Primal and Dalit Religious Traditions

Discussion on terms of Primal Religion

The religion of the people who live in isolation and in the hills and forests has been given many names by the scholars.

1.   Animism: Sir Edward B. Tylor defines it as “the belief that all living things as well as everything held by primitive man to be living because of its locomotion or its ability to assume for itself some power or animated by spirits.” Although this view influenced many scholars for a long time, it is not generally accepted anymore because the attitude of animism is retained even after a higher form of religion is reached.

2.   Tribal Religion: This term is used because the people who practice this religion are in tribal stage of organization. While this is certainly applicable to many situations in the world, as it is to the tribals in India also, since the basic features of their religions are confined not only to them but to all peoples of the world, this term cannot be exclusively used.

3.   Preliterate Religion: this term is used by some to mean the religion of the people who do not have written language an
d script. In this theory, literacy is used in a narrow sense of one who can read and write. However, it must be admitted that oral literacy also is part of literacy. Therefore, it is a rather narrow outlook.

4.   Primitive Religion: It is a term which is very widely used Many scholars, especially the Western writers, tend to use the term “primitive” in the sense of being inferior, and thus when it is applied to human beings and their religions, it implies the mistaken notion of mental processes which are pre-logical and qualitatively inferior to that of the so-called civilized peoples who assume superiority of race, knowledge and culture over against other races. However, when we examine the so-called ‘primitive’ people’s 46 mentality and other ways of life objectively, we will find that they are not ‘primitive’ mentally, spiritually and in their moral standard. These people have acute mind and intrinsic intelligence and have a profound thinking and rationalistic ability in their own way. They also have a great deal of originality in many areas of life. They have a long history, though unwritten, behind them. Thus this term is seldom used today.

5.   Primal Religion: This is the term many scholars now pefer. When we study the religion and practices of the tribal people we will find that many of the basic features of these people are basic or primary in the religions of the world. Thus Dr. Harold W. Turner in his booklet Living Tribal Religions argues that Primal Religions “both anteceded the great historic religions and continue to reveal many of the basic or primary features of religion.”

6.   The Dalits and their history: discussion on terms such as ‘depressed classes,’ ‘harijans,’ and ‘dalits.’ Historical factors leading to marginalization of groups in society. The term “Dalit” is derived from the Sanskrit root dal, which means burst, split, broken or torn apart. In contemporary times, the term has come to mean things or persons who are scattered, torn apart or crushed. This contemporary usage to specify a section of the people of India who have suffered oppression throughout history under the prevailing religious and social norms goes back only a few decades. But it must be clearly known that the term Dalit does not mean caste or low caste; it is used to refer to those people who are living in deplorable conditions because of social conventions.

Professor Gangadhar Pantawane explained Dalit as, “Dalit is not a caste. Dalit is a symbol of change and revolution. The Dalit believes in humanism. He rejects existence of God, rebirth, soul, sacred books that teach discrimination, fate, and heaven,because these have made him a slave. He represents the exploited man in country. Dalitness is essentially a means towards achieving a sense of cultural identity. The inferiority complex based on ‘to be Dalit’ has now disappeared.”

Martin Macwan explains it as, “Dalit is the person who believes in equality of all human beings, who practices equality in one’s own life and who protests wherever human beings are treated unequally. Dalit therefore is not a caste identity but it is a moral position.”

In the 19th century, the reformer and revolutionary Mahatma Jyotiba Phule (1826-1890) had used the term shudra-atishudra where shudra refer to the touchables and the atishudra referring to the untouchable backward castes. In the 20th century, Dr. B.R. Ambedkar (1891-1956) used the English term ‘untouchable’ for Dalit. In 1973, the Dalit Panther Movement of the Indian state of Maharashtra, gave new meaning to this term when they issued a manifesto in which they describe a Dalit as: “members of the scheduled castes and tribes, neo-Buddhists, the working people, the landless and poor peasants, women and all those who are being exploited politically, economically and in the name of religion.” For them, the term is no longer a mere name or title, but an expression of hope.

In this sense, the Dalit people are those who, on the basis of caste distinctions, have been considered “outcastes,” as they are left out of the graded four-fold caste structure of Indian society. On the basis of this status, they have been oppressed and exploited over the centuries.

Dalits are called by different names in different parts of the country. In most cases, the names in which they are called are despicable or contemptuous. They include: Dasa, Dasysa, Raksasa, Asura, Avarna, Nisada, Panchama, Chandala, Harijan and Untouchable.

Historical factors

The present condition of the Dalits is the result of the long process of the stratification of the Indian society through the centuries. The four-fold castes eventually gave rise to roughly 3000 sub-castes. The untouchables are actually outside of the list. It should be known that the Dalits or the outcastes or untouchables are at the bottom of the social strata and outside. According to the system, birth determines the caste, not merit or talent. This system was developed from the idea that the different strata were formed from the body of God. The Purusa hymn mentions four castes in this way: The Brahmin was his mouth, of both his arms was the Rajanya (Kshatriya) made, His thighs became the Vaisya, from his feet the Sudra was produced.

Some of the literary sources from which we can cull some knowledge about the Dalits are the Rigvedas, Upanishads, Ramayana and the Mahabharata. As quoted above, the Purusa hymn talked about the system. The Dalits are referred to as Avarna, Dasa and Dasyus. In the Upanishads, the problem got worse as the Dalits came to be compared with a dog and a swine. In the Valmiki Ramayana, a Shudra named Shambuka was killed because he practiced penance. Even in the Mahabharata, an indigenous boy Ekalabya had to lose his thumb because he has the audacity to learn archery.

This caste system, in conjunction with the Hindu scriptures, survived the centuries. This meant that the caste system received some sort of divine patronage. The desire to break free was however dampened by the collective ennui of the masses so much so that the outcasts themselves came to accept it.

Social Conditions

Even today, the Dalits are face difficulties in the academic field and in ownership or properties. The practice of untouchability was abolished by the Indian Constitution in 1950. Even though Article 17 of the Indian Constitution states, “Untouchability is abolished and its practice in any form is forbidden,” Dalits continue to experience hardships in all their walks of life. This is a very big tragedy for a fast developing country like India. Dalits are commonly discriminated. This continues to be a reality mostly in rural India. Most Dalits remain poor too, without land or proper employment. Many of them are forced to work in inhumane conditions of work, in the streets, in the garbage dumps and others places – all for a meager amount of money. Of the 700 million Dalits mentioned before, roughly 37% live below the poverty line and more than half of the Dalit children are malnourished. Many of them are illiterate and are segregated upon. They remain untouchables in many parts of the country. According to the report of Martin Macwan titled Dalit Rights, untouchability can be witnessed in the following categories – Drinking water, food and beverages, religion, touch, access to public facilities/institutions/services, caste-based occupations, practices, prohibitions/social sanctions, discrimination in private sector and discrimination in public facility.

The Main features of Primal and Dalit Religion

The main features of Primal religion

1. Supreme Being: The Supreme Being, the Creator and the Sustainer of the universe, is generally neglected except on special occasions or when His help is sought when everything else has failed, and He is remembered in every important festivals and social occasions such as birth, marriage and death. He is also called upon to judge in solemn oath-taking and during natural calamities such as earthquake, cyclone, drought and famine. The Supreme Being is not only the Creator and the Sustainer of the universe, but is also the father of gods and human beings, and among many tribes god is believed to uphold the moral law.

2. Spirits: Besides the Supreme God, there are many spirits which the tribals worship. The benevolent spirits are generally that of the village tutelary, sub-clan, household, ancestor, paddy or cultivation land. The malevolent spirits are generally that of the village boundary, village outskirts, the mountains and hills, lakes, rocks, big trees. There are also the mischievous spirits and ghosts which are not objects of worship and sacrifice but which have to be exorcised mainly through magic.

3. Mana: Mana is a kind of force or power found in any object such as a peculiar stone, tree or plant; it may also be found in animals and human beings. The test of whether an object or a person or an animal has a mana is the result it can produce. Thus, a Melanesian, for example, may find a strange-shaped stone, which he may consider to have mana. Then he will take it home and bury it in his garden, and if he gets a very good crop he will come to the conclusion that it is a man to produce good crop, and he will keep it for this purpose.

4. Fetishisms: it is a term adopted by modern English from the Portuguese word feitico or a charm, a word derived from Latin facticius. A fetish may be defined as an object which is believed to be inhabited by a spirit and thus supposed to confer its power upon the person who possesses it as his fetish. A fetish may be a queer-shaped stone, a bright bead, a stick, a feather, a claw of beasts, a bone, or a seed or any other curious object.

5. Taboo: the word, ‘taboo’ is taken from a Polynesian dialect, and introduced into English by captain James Cook in 1777. Taboo is a caution or prohibition against supernatural objects, plants, animals or human beings who possess mana. Thus anything that is believed to be taboo should not be touched, smelled, tasted or heard because such an act will lead to an automatic supernatural anger or penalty. Some examples are given below. Taboos connected with supernatural Beings: There are taboos against offending the gods, spirits, against cutting the sacred trees which are believed to be the abode of the spirits, against cutting sacred grove or women entering into the sacred grove, etc.

6. Totemism: a very common social and religious phenomenon in many parts of the world is the representation of ancestors in the form of totems. The word “totem” comes from the language of the Ojibway Indian tribe of North America meaning “brother-sister kin”. It, therefore, signifies a group or a close relationship, blood-kinship as between members of a family. A totem is usually of an animal or of plant or insect or bird and very rarely a class of inanimate objects, very closely related to a group in that the group is believed to descend from the animal or any of the species mentioned above. Totemism, therefore, is a ‘form of social organization and religious practice, typically involving an intimate association between sibs and their totems, which are regarded as ancestors or as supernaturally connected with an ancestor.

7. Omen and Divination: Tribal peoples live in a constant state of the fear of the future and the forces, especially that of evil, that surrounded them. Therefore, they look for indications and warnings about what is likely to happen in their adventures through sign indicated by animals, birds, etc. They believe that certain animals or birds are charged with mana and meeting these can be danger signs. Thus H.H. Presler defines omen as “any phenomenon believed to have supernaturally inherent portent.”

b) Omen: Omens are generally classified into two – good and bad.

b) Divination: In divination, humans try to seek the signs through animals, plants, etc. Divination is derived from the latin word deus or divus, meaning a god or divine, and therefore, divination deals with what the divine (god) reveals to us.

8. Magic: Prof. J.B. Noss defines magic as “an endeavor through utterance of set words, or the performance of set acts, to control or bend the powers of the world to men’s will.”

1. Magic is strictly traditional and is handed down from generation to generation.

2. In magic the attitude of manipulation is to be found most strongly propitiation and cajoling in religion.

3. The ends or the goals are different.

4. In magic there is the professional-client relationship.

5. Magic implies a simple belief and is a formation of man’s power to cause certain definite effects by rites and spells.

6. Magic is practical acts performed as a means to an end.

7. Magic is thought of as at least potentially directed against the society, whereas this is not the case in religion.

8. Evil Eye: All tribals, as well as the more advanced people of India believe in the evil eye. Persons, especially the witches and women, certain animals and snakes are believed to possess malevolent and mischievous eye which has the power to kill or destroy persons and domestic animals, crops and houses.

9. Religious Functionaries: As in any developed religion on the world, primal religions also depend a great deal for their religious exercises on religious leader who we may call “religious functionaries” for lack of satisfactory terminology.

a.   Formally constituted religious functionaries:

Under this category may be mentioned the priest, medicine-men or healer, and medium and diviner. Priests: in the case of primal religions, since they do not have temple, church, etc., they are generally connected with those who offer prayer and sacrifices on behalf of the village or community in shrines, sacred groves or any other sacred place. He is normally initiated into the office and he goes through some sort of training, though some other tribes do not require it. They are the chief intermediary between God and humans. Their duties include offering prayers and sacrifices, making libation on behalf of the community. Household sacrifices are normally done by the head of the family and thus priests do not have much responsibility for the individual families. Since the tribal people do not make the sharp distinction of the ‘sacred’ and the ‘secular’ as it is in most modern religions, the priest is engaged in all aspects of life.

         b.   Informally constituted functionaries:

Witches, who are mostly females, are regarded as dangerous to the society. It is generally believed that while the witch may be asleep physically, her spirit escapes the body and makes another person sick or die, or cause abortion to a pregnant woman.

10. Life after death: The tribals of Northeast India also seem to share similar idea. It is generally believed among the tribals that their dead go to the “land of the dead” where they live the same kind of life as they were before. Therefore, they need all the things that they needed when alive.

The main features of Dalit religion

There is a debate on whether Dalits are Hindus by religion. While it is said, “Hinduism is not the religion of the Dalits” it is also said that it began from Hinduism. It is also written that, the religion is not Hinduism, but ‘Brahminism’.

It has been argued that the Dalit religion is a distinct religion. It is not from Hinduism or from Buddhism. It is said that there are two traditions in Hinduism – the great and little traditions. The great tradition comes from the religious practices of the high caste communities while the little tradition comes from the religious practices of the lower castes. However, when the two traditions are compared, there are more dissimilarities than commonalities between the two. James Theophilius Appavoo points out nine stark differences between the two traditions:

a.    Regarding the Deities; the names, narratives and food offered to them differed.

b.   Looking at the worship practices, it can be said that the Sanskrit religion originated from a cold climate region while the Dalit religion originated from a hot region.

c.    In corporate and individual worship Dalit religion is always corporate worship while the Sanskrit religion is individual.

d.   The Sanskrit religion always has different places for different people while in the Dalit religion, people can gather around the God in a theater or arena.

e.    The deities of the Sanskrit religion reside in the idols while the Dalits do not attach much importance to the place of worship or the symbols. In fact, the deity is not chained to the symbols, it is in the worshippers.

f.     In the original religion of the Dalits, there is room for protest while in the Sanskrit religion, there is no room for protest.

g.   The Sanskrit religion had a group of people set aside for warfare, the Kshatriyas, while in the Dalit religion, there are no such groups.

h.   The Sanskrit religion has a class or caste system and in the Dalit religion, there is no class or caste.

i.  In Dalit religion, every one participates actively, in Sanskrit religion, the worshippers have no active participation.

j. Religious functionaries – Priests, story tellers, singers, narrator, sacrifice, drum beater/player, ritual performer, dreamer, witchcraft, magician.

k.   Beliefs and practices of primal and dalit people. 

l. Influences of Sanskritization/Brahmanization, modernization, Christian missions, Government policies and programmes on religion and society of primal and dalit people.

Sanskritization

M.N. Srinivas defines Sanskritization as, “a process by which a low caste or a tribe or other group changes its customs, rituals, ideology, and a way of life in the direction of a high and frequently, twice born caste.” These tribes are related to the majority religion of Hinduism in different ways and their religion and cultures are affected accordingly. First there is the small group of tribes who have been Hinduised or Sanskritized long before the Indian independence and they accepted the Hindu caste structure though today many 47 of these tribe are also beginning to reject Hinduism in favour of their pre-Hindu religion and culture. Among these, the Bhumji, Bhil, Meitei, Tripuri, etc., may be mentioned. Second, tribes such as the Santhals, Oraos, Mundas, Gonds, etc. may be considered to have some orientation toward the Hindu religious and social order without being part of the Hindu caste system. Third, most of the tribes, especially those who live in the hills of Northeast India like the Nagas, the Mizos, the Khasis, the Garos(Achiks) are generally outside the influence of Hinduism. However, most of the tribals living in the plains of Assam are very much influenced by Hindu world-view.

Modernization

According to Smelser, “Modernisation is a complex set of changes that place almost in every part of society as it attempts to be industrialised. Modernisation involves ongoing change in a society’s economy, politics, education, traditions and religion.” According to Alatas, “Modernisation is a process by which modern scientific knowledge is introduced in the society with the ultimate purpose of achieving a better and amore satisfactory life in the broadest sense of the term as accepted by the society concerned.” The religious outlook of the people is increasingly being influenced by modern scientific knowledge. The technological changes taking place in the economic life of the people breakdown the old semi-feudal village structure and pattern of occupation, and accelerate the process of urbanization.

Christian Missions 

1.   Impact on Cultural life

2.   Impact on Social Life

3.   Impact on Economic Life

4.   Impact on Educational Life

5.   Impact on Religious Life

6.   Impact on the Political Life

Governmental Policies and Programmes

According to the decrees of the Constitution Order of 1950 (amended 1956 and 1990) of the President of India, the Government recognizes and adds to the list of Scheduled Castes, only these Scheduled Castes who profess Hindu or Sikh or Buddhist religions. Hence, Dalit Christians are not recognized as Scheduled Castes. It is a gross discriminatory act on the grounds of religion, and a violation of the secular nature of the democratic State.

The government measures like the Abolition of Untouchability Act and the reservation of seats in educational institutions, in government jobs, legislatures and Parliament also have their impact on the old Dharma of the country. We also know that there was an attempt at Hindu reform starting from the middle of the 19^th century when a number of protest movements from among the Dalits surfaced in different parts of the country under the impact of western culture and Christian missionary activity. The fear of losing reservation benefits keeps them within the Hindu cultural system. On the other hand, experience hows them that religious change by itself is not a solution to their problem if they continue to depend economically on caste Hindus. Reservations do not solve the Dalit problem. In the absence of a new cultural medium to redefine their self-image they have no option but to imitate the caste hindus and hide their real self-identity. The result is, as we saw above, those who benefit from the reservations are absorbed into the dominant system and are lost to their community.

Appraisal: The significance of Primal and Dalit religions in contemporary society: 

The importance of Dalit and Primal (Adivasi/indigenous) religion in modern culture is closely related to social justice, identity, resistance, and cultural preservation. Despite having different origins and methods, they both contribute significantly to undermining established systems and enhancing pluralism. Cultural Identity and Preservation

1. Cultural Preservation and Identity: Primal religions—often associated with Adivasi communities—are rooted in nature worship, oral traditions, and ancestral practices. In modern society, they:

• Help preserve indigenous knowledge systems, including ecological wisdom and sustainable living.
• Strengthen community bonds and identity, especially in the face of globalization and cultural homogenization.
• Offer alternative worldviews that value harmony with nature rather than exploitation.

Dalit religions, on the other hand, often emerge from a rejection of caste oppression within traditional Hindu structures. Movements inspired by figures like B. R. Ambedkar—especially conversion to Navayana Buddhism—serve as tools for reclaiming dignity and self-respect.

2. Resistance and Social Justice

• Both traditions function as forms of resistance:
• Primal religions resist cultural assimilation and the marginalization of indigenous peoples. They assert land rights, autonomy, and recognition.
• Dalit religions actively challenge caste hierarchy and discrimination, promoting equality and human rights.
• In contemporary India and beyond, these movements contribute to broader conversations on social justice, inclusion, and human dignity.

3. Political and Legal Recognition

There is growing demand for:

• Official recognition of Primal religions as distinct from major organized religions in census and policy frameworks.
• Legal protections for indigenous practices, sacred lands, and cultural rights.
• Continued advocacy for Dalit rights, including anti-discrimination laws and representation.

These struggles highlight tensions between marginalized communities and dominant socio-political systems.

4. Environmental Relevance

Primal religions are increasingly seen as important in addressing ecological crises:

Their nature-centric ethics promote conservation and respect for biodiversity.

They offer insights into sustainable resource use, which is highly relevant in the age of climate change.

5. Spiritual Alternatives and Pluralism

Both Primal and Dalit religions enrich modern society by:

Expanding the idea of spirituality beyond institutionalized religion.

Encouraging pluralism, where multiple belief systems coexist.

Providing marginalized groups with meaningful spiritual frameworks that reflect their lived realities.

6. Challenges They Face

• Despite their importance, these traditions encounter challenges:
• Marginalization and lack of formal recognition.
• Cultural appropriation or dilution.

Socio-economic disadvantages faced by their communities.

Conclusion

In contemporary society, Primal and Dalit religions are not just belief systems—they are vehicles of identity, empowerment, and resistance. They challenge inequality, preserve cultural diversity, and contribute valuable perspectives on sustainability and justice.