Bhil Pradesh: A Demand for Seperate State

Indian Polity Union and Its territory

Context: Recently, the demand for creating a separate Bhil state in India is arising from the tribals of Rajasthan and Gujarat.

The word Bhil is derived from “Veel”, which means “bow” in the Dravidian language.
The Bhil tribe is called “Dhanush Purush of India” because they are highly adept at learning Dhanush.
Bhils are a group of tribal Indians scattered throughout India from Gujarat in the west to Tripura in the Far East.
As of 2013, they were the largest tribal group in India with the majority living in the states of Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh.
Bhils have a rich and unique culture. The Bhilala subdivision is known for its Pithora painting.
Ghoomar is a traditional folk dance of the Bhil tribe.
Ghoomar is the symbol of femininity.
The young women take art in this dance and declare that they are stepping into women’s shoes.

Bhil Pradesh is envisioned as a separate state made out of 39 districts distributed across four states by the Bharatiya Tribal Party (BTP).

The demand was raised for a separate state for tribals after the Mangarh massacre. It is also known as Adivasi Jallianwala.

It occurred in on November 17, 1913 in the hills of Mangarh on the border of Rajasthan and Gujarat where hundreds of Bhil tribal were killed mercilessly by the Britishers.

Economic backwardness of sub-regions within large states has also emerged as an important ground on which demands for smaller states are being made
Linguistic and cultural reasons, which were the primary basis for creating new states in the country, have now become secondary in most of these cases.
Slow execution: Several Union governments brought various “laws, benefits, schemes, and committee reports” on tribals, but went slow on their execution and implementation.
There were various measures such as the protection of tribal interests through the Fifth Schedule under Article 244(1) of the Constitution, but most of these were mere assurances by the ruling party.

The law was enacted in 1996.
The Rajasthan government adopted the law in 1999, and came out with its Rules in 2011.
But even today people don’t even know about the law.

Majority of Tribal region were divided by the political parties post-Independence.
Several laws such as the protection of tribal interests through the Fifth Schedule under Article 244(1) of the Constitution were brought up by the government but hasn’t been implemented yet.

Setting up various institutions, government offices, universities, hospitals, etc. require huge sums of money, therefore, the new state might end up depending on the Union for funds, which may or may not be available.
Different statehood may lead to the hegemony of the dominant community/ caste/ tribe over their power structures.
This can lead to the emergence of intra-regional rivalries among the sub-regions.

There should be certain clear-cut parameters and safeguards to check the unfettered demands. It is better to allow democratic concerns like development, decentralisation and governance rather than religion, caste, language or dialect to be the valid bases for conceding the demands for a new state.