AP govt quietly slips in ‘tribal religion’ in household survey software
The Jagan Mohan Reddy government in Andhra Pradesh has clandestinely initiated a new policy of quietly making changes in its Household Survey software by including ‘Tribal Religion’ option which can be exercised by citizens of the state belonging to various Scheduled Tribes.
This move is being seen as an attempt to uproot the tribal population out of their native Hindu fold.
Under the Constitution of India, it not permitted to use a separate religion for Scheduled Tribes. This is because in a vast country like India, there is variety and complexity amongst Scheduled Tribal communities in practising their ancestral faith and belief systems.
This move of the Andhra Pradesh government under CM Jagan Mohan Reddy, a devout Christian, is being seen as a sinister attempt to evangelize the state of Andhra Pradesh. During the time of his father Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy the state machinery openly resorted to evangelism to promote Christianity in the state.
BJP which has some presence in the state had raised the issue of conversion, however, it was the BJP MLC PVN Madhav, who has questioned the logic of including religion column to this survey.
Madhav said, “It is against the Constitution to include religion. Tribals belong to Hindu religion and there is no religion called tribal religion. It is an attempt to divide Hindus by showing SCs and STs as people of separate religions.” The BJP MLC has demanded immediate suspension of this survey.
Across India, Christian missionaries with access to large amounts of foreign funds have systematically targeted tribal communities to convert them to Christianity.
Recently, the Jharkhand Assembly passed a resolution for the provision of a separate ‘Sarna Code’ for Tribal people. The resolution will seek a special column for followers of the ‘Sarna’ religion in the Census 2021.
Evangelical operations across AP since the coming of YSRCP government is said to have increased exponentially. Many of the tribals who have there own unique cultural identity have been converted to Christianity in AP.
However, when it comes to reservations in government jobs and educational institutions these the Scheduled Caste/Tribe Christians remain as Hindus to avail benefits.
Recently it was revealed that 70% of the 29,841 Christian pastors, who received one-time government honorarium of ₹5,000 through the Disaster Relief Fund, held Scheduled Caste / Other Backward Caste certificates illegally.
