The Bharatiya Janata Party-led NDA has now chosen Odisha’s Draupadi Murmu as its Presidential candidate for the upcoming presidential election. As per the current scenario, she is going to win the election with a clear margin and is likely to be the first President of India from the tribal community. Thanks a lot to the BJP for choosing Murmu at a very crucial time when some tribal leaders and some organisations are demanding that India’s tribes be enumerated separately from Hindus in the upcoming Census. Their demands for declaring “Tribal are not Hindus” gained traction after Draupadi Murmu’s name was announced. After the declaration of Draupadi Murmu’s name, the missionary mafia on twitter triggered a series of tweets. No doubt, she is the best weapon against such missionary conversion mafia who have been targeting Hindu tribes in different ways since decades.
Draupadi Murmu’s photos of sweeping the floor of a temple, whispering something into the years of Nandi, the ‘vahana’ of Lord Shiva went viral in media and social media recently. It is believed that when a devotee whispers prayers into the ears of Nandi the prayers will be communicated to Lord Shiva. This was the morning of the next day of announcement as presidential candidature. However, Draupadi Murmu did something she’s done every day since returning to her hometown in August 2021 after retiring as Jharkhand Governor—sweeping the floor of a Shiva temple in her locality. After seeing this, the vested interested missionaries’ mafia groups who are since long days planning for cutting tribal from Hindu cult are in fear about their propaganda.
Draupadi Murmu’s profile, her gesture, her daily routine, her Dharmik belief sends the right message to the converted tribes as well as the conversion mafias. A Santhal Hindu tribal woman sitting in the Rashtrapati Bhawan will be a big message to the propagandists who are always trying to draw images that tribal people are not part of Hindu society.
Falsehood Preached by Breaking India Forces
Some political leaders are also propagating those ideas on their way on behalf of breaking India forces. “Adivasis were never Hindus and they never will be,” Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren had said at a conference at Harvard University. On November 11, 2020, Jharkhand Assembly had passed a resolution asking for a separate religion code called the Sarna code for the tribal population. Across the country, debates have erupted over tribal dominated States such as Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal and Assam. It is being argued that tribes are not Hindu, so they should be recognised as persons of separate religion. A section of certain intellectuals have been working tirelessly for years to prove their anti-Hindu sentiments, which are being reflected in different platforms.
But what is the purpose behind it? First of all, to separate the tribal from the Hindu society to create a wall of division under the pretext of creating their own unique identity and pave the way for the creation of a terrible class struggle. Once they are separated from their thousands of years of bonding, then those conversion mafias will have the opportunity to convert the tribal peoples to other foreign religions in the future. Fact is that this strategy has already been implemented in many African countries and its benefits have gone to those religious institutions for which religious conversion is a business. It is part of a long-running conspiracy of those missionaries. The conspiracy includes foreign conspirators as well as some so-called intellectuals who believe in a certain ideology. The conversion of India’s tribes and the change in demography have been a big issue for the country. Over the years, North Eastern States such as Nagaland, Mizoram and Meghalaya have become Christian-dominated.
According to the 2011 census, only 0.8 per cent of people registered or declared themselves as “other” religions. If the tribal people think themselves as different from the Hindus, then they would have identified themselves in other religions in the previous censuses. It is said that they were now compelled to write whatever they were writing, whether Christian or Hindu.
Message to Converted Tribes
In fact, the history of Christians and Muslims in India is only 500-years-old. The tribal who now call themselves Christians, have been converted in recent years.
It is in this context that one has to see the BJP-led NDA announcing Draupadi Murmu as its Presidential candidate. This is not tokenism. This is the new India and age-old Hindustan making a civilisation statement of Dharma that is Sanatana. This is aimed at removing a century-and-a-half-old narrative of the ‘tribal non-tribal’ divide.
The Santhal rebellion against colonialism was one of the bravest yet largely-unknown chapters in the history of India. Puri Jagannath of Odisha, from where Draupadi Murmu comes from, provides the sacred model for the integration of forest-dwelling and non-forest-dwelling communities.
All 645 tribal communities in the country are Hindus, as they worship Bhagwan Shiva, Ram, Jagannath as well as all the Gods and Goddesses worshipped by the larger Hindu society. Not only this, they tell their origin from these Gods.
A Santhal Hindu tribal woman sitting in the Rashtrapati Bhawan will be a big message to the propagandists who are always trying to draw images that tribal people are not part of Hindu society
Tribal folk-tales across the country attest to these facts. In Valmiki Ramayana and Mahabharata, the tribals are called forest dwellers. The recognition of these forest-dwelling characters is equivalent to Rama and Krishna in the entire Sanatan culture.
The more community groups they have, the more diverse is their lifestyle and culture. For this reason, that aspect was raised more. Efforts to separate tribes from Sanatan Hinduism are part of the long time campaign of foreign missionaries. Missionaries have been engaged in this campaign since the Independence of India. If Draupadi Murmu becomes the President, those who are trying to break Hindutva and Hindutva to this forest dweller community will be shocked and those who are confused will feel honour and pride in joining their cultural traditions.
With Murmu a step closer to becoming the President, the systematic conversion of tribals will be curbed; the voice of this community will be raised against the conspiracy being hatched to separate them from Hindus and Hindutva.
