“It is not easy to find any sound reason for isolating the tribal people from the Hindus in view of the repeated admissions made that the animistic or tribal religion was hardly distinguishable from the Hindu religion. The mystery is solved when we come to examine the Missionary activities within these tribal areas”. – Niyogi Committee Report, (Report of the Christian Missionary Activities Enquiry Committee, Madhya Pradesh), Volume I, Nagpur p. 29
On August 9, there will be groups who will join the bandwagon of celebrating the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples, which is popularly known as Indigenous Peoples’ Day or, in political parlance, Moolniwasi Diwas. Though recognised by the United Nations in the name of celebrating diversity and contributions of the indigenous communities, if we go into the origin of this day, it is nothing but imposing the collective guilt of the colonialists on countries like Bharat which have been living with different tribes with diverse traditions and religious practices for ages. Hence, it is necessary to decode the origin of the day and the intent behind imposing this day on non-Anglo-Saxon countries and expose the agenda behind celebrating Indigenous Peoples’ Day.
The claim of Christopher Columbus discovering America itself is a nefarious and supremacist narrative of the colonisers. The myth involving Columbus reached the American shore on October 1492, bringing ‘progress and enlightenment’ sourced to a book published in 1828 by Washington Irving titled A History of the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus. One year after a brutal lynching in New Orleans of 11 Italian immigrants in 1891, US President Benjamin Harrison, through Proclamation 335, issued a call to celebrate the 400th Anniversary of the Discovery of America by Columbus. Eventually, the second Monday of October was celebrated in the United States as Columbus Day. The proclamation expressed ‘gratitude to Divine Providence for the devout faith of the discoverer’. In reality, Columbus and the representatives of the Catholic Church gave a devastating and existential blow to the indigenous communities who were following diverse faiths and traditions – land stolen, people slaughtered and enslaved, their resources looted, women raped, children kidnapped, treaties broken, and possessions and goods plundered over the centuries. As per estimates, between five million and 15 million indigenous people were living in North America in 1492, and the number was reduced to fewer than 2,38,00 by the late 1800s. As per the July 2022 data, the Native Americans represent 2.6 per cent of the total US population of 329.5 million. The story of Anglo-Saxon colonisers worldwide is not very different, including in Bharat.
In 1977, the United Nations International NGO (non-government organisation) Conference on Discrimination Against Indigenous Populations in the Americas, proposed to replace Columbus Day with Indigenous Day. This proposal was a significant step towards acknowledging the historical injustices faced by indigenous communities and promoting their rights and contributions. Soon, many American states and cities started observing the day as a celebration rather than repentance. In 2021, Joe Biden became the first US president to recognise the holiday officially.
Following the same trajectory, the United Nations declared August 9 as the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples in recognition of the first meeting of the UN Working Group on Indigenous Populations held in Geneva in 1982. The same narrative is imported to countries like Bharat by the Missionaries and Communist combine, who always harvested their ideological goals by using the Scheduled Tribe communities who have been part and parcel of this ancient civilisation for ages.
Through Missionary activities and tools like the Census, the British have systematically created faultlines in the erstwhile colonies. Bharat is still paying a heavy price for it. British faced the most incredible resistance from the forest dwellers, who were nature worshippers and had unique traditions but still had a world view and harmonious life similar to the village and city dwellers of Bharat. As they could not colonise the people and the terrain, they first isolated them through different acts, painted them as backward and man-hunters and then used missionaries to proselytise them. The Aryan-Dravidian divide was an artificial racial construct by the British Missionaries, as explained by Dr Babasaehb Ambedkar. It was a necessary theory to justify their colonial rule. Such fake constructs and Missionary activities should have been stopped after the independence. Unfortunately, in the name of freedom of religion, Missionaries continued with their fraudulent methods of conversions, mostly with foreign funding, as pointed out by the Niyogi Committee way back in 1956. Their ability to influence policy decisions ensured that no native indigenous faiths could enter some parts of forest lands, so their proselytisation agenda could be unhindered. The schema of establishing Indigenous Peoples’ Day is a continuation of the same.
The groups and political parties who take pride in celebrating this day of colonisers’ guilt consciousness should answer a few simple questions – why is the Indigenous Peoples’ Day celebrated only in the countries that were colonised at some point in time? Who were the people who used inhuman methods to convert communities? What were the reasons that this legal categorisation of civilised and tribals created? Why do the same groups continue to use proselytisation as a tool by branding all other Bharatiya people as outsiders?
Yes, the Scheduled Tribes (STs) of Bharat, a term used to refer to the indigenous communities of India who are recognised and protected under the Constitution of Bharat, have been the biggest victims of colonisation. It is also true that they are the ones who have preserved the actual lifestyle and governance systems of Bharat. The colonial systems perpetuated the thinking of state-sponsored mainstreaming among policymakers, which is also a fact. They do not like the colonial laws and systems of governance, and we should respect that. Our Constitution has created enough mechanisms to protect their unique traditions through representation. All these factors do not divide Bharat as outsiders and original inhabitants. All Bharatiyas, irrespective of faith, language and traditions, are original inhabitants of Bharat. They are not just citizens but integral parts of Bharat, whose ancestry, culture and motherland are the same. The Scheduled Tribes have their symbols of pride and celebration. Fortunately, the Government has recognised them by commemorating the Janjati Gaurav Diwas, on November 15 – the birth anniversary of great freedom fighter Birsa Munda, and honouring the contributions of Scheduled Tribes to the freedom struggle. We all should take pride in celebrating the National Day dedicated to the pride of Scheduled Tribes instead of getting trapped into this international conspiracy of imposing the guilt of the Anglo-Saxon colonisers on others.
