Talks between church representatives in Jharkhand and members of the Sarna faith have broken down over the latter's demand that a statue portraying Virgin Mary as a tribal be removed. The statue was installed in May in the new Catholic parish church in Singhpur village, 15 km from Ranchi. It shows Mary in a white saree with a red border, her hair in a bun, bangles around her wrists. She is carrying the infant Jesus on a sling, as a tribal woman would.
The church is located in an Oraon-majority area and is maintained by the Marianists, who look up to Mary as their model. One of them came up with the idea for the statue and installed it. A source in the church said that Cardinal Telesphore Toppo, Archbishop of Ranchi, came to know of it only the day he unveiled it. The cardinal refused to comment on this but the source indicated he approved of the idea.
The Akhil Bharatiya Adivasi Mahasabha has taken umbrage at this portrayal. "What they have shown Mother Mary to be wearing is the traditional dress of the Sarna people. We are demanding that the statue be restored to the traditional way of portraying Mary. We fear that this statue will later become a tool for conversion," said Sarna priest Bandhan Tigga.
Various Sarna organisations took out rallies in the early June. Earlier this month, the All Churches Committee met Sarna representatives in Ranchi. Sarna leaders said the committee had refused to take the statue down. "They told us it was not an issue at all, and that the matter was being pushed forward by those with vested interests," said Jiten Oraon, general secretary of the adivasi mahasabha. Churches committee secretary Manmasi Ekka of the Gossner Evangelical Luteran Church said deliberations are still going on.
Meanwhile, the mahasbha is planning to escalate its protests. "Sarna people from all over the country will come down on August 25, when we will march to the church demanding removal of the statue. We are also planning to approach the gram sabha and explore options under PESA [Panchayats, Extension to Scheduled Areas Act]," said Tigga.
There is no clarity as to who would fall under Sarna. Members of the faith have been campaigning to get it included as a religion code. "We expect that 1.22 crore people across the country will identify themselves as of the Sarna faith. We do not seek to differentiate between Sarna and Adivasi," said Tigga.
At the other end of the spectrum are those like Joseph Marianus Kujur of the Indian Social Institute. Kijur, who happens to be a Catholic priest but who stressed he was was speaking in his capacity as a social scientist. "Sarna is a generic name for tribal religion, primarily in central India. In that sense, there are as many tribal religions as there are tribes," Kujur, who is currently writing a book on the topic, said from Delhi.
"Tribal identity is not all about the red-border saree," he said. "Who wore it first — can we trace it back to the Oraons? Also, not all Oraons wear the red-border saree."
In 2008-09, organisations representing the Sarna faith had filed a case against the context in which the word "sarna" was used in a non-Catholic church's translation of the Bible in the tribal Kurukh language. The Jharkhand High Court later dismissed the case against the publishers.
The church in Jharkhand has been careful to distinguish itself by calling itself a tribal church, as a majority of believers are tribals. "I would understand if this inculturisation or tribalisation was opposed by Christians themselves. If the Christians do not have a problem, I do not know why others should have a problem," said Kujur.
Various portrayals of Virgin Mary are not unique, the silk-saree-wearing Lady of Vailankanni being an Indian example. Many of these portrayals have, however, been made after an apparition, while some were old statues newly discovered. In Ranchi, church sources in Ranchi have confirmed there was no "vision" of Mary that led to the installation. "It is not the attire, but the purpose of the vision that matters," said a priest of the Catholic church in Ranchi.
A dark-complexioned image of the Virgin Mary is not new either. Many churches are dedicated to Black Madonnas, and a number of these are in Africa, having been created often to reflect local tastes.
Marina Warner writes about various visions in Mary, Alone of All Her Sex (1976), a feminist reading of the cult: "The visions of the Virgin always have a significance related to the people and the place; they are never unconnected to the local circumstance... Her image often reflects men's purpose: kings commissioned royal pictures of her to validate their position, popes have had her painted at their side, Byzantine emperors stamped her image on their coins, Christopher Columbus sailed under her aegis to the new world..."
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