Most of the scheduled tribes live in villages, hills, plateaus and forests. Their means of livelihood are farming, manual labour and collection of forest produce. Most of the scheduled tribes are spread over the area beginning from Sirohi to Bundi, Kota, Tonk, Sawaimadhopur and Jaipur districts extending through Udaipur, Dungarpur, Chittorgarh and Banswara districts. Bhil, Garasiya, Meena and Saharia are the main scheduled tribes of Rajasthan. Among them, the Meena tribe has the maximum population. Saharia is the only tribe which has been included in the early Tribal group by the Government of India.
Bheel is the most primitive tribe of Rajasthan. The Bhils often use in their dialects the words of Dravida or Munda language, known as Vagadi or Bheel in the southern Rajasthan. They depend for their livelihood on farming and forestry. Almost half of the Meenas are living in Jaipur, Dausa, Sawaimadhopur, Karauli and Udaipur districts. The word ‘Saharia’ has been derived from the Persian word ‘Sahar’ which means the people living in forests. Sahara are living largely in the Shahbad and Kishanganj tehsils of Baran district of Rajasthan. Their means of livelihood are farming, labour, collection of wood and forest produce.
