Ripe brinjals and organic okra surround the mud-and-brick house of Kanubhai Gaikwad, 68, a resident of Chinchod village in Dang district of Gujarat. Gaikwad’s three brothers also live in the same house. All of them are Adivasis from the Kunbi community but follow different religions. While Gaikwad is a Christian pastor, two of his brothers are Hindu. “Religion has never been a point of contention in our family,” Gaikwad tells Outlook.

Gaikwad’s cousin, Balwant Thakrey, joins him for a cup of tea. Thakrey is a Hindu from the Mokshmargi sect; he always wears a tilak on his forehead. He has helped build the church in his village where Gaikwad now preaches. “I wanted to do something for my Christian brothers here in the village,” he says. “I am an artist so I did all the woodwork of the church for free.”

Another resident, Ramchandra Pawar, 33, tells Outlook that he too is Christian, though his parents are Hindu. “My parents were Hindu and I was born a Hindu,” he says. “But something about Christianity, which always had a presence in Dang’s tribal areas, drew me as a youth. I was impressed by the idea of selfless seva. I got baptised in Tamil Nadu in 2013,” he adds.

His parents have never tried to influence his religious choice. “We let each other pray to whichever God we like and follow whichever path we want to find our own peace,” adds Pawar.

ith a population of a little over 600, Chinchod — about 150 km from the nearest urban centre, Surat — depends on agriculture. Villagers also depend on the neighbouring teak and bamboo forests. They are mostly isolated from the politics of the state, though news from elsewhere can upset the delicate religious harmony in the village.

“Recently, we heard some people say that Christian Adivasis should be de-listed from Scheduled Tribe (ST) category. Why? We are as much Adivasi as anyone else,” says Ramchandra.

Ramachandra’s concerns highlight an emerging fight over Adivasi identity. But who is the real Adivasi? Are those who have adopted Hinduism, Christianity or Islam still Adivasi?

Hindu/Hindutva among Adivasis

The demand for de-listing Christian Adivasis and other communities from the ST category has been raised by groups such as the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and its affiliates. Most of these groups work under the leadership of Swami Aseemanand, who moved to Dang in 1995 to work with tribal communities. He has also initiated programmes to convert Adivasis to Hinduism. In a 2014 interview, he claimed to have demolished 30 churches and converted 40,000 people from tribal communities to Hinduism.

Scholars and experts, however, try to distinguish between ‘Hinduisation’ and ‘Hindutvaisation’ of Adivasis. Sociologist Lancy Lobo in a paper “Adivasis, Hindutva and Post-Godhra Riots in Gujarat” (2001) writes, “Hinduisation which was a natural, spontaneous process, an outcome of the interaction between the Adivasis and the Hindu traders, and later through the Hindu sects” had always been at work in Gujarat. “Hindutvisation” of Adivasis began in late 1980s.

By mid-to-late-1997, violence against Christian Adivasis was being reported from Dang district. Sources alleged that it was carried out mostly by the Hindu Jagran Manch, though VHP leaders said the attacks on Christians were retaliations after Hindu homes were destroyed. “The attack left the Christian community deeply impacted,” says Gaikwad. “There was fear and mistrust for quite some time.”

Aseemanand was arrested in 2010 on multiple terror charges. It left his followers scattered. However, since his acquittal in all these cases in 2017 and return to Dang, there has been a rise in the activities of his followers. Rashtriya Janjati Sang, an affiliate of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, has called for tribal people who converted to Christianity to be referred to only as Christians and not ST.

“The Christians carry out rampant conversions, often quietly so that we don’t get wind of it,” says VHP member, Shivabhai M Pawar, who is also affiliated with Aseemanand’s Sabri Mandir Trust. “We are trying to save the Hindu tribals from extinction and remind them of their true identity.” He adds: “The Vanvasi Kalyan Parishad works for spreading the cause of Hindutva in the tribal areas where Christians are taking advantage of the ST quota to get benefits meant for Adivasis.” He claims that several converted tribals continue to use Hindu as the category when applying for benefits or during the Census.

Sources in the VHP also claimed that many tribal people were forcibly converted to Christianity, which Christian leaders deny.

Changing hearts

Almost the entire population of Dang comprises tribal communities such as Bhil, Kunbi, Kokni, Varli, and Kotwaliya. According to the 2011 Census, there are a larger number of Hindus than Christians in the district’s 311 villages.

In another paper, “Tribals and Christianity in Gujarat” (2006), Lobo identifies three phases of the spread of the religion in the region. In the 19th century, missionaries conducted charity and relief work among Christians. Between 1950 and 1980, Catholic missionaries focused on education. From the 1980s onwards, there was an influx of Pentecostal Protestants who preached that tribal people converting to Christianity should take a ‘leap of faith,’ proving their belief in Jesus. This coincided with the rising Hindutva in the state.?

In Ahwa, Dang’s district headquarters, the spires of a church built in 1932 rise in the area called Missionpada. At the moment, the church is under lock and key because of a dispute between two Christian groups — the Church of Brethren and the Church of North India. “There is some amount of infighting among the various Christian groups, but there has never really been any conflict between Hindus and Christians here,” says Ranjith Mohanty, secretary of Church of Brethren?in Ahwa.

He claims that no one was forcibly converted to Christianity. “We convert people’s hearts and minds. If someone is seeking the light, we show them the path,” he adds. “Every community has certain needs and we must move with the times and align with those in power to ensure our community, which is a minority in this country, gets a say in politics as well.”

The ‘real’ Adivasi

A few kilometres from the Brethren Church is a school run by Lalubhai Basava, a Bhil Adivasi leader, teacher and social activist. Basava has for decades led a movement demanding a separate religious code for tribal communities. “We are Adivasis,” he says. “Not Hindu, not Christian.”

“Adivasis have their own religious identity, which has for so long been passed off in the name of ‘rituals’, ‘customs’ and ‘culture’. Our culture is our religion,” says Basava, who heads the Rashtriya Adivasi Dharam Sammanyay Samiti. “Once I met the author Mahasweta Devi who wrote extensively on tribal culture and identity. She told me: ‘They (writers from other communities) don’t understand your history and will never be able to represent it. Why don’t you write your own history?’ So I did.”

Basava is the author of several books in Gujarati and Hindi on the need to preserve Adivasi history and restore pride. The walls of his school are filled with murals of Adivasi leaders and icons who never made it to mainstream history books. He claims that both Hindus and Christians have tried to silence Adivasi histories and appropriate tribal identity to win political battles.

“The Hindus want us to believe we are Hindus. They replace our Kuldevi with Ambe Mata (a goddess). They erase our freedom fighters like Vegda Bhil and educators like Dr Jayapal Singh Munda and only promote Hindu savarna icons instead,” he says. “Christians claim Jesus or reading the Bible will bring us salvation. But what about our own gods and heroes?” Lalubhai also says that the real issues of Adivasis are neglected in the noise made by religious groups.

Even religious leaders like Shivabhai, who lives in the parched Subir taluka, claim that though there has been development in tribal areas, not all have received equal benefits. “There are taps in almost every household in Dang as part of the Har Ghar Jal Yojana. But many don’t have any water,” he claims.

In Wadiahwan, a little village located on the edge of the hilly Maharashtra border in the east, there are many taps. But when Outlook visited on November 19, none had a drop of water. There is an electric pole nearby with wires crisscrossing it but no electricity reaches the homes in the village. A few self-purchased solar power bulbs light up the village in the evenings but for most part of the night, firewood is the primary source of light.

“Look at our homes. We have all been promised flats under both the Indira Awas Yojana as well as the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana. Yet we continue to live in mud and thatch huts that we ourselves had to build. In the monsoons, all these homes get flooded,” says Hargo Dohre Sabre, a villager. There are no employment or education opportunities in the village, forcing people to migrate to urban centres around the country. Earlier this year, Dang saw an intense protest by tribal communities who came together to demonstrate against the Par Tapi Narmada river linkage project. The protests forced the government to shelve the plan. But with state elections around the corner, locals are suspicious that the move was just temporary. Chinoo Pawar, an elderly Adivasi in Wadiah-wan, claims that it doesn’t matter what religion they put on the Census and which party they support as long as they are allowed to access their rights and their way of life.? “All we really care about is jal, jangal, jameen. That means employment, forest preservation, and land rights. That’s what makes us Adivasi,” he adds.

(This story was originally published in November 2022 in print as 'Will The Real Adivasi Stand Up?')

(This story is part of a two-part series on tribal identity politics in Gujarat in the run -up to Gujarat Assembly Elections 2022. Read the other story here)