India is home to almost half the tribal population of the world. Tribals are characterized by a distinctive culture, primitive traits, and socio-economic backwardness. The tribals of India, constituting 8.2% of the total population (84 million),(1) belong to around 698 communities or clans. Around 75 of these groups are called primitive tribal groups due to pre-agricultural level of knowledge, extreme backwardness, and a dwindling population.(2) However, the exact number of tribal groups may be lesser than 500 due to group-overlapping in more than one state. Though the Indian tribals are a heterogeneous group, most of them remain at the lowest stratum of the society due to various factors like geographical and cultural isolation, low levels of literacy, primitive occupations, and extreme levels of poverty. Although scheduled tribes are accorded special status under the fifth/sixth schedules of the Indian Constitution, their status on the whole, especially their health still remains unsatisfactory. This paper explores the problems in delivering public health services to the tribal population of India and suggests solutions.
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Bala et al. (2009) studied this question.