In India, native tribals (tribes) are found the states of Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Chattisgarh, Gujarat, Jharkhand, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Mizoram, Orissa, Rajasthan, West Bengal, and other northeastern states, and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The ‘Scheduled Tribes’ – as officially recognized by the government of India “in the Fifth Schedule of the Constitution of India” – are eligible for certain privileges and welfare measures. Tribals are most of the time geographically isolated on hills or inside forests, living by hunting and food gathering or based on primitive agriculture with poverty and low levels of literacy and health. Each of them has their own heart language, distinctive culture and animistic religion.
Several of the among the tribal population groups are identified as more backward communities and have been categorized as 'Primitive Tribes’ by the government. There are seventy-five tribal communities which have been identified as 'primitive tribal groups' in different States of India.
Though Tribal peoples constitute 8.2% of the nation's total population, they are still a large number- over 84 million people (2001 census). In the northeastern states (Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Mizoram, and Nagaland) more than 90% of the population is tribal. In the rest of the northeast states of Assam, Manipur, Sikkim, and Tripura, tribal peoples form between 20 and 30% of the population.
75% of the total tribal population lives in the Central Indian states. However, the tribal population there accounts for only around 10% of the region's total population.
Six percent in Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka are members of different tribes while only one percent of the populations of Kerala and Tamil Nadu are tribal.
So where do we start looking at them one by one? Focus on People starts its frame from Kerala. (If you can write about a native tribe in your region, send it to us. We can post it with due acknowledgement and link it to your website).