For millennia a major section of the Indian population has been loosely identified with the original inhabitants of the subcontinent – Ādivāsīs. They live on the Eastern and Western Ghats and other hills and highland plateaus, primarily those between Gaṅgā and Godāvarī. A relatively insignificant number of migrant herders in the western Himalayas carry the same administrative status, while the tribal population of t…