By Matters India Reporter

Guwahati, March 27, 2023: Church leaders in India have reacted cautiously to the demand of an organization representing indigenous people that the government remove the reservation for tribal people to Christianity or other religions.

A March 26 rally organized by the Janajati Dharma Sanskriti Suraksha Mancha (JDSSM) in Assam’s Guwahati city also demand a ban on religious conversion of tribal people in Assam. Hundreds of Boro, Karbi, Tiwa, Dimasa, Rabha, Mising and other tribes from 30 districts of Assam reportedly attended the rally.

“Conversion of tribal people in Assam and elsewhere in India to foreign religions has been a threat to indigenous faiths and cultures for decades. The rate of conversion has increased and the ST people fall prey to communal theocratic foreign religious groups,” alleged JDSSM working president Binud Kumbang.

He said conversion could be checked if the converted tribal people are stripped off the Scheduled Tribe list. “The converted people completely give up their original tribal culture, customs, rituals, way of life, and traditions,” he alleged.

Allen Brooks, spokesperson of the United Christian Forum of Assam, says Christians would respond to the issue, but would to do it collectively taking all denominations together. “We will make a collective representation on the issue, as it concerns all Christian Tribals irrespective of denominations,” he told Matters India March 27.

The demand, he added, is not in the interest of indigenous people.

He also pointed out that Christians are now in the Season of Lent in progress, and the Church Leaders think they need to focus on their faith and look to God at the moment. “However, we will respond after Easter in a positive and constructive manner keeping in mind our rights as enshrined in the Constitution,” he added.

The JDSSM demanded an amendment to Article 342A of the Constitution, which highlights the benefits for the Scheduled Tribes. The amendment should ensure “automatic delisting from SC/ST reservation” if such people undergo religious conversion, the organization said.

In India, Christianity and Islam are considered foreign origin religions as other religions followed in the country are of indigenous origins.

The RSS and its affiliated groups are opposed to people converting from Hinduism or from the indigenous communities who follow animist religions to Christianity and Islam. They, however, do not oppose religious conversion to Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism and Jainism.

The demand to scrap the tribal Christian reservation has come at a time the Supreme Court is handling a petition demanding reservation to converted Dalits, formerly untouchables.

The federal government through a 1950 Presidential order had denied reservation benefits to Dalits who forms the lowest strata of life, converted to Christianity and Islam.

Archbishop Moolachira says those keen for indigenous people’s welfare should protect their culture, traditions and language that face gradual extinction. One things is true those indigenous people converted to Christianity still hold on with their language, traditions and culture”, the prelate said.

“This demanded for ending reservation benefits to the converted indigenous people,” a Church leader who did not want to be named said, “seems to be part of an agenda to threaten indigenous people from adopting a religion of their choice.”

Indigenous people from many provinces such as Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh among others have been demanding to recognize their animist religions through a special religious code after efforts were made to categorize them as Hindus in official records including national census.

Indian government has so far not responded to their demand and they still continued to be counted as part of the majority Hindu religious population in the country.

Christians make up 3.74 percent of the state’s 31 million people in Assam, as against the national average of 2.3 percent.