boro gAro

gAro

  • 30% of meghAlaya. In India, 90% are Christian (Presbyterians and Catholics), rest are hindu.

koch and rAjbongshi

  • Mostly hindu
  • Assam and meghAlaya.
  • The rAjbonshi became IA-ized.
    • In the 16th century, the founder of the Koch dynasty, Bisu, adopted Hinduism, and called himself Biswa Singha.

The 1871-1872 census of Assam shows Koch Rajbongshis to be the largest community in the state, coming at ~14%, Kacharis (not sure if this is only Bodo or it includes Dimasas, etc as well) at ~12%, Muslims were ~12%. (“Perspective of Security and Development in North East India”)

Boro-kachari

  • Mostly hindu.
  • Adapted the devanAgarI script to get their language recognized at national level.

Deori-Chutia

  • Upper and central assam and AP. Mostly hindus.

Tripuri

  • Mostly hindu. Use bengali for education.

Bru Reang

  • They’d settled in Lushai hills and later Mi-zo-ram in 1947 (hydro project).
  • Mizo orgs demanded that Brus be left out of electoral rolls. Brus retaliated by forming armed orgs.
  • 5k families (30k people) from Mi-zo-ram were driven out by Mi-zo-s to tripura in 1997. Some (1622 families) were repatriated to mizoram. 32k were permanently settled in tripura.

Hajong

  • Now speak an IA language - Hajong Bhasa.
  • Mostly hindus. Around 80k.
  • Deosis are the shamans/priests of the Hajong tribe. They perform the sacrifices and other ceremonies related to the tribe. These days however, their importance is decreasing as Brahmin priests (particularly Bengali ones) are taking up their ceremonial work.