Multiple organisations representing Scheduled Tribe people from Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Odisha, Chhattisgarh and several other States on Friday (February 28, 2025) held a demonstration at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi to press for the demand to add a separate column for religions followed by tribal communities in India in the upcoming Census exercise.
In a memorandum to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, representatives of the protesting organisations said their distinct religious identity was negated when the 2001 and 2011 Censuses forced them to mark their religion under the “Others” column— bunching tribal faiths under a miscellaneous category, which led to many tribal families being marked as Hindu by enumerators despite mentioning their respective faiths.
The organisations, which were brought together by the Rashtriya Adivasi Samanvay Samiti, headed by Jharkhand BJP leader Deo Kumar Dhan, said multiple representations to the Union government over the last decade for a separate religion column have yielded no positive outcome.
“The government is not paying attention to our demands and neither it is taking it seriously,” the memorandum said.
On the continued absence of a separate religion column for STs, the organisations wrote, “Is this the price the government of India is asking tribals to pay for their development? That leave your identity and come to the mainstream and then you will see development?”
Fulchand Tirkey of the Kendriya Sarna Samiti in Jharkhand was among the representatives who led a delegation to attend the protest in New Delhi on Friday.
Mr. Tirkey told The Hindu, “We have been demanding a Sarna religion column for a long time now and that is why we came to protest in Delhi today.”
In the memorandum, the tribal outfits further stated that not recognising their distinct faith was akin to treating them as “second-class citizens” as the Constitution allowed every citizen the freedom to practice their respective faiths.
They demanded that an “Adivasi Religion” column be added to the six existing religions that are enumerated in the Census exercises.
Published – February 28, 2025 09:04 pm IST