Tribal and Adivasi Sunday | 4 August 2019

August 20, 2019/0 Comments/in Appeal, News from NCCI /by Communications

And the people of God said, “Amen” !!

Worship in every Christian tradition has been a corporate affirmation of God’s work amidst us, accomplished in and through all of God’s creation including the human persons.

This year too we affirm God at work in the context of the struggles and resilience of the indigenous peoples of our lands; their affirmation of life, living patterns, search for livelihood options, and more importantly land. Identity, the very essence of being human persons and that which is so intrinsically related to land is denied when land itself is usurped.

We are invited this year during the observance of the NCCI Tribal and Adivasi Sunday to lift our hearts and cry out to this apathy, and more importantly to affirm our participation in the struggle to restore land to the peoples who love, tend and keep it. Affirmed and committed thus, we are also invited to join issue with those persons, policies and processes that usurp land, challenging with all else and God the affirmation of life and dignity to these our kin – the land and her own.

I commend to you the work of my colleague Mr. Pradip Bansrior, the Executive Secretary of the Dalit and Tribal/ Adivasi Concerns of the National Council of Churches in India, and that of his team, who invite us to worship together and thus to this commitment to restore land to the Indigenous people from whom it is usurped thereby affirming rights that’s just.