Balai

The Balai, Balahi or Bhalay are found in the states of Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Delhi and Uttar Pradesh in India.[1] Balai are member of Bhambi community and weaver by occupation.

For other uses, see Balai (disambiguation).

Acharya Shri Nanesh, the eighth Acharya of Sadhumargi Jain Shravak Sangha had preached among the Balai community in 1963 near Ratlam. His followers are called Dharmapal. [2] Many of them are followers of Lalgir, the venerable founder saint of a religious sect. They call themselves 'Alakhgirs' and a shrine of Sitala mata (smallpox goddess) can be found in their settlement. They observe nine day festival in her honour.[3] They also pay tribute to Baba Ramdeo Ji.

According to 2011 Census of India, Uttar Pradesh showed the Balai population as 1200, whilst that in Rajasthan, there are 306,034 Balais constituting 9.11% of its total Scheduled Caste population and form the third largest group of the Dalits in state. In all of the states they are listed as Scheduled Caste.[4] Despite occasional errors in the literature, they do not speak a distinct language. They speak the Nimadi language.[5] There is no distinct Balai language, despite one being assigned an ISO [bhx].[6][7]

References
  1. People of India Uttar Pradesh. Volume XLII. Part One. edited by A Hasan & J C Das pages 153 to 155, Manohar Publications
  2. "'दाता' के दातार बन गए तारणहार | Navbharat Times".
  3. Nayar, V. G.; Nayar, M. G. (2001). Sociology of Religion in India. Genesis Publishing Pvt Ltd. ISBN 978-81-7755-151-8.
  4. "A-10 Individual Scheduled Caste Primary Census Abstract Data and its Appendix - Uttar Pradesh". Registrar General & Census Commissioner, India. Retrieved 4 February 2017.
  5. Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "Bhalay". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
  6. Hammarström (2015) Ethnologue 16/17/18th editions: a comprehensive review: online appendices
  7. Bhalay at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022) closed access
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