The Gujarat government has decided to give a special financial aid to the state’s tribals for a trip to Ramjanmabhoomi in Ayodhya. Every tribal person in Gujarat can claim Rs 5,000 for the trip to Ayodhya. Of course, evidence of Ram Lalla darshan will be mandatory.
The scheme being launched in Gujarat could be replicated in other BJP ruled states also, party sources claimed. This is a part of the tribal development and welfare programmes of Gujarat Government.
“After all, tribals, constitute over 11 crore people in India and we are all descendants of Shabri, the mythological forest dweller Adivasi lady who fondly fed Lord Ram sweet berries in the Ramayan,” a BJP tribal leader told Vibes of India.
Not only will Dussehra Mahotsava will be held across Gujarat, special functions will be held in tribal areas at all pilgrimage places associated with Lord Ram.
“Since we, one crore of people of Gujarat, are direct descendants of Mata Shabri who was a Ram devotee, all tribals will be given a special assistance of Rs 5,000 per person to visit Ramjanmabhoomi in Ayodhya,” announced Purnesh Modi, Gujarat’s tourism and pilgrimage development minister, at an impressive tribal gathering at Shabri Dham in the Dangs on Dussehra.
Why is the BJP wooing tribals so aggressively in Gujarat?
Simple, Assembly elections are due in Gujarat in December next year. This Ayodhya freebie is a part of the tribal appeasement programme masked as a development and welfare initiative.
Tribals make up nearly 15 per cent of Gujarat’s population, higher than the national tribal population share of 8.6 per cent. Hence, with an eye on the 2022 elections in Gujarat, the BJP has a consolidated plan to woo the tribals.
Recently, Union Home Minister Amit Shah had lunch at a tribal person’s humble home in Chhota Udepur.
Read: https://www.daijiworld.com/news/newsDisplay?newsID=454531
Tribal arithmetic in Gujarat
As many as 27 of the 182 seats in the Gujarat Assembly are reserved for tribals. The tribal vote is significant in another 14 constituencies. Apart from these, Chhota Udepur, Dahod, Bardoli and Valsad are four parliamentary (Lok Sabha)seats reserved for the tribals.
It must be noted that for the first time in the history of Gujarat since Independence, the Congress failed to win any of these tribal seats in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. The grand old party did not win a single seat in Gujarat in that election.
Also read: https://ahmedabadmirror.com/by-invitation-tribal-trouble-in-gujarat/68982021.html
Tribals’ political preferences
Till Indira Gandhi’s assassination, tribals in Gujarat did not vote for anyone but the Congress. They could not read or write but they knew that they had to stamp the panja. They called Mrs Gandhi their Maa.
The RSS experiment of wooing tribals to BJP was first tried and tested in the Hindutva laboratory of Gujarat. No, it had nothing to do with Narendra Modi. It was a combined effort of the RSS, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and the Bajrang Dal.
Swami Aseemanand — later accused and acquitted in three blast cases — was anointed to develop the tribal outreach and be a project manager. From 1990, a myriad schools with saffron leanings popped up under mysterious entities, and thereafter under the aegis of the Vanvasi Kalyan Kendra.
After the BJP won Gujarat for the first time with a majority vote in 1995, the RSS,VHP, the Bajrang Dal and the Vanvasi Kalyan Kendras consolidated further.
Before Muslims, Christians were the saffron target
In 1998, the saffron brigade targeted Christians for luring and converting tribals in Gujarat.
Atal Bihari Vajpayee was the Prime Minister. The BJP indirectly supported these attacks. Then Congress president Sonia Gandhi came to Gujarat and the Dangs but was not allowed to visit the sites where Christian tribals and their institutions were torched.
Read : https://indianexpress.com/article/news-archive/more-forces-sought-for-dangs/lite/
The New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) had reported that from December 25, 1988 to January 3, 1999, at least 20 prayer halls and churches were damaged or burnt down and Christians and Christian institutions were attacked in the Dangs and its surrounding districts and at least 25 villages had reported incidents of burning and damages to prayer halls and churches all over Gujarat.
Also read: https://frontline.thehindu.com/politics/article30256421.ece
Also read: https://wwrn.org/articles/11108/?&place=india§ion=christianity
The BJP’s 2017 wound and hawk-eye on tribals
In Gujarat, the 2017 Assembly elections upset the party’s applecart. Out of the 27 Assembly seats reserved for tribals, the Congress won 15. The BTP won two tribal seats and the BJP won just nine. In the present scenario, the Congress has 13 tribal MLAs and the BJP has caught up with 11 MLAs. One Congress MLA, Jitu Chaudhry, defected to the BJP. The BJP also recently won the Morwa Hadaf seat that was vacated following the Congress MLA’s death. Now, the BJP is aiming at a higher strike rate for the 2022 elections.
The BJP has to be credited for its hawk-like vision, execution and delivery. To woo the tribals, the Gujarat government and its state unit (the Sangathan) have already put in place a year-long, sustained drive with a proposed Rs 1 lakh crore Van Bandhu KalyanYojana-II.
The second phase of this ambitious project was strategically launched in Gujarat by the BJP on World Tribal Day on August 9.
But, are tribals Hindus?
It is debatable whether tribals are Hindus. Most tribal communities worship nature and objects associated with nature such as fire, wood, water. The saffron brigade has been steadily brainwashing them that they are Hindus and all their objects of worship from Vandevi to Annapurna are actually Hindu deities.
However, not all agree. For example, in Jharkhand (which had been under the BJP for long till the Sorens’ Jharkhand Mukti Morcha swept it out of power last year), a renewed agitation is taking shape among tribals who want their Sarna code as a religion in the census.
“We are indigenous people. However, the BJP is once again trying to saffronise us,” Sukhram Rathwa, a Congress MLA from Chhota Udepur, told Vibes of India.
In Gujarat, large percentages of the tribal population live below the poverty line — 40 per cent in Dahod, 34 per cent in Narmada, 31.5 per cent in the Dangs and 28.36 per cent in Tapi.
A Rs 5,000 Ayodhya freebie is a big amount for most tribals. The BJP, however, refuses to see it as a dole.
“Tribals are descendants of Shabari Mata who met Lord Ram during his 14 year exile. It is our duty to do this honour of financial assistance for Ayodhya trip for our tribal brothers and sisters,” asserted minister Purnesh Modi.
Gujarat Congress president Amit Chavda called the Ayodhya dole “a blatantly shameless act of polarisation”.
“The tribals need better health facilities. They need schools, they need empowerment. The tribals in Gujarat are fighting for their forest rights. They want employment. And instead of doing what it should the ruling BJP government is trying to divide tribals on religious grounds by giving greedy tourism offers,” Chavda said.
Senior Congress leader Arjun Modhvadia, however, said that the BJP’s “dirty tricks department” was working overtime again.
BJP leader and Valsad MP K C Patel said at Shabri Dham: “Our Narendrabhai and his government has ensured the construction of a Ram temple in Ayodhya and the Union and Uttar Pradesh governments are working to finish the temple construction soon.”
The crowd, mostly tribals, applauded and some of them chanted “Jai Shri Ram,” welcoming the financial assistance to go to Ayodhya for Ram Darshan.
Vadgam MLA Jignesh Mewani criticised the Ayodhya dole. “This is a distortion and disrespect to Adivasi culture to send them to Ayodhya,” Mewani said. “I suggest if the BJP wants to help give them Rs 5,000 but what’s the need for Ayodhya pilgrimage? Let Adivasis look up to Jaipal Singh Munda and Birsa Munda. The BJP should empower them by Panchayat Extension to Scheduled Areas (PESA) Act, 1996. The BJP’s idea to convert Adivasis into Vanvasis is sinister.”
(Inputs by Janvi Sonaiya)
