4 min readNew DelhiMay 24, 2026 05:32 AM IST
First published on: May 23, 2026 at 08:12 PM IST
Union Home Minister Amit Shah will on Sunday attend as chief guest a massive tribal gathering in Delhi organised by the RSS-linked Janjati Suraksha Manch (JSM), an organisation that has over the past few years spearheaded the Sangh Parivar’s campaign to seek delisting of converted tribals from the Scheduled Tribes (ST) category.
Billed as a “Janjati Sanskritik Samagam”, the event at the Red Fort grounds is being organised to mark the 150th birth anniversary year of tribal icon Birsa Munda. According to the organisers, over 1.5 lakh participants from more than 500 tribal communities across the country are expected to attend it, with five cultural processions converging at the Red Fort before a public meeting to be addressed by Shah.
The organisers have projected the event as a cultural assertion of tribal identity and “national unity”, with the slogan: “Tu Main Ek Rakt, Vanvasi-Gramvasi-Nagarvasi, Hum Sab Bharatvasi”. Participants are expected to arrive in traditional attire from different parts of the country, while volunteers in Delhi have arranged accommodation, food, transport and medical facilities through 20 separate committees, an office bearer of JSM said.
The event, however, has also drawn immediate political reaction, especially from tribal-dominated Jharkhand, where the Congress on Friday accused the BJP of attempting to derive political mileage from tribal mobilisation while “weakening” tribal rights on the ground.
Addressing a press conference in Ranchi, Jharkhand Congress president Keshav Mahto Kamlesh termed this Delhi gathering a “political stunt”, alleging that unemployment among tribal youth had increased and that tribal rights over “jal, jangal and zameen” were being undermined.
Congress MP Sukhdev Bhagat alleged that the Forest Rights Act was being weakened and displacement was increasing in tribal areas, while former minister and Congress MLA Rameshwar Oraon said the gathering was an attempt to divert attention from the “real problems” facing the tribal communities. Congress leaders also raised the issue of the Jharkhand tribals’ pending demand for Sarna religion code.
The political significance of Sunday’s event lies not merely in its scale but in the presence of Shah himself, which effectively grants official legitimacy to a mobilisation around a constituency and ideological campaign that has until now largely been pushed through the Sangh affiliates and peripheral organisations.
The JSM was formed around 2005-06 to raise the demand for delisting converted Christians from the ST category. Its national leadership has deep roots in the RSS ecosystem. The organisation’s co-convener Rajkishore Hansda is a long-time functionary of the RSS-affiliated Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram, which has worked among tribal communities since the 1950s and historically opposed Christian missionary activity in the tribal belts.
Over the last few years, the JSM has organised rallies and campaigns across tribal-dominated regions of central India and the Northeast, especially in Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Assam, Tripura and Arunachal Pradesh. Its campaigns have often centred around the allegations that tribals who convert to Christianity continue to avail reservation benefits while also accessing benefits available to minorities.
The mobilisation has unfolded alongside a wider push by the Sangh-affiliated organisations on issues of religious conversion and tribal identity. The RSS-linked groups have simultaneously run “ghar wapsi” campaigns among tribals, opposed missionary activity and raised demands linked to reservation and religious identity in Parliament (through BJP MPs) and on the ground.
While the BJP has never formally adopted delisting as a party policy, Sangh insiders have long viewed such campaigns as a way of building social consensus before major ideological or legislative moves – much like earlier debates around the Uniform Civil Code, Article 370 and anti-conversion laws.
The massive tribal gathering in Delhi, organised by the RSS-linked Janjati Suraksha Manch, is expected to draw over 1.5 lakh participants from more than 500 tribal communities across the country. 
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