Sarna Religion of Jharkhand

Jharkhand government convened a special session of the Assembly in November 2020 and passed a resolution to send the Centre a letter to recognise Sarna religion and include it as a separate code in the Census of 2021.

• Currently, the census classifies people under six religions - Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Sikh, Jain, and Buddhist - while those who do not subscribe to these are clubbed under the 'Other' category.
• The Central Government has dropped the "other" option for Census 2021, so the tribals will have to either leave the column or declare themselves as members of one of the six specified religions.

Sarna Religion

• ‘Sarna’ followers are nature worshippers who do not consider themselves Hindus.
• The holy grail of the faith is “Jal, Jungle, Zameen” and its followers pray to the trees and hills while believing in protecting the forest areas.
• Jharkhand has 32 tribal groups of which eight are from Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups.
• It is believed that 50 lakhs tribal in the entire country put their religion as ‘Sarna’ in the 2011 census, although it was not a code.

Need for a Separate Code

• Enumeration of Tribals: In the last eight decades, the population of tribal people in the state has come down to 26.02 per cent from 38.03 per cent. One of the reasons for this was tribals who go for work in different states are not being recorded in the Census. In other states, they are not counted as Tribals. The separate code will ensure recording of their population.
• Safeguard Tribal’s Rights: A decline in the population of tribals has an impact on the constitutional provisions and policies framed to benefit the tribal communities.The basis for identifying an area as Schedule V is dependent on the tribal population.
• In 2019, there were demands of denotifying Schedule V areas where the tribal population has come down. The recognition of Adivasi Sarna code will address this problem.