Population and Tribes of MP: Bhil, Gond and Baiga

Madhya Pradesh is the second largest state of India by area and one of the most tribal. Two sets of facts come from this topic: the figures of the 2011 Census, which are what the papers quote, and the tribes themselves, with their districts, languages, festivals and crafts. Both sets are small enough to memorise, and together they explain the shape of the state's society.

The population picture of 2011

The Census of 2011 counted about 7.26 crore people in Madhya Pradesh, which made it the sixth most populous state at the time. The decadal growth of the previous ten years was a little over twenty per cent, the density was 236 persons per square kilometre, well below the national figure, and the sex ratio was 931 women for every thousand men. Literacy stood at a little over 69 per cent, with male literacy near 79 and female literacy near 59 per cent, so the literacy gap between the sexes is one of the points examiners like. A little over a quarter of the people lived in towns, which makes the state far more rural than India as a whole.

Districts at the extremes

Within the state the differences are sharp. Indore is the most populous district and Harda the least. Bhopal has the highest density of population and Dindori the lowest, which follows from one being the capital and the other being forest and hill country. Balaghat has the highest sex ratio and Bhind the lowest. Jabalpur has the highest literacy and Alirajpur the lowest, and the same Alirajpur, Jhabua and Barwani belt has the largest share of tribal people. Scheduled Tribes are about 21 per cent of the state's population and Scheduled Castes about 16 per cent, and because the state is large, its tribal population in absolute numbers is the biggest of any state in India.

The Bhils of western Madhya Pradesh

The Bhil is the most numerous tribe of the state. Bhils live in the hilly west, in Jhabua, Alirajpur, Dhar, Barwani, Khargone and Khandwa, and their groups include the Bhilala, Barela and Patelia. They speak Bhili and its dialect Bhilali, which belong to the Indo-Aryan family. The Bhagoria haat, held in the weeks before Holi, is their best known festival, a market and fair at which young people choose their partners. Their wall painting is the Pithora, in which rows of horses are drawn to fulfil a vow, and the gal and gair dances belong to their festivals. Tantya Bhil and Bhima Nayak, who fought the British in the Nimar hills in the nineteenth century, are remembered as their heroes.

The Gonds and the eastern tribes

The Gond is the second largest tribe and the one with a kingdom behind it: the Gond states of Garha-Katanga, Deogarh, Kherla and Chanda ruled in central India, and Rani Durgavati of Garha-Katanga died fighting the Mughal army. Gonds live in Chhindwara, Betul, Seoni, Mandla, Dindori and Balaghat, and their language Gondi belongs to the Dravidian family, unlike Bhili. Bada Dev is their chief deity, Madai and Meghnath are their fairs, and the karma dance is theirs. Gond painting, in which Jangarh Singh Shyam created the style now called the Jangarh kalam, has carried the tribe's art to galleries abroad. Further east the Kol of Rewa, Satna and Sidhi and the Korku of Betul and Khandwa are the other large groups.

The particularly vulnerable groups

Three communities of the state are classed as particularly vulnerable tribal groups: the Baiga, the Bharia and the Sahariya. The Baiga of Mandla, Dindori, Balaghat and Shahdol practised bewar or dahiya shifting cultivation and traditionally would not plough the earth, which they treat as their mother; the Baiga Chak in Dindori was set aside for them, and their godna tattooing and karma dance are well known. The Bharia live in the sunken Patalkot valley of Chhindwara and in Jabalpur and Mandla, and are known as herbal healers. The Sahariya are a forest people of the Chambal region, in Sheopur, Shivpuri, Morena and Gwalior. For their protection the state's scheduled areas come under the Fifth Schedule, with gram sabha powers under the PESA Act of 1996 and forest rights under the Act of 2006.

Where the state keeps its tribal record

Bhopal holds two museums an aspirant should know: the Madhya Pradesh Tribal Museum, which shows the life and art of the state's tribes, and the Indira Gandhi Rashtriya Manav Sangrahalaya, the national museum of mankind, laid out as open-air tribal habitats. Together with the tribal research institute they are the standard answers to questions on where tribal culture is documented. Remember the pattern of the tribes themselves: Bhils in the west, Gonds and Baigas in the centre and east, Kols in the north-east, Sahariyas in the north, and the three vulnerable groups in the list above.