Tribal Congregation at Mangarh Dham raises demand for formation of “Bhil Pradesh

A Congregation of tribals from Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Gujarat held at the revered Mangarh Dham on Thursday has raised demand for formation of a separate Bhil Pradesh.

The community leaders – who assembled at the historic place in Banswara district that had witnessed massacre of freedom seeking tribals by the erstwhile British Indian Army in 1913-, asserted that the demand of separate tribal state is not new.

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This is a decades old demand that had been unheard for so long. We consider it as the need of the hour and that is why we carry this movement.

The congregation was convened by 2 outfits namely, “Aadivasi Parivar” and “Bhil Pradesh Mukti Morcha”.Besides speeches, the leaders also pledged for working for conservation of water, forest and land(Jal, Jungle & Jameen) and the tribal culture.

The sitting Lok Sabha MP from Banswara,Raj Kumar Roat has said that our demand is long protracted, senior tribal leader and former BJP Minister Nand Lal Meena had supported the demand way back in 2016. At that time he was ready even to quit Ministerial post for the sake of the movement for this demand.

Mangarh has been widely revered as Adivasi Jallianwala Bagh and has historic link with the national movement that was spearheaded here by tribal leader Gobind Guru.

Earlier on Tuesday, the sitting Lok Sabha MP from Banswara (ST) Raj Kumar Roat has stirred up a hornet’s nest in Rajasthan’s politics by raising this demand of separate state.

Several political leaders including, the ruling BJP state president Madan Rathore, State Tribal Development Minister Babu Lal Kharadi, former LoP Rajasthan and Rajendra Rathore, sitting Lok Sabha MP from Udaipur Manna Lal Rawat have strongly opposed the demand.

Roat- the lone Bharatiya Aadiwasi Party(BAP) MP from Rajasthan, has posted four Tweets on his X handle on Wednesday to demand formation of separation Bhil Pradesh carving out the tribal dominated areas along the inter state border of Rajasthan, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra.

The demand evoked instant strong worded condemnation from the ruling BJP. The party state president Rathore and former LoP and longtime ex Minister Rathore dismissed the demand and asserted that the party would not allow any one to cause breach of state’s pride and destroy our legacy and glorious history.

“We and our party are against the formation and/or split of any state on the basis of caste and community”, two party leaders asserted.

In the Tweet post MP Roat on Tuesday also posted a map that outlines areas and boundaries of the demanded state.

This act evoked sharp reaction from Minister Kharadi who retorted saying “Roat’s act of (arbitrarily) posting on Wednesday a map (of the demanded state) is a bid of vitiating the social harmony among the tribal people.”