Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM), the ruling party in Jharkhand, today announced that it will not allow a caste census in the State by the Central government unless the long-pending demand for the Sarna Religious Code is accepted by the Centre.
JMM General Secretary Vinod Pandey today issued a letter to all district presidents and heads of the party’s various cells, stating that a caste census will not be permitted in Jharkhand without the Sarna religion code or tribal religion code.
The Jharkhand Mukti Morcha will hold a one-day protest at all the district headquarters of the state on 9 May in opposition to the caste census being conducted without the implementation of the Sarna religion code.
All party officials, MPs and MLAs of JMM will participate in this protest across all districts and divisional headquarters.
Many tribal communities, primarily from Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, West Bengal, Bihar, Assam, and Madhya Pradesh, believe that they follow a natural worship system, in which natural elements such as trees, mountains, and rivers are revered. Those who identify with the Sarna religion assert that they belong to a distinct faith.
Supporters of a separate Sarna religion code argue that tribals should be given a separate option to indicate their religion in the census. There is currently no separate column for the Sarna religion in India’s census form, due to which tribals are forced to select either 'Hindu', 'Christian', or 'Other'.
Advocates of the Sarna code claim that, in the absence of a dedicated category in the census form, the religious identity of tribal communities is lost, and they are inaccurately classified under other mainstream religions.
The JMM has been campaigning on this issue for many years, and during the 2024 Lok Sabha and Assembly elections, it was prominently raised by Chief Minister Hemant Soren and other senior party leaders.
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