The wider region extends beyond these, also including parts of northern Telangana, western Odisha, and southern Uttar Pradesh.

[14] Gondi people, at the behest of the Chhattisgarh government, formed the Salwa Judum, an armed militant group, to fight the Naxalite insurgency.

[19][20] R. V. Russell believed the Gonds came into Gondwana from the south: up the Godavari into Vidarbha, from there up the Indravati into Bastar, and up the Wardha and Wainganga into the Satpura Range.

The Gonds of Chanda originated from Sirpur in what is now northern Telangana and were said to have overthrown the previous rulers of the country, called the Mana dynasty.

Another theory states that after the downfall of the Kakatiyas in 1318, the Gonds of Sirpur had the opportunity to throw off outside domination and built their own kingdom.

However, during Akbar's rule, Babji Shah began paying tribute after the Mughals incorporated territory to their south into the Berar Subah.

During his reign, the kingdom covered the southeastern Satpura range from Betul to Rajnandgaon in the east, and parts of the northern Berar plains.

It was he who coined the well-known slogan jal, jangal, jameen ("water, forest, land") that has symbolised Adivasi movements since independence.

Starting in the 1940s, various Gond leaders agitated for a separate state that would encompass the erstwhile territory of Gondwana, especially tribal areas of eastern Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, Vidharbha, and Adilabad.

[25] The demand reached its peak in the early 1950s, when Heera Singh founded the Bharatiya Gondwana Sangh to agitate for statehood.

Singh held many meetings throughout Gondwana and could mobilise 100,000 people between 1962 and 1963, but his movement had died down by the late 1960s and was never taken seriously by the Indian authorities.

In the 1990s, Heera Singh Markam and Kausalya Porte founded the Gondwana Ganatantra Party to fight for statehood.

The most visible sign of saga consciousness is in the worship of Persa Pen, although this occurs mainly at the clan level.

[27] Many astronomical ideas were known to ancient Gonds,[28] who had their own local terms for the Sun, Moon, Milky Way, and constellations.

This area encompasses the southeastern districts of Madhya Pradesh, eastern Maharashtra, northern Telganana, and southern Chhattisgarh (mainly in the Bastar division).

It is performed after Diwali to honour Shiva and Parvati, representing the belief that the parrot will bring their sadness to their lovers.

[32] The majority of Gond people still follow their own traditions of nature worship, but like many other tribes in India, their religion has been influenced by Brahminical Hinduism.

[37] The Gonds worship ancestral deities known as Angadevs, which Brahminical Hindus claim are a representation of the goddess Mahakali.

[38] In the second version, the Angadevs, or Saga Deva, were the children of the goddess Mata Kali Kankali after she ate a flower given to her by a sage.

Patalir played music on his kingri, and the children were filled with strength to push the boulder blocking the caves from the outside world.

[40] Gonds usually bury their dead, together with their worldly possessions, but due to partial Hinduization, their kings were occasionally cremated, as per Vedic practices.

The native Gond religion, Koyapunem (meaning "the way of nature"), was founded by Pari Kupar Lingo.

[41] In Gond folk tradition, adherents worship a high god known as Baradeo, whose alternate names are Bhagavan, Kupar Lingo, Badadeo, and Persa Pen.

[citation needed] As Kupar Lingo, the high god of the Gonds is depicted as a clean-shaven young prince wearing a trident-shaped crown, the munshul, which represents the head, heart, and body.

[42] Per Gond religious beliefs, their ancestor Rupolang Pahandi Pari Kupar Lingo was born as the son of the chief Pulsheev, during the reign of Sambhu-Gaura, several thousand years ago.

Another part of Gond belief is salla and gangra, which represent action and reaction, superficially similar to the concept of karma in Hinduism.

Among the beliefs related to Phratrial society are the need to defend the community from enemies, working together and being in harmony with nature, and being allowed to eat animals (but not those representing a totem).

[43] Many Gonds worship Ravana, whom they consider to be the tenth dharmaguru of their people, the ancestor-king of one of their four lineages and the eightieth lingo (great teacher).

On Dussehra, Gondi inhabitants of Paraswadi in Gadchiroli district carry an image of Ravana riding an elephant in a procession to worship him and "protest" the burning of his effigies.

[49] Gondi people have been portrayed in the 2017 Amit V. Masurkar film Newton and in S.S. Rajamouli's 2022 blockbuster RRR, in which N. T. Rama Rao Jr. plays a fictionalised version of the Gond tribal leader Komaram Bheem.