By Rev. Lyndan Syiem
On Monday, 26 September, The Shillong Times carried the news report, “Everyone living in Bharat is a ‘Hindu’: RSS chief.” This statement by Mr. Mohan Bhagwat has gained some support and much publicity, but it has also produced a lot of opposition over the conflation of religious and ethnic identity, and the superimposition of a religious label over socio-cultural identity. This is not a new statement by the RSS, and it has been uttered on many occasions and at many places all over the country. But when it is spoken by the organization’s top leader at a public function on the soil of Meghalaya, there will naturally be questions at the local level. On what basis are we the Khasi-Pnar and the Garo tribes of Meghalaya now labelled as Hindus? More importantly, for what purpose has such a labelling been made?
The identification of the Khasi-Jaiñtias and Garos as Hindus because they are inhabitants of Bharat is historically incorrect. We have never been a part of ancient Bharat, nor of the Mauryan Empire, nor the Gupta Empire, not even of the medieval Mughal Empire. It was only after the First Anglo-Burmese War of 1824-26 and the subsequent Treaty of Yandaboo that the plateau now known as Meghalaya was conquered and occupied by the British during the years 1826-30, 1835 and 1866-73. This led to the region’s gradual integration with the British Empire in India and eventually in 1947, accession into Independent India.
Today, very few in Meghalaya will seriously and systematically litigate over the Instrument of Accession signed by our traditional rulers in 1947-48; fewer still will sacrifice material comfort and their children’s security to pursue Independence from the Indian Union. Admittedly, the Instrument of Accession is a great subject for academic debates and is often used as a rhetorical point during political campaigns. But the reality is that the Khasi-Jaiñtia and Garo tribes are willing citizens of a diverse, democratic India, where most of us do not need the label Hindu to reinforce our identity.
Yes, it is true that in ancient times the Persians and Greeks used the exonym ‘Hindu’ to refer to people living near and beyond the Indus river. However, by no stretch of history or of imagination was the term ever applied to us, the hill tribals living far East of the Ganga river. In any case, the word ‘Hindu’ in the present time legally and officially refers to a particular religion, which is numerically the third largest religion in the world and the largest in India. The tribals of Meghalaya do not uniformly follow one religion, so to include them under Hinduism is technically incorrect, as is evident from the decadal Census data. There is also a Constitutional definition of Scheduled Tribes (which we are), and religious identity is not among the parameters. So yes, some among the Khasi-Pnar and Garo tribes are Hindus or accept the label, but not all of us do.
By the same reasoning, it would be incorrect to call Meghalaya a ‘Christian state,’ just because 74.59% of the population (2011 Census) are affiliated to this particular faith. It would be more appropriate to call it a Christian majority state, just as India is a Hindu majority country. On the whole though it is best to keep religious identity apart from ethnicity, apart from socio-cultural identity, and far, far apart from politics. This position has classically been articulated as ‘separatio ecclesiae et civitatis,’ separation of Church and state, or more generally, separation of religion from the state. This does not mean prohibiting individual members of various religions from participating in government and politics, but it does mean the responsible distancing of religious organizations from the government machinery and the political process.
I had written an article in The Shillong Times on 2 June, 2022, defending the separation of Church and State, entailing a responsible separation of religion from politics. At that time, there had been criticisms from the Christian activist perspective, that my position was a non-starter and that the Church in Meghalaya was afraid of challenging corruption and publicly calling out those in power. There was a suggestion that the church plays Pontius Pilate to safeguard its own interests. If you think carefully however, once it becomes accepted for apex church bodies to regularly and officially criticize government policies, procedures, problems and personalities, you can no longer protest when other religions in the state follow suit. What you would call interference in our delicate social and cultural fabric may be defended as ideological conviction.
So to my activist friends demanding the Church’s intervention in every administrative and political crisis, this conservative traditionalist would advise individual members, rather than the hierarchy, to respond. It is easy to criticize the Church in the media; it is a soft target that will rarely fight back. But it is much harder to personally work for people’s empowerment at the grassroots level, and to accept the challenge of exposing corruption in high places, and not just short term dalliances either, but dedicated, long term service.
And then to those questioning the church’s alleged silence over socio-political issues, I would inform you that building denomination-wide consensus over every issue is difficult, time consuming and creates the precedent of having to respond afresh to every subsequent issue. More ominously, once you sow the seeds of religious groups intervening in political matters, you will reap the harvest of a tribal community breaking apart. We the Khasi-Pnar people are tightly-bound together not by religion or politics but by the sacredness of clan, community life, marriage relations, historical consciousness and language.
We all know that this is the pre-election season and that a statement by any church or any religious group can be interpreted as pro-government or anti-government, as support or criticism of a party or a coalition. Individual members of all religions, as citizens of India, are free to commend or criticize policies and practices of the government. They are free to enter and to exit political parties, free to make political statements. But it is not so for the Church, nor is it prudent for the clergy to speak or be present at events that can be construed as support for or criticism of a particular party. When we show the example of responsible distancing, we are helping to build a meritocratic democracy and signifying that people ought not to be swayed by appeals to religious identity or denominational affiliation.
It was the perceptive G.K. Chesterton who wrote, “Whenever you remove any fence, always pause long enough to ask why it was put there in the first place.” Some activists would have us breach the fence between religion and politics, others between religion and ethnicity, without pausing to count the ultimate cost on society, culture and community. Please realize that this is a Constitutional fence that was erected by the great generation of freedom fighters that had actually fought British imperialism on the streets, on salt marches and Satyagrahas, and spent years in jails. They had sacrificed family and fortune to achieve our freedom and they had attempted to preserve that freedom in the Constitution, in the three branches of government, in the free press and in an educated, enlightened electorate. May we all be faithful to the letter and spirit of the Constitution.