Clinging to ancient faith, India tribes seek religion status

By SHEIKH SAALIQ
Associated Press

GUDUTA, India (AP) — India’s 110 million indigenous tribespeople are scattered across various states and fragmented into hundreds of clans, with different legends, different languages and different words for their gods. Yet, what binds at least 5 million of them together is Sarna Dharma, a belief system that shares common threads with the world’s many ancient nature-worshipping religions. But it is also a faith that isn’t codified under Indian law, compelling many nature worshippers to associate themselves with other recognized religions. The followers of Sarna Dharma say a formal recognition of their religion would help the community preserve its culture and history in a country where the rights of the ethnic population have slowly eroded.