Delhi, 08 August 2024:
The United Nations passed a resolution in the year 2007 and decided to observe the World Indigenous Peoples day from August 9 every year. A large number of tribal societies residing in India are also affected by this decision, they feel as if the identity of each class and society is fixed by a particular day, similarly August 9 is a global festival day for tribals around the world. But in their happiness, it is also necessary to know why the United Nations has decided to observe Native Day? Behind this is the anguish of the tribal societies that European countries have given to tribes around the world.
Celebrating this day as a celebration actually began with opposing Columbus Day being celebrated annually in America. The year 1492, on October 12, Christopher Columbus set foot on American soil. Columbus had, with the help of the King of Spain, set out to discover a new route to India, but wandered the path to the Bahamas Islands near the American continent, where the Aravak tribesmen hailed from.
Europeans and Americans consider Columbus to be Columbus as their age, and the tradition of celebrating Columbus Day from October 12, every year in 1792, marks the completion of 300 years of America’s discovery. In the second half of the twentieth century, the facts of Columbus’s inhuman, cruel acts began to be revealed to the world about how Columbus mercilessly murdered Native Americans, enslaved them, and tortured tribal women and children. As soon as these facts came to light, tribes around the world demanded their right to their existence. Columbus Day protests erupted.
Columbus was a seafarer who explored new routes with the help of kings. In the Bahamas and other areas of America, Columbus feared a large gold mine there, seeing the tribes there wearing gold ornaments.
When he returned to Spain, there was a failure to find a new route to India on one side. Afraid that the king would not punish him, Columbus spread many false news in Spain. He told the king that the people of America are strong and hardworking and there are large reserves of gold.
The king sought the help of army and money, in return for which Spain would get a treasure of gold. Believing Columbus’ point, the king made an agreement to give 10 percent of the gold to Columbus in exchange for bringing gold. At the same time, the king asked the American tribes to bring them to Spain as slaves.
Thus, with the king’s military assistance, Columbus returned to the Bahamas, engaged the Aravac tribe to search for gold on the basis of gunfire, and those who could not find gold were executed or their hands were cut off. Women were raped and children were treated inhumanely.
20 years after the discovery of Columbus, Spain’s Todo Raven narrates an incident in the book, in which Europeans made a woman eat dog food because that woman, being a husband, did not compromise her virtue. The author dedicated his book to this woman named Mayan.
There is also mention of an incident of cruelty to children, when a child was going towards his mother to escape the tyranny of the European invaders, the seniors sitting on the horse competed to target the child, finally the child was shot. Fell victim to Disturbed by the atrocities of Columbus, the Arawak tribe committed suicide in large numbers. Columbus brought 500 Aravac people to Spain as slaves.
Similarly, people of America’s Aztec tribe also get stories of converting to Christianity. One theory holds that Spain’s Queen Isabella sent Columbus to preach and convert to Christianity, and Columbus forced the indigenous people to convert. When the Aztec tribes refused to convert to Christianity, the source of the incident of killing them and capturing their children in the Catholic Church conforms to Christianity is found in the sources.
Historians Wolfgang Hass and Rheinhold have written about how the missionaries converted the Native Americans by adopting a policy of punishment by propagating the myth of St. Tomas, the disciple of Jesus Christ.
Within a mere 50 years, the number of the Arvac tribe disappeared from the Bahamas. Apart from the Bahamas, Haiti also brutally killed more than one million people. In the United States, it is estimated that the population of the local Red Indian population was about 1 crore in 1600, it had reduced to 3 lakh in 1865. This inhumanity was not limited to the United States only, in the seventeenth century every year 1000 slaves were brought from Africa, about 3 lakhs a year.
In the 18th century, their number had increased to half a million. And by the middle of the next century, nearly 11 lakh slaves were brought. In order to forcefully capture the land and valuable resources of a country, the European colonial powers killed the native inhabitants in many countries of Australia, New Zealand and Africa and converted the remaining people from their culture and converted them to Christianity.
Hundreds of years later, when the world began to worry about the indigenous peoples struggling for their survival on the occupied territories, the debate over the rights and rehabilitation of these persecuted people began. As a result of this debate, the International Labor Organization formed a committee in 1992 to consider the rights of indigenous people, which first met on 9 August.
But there is another fact behind celebrating World Native Day on 9 August, in fact, on 9 August, St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross Feast Day is celebrated. Catholic Church Feast Day is encouraged to celebrate with great fanfare among Indigenous people around the world. According to one belief, the propagation of Christianity started from this day, which continues till Christmas and English New Year.
It can be clearly said that the United Nations declaration of Native American Day on 9 August was a repentance of the atrocities and discrimination committed by European powers in various countries. There is also a conspiracy to convert these groups by Christian missionaries in the name of giving rights and service to the indigenous people.
This day is also celebrated as Adivasi Day in India, it is only meant to support the Indian against the atrocities against the indigenous people and the indigenous people around the world have nothing more than the Indian assurance to preserve their culture Keeps.
