Guwahati: A path breaking sociological study in northeastern India finds a tribal society co-exists in spite of its multifarious religious beliefs and affiliations.
Anthropologist Divine Word Missionary Father Jose K Jacob studied two villages of Rangdani Rabha in Goalpara district of Assam and found that “there is simultaneous presence of traditional Rabha religion, Hinduism, and Christianity along with the syncretic form of religious behavior to stabilize the ethnic identity as well as social position of the community in the larger canvas of tribal north east India in general and Assam in particular.”
Jose K Jacob says, “The concern in this study was the tribal religion among the Rangdani Rabha of Goalpara, Assam who are influenced by many external forces, such as entry of other communities who have become neighboring communities, economic advancement due to newly introduced cash crops like rubber, and influence of media due to the proliferation of television.”
Director of Research Assam Don Bosco University (ADBU) where the scholar presented his doctoral thesis, 24th April 2105, considers the study as “a pioneering effort for the paucity of published literature as of now.”
The researcher from the ADBU department of Northeastern Studies embarked upon a four year study of Rangdani Rabha tribe with the assistance of his supervisor Prof. Gautam Kumar Bera of Gauhati University who is also attached to Anthropological Survey of India, North Eastern Regional Centre, Shillong.
After an extensive review of literature on the tribe and tribal religious practices, researcher Jose tried to a) acquire an overall knowledge about the pristine religion of the studied population; and examine the concept of religion, and understand the various aspects of the religious life of the Rangdani Rabha of the studied area.
The scholar, currently director of Anthropological Study and Research Institute Sanskriti situated near Guwahati International Airport, tried to study the role and status of the religious experts among the Rangdani Rabha; and evaluate the division of labour of the members of the society in ritual performances.
In the course of the study Jose Jacob examined the impinging factors percolated from the outside world in the religious universe of the Rangdani Rabha; and tried to understand the transformation and change in the religious life of the Rangdani Rabha and its impact on their society.
“Supernatural phenomena / powers play a major role in every happening in the tribal community,” says Jose Jacob explaining the rites and rituals performed to propitiate the spirits both benevolent and malevolent that come under the realm of religion.”
The scholar insists, “This is a field that calls for closer examination to understand the community in its entirety, and more importantly in the context of various factors which directly or indirectly influence the indigenous religious ethos of the community.”
For this study primarily qualitative data was collected using the methods of observation, in-depth interviews, key informant interviews, case study, and survey.
Statistical data were collected from the entire two Rangdani Rabha villages in Goalpara District, namely, Majerburi and Matia.
The study notes that, despite efforts to group all the sub-communities of Rabha under one fold of Rabha specially in census records or otherwise, the Rangdani Rabha maintain a distinct identity to safeguard their ethnic position as a distinct community in terms of their ethnicity where religion plays a major role for cohesiveness and corporateness of the community.
This is evident from their social customs, organization, rituals and other cultural markers that have been transcended from generation to generation.