Sarna, Sanatan and contested identity

Beyond the claims of protecting disadvantaged Adivasis, delisting tribal converts furthers a deeper political agenda

On May 24, Janjati Suraksha Manch, an affiliate of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), organised the Janjati Sanskriti Samagam (tribal cultural intermingling) at the Red Fort in New Delhi. The event appeared to extend the RSS’s outreach to Adivasis. The participants chanted Sarna Sanatan ek hai (both Sarna and Sanatan are one) while attacking religious conversion among tribes, particularly to Christianity, by demanding the delisting of tribal converts. In line with the RSS’s culturally assimilative strategy, the podium had both Sangh ideologues, mainly from the tribal community, and political heavyweights such as Home Minister Amit Shah.

Shah’s consistent reference to the Adivasis as Vanvasi, as per the Sangh’s original lexicon, inferring tribals as forest-dwelling backward communities, has been opposed by Adivasi organisations in Jharkhand.

Parallelly, the Raji Parha, dedicated to traditional governance among Adivasis, and the Christian Adivasi Mahasabha took out a march culminating in a rally, in Jashpurnagar, Chhattisgarh. The march sought unity among Adivasis against the delisting and demanded a separate religious code (Sarna) for the tribals. Interestingly, no political party has challenged the calls for delisting. The demand for a separate religious code for tribals was passed as a resolution in the Jharkhand State Assembly in 2020 and forwarded to the central government for approval. It is in this context that the delisting and its impact on India’s tribal politics must be studied. The important question here is: Does delisting promise better prospects for the underrepresented tribes, as claimed?

The video from the Delhi event underlines its political nature and a deep resentment among the participants against their Christian brethren. They believe that Christian converts corner most of the reservation benefits provided by the State, disadvantaging the rest of the tribals. The demand for delisting goes beyond what has been secured in eight states with Schedule V areas in the form of the Freedom of Religion Act. These laws prescribe rigorous official processes and penalties for religious conversion, intended to curtail unlawful conversions driven by allurement, etc. The demand truly entails a religio-cultural entrenchment of Hindutva among the tribes, while violating their right to religious freedom, as converts will lose their tribal status even if they followed legal conversion processes.

In his address to the participants, Shah said that tribals need not fear the Uniform Civil Code, as their customs and traditions would be kept out of its ambit. What he said has little relevance because these customs are already protected under the Panchayat (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act (PESA) 1996, and all states with Schedule V areas, except Odisha, have notified PESA rules. Not very surprisingly, Shah remained silent on the separate faith code, indicating this demand will remain unfulfilled, as preparatory work on the census is already underway.

High political stakes

Notably, political parties such as the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) are silent on the issue. So who are the political actors gaining leverage from this episode? How will this politics play out for the tribal population?

The JMM’s silence must be analysed from its position as a ruling party. While in power, the JMM has not displayed major differences from other political parties. It has acted against social organisations that take up causes like the protection of resources. Moreover, the party does not appear to favour devolution of powers to the tribal community. These factors lower the JMM’s credibility among the tribal voters, though the party secured emphatic support during the general elections and the Assembly elections in 2024.

The inability of a ruling party to push the Sarna narrative is critical because the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has managed to build on this disconnect. It has made targeted efforts to leverage the faultlines within the tribal community.

Delisting can become a political tool to separate the Christian converts and help the aspirational tribal youth who subscribe to the Hindutva narrative emerge as leaders of the community. Tribal converts continue to avail the benefits of reservation and contest elections from constituencies reserved for ST. Legislation of the delisting process is likely to run into legal challenges, given the judiciary’s position that a person belonging to a Scheduled Tribe does not lose his or her tribal status just because of having converted to another religion.

But before those challenges take shape, the BJP appears to have taken control of the political narrative.

(The writer teaches at the School of Development, Azim Premji University, Bengaluru)

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.