How easy is it for us to open our lives to scrutiny by strangers and let these strangers question something most of us hold very personal – our faith and religion? The Tangsa people of Arunachal Pradesh made it seem rather routine. Like a journalist does, I para-trooped into the world of Tangsa tribe in Changlang district inquiring how their animist faith system had changed and what role the RSS had played in it?
The answer was simple: A distinct and completely different belief system had been Hinduised by the RSS.The Tangsa believe in a world of spirits governed by the Supreme Being named Rangfraa. The RSS had turned the Rangfraa into a copy of the Shiva and their belief into a Hindu sect. If the missionaries had been at it earlier, the RSS is at it now – saving the people in a region that is perpetually on India’s blind spot.I had heard of this long ago from some dear friends from the area, but to watch it unravel as people spoke about it in detail was a bit unnerving.
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The story, I hope evokes concern about how India and its political parties treat cultural plurality and people who are so distant and different from the mainstream (I am yet to figure out who constitutes the country’s mainstream). Mr Narendra Modi went to Arunachal only to find there is a sub-tribe called Modi. He sought to find common lineage with them and evoke other mainstream Hindu imagery to relate. The Congress, on the other hand, for too long has pampered the tribal elite with contract-politics and left the people to their own fate – you see it the way submerging vast swathes of traditional lands of dozens of cultures for dams is sold primarily as a strategic move, second as a growth imperative and at times considered a concern for the wildlife.
But the candour and ease with which people at these peripheries permit scrutiny of their lives remains perhaps their strength and their weakness. Self-reflective and open-hearted, the people talked about their belief systems and the changes with a candour I would find personally find hard to replicate before a random stranger. Of course there was also a class-power factor at play. A journalist can more easily scrutinise a poor village and its dynamics than walk into a CCTV-safe gated colony in Delhi questioning the residents’ actions and behaviour, leave alone faith and religious practices.
The Tangsa who have taken to the new Rangfraa movement do so deploying their collective wisdom and individual decisions in the face of limited choices. One must respect and understand that. But, tracking the story made me wonder: Can’t the nation give the Tangsa and other tribals better options that doesn’t require them to choose between gods, faiths and mai-baaps?
