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‘Adivasis have been wrongly categorised as Hindus for administrative convenience’
‘A study of their practices will help in restoring self-respect to them’
News: The Hindu
Mangalore,
Feb 12: Calling for more academic research
into primal religions in the country, Padma Shri award winner and former
Vice-Chancellor of Ranchi University Ram Dayal Munda has said that the Adivasis
in India have been wrongly categorised as Hindus for the sake of administrative
convenience.
“Adivasis
are followers of ‘Adi-Dharam’ not Hindiusm,” Mr. Munda said, while delivering
the keynote address at the inaugural session of a three-day seminar on
“Spirituality of primal religions”, organised by the Mangalore Diocesan Chair
in Christianity on Thursday.
Mr.
Munda said that there were only six officially recognised religious
classifications in the country, namely Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, Buddhism,
Sikhism and a grouping of small but organised religions termed “Others”.
Of the
over 10 crore Adivasis in the country, 90 per cent had been placed within the
Hindu fold and the rest had embraced Islam, Christianity and Buddhism. Stating
that ancient Adivasi practices had nothing in common with the Vedic traditions
of Hinduism, he said that Adivasis had been reluctantly accommodated at the
bottom of the Hindu fold.
Ulterior motive
Despite
the reluctance, the Adivasis were accommodated within Hinduism with the
ulterior motive of forming a formidable political grouping in pursuit of
cultural nationalism, he said.
He was
equally critical of the other organised religions such as Christianity and
Islam, which admitted Adivasis but kept them marginalised and diluted their
ethnic identity, according to him.
Mr.
Munda, who has co-authored a book on Adi Dharam, which is a compilation of
various spiritual practices and beliefs of Adivasis, said that more efforts
should be made to document the orally inherited cultural traditions of these
people in the country.
Such
studies across the country would help in scientifically establishing the
already well-known belief that Adi Dharam ran like a common thread through
Adivasi cultures across the country.
“Worship
of forces of nature, ancestors and deification of local heroes is central to
all Adivasi practices,” he said.
Study needed
An
academic study into the practices of over 500 Adivasi communities would also
help in restoring the self-respect of the Adivasis, who had always occupied an
amorphous position, somewhere on the fringes of organised religions. “Such
studies will help Adivasis notice that they are the same people. This will have
powerful political ramifications that can lead to the emancipation of the
community,” he said.
He said
that Dalits too should be part of this social, political and cultural grouping,
since their cultural practices too bore close resemblance to Adivasi
traditions.
He was
opposed to Ambedkar’s efforts on converting the Dalits into Buddhism. “Firstly,
there is a concerted effort to project the Buddha as the incarnation of a Hindu
god. Secondly, the act of conversion takes away Adivasi and Dalit pride in
their primal spiritual beliefs,” he said.
(‘द हिन्दु’
से साभार)
http://www.hindu.com/2010/02/12/stories/2010021260080300.htm
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