A pro-Hindu group is seeking to lobby to demand the removal of welfare benefits for tribal Christians in the state of Tripura on December 25.
Catholics from Indian tribes participate in the annual Christ the King festival in New Delhi, November 26, 2017 (Photo: Bijay Kumar Minj / UCA News)
India’s Christian leaders and secular parties have opposed a planned Christmas Day protest rally by a radical Hindu organization, which seeks to end welfare benefits for tribal people who have embraced Christianity or Islam.
The organization, whose name means forum to protect the religion and culture of tribal people — Janajati Dharma Sanskriti Suraksha Manch (JSM) — announced last week that it would hold the rally on December 25 in Agartalathe capital of the state of Tripura, in northeastern India.
Affiliated with the pro-Hindu Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) party, the JSM claims that Christianity and Islam are religions of foreign origin and therefore tribal people converted to these religions should be removed from the official list of Scheduled Tribes (STs) to deny them education. and employment quotas, in addition to other social benefits, under India’s affirmative action programs.
Father Ivan D’Silva, social communications secretary of the Agartala diocese, which covers the entire state of Tripura, said he was not sure of the “motive for the planned gathering on Christmas Day, the holiday the holiest and most sacred to Christians throughout the world. .”
“It looks like it was done deliberately. We called a meeting of all religious denominations in the state and decided to oppose the gathering” on Christmas Day, he told UCA News on November 29.
The Divine Word priest said they had also launched a campaign to sensitize the tribal people of the state about their constitutional rights. More than 50 percent of Tripura’s population belongs to various indigenous tribes.
Father Nicolas Barla, secretary of the Conference of Catholic Bishops of India The Bureau of Tribal Affairs said the planned rally appeared to be part of a “political agenda ahead of national elections next year.”
“The demand to remove tribal Christians from the list of ST beneficiaries is being raised in various states and provinces of India which have large tribal populations,” he told UCA News.
Barla called it a “conspiracy to divide tribal people in the name of religion” for the electoral benefit of pro-Hindu parties.
“According to our constitution, people are free to practice and profess any religion according to their choice and free will,” he recalled.
Tripura is ruled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party, which swears by the ideology of making India a nation of Hindu hegemony.
Opposition parties, including the Congress and the Communist Party of India (Marxist), as well as regional secular outfits opposed the rally, calling it “unconstitutional” and a “conspiracy” to foment sectarian division in the ‘State.
Congress leader Sudip Roy Barman said the demand to delist tribal Christians from the ST list “was made to disrupt peace and foment discord and ethnic tension in the state”.
He warned that pro-Hindu political parties and their affiliated organizations “risk mutual coexistence on the lines of Manipur”, where more than 170 people have been killed and several hundred injured since ethnic violence began on May 3.
Pradyot Kishore Manikya Debbarma, head of the Tipraha Indigenous Progressive Regional Alliance, also “suspected a plot to use religion to divide the Tiprasa (tribal people of Tripura)”.
Christians make up 4.35 percent of Tripura’s 3.7 million population. Most of them belong to indigenous tribal communities such as the Tripuri, Lushai, Kuki, Darlong and Halam.
A significant number of Christians are Baptists, Presbyterians and Catholics, while there are also members of the Assemblies of God, the Evangelical Church and other New Christian groups.
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