ASIA/INDIA - The mission among the tribes in northeastern India, the Church offers the valuable service of education. Testimony from two Bishops to Agenzia Fides.

Vatican City (Agenzia Fides) - They are small communities, that with very little resources, spread the Gospel with simplicity in remote and hard to reach areas. With silent dedication, priests, religious, missionaries, and laity work for the evangelization of the tribes in northeastern India, in a balance of proclaiming the Gospel and working towards social progress, catechesis and apostolate. This is the experience revealed to Agenzia Fides by two Bishops of the state of Assam, in northeastern India, 78,000 kilometers of mountainous terrain, home to over 26,000,000 people, the majority of whom belong to tribes or other local ethnic groups.
They are called “border tribes” (of the 212 officially registered by the Indian Constitution), mainly living in the northeastern states of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, and Tripura.
In a mosaic of ethnic and native peoples (there are over 300 indigenous groups in northeastern India), in a society like that of Assam, historically multicultural, multi-religious, multiethnic, and multilingual, the Catholic Church offers the indigenous communities a valuable service of education, social services, and health care that helps them to incorporate themselves into the Indian society, where these peoples would otherwise run the risk of feeling like “odd-bodies.”
Agenzia Fides met with Bishop Thomas Pulloppillil of Bongaigaon and Bishop John Moolachira of Diphu, pastors of two neighboring communities, who share the same struggles due to the common social base of the territory and the common pastoral challenges they have. “In Bongaigaon,” says Bishop Pulloppillil, “with its 65,000 Catholics, we make an effort to spread the Gospel, as well as take care of the common good and development, in a community of Boros. They are the largest tribe in Assame and in the entire northeast region. They have a Mongol-Tibetan origin and physical features, but have lived there for hundreds of years. They also live in parts of Nepal and Bangladesh. Many of them converted to Christianity thanks to the missionaries. We currently serve them with faith formation, education, and sanitary aid, which is fundamental for the life of their communities. One of the aspects that we insist on is that of education towards peace and reconciliation: the northeast area is affected by thousands of micro-conflicts between the communities of various ethnic origins, that can go on for years and that take a serious toll on local development. We continue evangelizing the small towns in the diocese, thanks to about 15 priests, 150 sisters, and many lay catechists.”
Bishop John Moolachira has been a bishop for almost a year and his diocese id home to three main ethnic groups: Karbi, Garo, Adivasi, Among the main challenges, “is that the pastoral workers must learn their language in order to communicate with them and touch their hearts. It is essential for an evangelization that is zealously carried out from town to town, as well as in offering education in the schools that are opened along with the parishes, thanks to the work of religious and lay personnel. The other area that the Catholics work in is sanitary aid.” This is all explained in the five-year plan that the Bishop and his team of assistants began a short while ago.
Both Bishops told Agenzia Fides the guidelines for the mission of the Church among the tribes: these groups, who live in remote areas, continue to live their lives according to the secular tribal traditions, with a level of mere survival, with agricultural resources and livestock that are barely enough for their own subsistence. Because of this, they are often cut off from the social and cultural system of Indian society, and their children do not have the possibility of attending public schools. The education of the tribes is, therefore, an essential point and a manner in which the Church can contribute to the transformation and improvement of Indian society. For the tribal communities, marginalized by the general education system, a formation with vision towards themes and techniques that can help improve their standard of living, is vital. Through a service in promotion of the human person, social activity becomes the way to show personal attention to all people, a defining characteristic of the Christian.
In this situation, some non-governmental organizations and Christian associations offer aid to the small farmers, forming small cooperative organizations, teaching them new farming techniques, in an effort to improve productivity and offer the agricultural market products with competitive prices.
In northeast India, the seed of the faith was planted by Salvatorian missionaries over 100 years ago (although the first contact with Christianity goes back to the 16th century): some courageous missionaries ventured out into a remote area of the state of Asma in order to bring the Good News. They were later followed by the Salesians.
Among the fruits of the missionary work of so many religious and laity among the tribes, is the arrival of new vocations. The tribal peoples of India receive the Christian message with joy: even in the most remote towns of eastern India, there are communities that live the faith with great devotion and foster vocations to the priesthood and religious life. (PA) (Agenzia Fides 29/4/2008; righe 67, parole 847)