Largest Tribe in India

The Gonds constitute the largest tribal group in central India, including Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra.

The Gond comprise the largest tribal group of India with a population exceeding 12 million. Linguistically, the Gond belong to the Gondi–Manda subgroup of the South Central branch of the Dravidian language family Different groups of the extended Gond population speak Gondi, Konda, Kui, Kuvi, Pengo and Manda, all languages of the South Central branch of the Dravidian language family.

Linguistically, the Gondi–Manda subgroup shares its most recent common ancestry with Telugu that is mainly spoken in the state of Andhra Pradesh, including Telangana.18^,19 Ethnographical studies by Robert von Heine-Geldern20^,21 had suggested that a subset of Dravidian populations represented by the various Gond linguistic communities as well as the local ancestral component of the Munda populations collectively represent an older layer of peopling of the Indian subcontinent. This theory was adopted by Grigson,22 who proposed that the Gonds were an originally ‘pre-Dravidian’ or what he called ‘proto-Australoid’ population that had been modified by considerable Dravidian element. Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf conducted studies on the Gond and their closely allied Dravidian linguistic communities, which led him to view these peoples as remnants of an earlier primordial population that had been linguistically assimilated.

The Indian Anthropological Society describes the Gonds as an agricultural community “belonging to the Dravidian group.” They constitute the largest tribal group in central India, including Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra.

Out of forty two (42) tribes, Gond is the most populous tribe with a population of 3,659,384 constituting 55.3 percent of the total ST population. Four other STs in descending order are Kawar, Oraon, Halba and Bhattra. Along with Gond, the five STs constitute 84.3 per cent of total ST population of the State. Binjhwar, Korwa and Sawar have a population ranging from 100,692 to 104,718. Together, they form 4.6 per cent. Ten STs, namely, Bharia Bhumia, Nagesia, Baiga…..to Kharia having population in the range of 88,981 down to 41,901, constitute another 9 per cent of total ST population; remaining twenty four (24) STs along with generic tribes constitute the balance 2 per cent of total ST population. Nine tribes have below 1000 population. Of them, five tribes, namely, Sonr, Damor, Karku, Andh and Bhil Mina are very small having population less than 100.