The Rashtriya Adivasi Samnvay Samiti, based in Jharkhand has given a call to Scheduled Tribe associations across the country to join a protest for a separate Sarna religion code in the upcoming Census.
The outfit, which has been part of the movement for a separate religion column for Scheduled Tribes communities in India, has said that it will be heading a mass demonstration over the issue at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi on February 28 later this month.
The protest call has also been circulated among other outfits, such as the Kendriya Sarna Samiti, that have put across similar demands.
Adivasi outfits, largely based out of Jharkhand, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, and West Bengal, have for decades now demanded that a separate religion column be added in the Census for them.
In the 2011 Census, this movement had led to as many as 4.9 lakh people marking their religion as Sarna in the Others column, over 80% of them in Jharkhand. Since then, the agitation for a separate Sarna religion code has only grown in these regions.
