The fields around the village of Aali glow in the early morning light as Mahesh Rathwasi walks along the dirt paths leading to his neighbours’ houses. He stops and points towards the landscape. ‘Do you know what we call this state?’ he asks, referring to Madhya Pradesh. ‘The heart of India, because we are right at the centre of the country.’
Rathwasi is a local Bhil politician. He previously served as an elected member of the village council and is now a local representative for the village for Bharat Adivasi Party (BAP), which was founded in 2023 to champion the rights of India’s Indigenous Adivasi communities, of which the Bhil are one of the largest. The BAP also advocates for the creation of a new autonomous tribal state called Bhil Pradesh. This would bring together predominately Indigenous districts across the current states of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Maharashtra, unifying several Indigenous groups under a single state.
