More reconversion stories, this time from Assam

GUWAHATI, JULY 9: Majuli, an island in the heart of the Brahmaputra known for flashfloods, is back in news for a different reason -- recon...

GUWAHATI, JULY 9: Majuli, an island in the heart of the Brahmaputra known for flashfloods, is back in news for a different reason 8212; reconversion of tribals into the Hindu fold.

Reports from the island said that as many as seven families belonging to to the Mishing tribe, who had earlier become Christians, have 8220;come back8221; to their original Hindu faith, with Pitambar Deva Goswami, the satradhikar or chief of the Auniati Satra, a major Vaishnavite monastery of Majuli, taking the initiative.

The seven families were among about 280 Mishing tribal families who had embraced Christianity during the past few years which saw the Catholic Mission setting up a church and a school in the island.

The seven families were all from Na-Pamuwa village under Jengrai police station and the total number of persons who returned to Hinduism have been put at 50.

Goswami said that the Mishing tribals had embraced Christianity with the arrival of the Catholic Mission in the island about 15 years ago. Though Goswami has refrained from passing any remark against the Church as such, he has said that the Mishing tribals had returned 8220;because they understand our system better.8221;

He, however, said that the Church was indeed targeting the poor tribals for conversion, by offering them educational and other facilities. The various Vaishnavite satras of Assam have been carrying out efforts to bring back to their fold more people who had taken to Christianity, with the Assam Satra Mahasabha taking up regular programmes among such people. The Mahasabha have specifically targeted the Mishing tribals and the tea labourer community for this.

The Mahasabha last year entered into a war of words with the Catholic Mission by accusing the latter of using traditional Vaishnavite prayers and hymns for propagating Christianity be replacing words like 8220;Krishna8221; and 8220;Rama8221; with 8220;Lord8221; and 8220;Christ8221; in certain areas of Sibsagar district.

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Majuli has remained the principal seat of Assamese Vaishnavism since the time of the 16th century preacher and social reformer Srimanta Sankaradeva who set up a number of satras or monasteries there. It was also the first spot from where the movement for resisting the spread of Christianity in Assam had begun in the 1850s.

The American Baptist Mission was the first to spread the Gospel in Assam in the 1930s, and it had even started the first Assamese newspaper Arunodoi from Sibsagar in 1946. And considering this as a 8220;danger signal,8221; it was Dattadeva Goswami, the then satradhikar of Auniati Satra who had countered the Baptist Mission move by bringing out its own newspaper Assam Bilasini in 1871.

Last month, the defunct Dharma Prakash Chapashala, the press in which Assam Bilasini used to be printed about 130 years ago, was revived.