MPPSC 2026 Prelims Paper-I · Question 61 of 100

Correct — C, 666. The Census of India 2011 recorded just 666 Kamar in Madhya Pradesh, which places the community among the smallest Scheduled Tribes enumerated in the state. The Kamar are essentially a Chhattisgarh people — 26,630 of them were counted there in 2011 and Chhattisgarh notifies them as a Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group — so what Madhya Pradesh retains after the 2000 bifurcation is a small residual population. This is a Census-table recall question: the four options sit exactly 200 apart, so no amount of reasoning narrows them down; the figure has to be carried in memory as a pair — Kamar, 666.

• (a)266 — Not the figure the 2011 Census records for the Kamar in Madhya Pradesh. The options differ only in the hundreds digit, which is exactly the device used to punish approximate memory.
• (b)466 — Not the Census 2011 figure for this community in Madhya Pradesh. Nothing in the question — region, occupation, district — hints at a value, so an intermediate-looking option carries no extra plausibility.
• (d)866 — Not the Census 2011 figure. The Kamar count in Madhya Pradesh stays below 700; the highest option is included only to catch candidates who round upward.

Madhya Pradesh has the largest Scheduled Tribe population of any State in India — about 1.53 crore people, roughly 21 per cent of the state's population — but that mass is spread extremely unevenly. Bhil and Gond run into millions, while a long tail of small communities is counted in hundreds. The Kamar belong to that tail. Their real home is Chhattisgarh (Gariaband, Dhamtari, Mahasamund, Kanker), where they live by hunting, gathering, shifting cultivation and bamboo craft, and where they are notified as a Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group. In 2023 Kamar families of Magarlod block in Dhamtari district became the first PVTG in Chhattisgarh to receive habitat rights under the Forest Rights Act, 2006.

The trap is not arithmetic, it is identity: many candidates know the name 'Kamar' from PVTG lists and assume it must therefore be a significant Madhya Pradesh tribe with a large count. It is not — it is a Chhattisgarh PVTG that appears in Madhya Pradesh only in the hundreds. Madhya Pradesh's own three PVTGs are Baiga, Bharia and Sahariya. When MPPSC gives four bare numbers, treat it as flashcard territory: the useful takeaway is the rank (one of the smallest STs in the state), and the exact figure 666 for the key.

• Kamar population in Madhya Pradesh, Census 2011: 666 — among the smallest Scheduled Tribe counts in the state
• The Kamar are concentrated in Chhattisgarh (26,630 in Census 2011), where they are a notified Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group
• Madhya Pradesh has the largest Scheduled Tribe population of any State — about 1.53 crore, roughly 21 per cent of the state's people
• Madhya Pradesh's own PVTGs are Baiga, Bharia and Sahariya — the Kamar are not one of them
• In 2023 the Kamar of Dhamtari district became the first PVTG in Chhattisgarh to be granted habitat rights under the Forest Rights Act, 2006

• Assuming Kamar is one of Madhya Pradesh's PVTGs — MP's three are Baiga, Bharia and Sahariya; Kamar is a Chhattisgarh PVTG
• Mixing a tribe's all-India or home-state population with its count inside Madhya Pradesh
• Reading 'largest tribal population' (MP, absolute numbers) as 'highest tribal percentage' (Mizoram, Lakshadweep at the top)

MPPSC asks the raw Census number for a named tribe or district; UPSC never asks the headcount but does ask which state has the largest ST population, what makes a group a PVTG, and which tribe belongs to which state.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which of the following is NOT one of the Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups of Madhya Pradesh?

  • (a)Baiga
  • (b)Bharia
  • (c)Sahariya
  • (d)Kamar

  Answer(d) Kamar — Madhya Pradesh's PVTGs are Baiga, Bharia and Sahariya; the Kamar are notified as a PVTG in Chhattisgarh.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  According to the Census 2011, which State has the largest Scheduled Tribe population in absolute numbers?

  • (a)Madhya Pradesh
  • (b)Maharashtra
  • (c)Odisha
  • (d)Rajasthan

  Answer(a) Madhya Pradesh — about 1.53 crore, the highest ST population of any State (though not the highest ST share of population).