Raipur:Reacting to Chhattisgarh Excise Minister Kawasi Lakhma’s statement that "tribals are not Hindus", former minister and tribal leader Kedar Nath Kashyap on Sunday said that tribals have been worshipping Lord Ganesha. He also called the Congress leader’s remark, a conspiracy to divide the state's tribals.
“We celebrate Hindu festivals like Dussehra with great enthusiasm. It is only today that the national leadership of the Congress, at the behest of Sonia Gandhi, has decided to divide the tribals,” the BJP leader alleged. “How much does Kawasi Lakhma know about tribals, and on what ground he made this claim about tribals not being Hindus or not believing in Sanatana Dharma? We have been worshiping Lord Ganesha and Mai Danteshwari for generations,” the tribal leader said.
“Kawasi Lakhma’s statement is nothing but to divide tribals and confuse them,” he said. “It is in our custom, our tradition that we constantly worship the tribal deities in Bastar and all over the country,” he added. “We have been staying in this land for ages. We stay in the jungles. We have rituals that are different from the Hindus, If a tribal get married, we call the priest from our community to perform rituals instead of pandit"
On Friday, during the one-day annual convention of Gondwana Samaj in Bhanupratappur, the Excise Minister made a similar statement and said, "We are tribals, BJP calls tribals as forest dwellers, but we are not forest dwellers, we are the people who live here, we are the people born in this land. Before independence or after independence, we are the people, who kept protecting forests. Be it, Gunda Dhur or Veer Narayan Singh, tribals have fought for freedom." When Kawasi Lakhma was making such statements from the stage, Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel was also present. (With agency inputs)
