A goddess called Shabri – What next?

The Shabri Kumbh Mela, organized by the Sangh Parivar, is a pretext for Hindu extremist groups to launch their tirade against Christians and stir up Hindutva fervor amongst the half a million pilgrims who are expected to attend the festival.

While the Gujarat government has reportedly diverted state development funds to sponsor the event, the local district administration has turned a blind eye to the distribution of CDs and pamphlets by the festival organizers that reportedly contain inflammatory statements against Christians and churches. It is a “legitimate religious activity,” the local body defended.

The organizers have also launched a slogan, “Hindu Jagao, Christi Bhagao” (Awake, O Hindus, Chase out the Christians) – an open attempt to divide the local people on communal lines.

A Christian news agency has reported that the Hindu right–wing organization, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) has gone one step further to “identify who is Hindu and who is Christian” by urging local villagers to install idols of Hanuman and Shabri and hang saffron flags and lockets outside their homes.

The impoverished tribals of Dangs, some of whom are Christians, have never seen something like this before. Painful memories of the sectarian violence of 1998, when Hindu mobs carried out wanton attacks against Christians, burning down churches and prayer halls across 25 villages in the area, flood their minds.

Already dispossessed of land and forest and grappling with debt, hunger, exploitation and bondage, the tribals now face incursions of radical Hindutva, systematically propagated by the Sangh Parivar, who have demonized Christianity, calling it a “foreign conspiracy” threatening to “destabilize” India.

That is not all. Healthcare services and educational institutions run by churches and other Christian organizations are being portrayed by the Hindu activists as hubs for alluring innocent villagers, who practice animism, to convert to Christianity.

Systematic campaign of “ghar vapsi” (homecoming) in the Dangs can be called a masterstroke as it has succeeded in doing what the Sangh activists wanted in the first place – strike fear in the heart of the Christian adivasis (tribals) and saffronise the region.

Good. If Christians, by healing, preaching and serving, can turn the hearts of the tribals to the Lord, the Hindus can equally claim that by deforestation (read: destruction of the ecology for preparation of the festival), intimidation and fabrication, they have a right to turn “back” the hearts of tribals to Hinduism.

But let us look deeper. Let us see who these tribals are and who is goddess Shabri that the Sangh Parivar is promoting.

The website launched by the organizers (http://www.shabarikumbh.org/invitation/), has become a platform for the Hindu ideologists to launch a tirade against the Christian missionaries, claiming that “to the Church, the Hindus represent the greatest stumbling block in their grand design to establish Christ’s kingdom on earth.”

“The poor, illiterate, mild Vanvasi Hindu is an obvious target in this nefarious scheme. For years, under the garb of social service, the Church has been spreading its tentacles in far–flung, tribal regions of our country. These converted vanavasis become alienated from their customs and traditions. They get uprooted from their cultural milieu,” it goes on to add.

However, both anthropologists and district gazetteers have testified and have continued to testify that the majority of the 200,000–odd adivasis or local tribals are not originally Hindu, especially not of the narrow Brahmanical version purveyed by the Sangh.

Their worship is animistic: They pray to tigers, cows, and serpents, the moon, hills, forests, wind and rain. Their gods are appeased by animal sacrifice and home–brewed liquor.

The modus operandi of Hindutva activists is to adopt and gradually co–opt these tribal gods. The gods are then gradually converted to teetotalers and vegetarians and reinvented as local versions of Hindu gods.

Temples are built to these gods, and Hindu festivals introduced. The Shabri Kumbh Mela is one such festival. Sangh activists have begun weaving a tale, drawing inspiration from the Hindu mythology, Ramayana, that lord Ram had accepted berries from one tribal woman, Shabri, in the Dangs district. Hence, the construction of a massive temple in her honor and the festival – Shabri Kumbh Mela – in her name.

“Shabri is your ancestor,” the activists encourage the tribals to believe, thus paving the way for them to embrace a live of servitude and caste discrimination.

Moreover, going by Hindu mythology, to call the Hindu festival, a “Kumbh Mela” is fallacious, to say the least.

Why? To understand this, we have to know the origin of the Kumbh Mela. According to popular Hindu legend, thousands of years ago, in the Vedic period, gods and demons made a temporary pact to work together churning amrita manthanam (the nectar of immortality) from the Ksheera Sagara (primordial ocean of milk), and to share the nectar equally.

However, when the Kumbh (urn) containing the amrita appeared, the demons grabbed and ran away with it and were chased by the gods. For twelve days and twelve nights (equivalent to twelve human years) the gods and demons fought in the sky for possession of this pot of nectar. It is said that during the battle, drops of the immortal nectar fell at four places: Prayag, Haridwar, Ujjain and Nashik.

Thus, traditionally, the Kumbh Mela is observed at these four locations (where the nectar fell) in 12–year cycles and this has remained unchanged through the millennia.

Therefore, going by the Hindu tradition, the plans for the new Shabri Kumbh Mela can thus be concluded as a mere manipulation of mythology for sectarian objectives of terrorizing the few thousand tribal Christians, and to promote a false majoritarian Hindu identity in violent opposition to them.

Will Shabri turn into another Ayodhya? Will the Central Government continue to remain mute spectator even as the safety of the minority communities continues to be compromised in Gujarat?

Weep, India, weep. And, we weep with you. For this is not the idea of democracy and secularism our forefathers dreamt when they shed their blood for India’s freedom.

And, pray. Pray so that the impoverished and dispossessed tribals of Dangs do not have to taste the bitter blood of sectarian violence again.