COMMENTARY

Cultural Positioning of Tribes in North-east India

Mapping the Evolving Heraka Identity
Soihiamlung Dangmei

While the vast majority of Naga tribes converted to Christianity, the Zeliangrong people follow an indigenous religion known as the Heraka that was formed out of a movement to reform their traditional religion. Since many of the practices of the Heraka are derived from Hinduism, the Sangh parivar has declared them to be vanvasi (forest-dwellers) and sought to assimilate them into the Hindu fold. This article examines the close association of RSS and the Herakas followers, their convergence and difference, and more particularly, the impact on the cultural positioning of the Heraka. It also examines the construction of the Heraka identity along the distinct lines of Hindus and Christians.

Soihiamlung Dangmei (soihiam@yahoo.com) is with the Department of Political Science, Indira Gandhi National Tribal University, Manipur.
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espite the fact that the Indian nation state is publicised as one carrying a long and rich civilisational heritage, it is largely a product of a 19th century Indian response to British colonialism (Baruah 2009: 177). However, while Indias modern, educated, urban elite whose intellectual horizons were extended by modern ideas and whose sphere of action was expanded by modern agencies thought it was possible to unite India in a single political community (Khilnani 2004: 5), the concept of Hinduism as a force unifying religious tradition and the distinctiveness of Hindu culture as a bounded category was fashioned from the 17th century onwards due to interventions by colonial administrators, travellers, scholars and missionaries in the Indian subcontinent. The modern notion of Hindu nationalism began with V D Savarkar in his book Who Is a Hindu? that provided the ideology for the establishment of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) in 1925 by K B Hedgewar. The RSS is a cultural organisation that believes in cultural nationalism1 and espouses the Hindu identity and cultural heritage, which in turn has political ramications. The argument enunciated by G S Ghurye and aggressively advocated by the RSS and its afliates to describe tribal communities as Hindus has had unprecedented consequences for tribes in India
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(Xaxa 2005: 1364), leading to difculties in understanding tribes as distinct and authentic groups. Certainly, there are both similarities and differences in the religious practices of Hindus and the tribes, but the protagonists of Hindutva have conveniently overlooked the differences between them. In colonial literature, though the tribes were no doubt characterised by their distinctive religions, they were also seen in conjunction with other dimensions, especially their isolation from the larger society. Advocates of Hindutva, however, conceive tribes solely in religious term. For the RSS, being a Hindu is an issue associated with cultural nationalism. In northeast India, for example, the RSS agenda is to build the Hindu nation. A person who had taken birth in India, who may follow any religion, caste, creed or any form of worship but who thinks that India is his motherland and holy land is a Hindu, asserted an RSS activist in north-east India.2 The RSS does not force anybody to be a Hindu, he said, it only tries to impart a sense of nationalism to everyone. That some tribes have a pattern of worship similar to Hinduism does not necessarily mean that the RSS is undertaking proselytisation activities in the north-east, he said, but rather the religious practices of some tribes were inuenced by Hinduism much before the advent of the RSS, making religion the sole criterion to dene and assimilate tribes into the Hindu fold. Hindutva Project Towards this end, the RSS has woven an intricate network through its numerous afliates to reach out to tribal people across the country to promote Hindutva. Operating as social workers under different labels, members of these organisations
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work to inculcate a feeling of self-respect and condence among the tribal people. Their success in persuading the tribal people to return to their roots in Hindu culture has translated into votes for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the last few elections. Indeed, after the tribal people, who had traditionally voted for the Congress since Independence, shifted their loyalty to Hindutva, their votes catapulted the BJP to power in Gujarat, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. The Hindutva project to include tribal cultures and traditions into an overarching Hindu monolith is a strategy that has been part of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and RSS since their inception.3 The RSS-backed Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram (VKA), or tribal welfare organisation, started to work among the Naga tribes as early as 1978.4 The VHP began work among nonChristian Naga, primarily the Zeliangrong people who follow an indigenous religion known as the Heraka,5 and defended them against Christian proselytisation. Derived from the traditional practice known as Paupaise, the Heraka is a religious reform movement that was organised from disparate groups of the early 1930s into a centralised and effective movement in 1974 (Longkumer 2008). As a result of their outreach, the ideology of the RSS and VHP had already seeped into the rhetoric of the Herakas followers and their discourse is often peppered with various Hindutva catchphrases like, All religions have truth, compassion, and love and are like streams that go into one ocean, or Invasion of foreign religion and foreign culture will bring total destruction of Naga society that reect neo-Hindu projection of the self and tradition and constitute a part of the mass programme of unifying Hindu society (ibid: 166). Alongside, powerful symbols such as Om and the swastika are commonly found in the homes of the followers of the Heraka. VHP activists distribute images of Ram and Sita to this group. Indeed, the use of such visual material is one of the new means adopted by Hindutva groups to disseminate their ideology among the tribal people. Once they appropriate or use these civilisational symbols, the Herakas followers are immediately seen
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as assimilating into the Hindu fold and delineating themselves from the largely Christian population. This assimilation is projected through the subtle deployment of Sanatan Dharma (eternal faith and culture) and the wider net of Hindu solidarity (ibid). Organisations like the Janjati Vikas Samiti or VKA, which work under the umbrella of Akhil Bharatiya Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram, are active with developmental projects, education and also in providing organisational support to win over the Herakas followers. Indeed, the VKA has made a huge nancial and cultural investment to integrate the Heraka movement with Bharat Mata (Mother India). For instance, the VKA has recognised Rani Gaidinliu and Haipou Jadonang, two charismatic leaders who founded the Heraka movement in the mid-1930s, as freedom ghters and included them in a promotional poster that is prominently displayed in the Heraka and VKA ofces. Attempts are also made to link the vanvasi (forest dwellers) with the rest of Hindu civilisation. Instead of progressing with a sophisticated notion of adivasi (tribal) culture and its place in Indian society, the notion of vanvasi reverts to an ideological pristine state that can somehow be preserved. The Herakas followers are seen as preserving the Sanatan Dharma, which is treated synonymously with traditional Hinduism. For the RSS, the Heraka movement presents a practice that is consonant with the Hindu ethos. The VHP began its work in the North Cachar Hills of Assam as early as 1972 when it established free hostels for students in Haong. In 1994, the Vivekananda Vidyalaya School was started in the same place. In the initial years, the VHP focused only on the Haong town area where it increased the number of hostels for both boys and girls. However, in 2004 it extended its work to the Heraka villages of Boro Chanam, Laisong, Hezaichak, N Songkai and Boro Haong where it imparted free education and a subsidised hostel fee of Rs 3,000 per year.6 Many of these students attend these schools and live in the hostels. The Ramakrishna Mission too provides free education to the Heraka students through two schools, one in the Haong area and the other in the Laisong area.
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The association of the VHP and VKA with literacy and education is reected in a vast network of schools and colleges across the country. Every year, many Heraka students are sent to these schools in Chhattisgarh, Uttarakhand, Haryana and Maharashtra on scholarships where along with a secular curriculum, they are also imparted a right-wing Hindu ideology (Longkumer 2008: 184-85). Overall, however, the education has been benecial for students. But when it comes to religious instruction, the students follow the religion practised in the schools, viz, Hinduism. Since these students are normally on scholarships, it is difcult for them to disrespect the wishes of the people running these schools. Eventually, these students often speak uent Hindi and are, by default, inuenced by the Hindu way of life. The reason for the Heraka students seeking education in Hindu schools is because it is free. Besides, these schools provide free clothing and other necessities. Students who are sent to cities like Delhi, Bangalore and Chennai on scholarship are usually required to compulsorily serve in the schools. However, many return home on some pretext or the other mainly because they do not want to work in those schools after completing their studies. Negotiating Boundaries The close association of the Herakas followers with the RSS makes it difcult to demarcate the religious boundaries between them. Christians consider the followers of the Heraka as Hindus because even though they are Naga, they practise some aspects of the Hindu way of life. Indeed, some followers of the Heraka claim to be Hindus. A Heraka priest argued, Since we live in Hindustan, we call ourselves as Heraka Hindus, but the religion is different from Hinduism.7 He argued that the Heraka are Zeliangrong Hindus and different from Bengali Hindus. On the question of the presence of Hindu symbols like Om, posters of Hindu gods and goddesses, and Hindu calendars in Heraka homes, the priest argued that these were symbol of brotherhood, enabling the Heraka to seek help from Indian Hindus whenever necessary. The Heraka also celebrate Hindu festivals like
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Holi and Diwali. Besides, in the Heraka programmes and events, Hindus are invited. For instance, during the celebration of the Herakas school silver jubilee in Tenning, Nagaland in 2010, many Hindu leaders and organisations participated. However, the close association and the imitation of the Hindu way of life makes it difcult for the Herakas followers to maintain their distinct religious identity, especially when there are posters depicting Hindu gods, the Om symbol, and calendars published and circulated by Hindu organisations in their homes. One may argue that the moment a tribal religion loses its unique features its purity and distinctiveness is lost. But this does not mean that the tribal religions are static and closed. There has always been an active incorporation of the new elements and reformation of the old, the evidence of which can be found in the elaboration of myths and general beliefs. RSS-VHP ideologues argue that students who are educated in Christian missionary schools do not know their own culture, as modern education weakens tribal culture. In the same breath they claim that they do not convert tribal people to Hinduism. A VHP worker argued that Hindus do not teach or propagate Hinduism in their schools whatever they teach in their schools includes general knowledge, not Hindu prayers or rituals8 and since Christians are averse to the Heraka, Hindu schools serve the latters interests. Christians, on the other hand, contend that the Heraka students educated in Hindu schools sing xenophobic and Hindu devotional songs and practise yoga. Interestingly, the Heraka followers hold Christians responsible for the loss of Zeliangrong culture. For them, their religious identity marks their Zeliangrong identity since Heraka is the sole religion of the Zeliangrong. For the followers of the Heraka or any indigenous faith in north-east India, religion and culture are inseparable, there is no sacralising of space and there is no dichotomy between the secular and non-secular. Religion, culture, tradition and polity are interwoven in tribal societies. Once a person converts, he/she refuses to participate in the communitys festivals, and other obligations are not binding on
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the new convert. This is the reason why a convert has to leave the village and settle down in a Christian village or move to a new place. Therefore, a Christian dissociates himself not only from his indigenous community life, but also from his culture and tradition. Between Cross and Saffron The colonial administration in northeast India categorised communities into ethnic slots for administrative purposes. However, these people rarely conceived their identity in terms of ethnicity because although they belonged to a certain polity, they mixed with a world where boundaries shifted and were redrawn accordingly. In a sense, this construct began with classication. Such classication was important for the British because new religious movements, which were thought to spread across tribal boundaries, confused categories and created fear in the administration of the rise of a pan-tribal alliance. As a result, these movements were considered a threat, as subversive of traditional society as of the colonial order. Such a situation was created in the case when Haipou Jadonang and Rani Gaidinliu caused a stir with their movement to reform traditional Paupaise practices. Jadonang was accused of inventing a religion that was a debased form of Hinduism, while Gaidinliu was cast as a sorceress and the new priestess of this cult. When this reform movement became popular, Jadonang used civilisational symbols from the Hindu pantheon, such as Vishnu and Mahadev, to crystallise and evoke a sense of awe through the appropriation of these powerful symbols to further the reform movement. However, the religious reforms propagated by Jadonang and Gaidinliu did not associate with Hindu organisations in the initial years; rather, they were an agitation against the spread of both Hinduism and Christianity. There is a constant fear about the loss of tradition, culture, language, and religion among the followers of the Heraka. Not surprisingly, followers of the Heraka often try to nd links with the local tradition. By rejecting a global religious practice such as Christianity, they nd their
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identity in the reality of home. They construct a viable rhetoric of indigenising their faith while proclaiming Christianity as foreign and by evoking powerful symbols such as death, they are able to cement this bond and encourage their members to hang on to their practices. In the initial years of conversion, Christians were more conscious of their religious identity than their ethnic identity. This consciousness is present in the minds of the Christians even today, i e, their religious consciousness of being Christian is more signicant and pervasive than their ethnicity of being a Zeliangrong. The closeness of the Heraka with Hindu organisations betrays allegiance to Naga nationalism in the eyes of the Christians. Christians constantly mock the insecurities of the followers of the Heraka by questioning if their feathers have been smudged by Hindu incense. Hindu organisations, on the other hand, assert a sense of historicity by linking the vanvasi to Bharat Mata. The difculty to nd a comfortable identity for the Heraka followers is also connected with the larger question of Naga nationalism and the politics it engenders. The slogan Nagaland for Christ is the crux of the issue for the Herakas followers for participation in the Nagas political struggle. Besides, because of the mass conversions, Christianity has become part and parcel of Naga identity.9 This is true because in many countries the Naga are known through Christian missionaries and their institutions. For Naga Christians, the politics of Indias nation-building is a source of historical suspicion. Indeed, the position of Rani Gaidinliu and the expression of her Indianness as well as her Naga identity is something the followers of Heraka do not want to draw attention given the present political situation. Conclusion There is an ambiguity in the Heraka attempt to maintain a distinct cultural identity, separate social space and religious outlook. The RSS appropriation and the misgivings of the Heraka movement is something that the latters followers are not able to resist because they are embedded in the Hindutva nation-building
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project. Therefore, the struggle to maintain a distinct identity for the Heraka and to promote its religious reform movement became ineffective or misguided. Besides, the Heraka followers search and claim of their religious indigeneity has facilitated the confluence. This is because both the RSS and the Heraka consider Christianity as a foreign religion. Indeed, Christianity is one of the important factors, or perhaps the most important factor, that brought the Heraka followers and RSS together. Besides, the Heraka followers often try to broaden and transcend local influence and elevate their indigenous religion so that they can compete with world religions. The closeness with the RSS, in fact, has helped the followers of the Heraka in propagating their religion on a broader and higher platform. However, in sharing the higher platform with the RSS, some elements of Hinduism have been incorporated in their daily life. It is for this reason the followers of Heraka are either seen as Hindus or part of Hinduism.
Notes
1 The RSS today is a nationalist organisation whose contribution to character-building of millions and towards inculcating in them the spirit of patriotism, idealism and selfless service of the motherland has been incomparable. It is

2 3

this organisation that has inspired tens of thousands of public-spirited persons to serve the nation through the medium of politics. Those in the political field and those who are serving the society in other fields have to function with unity and trust like a family to ensure that the country secures its rightful place in the country of nations. See Jaffrelot (2007:191-92). Personal interview and discussion with an RSS activist in March 2011 in north-east India. In 1964, in association with Hindu clerics, the RSS set up the VHP (World Council of Hindus), a movement responsible for grouping the heads of various Hindu sects in order to lend this hitherto unorganised religion a sort of centralised structure. The VHP was established with the purpose of generating unity among all faiths, sects and communities, addressed as Hindu, and to make society well-organised, integrated and true follower of dharma. It aspires for unity, cohesion, integrity and a proper attitude towards national life. See Bajpai et al (2007:31). The Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram was founded in 1952 at Jashpurnagar, Chhattisgarh, but it came to the north-east only in 1978. The Heraka is a socio-religious reform movement of the Zeliangrong Naga derived from their traditional religion. It was organised from disparate groups of the early 1930s into a centralised and effective movement in 1974 in Assam, Nagaland and Manipur. Initially, the movement was started by Haipou Jadonang in 1929. But due to his early execution, the movement was carried forward by his disciple Rani Gaidinliu. The reform aims for the abolition of the obscurantist customs and superstitious practices. Heraka means pure, which is not mixing with other evil things. The word Hera means god and Ka means fence, meaning god fencing out to evil gods and keeping his people inside his fence. Those who are inside the fence are called Herakame, which means the pure people. See Newme (1991:1).

6 Interview with a VHP worker in Haflong, NC Hills of Assam in April 2011. 7 Interview with Heraka priest of Nrianam, NC Hills, Assam in March 2011. 8 Interview with a VHP worker in Haflong, A ssam in April 2011. 9 Mention must be made here that the Nagas had no interaction with India proper throughout the historical period. The British formulation of the excluded area kept them excluded from the Indian mainstream during British rule. Christianity came in handy to create an apprehension against Indianisation, which the leaders branded as Hinduisation. See Choudhury (1999:95).

REFERENCES
Bajpai, Suresh Chandra, Harish Chandra Barthawal (2007): RSS: At a Glance (New Delhi: Suruchi Prakashan). Baruah, Sanjib, ed. (2009): Beyond Counter-Insurgency: Breaking the Impasse in Northeast India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press). Choudhury, Sujit (1999): The North-East: A Concept Re-Examined in Kailash S Aggarwal (ed.), Dynamics of Identity and Intergroup Relations in North-East India (Shimla: Indian Institute of Advanced Study). Jaffrelot, Christophe, ed. (2007): Hindu Nationalism: A Reader (Ranikhet: Permanent Black Publisher). Khilnani, Sunil (2004): The Idea of India (New Delhi: Penguin Books). Longkumer, Arkotong (2008): Where Do I Belong? Evolving Reform and Identity amongst the Zeme Heraka of North Cachar Hills, Assam, India, PhD thesis, Religious Studies Department, School of Divinity, University of Edinburgh. Newme, Ramkuiwangbe (1991): Tingwang Hingde (Guwahati: Regional Zeliangrong Heraka A ssociation, Assam). Xaxa, Virginius (2005): Politics of Language, Religion and Identity: Tribes in India, Economic & Political Weekly, 26 March.

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