The word “animism” is loosely used to refer to the set of polytheistic beliefs of communities that are generally not well coded, essentially considered as a more decentralised form of proper faith. The word took hold in the world just as the British influence grew, with the colonial administration using the term simultaneously with other derogatory terms such as “aborigines”, “semi-Hindoos” and so on. It may very well be argued that groups who shared inseparable identities from other Hindus were deliberately separated out for the vested interests of the British crown.

The etymology of the word can be traced back to Edward B. Tylor, a highly racist British anthropologist who looked down upon people of other cultures. He believed that society underwent three stages - savagery, barbarism and eventually civilisation. He placed “animism” into the fold of the primitive, feeling that communities that worshipped nature and ancestors were uncivilised, to say the least. Being born of a religious Protestant background, it comes as no surprise that he held poor regard for polytheistic belief systems. Such thought processes were all the more common among the colonials of the Victorian period who felt it was their noble deed to civilise the dirty, brown Indians.

Looking back into British records, the disdain for the native traditions of the land is all the more conspicuous from the British officials in their notes. Often enough, they would try to put down Hindus as a weak race and justify it as a consequence of their varied pantheon. Muslims, in contrast, received much better treatment being “People of the Book”, with the colonial administration even encouraging the settlement of the Mohammedans into virgin tracts to make them “productive”.

The groups at the greatest loss from such demographic engineering were the vulnerable tribal communities that had been inhabiting these lands from time immemorial. They had developed a deep and harmonious bond with the fauna and flora of the regions, resulting in considerable inter-dependence wherein they protected many crucial ecosystems as well. Such a delicate balance of power was disrupted by the meddling of the British who deforested ecological hotspots causing the extinction of several species that had still survived the centuries of Turko-Afghan persecutions earlier.

The colonial bureaucracy took great measures to ensure many of these small janajatis were de-linked from the greater Hindu fold through the cunning usage of flimsy parameters. The tribal communities of the Chota Nagpur Plateau have been at the forefront of being targeted with vicious narratives that seek to deconstruct their identity. Some members of these tribes have now begun worshipping Mahishasura much to the melancholia of their forefathers. Folklores have been reconstructed to imbibe elements of the controversial Aryan Invasion Theory where they are made to believe they are victims of aggression from Hindus. This is contrary to historical events such as the Paika Rebellion where these same tribes rallied under the name of Bhagwan Jagannath against the inhumane British terror or the Oraon leader Jatra Bhagat opposing the Christian missionaries.

Another such community that was worse hit were the Pnars of Meghalaya, better known as the Jaintias. Despite the royals of this ethnic group being devout Shakta followers and the people following every other custom as any other Hindu, they were classified as animists. Even to this day, followers of the Niamtre faith continue to worship Hindu deities such as Ka Lukkhi (Lakshmi) and U Biskurom (Vishwakarma) and hold the same taboos regarding beef as any other practising Hindu.

The British government annexed the Hindu Jaintia kingdom in 1835 arguing against the “barbaric” practice of narabali (human sacrifice) the kings made to Devi Jayanti at the Nartiang Shaktipeeth. In hindsight, it appears that the Hindu royalty with the influence of the local Brahmins (called wamons in the Pnar language) acted as the biggest hurdle in their goal to proselytise among the Hindus. It takes a great ordeal of mental gymnastics to argue that a community who are devout worshippers of one of the sacred Shaktipeeths cannot be Hindu in any manner. With the reduced authority of the Hindu kings and their administration, the vested groups began concocting mischievous tales of deception where rumours were spread that the royalty were originally Bengalis who had usurped the throne. This went hand in hand with the claim that Brahmanical ideals were imposed onto the gullible tribals, much like the tale of Bengali imposition in Manipur (which ironically was done by the British themselves).

British records themselves indicate that certain communities were undergoing a phase of absorption of Vedic values despite living in the geographical extremities. The Zeliangrongs of Assam and Manipur were seen to have started dressing up deities such as Vishnu in their local garb and perceive him as Tingkao Ragwang, the supreme deity of their pantheon. One may attribute that the effect may have been compounded by the Sanamahi-Vaishnavite influence of the neighbouring Meities who shared a close cultural bond with the Zeliangrongs. Even to this day, one can observe Hindu Zeliangrongs making a pilgrimage to the Naga Bishnu temple that sits atop Bhuban Hill in Cachar, Assam on Magh Purnima.

Bengal and Punjab were two particular regions where the share of Hindus plummeted during the rule of the British, especially after the failed 1857 uprising to overthrow the colonial yoke. The rapid increase in the share of Muslims in these two regions may likely have been the consequence of putting fluid groups under the umbrella of Mohammedans to boost their shares in districts that were about evenly split. One district in particular was the ill-fated Khulna where the share of Hindus was rebounding despite the British transferring neighbouring Muslim majority tracts to the land over and over again. The 1941 census went a step ahead by categorising tribal communities entirely separate from Hindus despite most identifying as devout Hindus themselves.

The conundrum is all the more extreme in nations that are part of the extended Indosphere. Indonesia presents a special case where communities that follow polytheistic beliefs are more likely to be classified as Muslims on paper rather than Hindus. The island nation of Nusantara has a multitude of polytheistic beliefs such as Kejawen, Sapta Dharma, Sunda Wiwitan, Alukta, Paramalim, Tolotang, Boda and so on. Most of these religions have a close relation with Hindus resulting in cross-cultural exchange throughout the several centuries of interaction. The traditional Javanese deity Semar has become part and parcel of the Javanese, Sundanese and Balinese Hindu pantheon where he is now considered the elder brother of Batara Guru (Mahadeva), the guardian of Brahmins and Kshatriyas, keeper of wisdom and protector of the island of Java.

On the other hand, Dewi Sri (Lakshmi) has become an integral part of the various local faiths of the region to such an extent that she is now considered indigenous to faiths such as Kejawen and Sunda Wiwitan. But nonetheless, the bureaucracy prefers to label such groups under the label of abangan or “Islam with local characteristics”. The dislike the Europeans had for Hindus in this region has been well recorded with attempts such as the Portuguese fuming after their failed attempts to convert the devout Balinese Hindus or the Dutch collaborating with the Islamic Mataram Sultanate to destroy the Hindu Javanese Blambangan kingdom in East Java.

The distinction between animism and Hinduism is quite unclear culturally even to this day despite attempts by purists to purge the influence of Vedic elements from tribal communities. While any form of polytheistic thought is highly conspicuous in an Abrahamic society, the same cannot be said for polytheistic ones like India where one blends into the other. Hindus who continue to venerate nature, ancestors and grameen devatas themselves may be strongly argued to be animists much like the various tribal communities across the Indosphere. So, it seems all the more reason to abolish such colonial terms that have been created to pigeonhole centuries’ worth of cultural customs and traditions for Hinduism is also animism and vice versa.

Image depicts Wayang puppets of Semar with his younger brother Batara Guru (Mahadeva), two of the most important deities in the Javanese pantheon for Hindus and other polytheistic Javanese religions is provided by the author