Bhilala

The Bhilala are an ethnic community located in several states of western central India, but mainly in the districts of Dhar, Jhabua, and West Nimar of Madhya Pradesh and in Dhulia and Jalgaon in Maharashtra. They are also found in Rajasthan. They are a clan of the Bhils.

Their language, also called Bhilala, is a sub-group of the Bhil language, which belongs to the Indo-Aryan family. The Bhilala are considered as nobility among the Bhil, since they are the direct descendants of the Rajput chiefs who took the daughters of the Bhil chieftains to be their wives.^[1]

As of 2001, the Bhilala of Rajasthan were classified as a Scheduled Tribe under the Indian government's reservation program of positive discrimination.^[2]

References

1. Bhanu, B. V.; Bhatnagar, B. R.; Bose, D. K.; Kulkarni, V. S.; Sreenath, J. (eds.). People of India: Maharashtra. XXX Part One. pp. 305–307.
2. "List of Scheduled Tribes". Census of India: Government of India. 7 March 2007. Retrieved 27 November 2012.