Gondi people
The Gondi, Gondi (Gōndi) or Gond people are people in central India, spread over the states of Madhya Pradesh, eastern Maharashtra (Vidarbha), Chhattisgarh, northern Andhra Pradesh, and Western Orissa. With over four million people, they are the largest tribe in Central India.
The Gondi language is related to Telugu and other Dravidian languages. About half of Gonds speak Gondi languages[2], while the rest speak Indo-Aryan languages including Hindi.
History
Akbarnama, the official chronicle of Mughal emperor Akbar's reign, mentions the Gond kingdom. It refers to the Gond Kingdom as Garha Katanga and having 70,000 villages in India.
For many years during the British colonial period of India the Gonds were considered to have performed human sacrifices, although this notion was later discredited.[3]
Status
The Gonds have scheduled tribe status in most of the Indian states.
Gonds of Uttar Pradesh
The Gond are also found in Uttar Pradesh (UP). Unlike in other parts of India, the UP Gond have Scheduled caste as opposed to Scheduled tribe status. They no longer speak Gondi, but now speak Hindi. The UP Gond are divided into seven sub-groups, the Dev Gond, Dholi, Kolan, Kailabhut, Mudipal, Padal and Raj Gond. Traditionally, the Raj Gond have had a higher status, and were rulers of a number of states in the region. Each of these clans is exogamous. The Gonda of UP are a landowning community, and most of them practise settled cultivation. Historically, the community practiced slash and burn agriculture, but these practices have long been discontinued.[4]
Education
Multiple education commissions on the "language question" have called for instruction, at least at the primary level, in the students' native tongue. However, state governments have often introduced regional language instruction in Gondi areas. Primary schooling among the Gonds of Andhra Pradesh, for example, began in the 1940s and 1950s. The Andhra Pradesh government selected a group of Gonds who were semiliterate in Telugu and taught them the basics of written script. These individuals became teachers who taught in Gondi, and their efforts enjoyed a measure of success until the 1970s, when state policy demanded instruction in Telugu. The switch in the language of instruction both made the Gond teachers superfluous because they could not teach in Telugu and also presented the government with the problem of finding reasonably qualified teachers willing to teach in outlying tribal schools.
Gonds frequently are reluctant to send their children to school, needing them to work in the fields instead.
See also
Further reading
- Beine, David K. 1994. A sociolinguistic survey of the Gondi-speaking communities of central India. M.A. thesis. San Diego State University. 516 p.
- Banerjee, B. G., and Kiran Bhatia. Tribal Demography of Gonds. Delhi: Gian Pub. House, 1988. ISBN 81-212-0237-X
- Elwin, Verrier. Phulmat of the Hills; A Tale of the Gonds. London: J. Murray, 1937.
- Fürer-Haimendorf, Christoph von, and Elizabeth von Fürer-Haimendorf. The Gonds of Andhra Pradesh: Tradition and Change in an Indian Tribe. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1979. ISBN 0-04-301090-3
- Kaufmann, Walter. Songs and Drummings of the Hill Maria, Jhoria Muria and Bastar Muria Gonds. And, the Musical Instruments of the Marias and Murias. 1950.
- Mehta, B. H. Gonds of the Central Indian Highlands: A Study of the Dynamics of Gond Society. New Delhi: Concept, 1984.
- Museum of Mankind, Shelagh Weir, and Hira Lal. The Gonds of Central India; The Material Culture of the Gonds of Chhindwara District, Madhya Pradesh. London: British Museum, 1973. ISBN 0-7141-1537-1
- Pagdi, Setumadhava Rao. Among the Gonds of Adilabad. Bombay: Popular Book Depot, 1952.
- Perry, William James, The Children of the Sun: a study in the early history of civilization, London: Methuen, 1927.
- Pingle, Urmila, and Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf. Gonds and Their Neighbours: A Study in Genetic Diversity. Lucknow, India: Ethnographic & Folk Culture Society, 1987.
- Russell, R. V., The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India, London, 1916.
- Sharma, Anima. Tribe in Transition: A Study of Thakur Gonds. India: Mittal Publications, 2005. ISBN 81-7099-989-8
- Singh, Indrajit. The Gondwana and the Gonds. Lucknow, India: The Universal publishers, 1944.
References
External links
This article includes material from the 1995 public domain Library of Congress Country Study on India.
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