Tribal groups in State have welcomed State Government’s decision passing a resolution to send the Centre a letter to recognise Adivasi Sarna religion and include it as a separate code in the Census of 2021.
Congress legislator from Mandar Bandhu Tirkey who had taken an active role demanding separate religious code for tribals on Thursday met Chief Minister Hemant Soren at his office and congratulated him for passing separate religious code.
The tribal groups claimed that by passing the Sarna religion code, JMM/Congress government headed by the Chief Minister has met the long pending demands of Adivasi. However, it is half way mark before the Centre accordes separate religious code for Adivasi Sarna tribals. Chief convener of National Adivasi-Indigenous Religion Coordination Committee, Arbind Oraon said, “We welcome Chief Minister Hemant Soren decision passing the Sarna religion code, but it is unlikely that Centre will accord religious code to Adivasi Sarna if the resolution is send through only one State. The State Government's move should be to convince other states having tribal population to get passed similar religious code in their State Assembly and send it to the Centre for final approval.”
“If more than three to four state assemblies pass similar religious code, it will build pressure on the Centre to accord religious code to Adivasi Sarna,” added Oraon.
Echoing the views of Oraon, a tribal thinker requesting anonymity said, “Though the State Assembly has passed Adivasi Sarna religion code there are many technical hiccups in accordance with separate religious code for Adivasi Sarna. The first requirement for having a separate religious column in the census is that the group must have its own written religious book and scriptures. In Adivasi Sarna there is no such religious code.”
Sources said that though there are technical glitches in Adivasi Sarna religious code, tribal groups have been demanding separate religious code for decades. For the last many years several protests and meetings have been held by various tribal groups in Jharkhand and elsewhere pushing the same demand. Last February, then Jharkhand chief minister Raghubar Das too had announced in the Assembly a move to recommend Sarna as a separate religious code. However, the JMM-led Soren government has finally gone ahead and done it.
The followers of Sarna faith are nature worshipers. The motto of the faith is “Jal, Jungle, Zameen” and its followers pray to the trees and hills while believing in protecting the forest areas. Jharkhand has 32 tribal groups of which eight are from Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups. While many follow Hindu religion, some have converted to Christianity.
The main demand for separate Adivasi Sarna religious code is tribal shrinking population. In the past eight decades the Adivasi population has come down from 38.03 per cent in 1931 to 26.02 per cent in 2011. During this period there has been a decline of 12 per cent in tribal population, which is a cause of concern as other religious category population has increased in this period.