Bastar · Central Highlands & Forest Belt
People
| Name | Years | Field | Known for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Purushottam Deo | Reigned in the early fifteenth century | Ruler | The Kakatiya-line ruler of Bastar credited with instituting the Dussehra observance at the capital, fixing the chariot procession and the assembly of village deities that the seventy-five-day cycle still follows. |
| Gunda Dhur | Active 1910 | Rebellion | Of Nethanar, a leader of the 1910 Bhumkal rising against the administration of the day. The summons was circulated village to village as a mango bough with a lump of earth and a chilli — a physical message system that required no writing and no messenger who could be interrogated. |
| Verrier Elwin | 1902–1964 | Anthropologist | Lived in central India for decades and published "The Muria and Their Ghotul" in 1947, the single largest body of documentation on the institution, along with volumes of Gondi and Halbi song. His work is indispensable and also the origin of most of the sensationalised second-hand accounts of the ghotul, because later writers took his material on sexual freedom out of its social frame. |
| W. V. Grigson | 1896–1948 | Administrator and ethnographer | Wrote "The Maria Gonds of Bastar" (1938) while serving in the region — still the standard reference for Maria social organisation, clan structure and the gaur dance. |
| Lala Jagdalpuri | 1920–2013 | Poet and folklorist | Collected and published Halbi and Bhatri folk tales, songs and the region's history in Hindi over six decades, and is the reason a Bastar reader can find the region's oral material in print in their own bookshop. |
| Jaidev Baghel | 1949–2019 | Metal sculpture | A Ghadwa caster from Kondagaon who took Bastar Dhokra from ritual object to exhibited sculpture, trained a generation of casters, and did much of the groundwork that led to the craft's geographical indication. |
| Dharmpal Saini | — | Education | Founded the Mata Rukmini Seva Ashram near Jagdalpur and built a network of residential schools for girls from forest villages across the region, at a time when almost none existed. |
People from Bastar who shaped its history, arts, science, sport and public life. (7)