By
GLADSON DUNGDUNG
‘Adivasis live
in the forest. The government has declared all of them as terrorists. You have
committed a blunder mistake by coming to the Adivasis’ territory. They are
neither human beings nor animals. They are devils, devils!” “I have come here
to transform these devils into human beings. I have devoted my entire life for
the cause.” These dialogues of Hindi feature film MSG-2, starred and directed
by Saint Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh of Dera Saccha Sauda (DSS), had triggered a
wave of anger among the Adivasis of India. They protested in different ways
across the country, demanding a ban on the film and legal action against its
producer and director, and against members of the Central Board for Film Certification
(Censor Board). They also approached the courts. Worried about their Adivasi
vote bank, the BJP governments of Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh banned
the film. However, the central government did not take any action and the Delhi
High Court’s judgment on the case, has brought this question to the fore: Are
Adivasis ‘devils’?
In fact, even
more shocking than the attitude of the Indian government and the Censor Board, was
the judgment of the Delhi High Court. Prem Mardi, a resident of Ghatshila,
Jharkhand, had filed a writ petition in the court seeking cancellation of the film’s
certification and legal action against its producer and director. The Justice of
Delhi High Court, Rajiv Sahai Endlaw delivered a rather bizarre judgment while rejecting
the petition. It was stated in the judgement that the petitioner has used the
word ‘Adivasi’ to refer to the members of Scheduled Tribes and thus argued that
the film spread hatred against the STs. The entire case of the petitioner is
premised on the use in the film of the word ‘adivasi’. The petitioner assumes
the adivasis to be meaning tribals or more particularly the scheduled tribals
and thus finds the film de-sensitive of the tribals and more particularly
scheduled tribals and promoting hatred against the tribals and scheduled
tribals. “However that is not my understanding of the word ‘adivasi’. As per my
understanding, ‘adivasi’ connotes aboriginal people and not people falling in
the definition of scheduled castes and scheduled tribes in Articles 341 and 342
of the Constitution of India,”[1]
the judge emphasised.
He further
describes, “To verify which of the aforesaid understandings is correct, I have
checked the meaning of ‘adivasis’ and find the same described as people living
in India before the arrival of the Aryans in the second millennium BC and
descendents thereof. Adivasi, translated in English means the earliest
inhabitants of the earth. Per contra, Tribes is understood as a social division
in a traditional society consisting of families or communities linked by
social, economic, religious, or blood ties, with a common culture and dialect,
typically having a recognized leader. Just like Article 341 of the Constitution
of India defines scheduled castes as the castes, races or tribes or parts of or
groups within castes, races or tribes which shall for the purposes of this
Constitution be deemed to be scheduled castes in relation to that State or
Union, Article 342 defines Scheduled Tribes as tribe or tribal community or
part of or groups within tribe or tribal communities which shall for the
purposes of the Constitution be deemed to be scheduled tribes in relation to
that State or Union Territory”[2].
“To be sure, I
have also seen the Constitution of India in Hindi and do not find the word ‘adivasi’
being used in Articles 341, 342 and 366 in place of the word ‘tribe’. The word
used for the word tribe therein is ‘janjati’. It, even otherwise, as per the
dictionary is the Hindi equivalent of tribe. I may thus reinforce that the term
‘adivasi’ is not indicative of tribes or scheduled tribes but is indicative of
the earliest inhabitants of any land whether it be in India or anywhere else in
the world. I find the term ‘adivasi’ being used for the earliest settlers of
the land that is now known as Bangladesh, Nepal, Srilanka as well. On the same
parity of reasoning, the aborigines of America would also qualify as adivasis. The
reference in the film to Adivasis is not found to be relatable in any manner to
Scheduled Tribes. There is thus no merit in the petition. Dismissed,”[3] the
judge wrote.
No end to the
bizarreness
The Delhi High
Court’s judgment raises many questions. Since, the judgement well acknowledges that
the Adivasis lived in India before the arrival of the Aryans; therefore, the
question is where have they gone now? Are they living in Bangladesh, Nepal or
Sri Lanka? If we are to go by the judge’s reasoning, the Adivasis of
Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, America and Africa are ‘devils’. What kind of
mentality is this? Is the judge biased or simply uneducated? Before delivering
his verdict, he did not care to read an important judgment of the Supreme Court
delivered by Justice Markandey Katju and Justice Gyan Sudha Misra in CA No
11/2011, SLP (C) No 10367/20 Kailash & others versus State of Maharashtra in
which they have used the terms ‘Tribal’, ‘Scheduled Tribe’ and ‘Adivasi’ interchangeably,
which clearly means the word ‘adivasi’ stands for ‘tribe’ ‘tribal’ and
‘Scheduled Tribes’.
In the debates
of the Constituent Assembly, Jaipal Singh Munda, Jawaharlal Nehru, Sardar
Vallabhbhai Patel, Dr B.R. Ambedkar and many others have repeatedly used the
words Adivasis, aboriginals, Tribals and Scheduled Tribes. Similarly, in the
draft Constitution of India, the word ‘Adivasi’ was initially used in ‘Article
13(5) and then removed as Ambedkar insisted for it because it legitimises the
Adivasis as Indigenous People of India and rest as outsiders’[4].
In addition, these words were also used in anthropological studies, history
books and in documents prepared by the Planning Commission and state governments.
Interestingly, the Jharkhand government celebrates international indigenous day
officially on 9th August every year since 2014 and organises series
of programmes for the Adivasis, who are categorises as Scheduled Tribe in the
Constitution.
Despite the availability
of several references and established fact that the Adivasis are the aborigines
and indigenous peoples of India, who are called the Scheduled Tribe
constitutionally, the judge dismissed the petition arguing that ‘STs’ and
‘Adivasis’ have different meanings than ‘adivasi’. This is what the understanding
about the Adivasis, the so-called educated people have in India. What is more interesting
is that the film MSG-2 brands Advasis as ‘devils’ and portrays Gurmeet Ram
Rahim Singh as a ‘human being’ and claims that he has devoted his entire life for
transformation of Adivasis from ‘devils’ to ‘human beings’. However, there is
nothing new in this assault on the identity and existence of Adivasis. It has
been happening for thousands of years.
Historically, in
the ancient period, the Adivasis had ownership rights on the natural resources
and they judiciously used these resources for their survival. Consequently,
they were living with autonomy, peace and prosperity. They were freely
practicing their identity, tradition, culture, religion and language[5].
The situation changed after the Aryan invasion which destroyed the Adivasi
Civilization, denied the indigenous identity and did not accept them as fellow
human beings. The Aryan invaders raided the Adivasis’ territories and destroyed
their civilization. They declared themselves as “Devas” and “Surs”, and that
they were superior, pure and civilized, while branded the Adivasis as “Asurs”, devils,
demons, barbarians, uncivilized, etc. Then, when Mughals came, they too
considered the Adivasis as demon, barbarians and uncivilized people.
Language of
development
The British introduced
the spectre of development and, after depriving the Adivasis from their
livelihood resources, branded them as hungry, semi-clad, poor, helpless,
uncivilized, criminals and marginalized. During the freedom movement, Gandhi
referred to them as “Girijan” (hill dwellers) and Ambedkar called them
uncivilized. Further, the right wing Hindutava ‘Sangh Parivar’ coined them as
“Vanvasis” (forest dwellers/uncivilized) and launched an organised campaign
against them. Thus began the use of the word “Vanvasi” for Adivasi, because the
Aryans wanted to establish themselves as the original inhabitants of this
country. The Total Revolution of 1974 brought with it a flood of NGOs and
outsiders to the Adivasis’ territory. They began claiming that had devoted
their lives to the welfare of the Adivasis. Despite these messiahs coming to
their rescue, the Adivasis remained where they were. Governments, NGOs and
non-Adivasis branded Adivasis as hungry, poor, helpless, backward, uncivilized
and earned name, fame and money for bringing about their “development”, making
them part of the “mainstream” and giving them a “better” life. MSG-2 is
a part of this stratagem.
Fearful of
losing votes, the BJP government of Jharkhand was the first to ban the film.
What Jharkhand Chief Minister Raghubar Das wrote on his Facebook page after
ordering the ban is shameful and ample proof that the Sangh Parivar wants to
usurp Adivasis by effacing their identity and distinct existence. He wrote, “No
one in the state will be allowed to play with the sentiments of Adivasi, Vanvasi
brothers and sisters...the film MSG-2, which uses unconstitutional and objectionable
language about the Adivasi brothers and sisters, will not be allowed to be
screened in the state.” But using the word “Vanvasi” for Adivasis is also
insulting, dehumanising and abusing them. That is because Aryans and Mughals
also described them as “junglee”, which means backward, barbaric and uncivilized.
By branding Adivasis
as ‘devils’ in the film MSG-2 is a well-planned attack on the identity
and existence of the Adivasis. Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh knows that no matter how
bitter his attack on them is, the central government won’t take any action
against him because Prime Minister, Narendra Modi has himself made words like
‘vanbandhu’ (friends of forest) a part of the official one for the Adivasis. Modi
uses the word ‘Dalit’ for Scheduled Castes but he carefully refrains from using
the word ‘Adivasi’ for Scheduled Tribes. That is because his masters – the controllers
of the saffron brotherhood – have been running a campaign on a war footing for
several decades to destroy the identity and existence of the Adivasis by
addressing them as “vanvasi”. And that is because once the word “Adivasi”
(literally original inhabitants) is accepted, the non-Adivasis, who are in a
majority, would automatically become outsiders. But will this verbal jugglery
change the important judgment of the Supreme Court, delivered on January 5,
2011, in which the court said that the Adivasis are the ‘decedents of the original inhabitants of India known as the
‘aborigines’ or Scheduled Tribes (Adivasis), who presently comprise of only
about 8% of the population of India? The rest 92 % of the population of India
consists of descendants of immigrants’[6].
How can these facts be suppressed and under covered?
The apex court
also observed that ‘the injustice done to the tribal people of India is a
shameful chapter in our country’s history. The tribals were called ‘rakshas’
(demons), ‘asuras’, and what not. They were slaughtered in large numbers, and
the survivors and their descendants were degraded, humiliated, and all kinds of
atrocities inflicted on them for centuries. Despite this horrible oppression on
them, the tribals of India have generally (though not invariably) retained a
higher level of ethics than the non-tribals in our country. They normally do
not cheat, tell lies, and do other misdeeds which many non-tribals do. They are
generally superior in character to the non-tribals. It is time now to undo the
historical injustice to them’[7].
However, the Indian State is hardly concerned about the Adivasis that’s the
reason why anyone dehumanises, discriminated and exploits the Adivasis.
However, even
after such a strong opposition on film, the DSS has claimed in the ‘spotlight
page’ of Hindi magazine the ‘Outlook’ that the MSG-2 is based on a true story
of Rajasthan. It further states that in the year 2000, Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh had gone to Jhadol Tahsil
of Udaipur district in Rajasthan for meditation programmes, where the local residents
prohibited him from roaming in the Adivasi areas. They told him that anyone going
there is simply looted, beaten and killed. Despite, he went there and the
Adivasis attacked him with poisoned arrows, still he talked to them and
civilised them. The DSS strongly claims that prior to this civilisation, the
Adivasis life was totally uncivilized. They were naked and addicted to liquor.
Boys and girls used to elope and bearing children before marriage, and children
were dancing in their parents’ marriage. They used to hang living cattle in a
tree, sucking their blood and eating raw flesh, cutting with their nails. But
he made all of them civilized and many became teachers too[8]. The
claim of DSS is strange and shocking but the government take no step on such
claim. Now since the DSS has claimed it as a true story, will the court accept
it and deliver justice to the Adivasis?
The MSG-2 has once again
proved that non-Adivasi Indians nurture a deep hatred of the Adivasis and are
biased against them. They aren’t interested in freeing themselves from these
negative notions. It is high time that Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh, RSS and the
non-Adivasis must reflect on who are actually uncivilized, characterless, asur,
barbaric and a ‘devil’? One thing is certain, though: If Adivasis are ‘devils’,
then no one in the world can be a ‘human being’ because the best human values –
communism, liberty, equality, fraternity and Justice can be found only in the
Adivasi philosophy. Those who boast of being superior, civilized, cultured,
educated and developed still have a lot to learn from the Adivasis.
Gladson Dungdung
is a human rights activist, writer and thinker
