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Amharic - አማርኛ | Arabic - عربي
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Chinese (Traditional) - 中文（繁體) | French - Français
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The Jhalo Malo of India

The Jhalo Malo of India, numbering approximately 555,000 people, are Engaged yet Unreached. They are a Scheduled Caste fishing community of West Bengal, Assam, and Tripura whose name combines jal, meaning net or water, with the Arabic mallah, meaning boatman. They are traditionally fisherfolk and Hindu. They mostly adhere to Hinduism and Bengali is their primary language.

Photo by Google. (2026). Image generated by Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: Jhalo Malo

Fast Facts:

Affinity Group: South Asian Peoples
Country: India
People Cluster: Mallah
Primary Language(s): Bengali (ben)
Primary Religion(s): Hinduism
Population: 555,000
Strategic Progress Index (SPI): Engaged yet Unreached
Global Status of Evangelical Christianity (GSEC): Less than 2% Evangelical, No Recent CP Activity
People Group ID: PG041500
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Pray for the Jhalo Malo of India

Join others around the world in praying for the lost to be saved, the gospel to advance, the global Church to grow, and for laborers to be sent out and sustained in the harvest.

Pray Now!
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Dig Deeper (Religion):

Primary Religion: Hinduism
Religious Affiliation: Hinduism

100%
%
Hinduism Adherents

Dig Deeper (Language):

Primary Language: Bengali
Language Family: Indo-European

100%
%
Bengali Speakers

Media Resources in Bengali:

Films:
TitleLink
JESUSView Film
JESUSView Film
MagdalenaView Film
MagdalenaView Film
The SaviorView Film

5 films

Provided by the Jesus Film Project

View all resources

Bible Resources in Bengali:

Bible Name (Translation)VideoAudioText
Common Language Version✓✓✓
Mussolmani✓✓
Re-edit Bangla Version✓✓

3 entries

Provided by Faith Comes by Hearing

Or check out the Bengali bible at Bible.com

Linked from YouVersion

View all resources

SPI: Unreached yet Engaged

The Jhalo Malo are Engaged yet Unreached, which means there are less than 2% evangelical Christian populations but there are sustained efforts at establishing self-sustaining churches consistent with evangelical faith and practice.

Next steps for the Jhalo Malo:
Continue prayer and fasting for this group
Continue gospel seed sowing and church planting among this group
Begin training up local leaders to lead and develop strategies to reach their own people

Pray specifically for the Jhalo Malo of India

That they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us.
readActs 17:27

Pray that those who don't yet know Christ will search diligently for God and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us.

"You are the salt of the earth, but if the salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people's feet."
readMatthew 5:13

Pray that the lost will have the opportunity to hear a Christian witness of how the gospel can bring hope and that they will put their faith in Christ.

But recall the former days when, after you were enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings, sometimes being publicly exposed to reproach and affliction, and sometimes being partners with those so treated.
readHebrews 10:32-33

Pray that as people place their faith in Christ, they will remember the day of their salvation and persevere in their faith despite hardships and suffering.

Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest."
readMatthew 9:37-38

Pray that the Lord of the harvest will raise up believers to send out into His harvest field, which is ripe and ready.

Jhalo Malo Across Countries (ROP3 - 112331) reported in the following countries:

Strategic Progress Index
All

1 people group

PhotoPeople Group IDNameCountryPopulation ▲Strategic Progress IndexLanguageReligion
Jhalo MaloPG041500Jhalo MaloIndia555,000Engaged yet UnreachedBengaliHinduism

To download a comprehensive people group list in spreadsheet form, visit our Research Data page.

Peoplegroups.org relies on updates from the field and other organizations for much of our data, so if you have any updates, please contact us. We use various international naming standards. For a list of these standards and fields, visit our Data Standards section.

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