Dangs — The rift will only widen

SURAT, DECEMBER 30: If the tribals of the Dangs district were a divided lot after last year's Christmas violence, that rift has worsened a...

SURAT, DECEMBER 30: If the tribals of the Dangs district were a divided lot after last year’s Christmas violence, that rift has worsened after this year’s Christmas rally organised by the Hindu Jagran Manch (HJM) and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP).

The saffron brigade decision to hold such rallies every Christmas will only ensure that the alienation of Christian tribals will continue. With the Christian missionaries and the Hindutva forces, both alien to this tribal land, striving for a foothold, gone are the days of community living and sharing – despite religious differences – in the tribals of this district.

While the tribals who converted to Christianity alienated themselves from the community by not joining traditional festivals, HJM, VHP and the Bajrang Dal exploited this rift in tribal society.

After some zealous converts to Christianity denigrated tribal gods while refusing to participate in traditional tribal festivals, non-Christian tribals were discontented. The Hindutva forces could exploit this easily.

With Swami Aseemanand camping in Waghai for the last three years, the hate campaign against Christian tribals reached a flash point. In a district where there are only 311 villages, 159 prayer halls had come up over the last 15 years.

In 1948, when Ghelubhai Nayak, noted Gandhian and freedom fighter, set up his Ashram in Ahwa, district headquarters, the entire population of the district was 48,000, of which there were 500 Christians, settled by Britishers from Dharampur to Ahwa, according to Nayak.

In 1998, the Christian population of all denominations, was estimated at 35,000 (according to Dangs MLA Madhu Bhoye statement in the Assembly), though the population has grown only four-fold.

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One of the fallouts of last year’s violence that rocked the district for more than one week, is that the Church of North India and Friends of Missionary Prayer Bands have stopped converting. Admits D Abraham, a Christian missionary, “We have stopped baptism”.

However, “reconversion”, a Swami Aseemanand likes to call it, is on. The Swami claims to have reconverted more than 18,000 tribal Christians by giving them holy bath at Unai, District Superintendent of CNI, Rev T V Gaikwad, however, claims that “not a single tribal Christian has been recoverted”.

Kamal Mitra Chenoy, a human rights activist who teaches at Jawaharlal Nehru University, says, “Tribals are not Hindu. They are considered outside the Varna system. Our Constitution does not recognise them as Hindu, but as Scheduled Tribes. So when Swami converts a tribal Christian, it is not reconversion. But conversion. Because from Christian he is not being recoverted to tribal”.

Swami Aseemanand, however, begs to differ. He says, “The term Hindu was first used for tribal people who originally lived here in this country. Their festivals, their gods, are all very close to those of the Hindus”.