religious traditions co-exist? Could the presence of traditional practices and associated beliefs be conceptualised to formulate the notion of tribal religion? What would be the relation between ‘what tribal religion meant in the past’ and ‘the features of tribal religion to be restored’ from syncretic tradition?

2. How could tribal religion be conceptualised in revivalist or syncretic tradition as it is often beyond a particular community and has accommodated reforms/borrowings? Does it suggest religious crisis in the community?

3. As corollary to one (1) and two (2) can we think of tribal religion in terms of Tribal Christianity, Tribal Islam, Tribal Hinduism, etc. or conversely in terms of Christian tribes, Hindu tribes, Buddhist tribes, etc. as typologies of contemporary tribal religion in a generic sense? Then how does one view a tribe and its community identity which is divided along the belief of its members in different religions?

4. To what extent have indigenous faiths and practices internalised Hinduism, Christianity, etc? (Ex: In a Galo (a tribe) village of Arunachal Pradesh, it was observed that a hunter used to do a ritual by cleaning a small patch in the jungle and making tra­ditional offerings. But after conversion to Christianity he cleans the patch, but instead of making offerings, simply draws a Cross). Or to what extent have Christianity, Hinduism, etc. internalised traditional faiths and practices? (Ex: Interpreting tradi­tional practices, norms, or personalities according to Christian, Islam, Hindu, and other traditions like, for example, equivalence of Supreme God with Lord Shiva of Hindu tradition). Or to what extent are similarities accommodated? (Traditional healing rituals and presence of relatives similar to healing prayers to reinforce the sense of belonging).

5. Does interaction between tribal and Hindu traditions suggest Tribe-Hindu continuum?

Attempts have been made to address these questions within Tribe and Religions framework.