"Thus, since 1947, several legal amendments to prohibit and effectively thwart conversions by force or fraud were pushed by tribal MPs. For another example, the genuinely indigenous revolt led by Birsa Munda in 1899 was modelled on the Hindu reform movement Arya Samaj , and started with an attack on a mission post. Birsa receives only a single and quite scornful mention in this book, eventhough he is still a national hero for the Mundas."

“Birsa Munda, whose Munda rebellion started with attacks on mission posts in 1899, claimed to have visions after the mode of the Biblical prophets, but told his flock to give up animal sacrifice, witchcraft and intoxication and to wear the sacred thread, all amounting to a kind of self-sanskritization. While such charismatic leaders come and go, the tradition of tribal nativism continues, and the VKA seeks to channel it towards integration into a larger Hindu activism. Gérard Heuzé ... aptly notes that the tribal rebellions of the 19th century, such as the 1830 Kol movement, the 1855 Santal Hoot and the 1899 Birsa rebellion, were incorporated by the Freedom Movement in its vision of a native tradition of struggle against foreign invaders , though in fact, exploitation by native landlords and money-lenders had also played a role in provoking the tribals into rebellion.”