Bhopal : “We follow ethnic culture, we are not Hindus,” said MLA and AICC general secretary Umang Singar while talking to Free Press, here on Saturday. The tribal Congress leader has demanded a separate status for their religion in Madhya Pradesh.
The demand came following similar demand by Lingayats in Karnataka.
“We constitute around 11% of population in the country and our tradition, culture and beliefs are quite different from the Hindus,” he said adding that in MP, the Congress party can announce separate status for them. He claimed that during elections, the tribal shift themselves to Hindu category and this factor damages their rights.
He claimed that the Jain followers are less than one percent and they are having the status of separate religion, so with 11 per cent we should have separate status”.
He added that the Britishers had given us separate status. “In the gazette notification of 1931, the then government had given separate status and in census we were given independent counting, but in 1951, the facility was closed”.
He further said that he had asked the Congress president Kamal Nath to forward their demand to party president Rahul Gandhi and Nath had informed us that Rahul was aware of our issue and it would be redress soon”.
A meeting of tribal leaders was called by Nath on Friday. In the meeting, tribal leaders raised their demands and other issues.
In the meeting, MLA Omkar Singh Markam alleged that in text books tribals are stated as ‘cow eater, dog eater and snake eater’. “Our image was damaged due to irrational and illogical logics”.
The state president assured us that if Congress came to power, the problems of tribals would be sorted out.