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Concept
Meena
Summary
Meena (miːɳa) is a tribe from western India which is sometimes considered a sub-group of the Bhil community. It used to be claimed they speak Mina language, a
spurious language. Its name is also transliterated as Meenanda or Mina. They got the status of Scheduled Tribe by the Government of India in 1954.
The Meenas were originally a nomadic tribe. They were described as a semi-wild and hill tribe similar to the Bhils. But in the British Raj, for the fulfillment of its purpose by the British Government, they were described as a criminal tribe and listed according to the Criminal Tribes Act. Presently they are described as Scheduled Tribe by the Indian Government.
Currently they are present in the states of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Haryana and the Union Territory of Delhi in India.
The Meenas claim a mythological descent from the Matsya avatar, or fish incarnation, of Vishnu. They also claim to be descendants of the people of the Matsya Kingdom, which flourished in the 6th century B.C. The historian Pramod Kumar notes that it is likely that the tribes living in the ancient Matsya kingdom were called Meena but it cannot be said with certainty that there is anything common between them and the modern Meenas. They are considered to be adivasi (aboriginal people).
Nandini Sinha Kapur, a historian who has studied early India, notes that the oral traditions of the Meenas were developed from the early 19th century AD in an attempt to reconstruct their identity. She says of this process, which continued throughout the 20th century, that "The Minas try to furnish themselves a respectable present by giving themselves a glorious past". In common with the people of countries such as Finland and Scotland, the Meenas found it necessary to invent tradition through oral accounts, one of the primary uses of which is recognised by both historians and sociologists as being "social protest against injustices, exploitation and oppression, a raison d'être that helps to retrieve the image of a community.
Official source
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