A tribal journalist asks a question, do we have an answer?
According to the Santal tradition, the first flower of the season is offered to the super natural God then only the community members are allowed to collect any kind of new forest produces. They jointly offer the first flower to their God in ‘Baha Parap’ (the festival of flower). Similarly, the Oraon celebrate ‘Khadi’ also known as ‘Sarhul’. The thanks giving tradition is found among all the Adivasi groups. Unfortunately, it was out of imagination for many of them this time.
Home Minister P Chidambaram’s gunmen (security forces) involved in the so-called ‘operation green hunt’ did not allow them to celebrate their auspicious festivals (Baha and Sarhul) in those villages, where the operation is being carried out. They were prevented from offering their thanks to the super natural God, they were stopped dancing together and they were also forbidden from having the community feast. What kind of operation is it?
Can one imagine what would have happened if the security forces would not have allowed the Hindus to celebrate the Ramnaumi, prevented the Muslims from organizing a procession in the Muharam and stopped the Christians to conduct the Easter Mass? Perhaps, there would have been some kind of communal riot, communal tension or at least the issue would have been made the national one. But no one knows about how the Adivasis were denied to practice their old age tradition and culture by the security forces as the so-called fourth realm (Media) of the democracy does not bother to report us about it.
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1 comment:
Thanks for posting this. It posits the great Indian question. To whom does India belong? And the corollary, who takes decisions for the people to whom India belongs. After 6 decades of independence, is India free or have we merely substituted a structure of colonial control by brown masks. Do the people feel that they are a part of the democratic process or are they merely statistics in an election process? The homogenising policies of a nation state silence so many people, their aspirations and their cultural practices. And the 4th pillar that is supposed to function as the watchdog to uphold democratic practices and guard against the abuses of power (Noam Chomsky) is perhaps too taken up by the earth-shatteringly critical story of the two idiots from Hyderabad.
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