Bengali Hindus (Bengali: বাঙালি হিন্দু, romanized: Bāṅgāli hindu) are an ethnic, linguistic and religious population who make up the majority in the Indian states of West Bengal, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Tripura and Assam's Barak Valley region. In Bangladesh, they form the largest minority. They are adherents of Hinduism and are native to the Bengal region in the eastern part of the Indian subcontinent. Bengali Hindus speak Bengali, which belongs to the Indo-Aryan language family and adhere to Shaktism (majority, the Kalikula tradition) or Vaishnavism (minority, Gaudiya Vaishnavism and Vaishnava-Sahajiya) of their native religion Hinduism with some regional deities. There are significant numbers of Bengali-speaking Hindus in different Indian states. According to the census in 1881, 12.