After reading your contents today I feel that Adivasis know exactly what is their own practisingg religion..Adivasis practice the best religion of the world and on their behalf ,topic on their religion should not be a matter of debate by nonadivasis.Adivasis are competent people,practice best religion of the world and why other people than adivasis talk on their behalf and create all nonsense issues without understanding their values,philosophy ,culture,rich tradition,love, justice ,peace,equality,cooperation,togetherness and all sytems and procedures are learning and subject of research for their very survival.Let people honour them and allow them to live a dignified life with full happiness and great joy in their family,society and thier acceptance to others in this world without any hindrance or problem.
Ranchi Jharkhand.
Hinduism though believes on Vedas, it is not essential for a Hindu to have a holy book unlike Muslim, Sikh and Ishai etc. And adivasis of India are closest to illiterate villagers of other parts of India who worship plants and cattle. We all believe in one Almighty Creator whatever you call HIM/HER and worship the beautiful things of the nature but telling with certainty that they are not Hindu is a only a mischievious propaganda. Whether Hanuman, Eklavya or Ghatokach (son of Bhima) was not a Hindu and if not whether Bhima himself was a Hindu and if so whether Mahabharata or Ramayana should not be called a Hindu book where even a crow(Kakbhushundi) is a revered name? Then who is Hindu? Do anybody think that Hindus are made as per Constituion of India promulagated in near past?? May be adivasi religion is not an organised one like plain living Hinduism but who says apart form distorted historians that Aryans were invaders out of India.
So far this riddle is controversial and at least there is not a sure place or story with them that Aryans migrated from there and the Dravids were non-Aryan and so non hindus..
One forgets that there are bound to have differences in such a vast country and such long period and influences if any are mutual and not exlusive from one to other. I can smell even in the name "Dhuni," is from Yajna-- Dhuni rama kar baithana is a proverb related with Sadhana of Hinduism in Dr. Soren 's name.. And so Hindu-baiters Dravidian flag holders-Ramaswami, Ramchandran, Karunanidhi are more Hinduised than so called northern Aryans not to talk of in their names only but in their Shiva temples, Amman temples etc.
True, the adivasis are losing their culture to Christianity and not to Hindutva. Tribal, usually, all over the world follow an animistic religion which is more magical and ritualistic than metaphysical and a spiritual one. Hence tribal religions are not mystical.
Only because tribal religions are without institutions and texts they cannot be called away from Hinduism in Indian aspect. The Semitic (Jews, Christianity and Islam) is altogather a new system and have nothing to do with Indian panorama's tribal.
As the society of Tribal in India will develop they will gravitate to their kith and kin Hindus and so calling it unsuitable is hypothetical, the matter is different for Christianity which is an aleign religion from distant land, rather I will say that " choice of Christianity blocks the chances of Adivasi's continuance of own life style more than their integration into the rest Hindu society."
Though modern Hinduism has caste system, Adivasis can be called Kirats and they cannot be called Dalit which is a new political word.
Adivasis too have Pahans as priests among them like any other huindu community.
It is a lame argument," Christianity may help them integrate into a global network and improve their social capital," as Hindus too are global and first Adivasi needs space in Induan soil than showing them day dreams.
I think even converted Christians by alluration are still poor and those who said them to convert left them on their own once they were bapatized. If not so they must be all rich men of US/Euro status forgetting that more percentage of Muslims and Christians world over are poor...
Dr. Dhanakar Thakur
I would like to respond to two points raised by dhuni soren and susmita dasgupta. 1. Dhuni soren had written, that hinduism is organised religion, and tribals cannot be compared to it. Also, that tribals were present even before aryans came to india. However, this is not true. Hinduism is NEVER an organised religion, and it is not monotheistic. There is no central command, nor a single holy book. It encompasses thousands of culture, customs and rituals, and many of such cultures resemble the tribal customs. For example, in tamilnadu, the major festival "Pongal" is celebrated through out the state, and the worship is done to nature than any specific god. In that festival, the farmers would collect the natural materials for use in the worship. No specific prayers or mantras. If we look at this custom, it is similar to the tribal ones in many places. Also, the animal sacrifice is part of the tribal custom, which is also followed by some cultures of Hinduism. So we can see lot of similarities b/w tribal soceities and Hinduism.. however, the tribal customs and the semitic religions have no such similarites.. Hinduism, in the course of history interacted with Tribal Communities, and respected their customs and rituals. However, christianity, only denigrated numerous tribes as animists and destroyed that culture. In such a scenario, its not a surprise, that most of the hindu tribals retain their traditional way of worship, while most of the christian tribals, abandon their tribal traditions. Infact, the christian tribals, become hostile to their own community after conversion. The next major point is coming of aryans. I want to state that aryans are also tribals themselves, and they are just one of the numerous tribes that existed at those times. Coming of aryans is a non issue here. So dhoni soren's argument doesnt substantiate itself.
2. Susmita dasgupta wrote, that hinduism believes in caste system and tribals would only be treated as dalits. There is no lie and distortion of facts than this. First I would say, the strength of Hinduism is its caste system, and only it can provide the cultural security of the tribals, as caste system does not indulge in conversion. Secondly, it is baseless to say, tribals will be treated only as dalits. In the ancient tamil literature, there are lot of poems, that describe about how "Kurathi", a tribal girl, foretells the future of the hero/heroine, and get rewarded suitably. There is always a healthy relation b/w tribals and the mainstream hindu communities. If we look at our history, we find that the tribals are NOT disturbed by hinduism because of two reasons. one is that Hindu kings protected the forests, and hence people did not exploit it. Secondly, tribals had their own chiefs, whom were respected and acknowledged by hindu kings. There was always a level of self-ruling, and independance among the tribal communities in the past. And again i am repeating my earlier point. The Tribal Customs are entirely destroyed when that people convert to christianity, while in hinduism, it respected all form of worship.
Regards,
Senthil Raja
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