Which of the following is NOT correctly matched ? (Tribes) (Location)
- (a)Angamis – Nagaland
- (b)Birhors – Jharkhand
- (c)Khas – Arunachal Pradesh
- (d)Todas – Tamil Nadu
Correct — C, 'Khas – Arunachal Pradesh' is the pair that is NOT correctly matched. The Khas are an Indo-Aryan / Pahari people of the western and central Himalaya — Nepal, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh (and Sikkim/Darjeeling) — not of Arunachal Pradesh in the far north-east. The other three pairs are correct: the Angamis are a major Naga tribe of Nagaland, the Birhors are a nomadic hunter-gatherer group of Jharkhand's Chhotanagpur plateau, and the Todas are a pastoral community of the Nilgiri Hills of Tamil Nadu. So the mismatched pair, and the answer, is (c).
- (a)Angamis – Nagaland — Correctly matched, so not the answer — the Angami are one of the principal Naga tribes, concentrated around Kohima in Nagaland.
- (b)Birhors – Jharkhand — Correctly matched, so not the answer — the Birhor are a nomadic hunter-gatherer tribe (a Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group) of the Chhotanagpur plateau in Jharkhand.
- (d)Todas – Tamil Nadu — Correctly matched, so not the answer — the Toda are a small pastoral community native to the Nilgiri Hills of Tamil Nadu.
Indian tribes cluster into distinct geographic belts — the north-eastern hills (Naga, Mizo, Apatani), the central-Indian tribal belt (Gond, Santhal, Birhor, Munda), the southern hills (Toda, Chenchu, Irula) and the Himalayan Pahari belt (Gaddi, Bhotia, and the Khas of the western/central Himalaya). 'Odd-one-out' matching questions test whether you can place a tribe in its correct region; an exotic-sounding name in the wrong belt is the usual trap.
This is a NOT-correctly-matched item, so the answer is the single wrong pair. Three tribes sit in their real homelands; only 'Khas – Arunachal Pradesh' is displaced — the Khas belong to the western/central Himalaya (Uttarakhand/Nepal), far from Arunachal Pradesh. Reading past the 'NOT' or assuming the unfamiliar name (Khas) must be a north-eastern tribe are the pitfalls.
- Khas: Indo-Aryan/Pahari group of Nepal, Uttarakhand and Himachal (western/central Himalaya) — NOT Arunachal Pradesh
- Angami: a major Naga tribe of Nagaland (Kohima region)
- Birhor: a nomadic hunter-gatherer PVTG of the Chhotanagpur plateau, Jharkhand
- Toda: a pastoral tribe of the Nilgiri Hills, Tamil Nadu
- Overlooking the 'NOT' and picking a correctly-matched pair
- Assuming an unfamiliar name (Khas) must belong to a north-eastern state
UPPSC/UPSC ask 'which tribe–State pair is NOT correctly matched' — you must place each tribe in its true regional belt (Himalayan, north-eastern, central or southern).
Which one of the following pairs of states and tribes is not correctly matched?
- (a) Assam : Miri
- (b) Nagaland : Konyak
- (c) Arunachal Pradesh : Apatani
- (d) Madhya Pradesh : Lambada
Answer(d) Madhya Pradesh : Lambada
Same concept — spotting the mismatched tribe–State pair. UPSC's odd-one-out is Lambada (a nomadic Banjara group of the Deccan, not Madhya Pradesh), exactly the reasoning used to reject Khas–Arunachal Pradesh here.
- practice — not a real PYQ
The Toda tribe is native to which of the following regions?
- (a)Nilgiri Hills, Tamil Nadu
- (b)Chhotanagpur Plateau, Jharkhand
- (c)Aravalli Hills, Rajasthan
- (d)Garo Hills, Meghalaya
Answer(a) Nilgiri Hills, Tamil Nadu — the Toda are a pastoral community of the Nilgiris.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Which of the following is a Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group (PVTG) associated with Jharkhand?
- (a)Angami
- (b)Birhor
- (c)Toda
- (d)Apatani
Answer(b) Birhor — a nomadic hunter-gatherer PVTG of the Chhotanagpur plateau in Jharkhand.