ABSTRACT
Once an illness is classified as supernatural, there can be no progression in terms of the patient’s recovery until the cause is determined. The refusal of local adivasis to completely turn away from superstitious practices is one issue about which the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) holds similar views to the Church. According to the local RSS pracharak, Raj, the greatest hindrance to the RSS’s ‘civilizing’ efforts amongst adivasis is andhviswas: the superstition that underpins supernatural illness and healing and that leads local people to discard biomedicine in favour of supernatural therapies. One of the issues about which both the Church and the RSS are particularly frustrated is the practice of prematurely abandoning biomedical treatment in favour of supernatural methods. That biomedicine has gradually gained legitimacy in the past decade amongst ordinary people and gunias alike is evidenced by the fact that it has become the preferred first-stage treatment when an individual falls ill.
