Fairs and Tribal Culture of India: Melas, Tribes and PYQs

A mela is a gathering fixed to a date in the lunar calendar that pulls a whole region to one river bank, temple town or fairground. Tribal culture is the living practice of India's Scheduled Tribes: their sowing and harvest festivals, their dances, crafts and dress. General Knowledge papers put the two in one chapter because both are asked in the same shape, a name paired with a place. Learn the fair with its state and month, and the tribe with its region and its festival, and most one-mark questions from this chapter answer themselves.

The great religious fairs

The Kumbh Mela is the largest of them. It rotates between Prayagraj on the confluence of the Ganga, the Yamuna and the mythical Saraswati, Haridwar on the Ganga, Ujjain on the Shipra and Nashik with Trimbakeshwar on the Godavari. An Ardh Kumbh falls midway between two Kumbhs at Prayagraj and Haridwar. UNESCO inscribed the Kumbh Mela on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2017.

The Ambubachi Mela is held at the Kamakhya temple on Nilachal Hill in Guwahati, Assam, in the Assamese month of Ahaar, which falls in June. The temple stays shut for three days and reopens on the fourth. The Gangasagar Mela is held on Sagar Island in West Bengal at Makar Sankranti, where the Ganga meets the Bay of Bengal. The Magh Mela and the Kalpavas that goes with it fall at Prayagraj in the month of Magh.

Fair, state and occasion

Who the tribes are, and where

Article 366(25) of the Constitution defines Scheduled Tribes as the tribes the President specifies for a state or a union territory by public notification under Article 342. The Fifth Schedule governs scheduled areas outside the North East, while the Sixth Schedule creates autonomous district councils in Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram. Article 338A, inserted by the 89th Constitutional Amendment Act of 2003, provides for a separate National Commission for Scheduled Tribes. The Ministry of Tribal Affairs was carved out as a separate ministry in 1999. Janjatiya Gaurav Divas is observed on 15 November, the birth anniversary of Birsa Munda. Census 2011 put the Scheduled Tribe share of the population at 8.6 per cent, with the largest tribal population in Madhya Pradesh and the highest share among the states in Mizoram.

Tribal festivals to memorise

• Hornbill Festival: Nagaland, at Kisama near Kohima, from 1 to 10 December, called the festival of festivals.
• Moatsu: the Ao tribe of Nagaland, in May, after sowing; Sekrenyi belongs to the Angami.
• Mopin: the Galo tribe of Arunachal Pradesh; Solung belongs to the Adi and Nyokum to the Nyishi.
• Wangala: the Garo of Meghalaya, the hundred-drums harvest festival; Behdienkhlam is the Jaintia festival at Jowai.
• Chapchar Kut: Mizoram, the spring festival at which the Cheraw bamboo dance is performed.
• Sarhul, Karma and Bhagta Parab: Jharkhand; Sarhul worships the sal tree at the start of the year.
• Ali Ai Ligang: the Mising tribe of Assam, the sowing festival of the month of Fagun.

Dances and crafts of the tribes

Pair the dance with the people. Bagurumba goes with the Bodo of Assam, Cheraw with the Mizo, Nongkrem with the Khasi, Ghoomar with the Bhil and the Rajputs of Rajasthan, Gussadi with the Raj Gond of Telangana, Dhemsa with the Koya of the Bastar belt and Siddi Dhamal with the Siddis of Gujarat. Pair the painting with the people too: Warli with Maharashtra, Gond and Bhil Pithora with Madhya Pradesh, Saura with Odisha and Santhal wall painting with Jharkhand. Crafts questions follow the same pattern, so the bamboo work of the North East, the dhokra metal casting of Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand and the Toda embroidery of the Nilgiris are worth a line each in revision.