Indigenous people, indigenous faith

The Assam Cabinet on Saturday took a very important decision for creation of an independent department to protect and preserve the "faith, culture and traditions of tribes and indigenous communities" of the state. According to Chief Minister Dr Himanta Biswa Sarma – who himself announced the crucial Cabinet decision – "Our tribes and communities have their own set of beliefs, customs and practices" and hence the new Department of Indigenous Faith and Culture has been created in order to preserve such practices. This decision of Sarma's BJP-led government in fact goes one crucial step ahead on the foundations laid by the Sarbananda Sonowal's BJP-led government, which had come to power in 2016 by promising to protect the "jaati, maati and bheti" of Assam's indigenous communities. This move of the Sarma government should be able to render great service towards thwarting the international conspiracy and evil design of wiping out the indigenous people of Assam by large-scale illegal migration of people belonging to a particular faith. Though the Constitution of India does not specifically define the term "indigenous", the fact remains that it clearly enshrines the need to provide special protection to certain communities or groups of people. While the Government of Assam too has yet to come out with a clear definition of the term, it can definitely look at the general definition provided by the United Nations. According to the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, indigenous peoples are inheritors and practitioners of unique cultures and ways of relating to people and the environment. They have retained distinct social, cultural, economic and political characteristics, and despite their cultural differences, indigenous peoples across the world share common problems related to the protection of their identity and rights as distinct peoples. That, however, is not an official 'definition' of the UN. Instead, the UN the system has developed a modern understanding of this term based on certain criteria, like – (i) historical continuity with pre-colonial and/or pre-settler societies, (ii) strong link to territories and surrounding natural resources,(iii) distinct social, economic or political systems, and (iv) distinct language, culture and beliefs, to name a few. The UN is also of the view that (i) indigenous peoples are holders of unique languages, knowledge systems and beliefs and possess invaluable knowledge of practices for the sustainable management of natural resources, (ii) they have a special relation to and use of their traditional land, (iii) their ancestral land has a fundamental importance for their collective physical and cultural survival as peoples, and that (iv) indigenous peoples hold their own diverse concepts of development, based on their traditional values, visions, needs and priorities. Though India had in 2007 voted in favour of the UN Declaration on The Rights of Indigenous Peoples, it chose to not recognize the concept of indigenous people. Instead, India's broad view is that all the communities who have resided in the country since independence are indigenous to India. The rights of indigenous peoples and communities are guaranteed within the Indian Constitutional framework, and the Sixth Schedule itself is a wonderful example of this. Looking at the way Chief Minister Sarma has presented the need for establishing the new department for indigenous faith and culture, it also becomes evidently clear that he has in mind Clause 6 of the Assam Accord, which the Congress and some reactionary forces and groups have always sought to misinterpret and thus create confusion. It is also worth noting that Arunachal Pradesh had way back in 1978 passed the Arunachal Pradesh Freedom of Religion Act, which has sought to protect indigenous faiths of the indigenous communities from being wiped out by religious conversion. Unfortunately, though the Act had clearly stated that "No person shall convert or attempt to convert, either directly or otherwise, any person from one religious faith by the use of force or by inducement or by any fraudulent means nor shall any persons abet any such conversion", Arunachal Pradesh has been witnessing large-scale conversion; this in turn is rapidly wiping out indigenous faith, knowledge, beliefs, customs and traditions including folklore. Failing to arrest conversion, Arunachal Pradesh in 2017 created a department of indigenous faith and cultural affairs, to look after preservation, protection and promotion of the rich indigenous cultural heritage of the state. Arunachal Pradesh's problem arises from globalization, exposure and external influences, because of which the indigenous communities of the state are fast getting disconnected with their rich culture and languages that call for specific steps to preserve and protect them from disappearing into oblivion. Assam's problem is no different, but has the additional menace of illegal migrants, who have already occupied and wiped out the tribal belts and blocks, apart from posing various other threats to the indigenous communities.