Indigenous Portraits of India

“The aboriginal ethnic groups of India are called "scheduled tribes" in the Constitution. The designation, invented by the British, covers somewhat arbitrarily 255 such communities. According to the 1971 census the total population of India was 547,949,809, of which the scheduled tribes accounted for 38,015,162, or nearly 7% of the population. Although by now the national population has increased by another 135 million, the proportion probably remains close to what it was 10 years ago. Unevenly distributed throughout the subcontinent, the tribespeople are a vast majority in the northeastern states and Union territories: 88% in Nagaland, 80% in Meghalaya, and 70% in Arunachal Pradesh. Half of the country's tribal population is found in the three states of Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, and Orissa. Madhya Pradesh has over 8 million, that is, 20% of the population; Bihar has about 5 million, or 8075% of the population; Orissa has nearly 7 million.The aboriginal ethnic groups of India are called "scheduled tribes" in the Constitution. The designation, invented by the British, covers somewhat arbitrarily 255 such communities. According to the 1971 census the total population of India was 547,949,809, of which the scheduled tribes accounted for 38,015,162, or nearly 7% of the population. Although by now the national population has increased by another 135 million, the proportion probably remains close to what it was 10 years ago. Unevenly distributed throughout the subcontinent, the tribespeople are a vast majority in the northeastern states and Union territories: 88% in Nagaland, 80% in Meghalaya, and 70% in Arunachal Pradesh. Half of the country's tribal population is found in the three states of Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, and Orissa. Madhya Pradesh has over 8 million, that is, 20% of the population; Bihar has about 5 million, or 8075% of the population; Orissa has nearly 7 million.”

-Thundy, Zacharius P., “Aboriginal Groups of India,” Cultural Survival Quarterly, Fall 1981. https://www.culturalsurvival.org/publications/cultural-survival-quarterly/aboriginal-groups-india