Author: Kum. B. Nivedita
Publication: International Forum
For India's Heritage
Date:
URL: http://www.geocities.com/ifihhome/articles/kbn002.html
(An article written for the Hindi
magazine Kendra Bharati)
The Vivekananda Kendra Institute
of Culture (VKIC) was established as envisaged by Eknathji to study the
traditions and customs of various communities in the Northeast from the
Indian point of view, and also to discover and focus on commonalities among
all communities. It is a fact that foreign missionaries were pioneers in
documenting the traditions and customs of various communities and mainly
the Vanavasis in India. The British established universities in India after
deliberately destroying the prevalent higher education. Subjects like Indology,
anthropology etc. in these universities are taught from the Western point
of view. As Shri Dharampal said in his book Bharatiya Chitta, Manas and
Kala, "The work of the indologists is in fact akin to anthropology. Anthropology,
as recognized by its practitioners, is a peculiar science of the West.
The defeated, subjugated and fragmented societies of the non-Western world
form the subject of this science. Anthropology thus is a science of the
study of the conquered by the conquerors. Claude Lévi-Strauss, an
authentic spokesman and a major scholar of anthropology, defines his discipline
more or less in these terms."
Therefore the scholars in these
disciplines naturally get trained in the Western mindset and Western paradigm.
Even the books they refer to are books written by the earlier missionaries
while documenting the traditions in India. Thus by their training and by
the material available, Indian scholars are handicapped in their understanding
of Indian communities: when they write books, they often happen to perpetuate
the missionaries' thinking, instead of looking at the material from an
Indian point of view.
When VKIC undertook the study of
communities in the Northeast, it turned out to be a study of ourselves
- a daunting task as all of us are Westernized in our thinking and are
used to looking at ourselves from the Western point of view. But gradually,
as an interaction with the communities started through seminars, many beautiful
points came to the front. Till then, most of the knowledge of these communities
was based on books written by missionaries. The Christian study of these
communities is, to put it very mildly, totally misleading. Whether it was
an actual inability of the Western mind to comprehend a vastly different
way of life or a deliberate attempt to portray the traditions so as to
create a feeling of loathing in their inheritors is an aspect which will
forever be debated. The fact remains that the documentation process, particularly
the translations, was far from faithful to the traditions inherited by
these simple communities of the Northeast. It is these Indian concepts
expressed in English - a foreign tongue - that have managed to undermine
the confidence of the communities in the wisdom of their forefathers.
Shri Lalthangfala Sailo's paper
on the Bawi system of Mizoram was a revelation to many. The common understanding
of the system is that it was a form of exploitation quite akin to the despicable
form of slavery as existed in the West. Foreign missionaries, used as they
were to slavery as practised back home, translated "Bawi" - the indigenous
system taking care of the destitute, orphans and disadvantaged - as "slavery."
Only when Shri Lalthangfala Sailo explained the Bawi system in his paper
did we realize that it was a welfare system for orphans and the destitute.
They were given a place in the house of the Chief of the community. They
were taken care of just as the children of the Chief were taken care of.
They had to work in the fields and houses of the Chief, just as of course
his own children used to work. After their marriage they were able to set
up their separate household and work on the land given to them by the community.
This system was called "Bawi." How can it be translated into "slavery"?
But it was. We can only imagine the shame and embarrassment that this "slight"
translation error has caused to so many for so long!
In almost all Vanavasi communities,
the bridegroom gives gifts and articles to the bride's parents before marriage.
This was translated as "bride price," and it is now a term commonly used
by all. It was in a seminar in Mizoram that a voice was raised against
the term "bride price." Dr. Laltluangliana Khiangte protested against this
wholly absurd notion and said that this "translation" attributed a low
status to women in the traditional Mizo society, though the evidence in
the folk literature is exactly contrary to this notion.
The missionaries called the Gods
and Goddesses of these communities "spirits." It is also possible that
such translation sprung from a mind unable to appreciate a reality where
many Gods and Goddesses are just the expression of one Reality. But seeing
how this term "spirit" was used by the missionaries in undermining the
confidence of the people in their own Gods and Goddesses, one feels that
the word was deliberate. First introducing and then popularizing the use
of "spirits" for the Devi Devata of these communities, the missionaries
started their campaign for conversion. The people were told, "You do not
have God. You worship only spirits. What you have is only primitive ideas
of religion and a bundle of superstitions. If you want to be saved then
follow the Only True God." It is a very common experience to listen to
a misinformed or a convent-educated Arunachali saying, "Hamara dharam to
hai nahi na" - "There is no religion for us." Gods and Goddesses are our
deepest identity and that very identity is put in doubt and then gradually
lost because of such a mistranslation. Those Arunachalis who have realized
this mischief of missionaries have now started using the words Devi Devata.
By using the word "spirits" for
the Gods and Goddesses of these communities the missionaries achieved one
more thing. Indirectly they could impress that the Vanavasi communities
are not Hindus. They even devised a word "Adivasi" for these communities.
The next step in breaking them away from the Hindus was a move at governmental
level. Till 1901 all communities, Nagarvasi, Gramvasi or Vanavasi, were
listed as Hindus. But in 1901, the census officers were directed to mention
the religion of Adivasis as "Animism." After the census, many officers
complained that it was too difficult for them to decide who was an Animist
and who was a Hindu, since whether mountain and forest dwellers or village
and town dwellers, all worshipped God in many forms. But under pressure
from the missionaries, the British government did not budge from its directives
in successive censuses. It happened that in one census a community was
Animist and in the next it was Hindu, or vice versa. Ultimately to "solve"
this problem, the government directed census officers to enter the name
of a community as the name of its religion. Thus the religion of the Santhal
community became "Santhal," that of the Nagas became "Naga," etc. At one
stroke the government further divided even the Vanavasi communities. After
that, deriding each "religion" became still easier for missionaries following
the policy of "Divide and Convert."
Almost all Vanavasi communities
follow a practice translated as "youth dormitory." Whenever we read of
"youth dormitories" or "bachelor dormitories," as they are called in the
books of missionaries, the image that comes to mind is one of free mixing
of youth as prevalent in the West and implying licentiousness. However,
a paper presented by Shri Kabuk Pertin at a seminar in Pasighat, Arunachal
Pradesh, and particularly the docudrama on the life from birth to death
of an Adi, were to change all our notions forever. As explained, the purpose
and nature of the youth dormitories called musup (for boys) and raseng
(for girls) amongst the Adis were really those of non-formal schools of
these communities, something akin to gurukulas of Vedic times. In these
institutions, boys and girls above 12 years were to stay in musup and raseng
respectively. In musup the boys were taught to hunt, to observe and then
slowly to participate in the village Kebang (panchayat). They were also
taught to protect the village from predators and enemy attacks. They were
a readily available force for any community service: the youth were at
the disposal of the society in all emergencies and exigencies. The girls
were taught to weave and to cook, to collect firewood, to tend the cattle
and the fields. They were also given training in talking to strangers,
elders and youth. A versatile widow used to stay in the raseng and give
them all necessary training in home science. There were strict rules about
the mixing of musup and raseng. The youth brought up thus till the time
of their marriage could live a life useful to the society and also in companionship
with their community. In these "youth dormitories," they were imparted
the knowledge required for a happy and contented life in tune with the
need of the society of those days. If this is not real education, then
what is? It was education for life and not just meaningless diplomas and
degrees. Just imagine if only these terms musup and raseng had been translated
as "Non-formal schools of Adi community," how much confidence and pride
that would have generated in these people. This applies to all the Vanavasi
communities. The moderator of the Pasighat seminar, Shri Katon Borang,
rightly remarked in his keynote address, "Though the Adis may have been
illiterate, they never were without education!"
Because of such a value-based and
community-oriented education, we see in these communities no beggars, no
orphans and destitute. There are no locks on the houses or the granaries.
The principle of living is "one for all and all for one." When a young
couple wants to build a house, the whole community works together to build
it. If any house gets burnt, the whole village works to rebuild it and
all houses in the village come together to provide materials. Thus within
twenty-four hours a well-furnished house is ready for the family. When
a whole village is burnt, nearby villages come together, rebuild the houses
and even furnish them. The society is a living society so it responds to
the needs of its members immediately. Thus it does not need an orphanage
or a destitute home or police force, or even government welfare schemes,
as the society itself is a welfare society. And yet the missionaries want
to "civilize" them! Wherever conversions take place, these traditional
values are lost.
Those are but a few instances of
how deliberate mistranslations can undermine the confidence of the people.[1]
But once the mischief is realized, the community rises and defends its
traditions from the debilitating impact of the self-professed experts and
specialists. Thus the work of VKIC is very important in giving an Indian
perspective to understand ourselves and to surge ahead with confidence.
Kum. B. Nivedita, Vivekananda Kendra,
2002
=====================
[1] Such mischievous mislabelling
has of course been used in other parts of India too. In Tamil Nadu, for
instance, missionaries made it a habit to refer to the Bible as Vedam in
literature, popular songs etc., and even got this meaning entered in Tamil
dictionaries. In southern Tamil Nadu, Christians call themselves Vedakaran
("the People of the Vedas") and a Church is Vedakovil ("the temple of the
Veda"), while the Hindus are called Ajnanigal ("the Ignorant People").
This has gone so deep into the psyche of the people that Hindu villagers
themselves speak of the Church as Vedakovil, of Christians as Vedakaran
and of themselves as Ajnanigal.
