Demand to scrap welfare benefits for India’s tribal Christians

Hindu nationalist group in northeast Assam state calls conversion to foreign religion threat to indigenous faith, culture

A Hindu nationalist organization has asked the Indian government to end welfare benefits to indigenous people who have embraced Christianity and Islam, which they say are foreign-origin religions.

Binud Kumbang, working president of the Janajati Dharma Sanskriti Suraksha Mancha, an affiliate of the pro-Hindu Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh working among indigenous communities, told a gathering in northeastern Assam state, that “conversion of indigenous people to foreign religions has been a threat” to the faith and culture of indigenous people, who constitute 8.6 percent of India’s 1.3 billion population.

“The converted people completely give up their original tribal culture, customs, rituals, and traditions,” he told the gathering in Guwahati city of Assam on March 26.

Kumbang and his organization claim to be working to liberate indigenous communities “from the clutches of foreign religions.”

In India, Christianity and Islam are considered foreign-origin religions, while Buddhism, Sikhism and Jainism are said to be of indigenous origin.

Indigenous people are classed as scheduled tribes while Dalits, former untouchables, are called scheduled caste. As part of the affirmative action plan devised in 1948, the federal and provincial governments provide social benefits like reservations in legislative bodies, educational institutions, and job quotas in state-run institutions for them.

However, Dalits, who converted to Christianity and Islam, are currently denied the benefits and the top court in the country is hearing a two-decade-old petition challenging the 1950 presidential order.

Like in the case of Dalits, Kumbang wanted to amend the provision in the law to deny affirmative action benefits to indigenous people who converted to Christianity and Islam.

Archbishop John Moolachira of Guwahati, where Kumbang held his rally, said such a demand is not in the interest of indigenous people.

“A person changes his/her religion according to one’s personal choice. Nobody forces anyone to convert and therefore, demanding to scrap social welfare benefits for someone based on his/her religious faith is unjust and against the provisions of the constitution that does not discriminate,” Archbishop Moolachira told UCA News on March 27.

The government and other interested parties must make serious efforts to protect the tribal people’s diminishing culture, traditions and language rather than blaming religious conversion for everything, the archbishop added.

“The demand to end reservation benefits seems to be part of an agenda to threaten indigenous people from adopting a religion of their choice,” said a Church leader who did not want to be named.

Indigenous tribal people have been demanding to recognize their animist practices through the inclusion of a special religious code in the Indian census so they can be enumerated as a separate and distinct group. The federal government has been counting them as part of the majority Hindu religion so far.

This article is published in https://www.ucanews.com/