This is a very brief account of some of my visits to the tribal areas of Madhya Pradesh. It is neither a chronicle of events nor a comprehensive report of our work there. It is just a write-up about some of the things that have taken place here which I can recall during my recent visit there. We have been working in this area for quite some time when we get the time. Itarsi is a very important railway junction between the Northern, Southern, Eastern, and Western parts of India. So, during my train journeys, I could take what is called a “break journey” in railway terminology here very easily. Premanand and I have also been there together quite a few times. Madhya Pradesh is one of the states of India which has a very large population of tribals even after the splitting off of Chhattisgarh, which was made into a separate state some years ago. In some areas of this state, there are a large number of tribals. In collaboration with some groups, we have been trying to encourage these people to think rationally about things taking place in their lives. It is important here that we don’t try to replace their belief systems with something equally, if not more, irrational. This has been the job of the Christian missionaries, who tried to replace their animistic idols with that of the cross and icons of Jesus Christ under the guise of saving their souls. The Sangh Parivar, which woke up late but swung into action with vigor, did what the upper castes have been doing all the time—superimposing their pantheon of Hindu gods on the worship system of these people! The upper-caste Hindus have a way of looking at the gods worshipped by the lower castes as superstitions and trying to substitute them with their own. Thereby, they can also perpetuate the exploitative system, as the Hindu gods require the intervention of the priestly class, who are naturally from the upper castes! The Muslims have perhaps not intervened here as they were of the ruling class imposed from outside, but they were part of the ruling elite owning land and much property. The Adivasis (the first inhabitants) have their own set of rituals, culture, and—as is to be expected—those who exploit their superstitious beliefs. Stepping into this system, I did not want to run a campaign that would impose another belief system upon them or pave the way for others to use our campaign to serve their ends!
We have been having programs in the areas around Itarsi and Betul in this state. Most of them have been conducted by the organisation of Rajesh Parashar and his friends, all of whom are teachers. Many of them are with the Tribal Welfare Department, which is running special schools for the underprivileged, that is, the Scheduled Castes and Tribes. They have enabled our campaign to reach the students and the villages. Training programs have also been conducted to make their own youngsters learn the techniques, get back to their people, and create awareness among them. In the last decade, we have been holding programs in villages and tribal schools to increase the levels of awareness among these most exploited people of our country, in every sense of the word. They have been ruthlessly evicted from their land in the name of development, they have been used as cheap labor, and their women have been sexually exploited.
We have to use very different techniques and scripts when interacting with them. It is hardly of any use talking to them about the miracles of Sathya Sai Baba and such urban godmen, or debunking things like astrology. They have never heard of them. But they have their own versions of them called Ojhas, Bhagats, Padeyars, and such. They also have witches called Dayins, who are supposed to cast evil spells, and also their own rituals. A combination of these ensures that they remain in penury and open to more exploitation! As already expressed, it is a tough job to see that these evils are combated without trying to affect their culture. There is a standing invitation from some of the groups in this area to visit and conduct programs whenever I pass through! During one such visit, I had the opportunity to interact with tribal children at a training program in Betul at the district school for these boys about a decade ago. We trained them in the techniques, and I also had some programs in nearby villages. In one such village, the headman invited me to use a platform where religious ceremonies are performed. One person was continuously asking questions about everything that I was doing and genially interfering with the proceedings. So, I made him sit on the side in the chair which had been given to me so that I could keep an eye on him. As always, a number of items were shown and explained, particularly those which were being performed in their area. At the end of the interaction, I asked the audience whether they had anyone in their village who had magical powers and who could take my challenges to demonstrate them. Many of them pointed out the man who was sitting on the chair and said that he was the Bhagat of the village. In this area, the local healer is called a Bhagat. At that, he told me that he was a good one, always helped people, and never took anything from anyone. When he said that, one man got up from the audience and accused him: “You don’t take anything from anyone? Who ate my goat?” Another person said that this man had eaten his chicken after sacrificing it! A third one pointed at him and told me that he had taken four hundred rupees from him, saying that he would cure his knee joint pain by his spiritual powers. Allegations came flying so thick and fast that the Bhagat had to beat a hasty retreat. But before going away, he massaged the knee joints of an old lady who was lying outside a nearby hut warming her legs in the sun! I was told that it was the first time anyone took on this fellow! He must have come to our program to learn new tricks!
Among the various tribes here, we have some who were labeled by the British as criminal tribes and notified accordingly. If any crime took place where they were around, they would be taken to police stations and tortured as the first suspects. In fact, they would be considered guilty until proven innocent. In a village called Pipariya near Itarsi, I had a one-day interaction with the members of one such tribe called Pardhis, invited by an NGO working for them. There were a number of them, including some young girls. The day’s interaction was over, and I was about to return after packing my things. I had reached the bus stand when one of the girls came running after me with a two-rupee coin. For training sleight-of-hand techniques, I had given some coins to those who had none with them. All of them had returned them. This girl had forgotten to return it and had gone home. On finding that, she had come running after me to return it! This from a member of a habitually “criminal tribe”! Such labels had been attached by the British, probably prompted by some vested interests, and had been continued till India became independent. After independence, the label was changed to “Denotified Tribes,” but the prejudices continue. As the head of the NGO who was with me remarked: imagine this from people who have been accused of being habitual thieves! In the last week, I read in the newspapers that six members of a family belonging to this tribe were burnt alive in a village in Maharashtra. They are abhorred and made to stay outside villages in temporary structures. They are also driven away when some crime occurs. They are also prey to a number of superstitions of all types.
Near Itarsi, there is a dam called the Tawa Dam. In constructing that and to accommodate the rising backwaters, many tribal villages were displaced. For them, settlements were made, alongside attempts to educate the children in special schools by providing them with free accommodation and schooling. We have collaborated with an NGO here to train and send educated youth to their villages to create scientific temper among the members of their communities. There is a tribal school at Khesla nearby, and one of the teachers there, Rajesh Parashar, and his friends have built up a group of tribal boys and girls who are now interested in trying to bring about a change among their people. Last June, we had a training program for some of them at Itarsi, which was attended by about forty participants. We trained them for five days, and after all the dropouts and those who have not taken any interest thereafter, we have a small group of three who are now keen to work for the development of rational thinking among their own. They belong to the Gond and Korku tribes, and we are on the lookout for funds to sponsor them for some time so that they could work with some sort of economic freedom. In fact, when we went around conducting programs in these areas this time as a curtain-raiser for the activities to follow later, three of them accompanied us for the day, and we had a number of interactions with these tribals in their own villages and at a village weekly bazaar. In these areas, we heard a lot of things about the exploitation by their so-called healers, called Padeyars. They said that they would first say that their services were free and start rituals; as they went on for days, they would claim that sacrifices of animals and liquor were needed to pacify the angry spirits, and then also demand money. The people who accompanied me insisted on performing one of the most well-known demonstrations of their so-called supernatural powers—that is, performing *aarti* or worship with fire with a piece of lit camphor on their palms and then transferring it to their tongue. They were surprised to see their own boys doing it. After conducting programs at the weekly bazaar, we were informed that there were girls at a nearby hostel run especially for them. These and some more from another nearby hostel were invited, and we had a very good program for them. These girls promised us that they would question many of the practices when they went home.
During the last training camp at Itarsi, I had been invited to an interaction with tribals who had come from all parts of the state to attend a film festival at Bhopal. This was held at around 11:00 PM, and though they were all tired after a hectic day’s activity, and so was I after having conducted a training program for nearly eight hours that day, we had an excellent response. They were all very surprised to see that many of the things they had ascribed to the supernatural powers of their so-called healers were things which anyone could do with a little bit of help and an understanding of the principles of science. During this visit, I went back to the same place, which was actually a school for the more intelligent students of Scheduled Castes who had been selected after state-level entrance examinations. There were these very intelligent students coming from various backgrounds, but all belonging to some of the most oppressed classes whom we would choose to be identified with—the Dalits. They, along with the tribals, have been outcastes for thousands of years and have been subjected to atrocities of all kinds. It was a pleasure to interact with these very intelligent youngsters and kick off their celebration of Vigyan Diwas, or Science Day, which was to be on the 28th of February. After Bhopal, I went to Indore, where we had a five-day training camp for students of some colleges who were studying social work. This program was organized by Anand, who is a lecturer in a college of social work at Indore, and his organization, called Deen Bandhu Samaj. There were undergraduates, postgraduates, and research students. Some of them were very vehement Christians, and we had a few nuns, too. Most of them were tribals who were either converted to Christianity or continuing with their usual customs. Ours was a five-day program on training these people to create scientific temper in the community. Some of them, particularly the devout Christians, were very much affected by my statements about the efficacy of prayer to heal disease and brought some others to confront and defeat me in argument. On the third day of the training program, some new people came and were sitting at the back of the hall. When I asked for people to clarify their doubts, one of them asked me how I could say that prayer does not work to heal disease. At that, he asked me how Benny Hinn heals people by prayer. I told him that Benny Hinn had better heal his own broken marriage before he starts healing others. They were not aware of that and were shocked. He then asked me how people fall down in a trance when he commands. I gave a command, and five people in the front row collapsed in a trance. I told him that they were fixed, the same way Benny Hinn does! Then he told me that prayer can move mountains. I took a coin in my hand and told him to move it upwards by prayer. He replied that it works only on living things. I showed him my arm, circled a few hairs with a ballpoint pen, and asked him to pray and make them disappear in an hour! I had to tell them that I had no objection to people praying, though it was a waste of time in my opinion! But when claims were made that it could perform physical changes, we would need evidence with proper controlled trials. I also quoted the American study which was done under controlled conditions which proved that prayer does not have any effect on the course of disease. I also told them that prayer for the ill was perhaps a device which could help to overcome the feeling of helplessness that one gets when one’s loved ones are ill and one is unable to do anything for them! I was thinking that this silencing through arguments would drive them away, but they kept coming again for the next two days!
We have had campaigns among all sections of society, but those with the oppressed sections are more needed, as they have been the worst victims of superstitions, particularly untouchability. Added to that, they have been displaced from the lands which they have been living on for thousands of years in the name of “development.” The votaries of Hindutva do not address them as Adivasis, as that would mean that they were the original occupants of the land—they give them a fancy nomenclature and call them Girijans: people of the hills! We would certainly like to try and create awareness among them to stop their exploitation, so that they can lead their lives the way they choose to and not have belief systems thrust on them by hook or crook, as has been going on for centuries. We would certainly not like to be like those who decry their practices as primitive superstitions and then try to impose their own brands of superstitious beliefs on them. We are also looking for people who could sponsor a few of these boys for a year or two to conduct programs to demystify superstitions and create scientific temper among their people.
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