Matribhumi Samachar English
The entire western belt of Jharkhand has long functioned as fertile ground for missionary conversion activities. This is no hidden reality. Not only are the common people aware of it, but successive governments are as well. Some exploit the converted population as vote banks, while others appear helpless or unwilling to intervene. Organiser has consistently exposed this nexus, from cheap inducements and subtle manipulation to the evolving strategies that missionaries employ to acclimatise themselves to local traditions. This report is another link in that continuing investigation.
On December 31, we visited the largest church in Simdega town, St Anna Catholic Church in Samtoli, established in 1903. What we encountered was hundreds of tribals who, after years of sustained propaganda, have been drawn away from their ancestral practices and into Christian rituals. Simdega, considered a stronghold of missionary activity where they operate openly and assertively, welcomed Organiser with the imposing Velankanni Mata Shrine, run by Carmelite fathers. Within the town itself are three other churches. St Anna Catholic Church is the largest among them, which is why it was chosen for this report.
At approximately 2 pm, we arrived at the church to speak with the pastor and the father overseeing it. We learned that the father in charge, Father Agnasisous Tete, himself belongs to the Khariya tribe. His deputy, Father Adman Bada, is also a converted Christian from the Oraon tribe. During the day, Father Adman was reluctant to speak, repeatedly stating that only Father Agnasisous would interact with us and that he was unavailable. After waiting for nearly two hours, we decided to leave and return at night, when the mass prayer session was scheduled between 10 pm and 1 am.
Before leaving, we walked around the church premises. Inside, we found a large compound adorned with decorations and hangings, a prominent cross, and a stage prepared for the night’s proceedings. Opposite the stage, a couple was engaged in a photoshoot. This caught our attention because the bride was wearing henna, sindoor, and a bindi. When asked, the groom explained that applying sindoor during church weddings is a ritual that has been practised there for decades.
Ashit, from the Oraon tribe, and Vandana, from the Khariya tribe, “the Christian tribal couple,” shared details of the marriage process. They said church marriages take place only after baptism, Holy Communion, and confirmation. Ashit explained, “If you will go to the western part of India, in Goa or Mumbai, you will not find the Sindoor but in the Eastern part of the country here in Jharkhand, Bihar, Chhattisgarh and other states, we have Sindoor ceremony in the Church weddings.” He added, “In this Church, gowns are not allowed, women can only wear sarees.”
When asked whether his mother follows the same customs and whether their religious and cultural practices have been abandoned, Ashit said, “We are tribals we follow our culture, for instance we celebrate Sohrai, a tribal festival.” Asked whether Sohrai involves cow worship, he replied, “No we don’t worship the cow but only honour them as they were considered Lakshmi in our community.”
Inside Father Adman Bada’s office, we observed wedding invitation cards bearing tribal names. These cards featured Christian symbols such as the cross and Jesus on one side, while also including Haldi, a distinctly Hindu ritual in which turmeric and kumkum are applied to invitation cards before distribution.
Outside the church, two food carts selling samosas were stationed nearby. Both bore Hindu symbols such as Om and posters of Bhagwan. One of the vendors, Sumitra, told Organiser, “The church is against us selling samosa here, they do jaat-paat, we are Hindus and that is why they have a problem with us.”
Directly opposite the church stand two convent schools, one for girls and one for boys, along with a hospital, a large ground, and several other properties. Sumitra’s cart was placed outside the ground, yet she has been repeatedly pressured to remove it.
At 10 pm, Sonam Singh, Senior Assistant Editor at Organiser, and I returned to the church. People, men, women, and children, were arriving steadily as the temperature dropped significantly. Some sat inside, others outside. Shoes were left outside the church premises, while prayers were sung inside, with devotees kneeling and folding their hands.
The hymns being sung included: “Daya karo Bhagwan, Daya karo hey Yeshu Prabhuwar, Daya Karo hey Krish Prabhuwar.” Another song went, “Mahima, Mahima, sabse unche bal Bhagwan ki, teri aradhna karte hain, hum teri puja karte hain.” Songs in local dialects were also sung, including: “Sheet paani jharay, baih ker ashera, Gaderiya lathi tek ke..” and “Ava Bhai re, Avan behen re, Raja ke dekhe jab re, Swarg ke Raja Yeshu Maharaja..”
After the mass prayer concluded, small children from the community walked through the gathering with baskets, collecting money and emptying it into another basket placed on the stage. Once prayers ended, the pastor distributed prashad. When we asked for it, the pastor responded, “Only for Catholics.”
Soon after, the congregation was asked to move outside to the large ground for a putla dahan symbolising the year 2025. The ritual closely resembled Ravan Dahan.
It was then that we spoke to the father. When asked about modifying Christian practices to suit tribal customs, he said, “By applying sindoor these people openly establish that, the girl is married and not available for others anymore.” The father, who belongs to the Oraon tribe, shared that his ancestral gods were “Singbonga, Dharmesh”, but he now worships Jesus alone and was baptised soon after birth. Since becoming a father in 2013, he has baptised over 500 people.
When asked about the various conversion methods observed across Jharkhand, such as “Chhitki” or submerging in water, he stated, “It is our formula to make people Chritstian in the name of god.”
Asked whether, if forced to choose, he would pick tribal identity or Christianity, he said, “We cannot leave our tribal status, as far as religion is concerned, we cannot stop people for believing, they might say they have stopped worshipping but they will always have their faith on Jesus.”
Abhay Shanti Barwa, a woman from the Munda tribe, told Organiser, “I was born tribal christian.” Asked the same question, whether she would choose tribe or Christianity, she said, “We have been tribals from the begeing, so our roots have come from our forefathers and that is why we consider ourselves as tribals. And we will be that only, we cannot change.”
When asked how she could claim no change after abandoning tree and animal worship, she replied, “Yes, that tribal practice and culture has ended, but this generation and our genrations, my grandfathers used to worship trees but over the period of time our faith changed and we started to worship Jesus, yes we have changed with time. We have completely left Kuldevta puja and all. But a lot of practices in Christianity have been changed to suit tribals.”
Poonam Dhundun from the Khariya tribe added, “In Church there is a sindoor Sanskar in Church where we do it.” She further said, “Some of the tribals practice Sohrai where Dhan is cut from the fields and cattles with cow is worshipped, there used to be practice where people would make their cattles bath and bring them to Church for blessings but I am not sure if that happens to date.”
This is how tribals in Simdega are now celebrating the New Year, by addressing Jesus as “Bhagwan,” “Ishwar,” “Prabhu,” and “Parmeshwar,” deliberately borrowing the vocabulary of Hindu and tribal faith to erase psychological distance. Bhajans are sung instead of hymns, many composed in Jharkhand’s local dialects, not by coincidence but as a deliberate strategy to emotionally embed Christian theology within familiar cultural soundscapes. What appears as inclusivity is, in reality, calculated cultural camouflage. Hindu practices such as Jaware, traditionally sewn during Navratri as a symbol of fertility, devotion, and continuity, are now placed before Jesus during Christmas, carried in hands during church-organised marches, and woven into Christian gatherings. These visual and ritual borrowings are not accidental gestures of respect; they are deliberate tools meant to replace rupture with comfort, resistance with familiarity.
All of this is carefully designed to reassure tribals that nothing has changed, that no tradition has been abandoned, that no gods have been displaced, and that Christianity is not foreign but merely another expression of what they have always believed. This is the most insidious aspect of missionary work in Jharkhand. It is neither loud, confrontational, nor rushed. It is patient, methodical, and deeply calculated. There is no urgency because time itself is the weapon. Tribals are slowly drawn into churches, gradually detached from their ancestral deities, rituals, cosmology, and collective memory, until a powerful illusion is implanted that all faiths are essentially the same, that distinctions are meaningless, and that “Yeshu is the one.” By the time this illusion settles, the original belief system has already been hollowed out.
From Sindoor Daan being institutionalised within church weddings, to cattle, once central to tribal spiritual life, being blessed under Christian authority during Sohrai, to Jaware being sown inside churches, tribal practices have not merely been adapted but systematically re-engineered. Resistance to this process carries a social cost. Those who refuse are slowly isolated, treated as outsiders within their own community, and made to fear exclusion. The promise of regular gatherings, emotional affirmation, material support, and collective belonging steadily pulls people toward the church. Unlike Islam, which often works through rapid and decisive conversion, missionary activity operates on a long horizon, year after year, generation after generation, until the boundary that once clearly separated tribal identity from Christian belief becomes blurred beyond recognition.
That boundary is now rapidly dissolving, replaced by the dangerous and deeply misleading idea that one can inhabit both identities simultaneously without consequence.
While Hindu religious spaces remain open and non-discriminatory, churches enforce clear and rigid boundaries. The denial of prashad to us was not a minor incident; it was a statement. It signalled that belonging is conditional and access is earned through conversion. The pastor knew we were not susceptible, knew conversion was impossible, and therefore excluded us without hesitation. This selective inclusion exposes the true mechanics of missionary expansion: welcoming, warm, and accommodating to potential converts, yet closed, guarded, and exclusionary toward anyone who might question or scrutinise the process.
Across the panchayats we travelled through, the pattern was stark and consistent. In villages with around 100 houses, nearly 80 have already been converted. Barely 20 remain firm, resisting despite more than a century of sustained missionary presence in the region. The distinction between tribal and Christian, once clear, cultural, and civilisational, is now rapidly fading. If this trajectory continues unchecked, that distinction will soon disappear entirely, leaving behind a population that remembers its tribal status only as a bureaucratic category, stripped of its spiritual and cultural substance.
Missionaries are exploiting emotion, appropriating symbols such as putla dahan to mirror Hindu rituals, and repeatedly reassuring tribals that nothing is being taken away, while, in practice, everything foundational is being dismantled. Ancestral gods are abandoned, rituals are discontinued, sacred relationships with forests, animals, and land are severed, and regimented church activities replace them. When asked to choose, converts remain adamant about retaining tribal status while simultaneously claiming minority identity as Christians. This dual claim is not merely contradictory; it is profoundly unjust. It deprives genuine tribal communities, who continue to preserve their faith, culture, and way of life, of constitutional protections, welfare benefits, and political representation meant specifically for them.
The financial backbone sustaining these massive church establishments, sprawling institutions, schools, hospitals, and infrastructure remains largely unquestioned, as does the state government’s silence or tacit approval. What is unfolding in Jharkhand is not organic social change or voluntary spiritual evolution. It is a carefully engineered transformation, executed slowly enough to avoid resistance, yet decisively enough to permanently alter civilisational identity. A living culture is being hollowed out from within, quietly and methodically, while authorities look the other way. If this process continues unchecked, tribal identity will survive only as a label on government records, divorced from its gods, its rituals, its worldview, and its memory.
Credit : Organiser Weekly
