By Neeraj Mishra

If his recent utterances are anything to go by, Vishnu Deo Sai, the tribal flag-bearer and Chief Minister of Chhattisgarh, is seeking to bring the Adivasis into the Hindu fold. Either that or he has been given a strict line of action from his ideological superiors to follow a particular line of action in the state. It is pertinent that he has chosen to do so from his own political forbear Dilip Singh Judeo’s backyard Jashpur and during the ongoing elections.

Judeo was well known for his “Ghar Wapsi” programmes during his life time. He would wash the feet of tribal Christians “returning to the Hindu fold” in his tribal region of Jashpur-Raigarh. He was nominated to the Rajya Sabha twice and became a Union Minister under the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government. He was well on his way to becoming the Chhattisgarh chief minister when a hidden-camera-cash stunt by Amit Jogi felled him and finished his political career.

Sai, his protégé, has become the chief minister and is seeking to revive his cultural efforts. The moot question, of course, is whether Tribals coming back from Christianity were originally Hindus or the Ghar Wapsi programmes were actually the induction of tribals into another religion. Sai answered this in one fell swoop. “Adivasis who worship Shiva and Parvati are Hindus,” he declared in Jashpur at an RSS programme and then again in Mandla in Madhya Pradesh on the campaign trail. Mandla is a contiguous tribal region. The whole belt is dominated by Gond tribals.

From Bastar to North Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and parts of Odisha, tribals are as different and varied in their approach towards organised religion as can be. The Bastar tribals are a different stock from the North Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand ones. Christianity has been quite successful in these areas mainly through more than a century of social work, hospitals, schools and churches. The Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram has, in the past half a century, taken up cudgels on behalf of RSS in these backward areas to assert their presence.

But the question remains. Tribals are primarily Nature worshippers and have their own Dev and Devis. More than 300 years of Bastar Dussera has not been able to stamp away that part of their culture and assimilate them to worship mainstream Hindu gods. For practical reasons, they have adopted any church or temple as a place of worship to escape their poverty but they have not got accustomed to any organised religion. Islam has been a late entrant but its mostly through Muslim traders from Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat who are working on tribal women.

What Sai might attempt to do in his term is now becoming clear. He has announced his intentions. By asserting that tribals are in fact Hindus he has taken a lead. As his government progresses, we are bound to witness an assertion of Ghar Wapsi programmes, temples and celebration of Hindu festivals in a big way in tribal zones. It is a smart manoeuvre by the BJP through a tribal face, and the one associated with the late Judeo.

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