SUMAN K SHRIVASTAVA
Ranchi, December 27: Former Education Minister and daughter of iconic tribal leader Kartik Oraon, Geetashree Oraon, has rebuked the BJP and the RSS affiliates for invoking her father’s legacy in the run-up to the Lok Sabha elections.
Using the centenary celebrations of the veteran Congress leader to their advantage, the BJP and the RSS affiliates have intensified their campaign to delist the Christian tribals from the list of Scheduled Tribes (STs), an issue first raised by Kartik Oraon, a three-term Congress MP from Lohardaga and a minister in the Indira Gandhi government, in 1967.
He introduced a private member bill, i.e. “The Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Order (Amendment) Bill, on August 12, 1967. The Bill, however, was dumped in 1970.
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Geetashree said that the demand to delist the Christian tribals from the list of Scheduled Tribes (STs) invoking his father’s legacy is a ploy of the BJP and the RSS affiliates to destroy the tribal heritage.
Adidharma vs Hindu dharma
“There is a big difference in what my father wanted for tribals and what the BJP is trying to do. My father talked of Adidharma, and not Hindu dharma, when he opposed the ST privileges to Christian tribals. He even advocated reservation for poor Christians,” she pointed out.
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“On the other hand, the BJP talks of Hindu dharma. They always profess that the Sanatan-Sarna ek hai (Sarna followers are Sanatani Hindus). The leaders like Karia Munda have always sermonised Christian tribals of ‘ghar wapsi’ that implies they should return to the Hindu fold,” she maintained.
Political legacy
Geetashree has inherited her father’s political legacy, as none of her siblings are into politics. Her brother Tej Prakash, who once unsuccessfully fought an assembly election, runs a gas agency in Ranchi.
Her mother, Sumati Oraon, also served as the Union Minister of State for Welfare between 1987 and 1988 and the Union Minister of State for the Environment and Forests between 1988 and 1989.
Geetashree was the education minister in the Hemant Soren government in 2013. She quit Congress in early 2022, protesting the Hemant Soren government’s tribal language policy in third and fourth-grade government jobs. However, she rejoined the Congress recently.
Defensive on Congress forgetfulness
Ironically, she was defensive, explaining why the Congress had forgotten Kartik Oraon in his birth centenary year.
“It is not a question of comparison. We see a more considerable danger in the BJP ploy. Hamare kandha par banduk rakh kar hum par hi tane hue hain (They are destroying us by placing a gun on our shoulder),” she maintained.
The Congress leader said that the BJP’s tribal politics is deceitful. “They are not our well-wishers,” she added.
Sarna code
Reiterating her demand for the Sarna code for Adivasis, Geetashree said once the tribals are counted as Hindus, they will be deprived of the privileges guaranteed by the Constitution. She reasoned that the share of our privileges depends on our count in the census, adding Hindusiation of indigenous people is aimed at destroying them.
“The population of tribals must be around 15 crores, but the last census pegged it at 10.40 crore. So, I see a manipulation in the census data, too,” she signed off.
