Category Archives: Figures, census and other statistics

[W]ith the Union cabinet approving a Constitution amendment on September 14 for the inclusion of 15 groups of tribals in Himachal, Chhattisgarh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh in the ST category, the total number of tribes to be notified under Article 342 of the Constitution will increase, when the amendment is through, to 720 from 705 as of now.” – Rabindra Nath Sinha in “Tribal Outfits Gearing up to Restart Stir on Sarna Religious Code Issue” (Newsclick.in, 15 September 2022)
https://www.newsclick.in/tribal-outfits-gearing-restart-sarna-religious-code-issue
https://indiantribalheritage.org/?p=22095

“India is home to nearly 20 Cr. [200 million] traditional forest-dwelling Adivasis and OTFDs [other forest dwelling communities], who derive their subsistence and livelihoods from forest and forest resources over several generations and thousands of years.” – Research team (Sayantani Satpathi, Shambhavi Singh & Subhodeep Basu) in “Revisiting the Forest Rights Act: Status of Implementation with respect to Land Tenures and Collection of Minor Forest Produce), Bharat Rural Livelihoods Foundation (New Delhi, 12 July 2019)
https://www.academia.edu/41756309
https://indiantribalheritage.org/?p=10151

“The latest available data reveals that 4.7 million tribal children of India suffer from chronic nutrition deprivation affecting their survival, growth, learning, performance in school and productivity as adults.” – Unicef India “What we do: Tribal nutrition” (accessed 26 July 2022)
https://www.unicef.org/india/what-we-do/tribal-nutrition
https://indiantribalheritage.org/?p=11674

“There are over 700 tribes (with overlapping communities in more than one State) which have been notified under Article 342 of the Constitution of India, spread over different States and Union Territories of the country. The largest number of main tribal communities (62) has been specified in relation to the State of Orissa. The Scheduled Tribes have been specified in relation to all the States and Union Territories except Haryana, Punjab, Chandigarh, Delhi, and Pondicherry.” – National Commission for Scheduled Tribes, Government of India (Ministry of Tribal Affairs), accessed on 14 September 2021
https://www.ncst.gov.in/content/frequently-asked-questions
https://indiantribalheritage.org/?p=22095

“The tribal population in Maharashtra in 2011 was 10.5 million constituting 9.35 percent of the total population of the state. The state has the second largest tribal population in the country, next only to Madhya Pradesh, with 10 percent of the total ST population of India. Numerically, Maharashtra state has the largest number of tribal population in the country.” – Foreword to “Tribal Sub-Plan in Maharashtra: A Diagnostic Study” (TATA Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai supported by Unicef Maharashtra, December 2015)
https://cdnbbsr.s3waas.gov.in/s3c8758b517083196f05ac29810b924aca/uploads/2019/11/2019112971.pdf
https://indiantribalheritage.org/?p=31354

“As per 2011 census, the total ST [Scheduled Tribes] population is 10.42 crores [104 million], of which more than 50% or in excess of 6 [60 million] crores live in 5th Scheduled Area in Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Odisha, Jharkhand and Himachal Pradesh. The 5th Schedule forbids monetization of land by STs in Scheduled Areas.” – Indian Police Service (IPS) officer M Nageswara Rao in “Scheduled Tribes: Who are they? How to mainstream them?” (Times of India, 16 May 2020)
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/blogs/voices/scheduled-tribes-who-are-they-how-to-mainstream-them/
https://indiantribalheritage.org/?p=5576

“Over the past three years, the quality of inequality data released by the government has seriously deteriorated, making it particularly difficult to assess recent inequality changes.” – Country Appendix, World Inequality Report 2022
https://wir2022.wid.world/country-appendix-glossary/
https://indiantribalheritage.org/?p=5547

“Unlike in the West, people are not frequently changing jobs. In the villages, most people know each other. So [historically speaking] it isn’t surprising our census figures for rural areas are more dependable than those in urban areas. But the extent of undernumeration is disturbingly high in urban areas.” – Population expert Sumanta Pal interviewed by Ashish Bose in “Censuses mean little” (Down To Earth, 15 December 1993)
https://www.downtoearth.org.in/interviews/censuses-mean-little-31796
https://indiantribalheritage.org/?p=7364

“Local politicians push migration to the [Andaman and Nicobar] islands in the hope of adding to their votes. The local officials collude by understating population in the archipelago – as I found in 2004, the number of folks with names on ration cards is higher than what the census reported.” – M. Rajshekhar in “Remembering Samir Acharya, Who Fought to Preserve the Cultures of Andaman and Nicobar” (The Wire, 18 October 2020)
https://thewire.in/rights/samir-acharya-andaman-nicobar-activist-culture-preservation-tribute
https://indiantribalheritage.org/?p=7364

“Among the 75 listed [Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups] the highest number are found in Odisha (13), followed by Andhra Pradesh (12), Bihar including Jharkhand (9) Madhya Pradesh including Chhattisgarh (7) Tamil Nadu (6) Kerala and Gujarat having five groups each. The remaining PVTGs live in West Bengal (3) Maharashtra (3), two each in Karnataka and Uttarakhand and one each in Rajasthan, Tripura and Manipur. All the four tribal groups in Andamans, and one in Nicobar Islands, are recognised as PVTGs. […] Smallest population size among the PVTGs are the Sentenelese (as per the last contact effort on March 9, 2005, groups of 32 and 13 persons were sighted at different places). They still shy away from others. The Great Andamanese (57 persons) and the Onge (107 persons in 2012 as per Andaman Adim Janjati Vikas Samiti) are the dwindling populations. In main land, the Toto of West Bengal (314 families with 1,387 persons as per 2011 census) and the Toda of Tamil Nadu (1,608, inclusive of 238 Christian Todas as per TRC, Udagamandalam [Ooty], 2011) have population less than 2000 persons. The Saharia people of Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan are the largest among the PVTGs with population more than 4 lakhs.” – “The Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups of India — Privileges and Predicaments” (published by the Anthropological Survey of India AnSI), quoted by Shiv Sahay Singh in “Vulnerable tribes: lost in a classification trap” (The Hindu, 8 April 2017)
https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/vulnerable-tribes-lost-in-a-classification-trap/article17894997.ece
https://indiantribalheritage.org/?page_id=22029

“These communities/tribes [the erstwhile aborigines] account for nearly 10 per cent of community’s population as has been mentioned in some writings and there are nearly 820 communities and tribes in India, although some of the community leaders assess that their number would be more with 198 denotified tribes and nearly 1,500 nomadic tribes and their population may be even more than 10 per cent.” – Bibek Debroy quoting a 2016 Report of the National Commission for Denotified, Nomadic and Semi-Nomadic Tribes NCDNT (Indian Express, 5 January 2017)
https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/crime-criminal-act-racial-discrimination-non-bailable-offence-criminal-tribes-act-an-unfortunate-legacy-4459258/
https://indiantribalheritage.org/?p=12284

“Historically speaking, there were political and social reasons for declaring such large number of whole communities criminal, and it needs to be put on record as to how such a process with long-term consequences was put into action. […] Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Backward Classes […] constitute about 3/4th of the population of the country and almost the entire physical labour force of the country is drawn from them. It is the failure to tackle their problems so as to remove their disabilities and secure their full potential for national development that lies at the root of the many weaknesses faced by post-Independence India to this day.” – “Recommendations of the Technical Advisory Group” [TAG], New Delhi, 2006
http://www.bhasharesearch.org/Reports/TAG%20Report.pdf
https://indiantribalheritage.org/?p=32139

“Walk Free Foundation has used figures from household surveys to produce their ‘Global Slavery Index’, which estimated that on “any given day in 2016, an estimated 24.9 million men, women, and children were living in modern slavery in Asia and the Pacific.” – Anna Tsalapatanis (Centre for Socio-Legal Studies, University of Oxford) in “An uncertainty of terms. Definitional and methodological concerns in human trafficking” (IIAS The Newsletter 87 Autumn 2020)
https://www.iias.asia/the-newsletter/article/uncertainty-terms-definitional-and-methodological-concerns-human-trafficking
https://indiantribalheritage.org/?p=36150

“The highest numbers of trafficking victims are detected in the countries in which they are citizens. […] Walk Free Foundation has used figures from household surveys to produce their ‘Global Slavery Index’, which estimated that on ‘any given day in 2016, an estimated 24.9 million men, women, and children were living in modern slavery in Asia and the Pacific’.” – Anna Tsalapatanis (Centre for Socio-Legal Studies, University of Oxford) in “An uncertainty of terms. Definitional and methodological concerns in human trafficking” (IIAS The Newsletter 87 Autumn 2020)
https://www.iias.asia/the-newsletter/article/uncertainty-terms-definitional-and-methodological-concerns-human-trafficking
https://indiantribalheritage.org/?p=3615