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PEOPLE GROUP PROFILE

The Meda of India

The Meda of India, numbering approximately 54,500 people, are Unengaged and Unreached. They are a Scheduled Tribe of Karnataka comprising two distinct basket-making communities, one confined to Kodagu district and the other found statewide. Basket-making and cultivation remain their occupations. They mostly adhere to Folk Hinduism and Kodava is their primary language.

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

Fast Facts:

Affinity Group: South Asian Peoples
Country: India
People Cluster: South Asian Tribal
Primary Language(s): Kodava (kfa)
Primary Religion(s): Folk Hinduism
Population: 54,500
Strategic Progress Index (SPI): Unengaged and Unreached
Global Status of Evangelical Christianity (GSEC): Less than 2% Evangelical, No Recent CP Activity
People Group ID: PG042016
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Pray for the Meda of India

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Dig Deeper (Religion):

Primary Religion: Folk Hinduism
Religious Affiliation: Hinduism

99%
%
Folk Hinduism Adherents

Dig Deeper (Language):

Primary Language: Kodava
Language Family: Dravidian

100%
%
Kodava Speakers

Media Resources in Kodava:

Films:

No film resources are listed for this language.

Provided by the Jesus Film Project

View all resources

Bible Resources in Kodava:

No Bible resources are listed for this language.

Provided by Faith Comes by Hearing

Or check out the Kodava bible at Bible.com

Linked from YouVersion

View all resources

Explore Lostness and Next Steps

Unengaged and Unreached

Strategic Priority Index (SPI): Unengaged and Unreached (SPI: 0), which means there are less than 2% evangelical Christian populations among which there are no known efforts focused on establishing self-sustaining churches consistent with evangelical faith and practice.
Lostness Priority Index (LPI): Frontier Unreached People Group, (LPI: 0), < 0.1% Evangelical.
Global Status of Evangelical Christianity (GSEC): Less than 2% Evangelical, No Recent CP Activity (GSEC: 1), this people group is less than 2% evangelical, some evangelical resources are available, but there has been no active church planting among them within the past two years

Next steps for the Meda:
Begin signifcant prayer and fasting for this group
Send cross-cultural teams to discover and research this people group
Begin gospel seed sowing and church planting among this group

Pray specifically for the Meda of India

Note then the kindness and the severity of God: severity toward those who have fallen, but God's kindness to you, provided you continue in his kindness. Otherwise you too will be cut off.
readRomans 11:22

Pray that God will transform those who persist in unbelief and, in His everlasting kindness, graft them into His family.

More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.
readRomans 5:11

Pray for the gospel to advance and for more people to be brought into God's family through the reconciliation Jesus offers them.

Behold, how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity!
readPsalm 133:1

Pray that as people place their faith in Christ, they will be unified and love one another as God loves them.

For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.
readRomans 12:4-5

Ask God to send believers to people in other cultures and to help them use their gifts in harmony with others so that the body of Christ may be built up.

Meda Across Countries (ROP3 - 112943) reported in the following countries:

Strategic Progress Index
All

1 people group

PhotoPeople Group ID ▼NameCountryPopulationStrategic Progress IndexLanguageReligion
MedaPG042016MedaIndia54,500Unengaged and UnreachedKodavaFolk Hinduism

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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