Brief History & Current Situation of Gond Tribal People of Bastar

This was a field research done by Jay Shakuntala Tribal Welfare Foundation anthropologist teams on the Gond (also called Raj Gond) tribal people in 2019-2020 who are predominantly settled in the Bastar area of Chattisgarh.

The relevance of such a research can be seen from a recent government decision to isolate some of the indigenous communities as Denotified Nomadic Tribe (per the National Commission for Denotified, Nomadic and Semi-Nomadic Tribes, 2016) making it very hard for them to sustain their heritage cultures and lifestyles. This seems even harsher given the fact that the British rulers had always wanted to suppress such indigenous communities (through the 1871 Criminal Tribes Act or CTA) especially because of the resistance these communities put up against the British rule.

This research presents its own unbiased observations of the Gond tribal people based in Bastar in Chattisgarh. Bastar has the largest population of the Gond tribes according to the 2011 Census of India, having close to 4.2 million people of the total of Gond population of about 13.3 million according to the same report. The Gond also forms the largest of the indigenous tribal people in India, accounting for about 25% of the 60 million known Indian tribal people.

The Gond tribal people & their role in the history of India

Prior to Indian independence from the British colonial rulers, the British had systematically tried to eliminate any resistance to their establishment & who they could not kill, they made laws to identify them as criminals. Freedom fighters of India formed the largest segment of such denomination. The JSWF research showed that the Gond tribes were more fighters who intended to protect their families from the atrocities of the British and in that process also save their livelihood, heritage, cultures, religion and their land.

Many of the known Gond tribal rebellions were based their intent on to protect their identity, their forests, heritage and land as well as their culture. True to their behavior, the tribal communities struggle to this day to protect their indigenous nature. It was recently evident during the formation of Chhattisgarh state, the various tribes of Bastar came out in large number protesting against the inclusion of Bastar (i.e. the three districts of Bastar, Dantewada and Kanker which were in Bastar district under 1998) under the statehood of Chhattisgarh. Thousand participated in demonstrations that took place in Konta, Bijapur, and other areas of south and west Bastar.

Socio-economic status of Gond tribe in Bastar

The Gond and their sub tribes i.e. Muriya, Abujhmariya & Madiya, are huter gatherer tribes & are nomadic people doing primitive type shifting cultivation. They spend all life in poverty and ignorance within their natural small ecosystem. Lack of education & awareness also has superstitious behavior cutting deep into their daily lives. Economically and socially they have remained backward but they are satisfied with their situation.

Due to unstable lifestyle they are suffering from low literacy rate. The literacy rate of Gond in Chhattisgarh is about 56.7 percent of which the literacy rate is about 67.5% in males while females are way behind with about 46.2% literacy. The literacy rate is far below in the Gond population in the Bastar district from the literacy rate of Gond people of the State.

Being of the hunter-gatherer mindset, the mainstream occupational status of the Gond tribal people in Bastar is also very poor. About 61.3% of the population are mainstream workers while about 38.7% are marginal workers according to the Statistical Profile of Schedule Tribe in India, 2013 report available on Bharat Rural Livelihoods Foundation. The poor occupational situation, low literacy and nomadic nature of this tribal community continues to plague their progress & deprives them from various modernization efforts led by the government.

Current marginalization of Gond tribe in Chattisgarh

The region around Bastar & in general across Chattisgarh is naturally gifted with minerals, coal & forests, making it attractive to commercial establishments to exploit these natural resources. Unfortunately, the Government has been mostly uncaring towards the needs of re-establishing the tribal communities or with any efforts to bring them into the mainstream.

Aggressive encroachments to exploit these natural resources by large corporations have led to severe encroachments into the habitats of the Gond tribal communities of the Bastar district. Being left with no land, no food, no means to survive and continuous malicious injuries caused by other communities taking advantage of the denotified status of the Gond, they were left with no option but to flee. Being nomadic in nature, the young generation of the tribe continues to be deprived of education keeping them in perpetual darkness, ignorance & ruled by superstitions. Financially they continue to lose their footing and are consistently dominated by poverty with almost no chances of a quick recovery.

Gond migrations from Chattisgarh to Andhra Pradesh

The Gond tribe has traditionally been hunter gatherers, migrating from one place to another frequently. That tradition remains to this day, making it difficult for these tribal people to integrate into the mainstream society coupled with other challenges arising due to the socio-political situations of the region.

Due to their wondering traditions, the Gond people are living a life of isolation from the rest of the society. Most of these tribes prefer to stay near jungles, away from the villages. Thousands of families belonging to these tribes wander from place to place and stay in temporary structures in Bastar. In this condition they are not in a position to integrate themselves in the society and avail of the benefits of government facilities and modern civil life.

According to recent surveys, over 30,000 Muriyas families have been migrated to Andhra Pradesh from the Bastar division alone comprising of Bastar, Kanker, Narayanpur, Bijapur and Dantewada districts.

As the region adopts more modernization like establishments of industries, more prolific transportation systems, expansions of railways, efforts to increasing mining and other globalizations have increased deforestations & continues to drive more and more tribal people, who live a forest dependent life, further away and into other parts of the country that are either not as prone to rapid growth or are farther away from any settled communities.