{"id":124600,"date":"2026-09-15T12:49:02","date_gmt":"2026-09-15T07:19:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=124600"},"modified":"2026-09-15T12:49:02","modified_gmt":"2026-09-15T07:19:02","slug":"paniya-tribe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/paniya-tribe\/","title":{"rendered":"Paniya Tribe"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><b>Paniya Tribe Latest News<\/b><\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Kerala State Human Rights Commission recently directed authorities to urgently rehabilitate Paniya tribal families living in makeshift tarpaulin shelters at Vaniyampuzha, across the Chaliyar River in Pothukal panchayat, Kerala. <\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>About Paniya Tribe<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Paniya (Paniyan) tribe is one of the <\/span><b>major Scheduled Tribes of Kerala.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">They are <\/span><b>predominantly found in Wayanad<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and also in parts of the Kannur, Kozhikode, and Malappuram districts of Kerala.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>Some are found<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> in the Gudalur and Pandalur areas of the Nilgiris District of <\/span><b>Tamil Nadu<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and in the southern part of the Kodagu District of <\/span><b>Karnataka<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Paniya community is the<\/span><b> largest single scheduled tribe population in Kerala.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The word &#8220;<\/span><b>Paniyan<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">&#8221; is <\/span><b>derived from &#8220;pani<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">&#8221; which is a<\/span><b> Malayalam word, meaning work.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The people of this tribal community are<\/span><b> majorly labourers,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and their past history also suggests the same.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In fact, these Paniyan are amongst those tribal people who have <\/span><b>worked as bonded laborers in the ancient period.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>In the contemporary period,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Paniyan tribes <\/span><b>own their individual lands <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">and also <\/span><b>produce crops<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> like rice and ragi.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Paniya speak the <\/span><b>Paniya language,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> which belongs to the <\/span><b>Dravidian family,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> closely <\/span><b>related to Malayalam.\u00a0\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>Thick lips, dark complexion, and curly hair <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">are the physical appearance of the Paniyan people.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There is a <\/span><b>resemblance <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">between the Paniya people <\/span><b>with the people of Africa,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and as per some scholars<\/span><b>,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> the<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Paniya people are of African origin.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>According to some scholars,<\/b> <b>Kapiri (Africa or the Cape)<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> is the <\/span><b>land of origin<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> of the Paniyan tribes.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">They have developed a <\/span><b>unique style of making their houses.\u00a0<\/b>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A Paniyan village comprises r<\/span><b>ows of huts all constructed from bamboo with thatched roofs<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">These houses of Paniyan tribes are <\/span><b>either single- or double-storied.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Paniyas <\/span><b>worship a deity called Kali and banyan tree.<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> They hesitate to cut banyan trees and believe that if anyone attempts to cut the tree, they will fall sick. <\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>News: <\/b><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/news\/national\/kerala\/the-hindu-impact-rights-panel-orders-rehabilitation-after-vaniyampuzha-tribal-families-spend-7-years-in-plastic-tents\/article71456637.ece\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><b>TH<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Paniya Tribe is one of the major Scheduled Tribes of Kerala. Read more about Paniya Tribe, State, Features, Latest News.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":124583,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[10262],"class_list":["post-124600","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","tag-paniya-tribe","no-featured-image-padding"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124600","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=124600"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124600\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":124617,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124600\/revisions\/124617"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/124583"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124600"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=124600"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=124600"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}