Bhil Tadvi

The origins of the Tadvi trace back to the larger Bhil people, present in central India long before the arrival of Muslim empires. During the period when regional sultanates such as Khandesh dominated the area, part of the Bhil in the region came into close contact with Muslim rulers, and some groups, among them the ancestors of the Tadvi, converted to Islam, while others remained in the Hindu tradition.

This historical division has shaped the people to this day: Muslim Tadvi and Hindu Tadvi recognize each other as part of the same tribal origin, but follow distinct religious paths, a direct reflection of centuries of coexistence between Muslim rule and tribal tradition in the lands they occupy.

Tadvi life has historically been tied to the land: small farms of rice, cotton, peanuts, and barley sustain most families, supplemented by raising livestock. The communities are organized into about a dozen clans, and marriages are usually arranged within the people but always outside one’s own clan, a balance between belonging and kinship that governs social life.

Festivals and celebrations bring out traditional dances such as the timli, a cultural marker that crosses the internal religious divisions. Because they are recognized as a protected tribe by the Indian state, the Tadvi have access to some policies aimed at education and representation, even though rural life remains marked by simplicity and manual labor.

Two religious traditions coexist among the Tadvi. Part of the people is Hindu and worships local deities alongside their own tribal rituals; another part is Muslim, the result of their ancestors’ conversion back in the era of the regional sultanates. Even among those who profess Islam, it is common for Hindu and tribal customs to persist, such as gestures of reverence before images and the wearing of the region’s traditional dress.

This overlap of beliefs makes Tadvi faith something more fluid than rigid: devotional practices toward spirits of the land, the forest, and the ancestors remain present alongside Muslim prayer or Hindu devotion, uniting the people more through tribal origin than through a single confession.

The New Testament in the Dangi language, spoken by a considerable part of the people, was completed in 2017, a recent milestone for a people who historically relied mostly on oral tradition. Other dialects of the Bhil family, such as Bhili itself, also have portions of Scripture published or in the final stages of translation. Even so, access remains limited by illiteracy in many villages and by the distance between Tadvi communities and the few copies already available.

Divided between Hinduism and Islam, the Tadvi carry two religious identities strongly tied to clan and family belonging, which makes embracing a faith different from the one practiced by one’s parents a deep social rupture. The isolation of villages in forest and border regions between states makes it difficult for any new message to reach them, and low literacy limits contact with written texts, leaving oral, personal testimony as nearly the only way to reach the people.

As smallholder farmers, the Tadvi are exposed to the swings of the climate: a drought or a lost harvest can jeopardize the livelihood of entire families for months. Many villages also lack access to formal education, which perpetuates cycles of poverty and limits opportunities for new generations beyond farm work. In the spiritual realm, the scarcity of believers within their own language and culture leaves the few who draw near to Jesus without a nearby community to walk alongside, grow in faith, and be discipled.