Jatav, also known as Jatava/Jatan/ Jatua/Jhusia /Jatia/Jatiya, is an Indian Dalit community that are considered to be a sub-caste of the Chamar caste, who are classified as a Scheduled Caste under modern India's system of positive discrimination.
According to the 2011 Census of India, the Jatav community of Uttar Pradesh comprised 54% of that state's total 22,496,047 Scheduled-Caste population.
History
Some Jatav authors have disputed being Scheduled. In the 1920s, Jatavs claimed to be survivors of the ancient war between Parashuram, the legend of the Brahmins, and Kshatriyas, forced into hiding. Their proof of ancestry is a series of correspondences or status similarities between Jatav and other Kshatriya clans. According to Owen Lynch, "These included identical gotras, and such Kshatriya-like ceremonies as shooting a cannon at weddings and the use of the bow and arrow at the birth saṃskāra".. According to M. P. S. Chandel In the early part of the 20th century, the Jatavs attempted the process of sanskritisation, claiming themselves to be historical of the Kshatriya varna. They gained political expertise by forming associations and by developing a literate cadre of leaders, and they tried to change their position in the caste system through the emulation of upper-caste behavior. As a part of this process, they also claimed not to be Chamars and petitioned the government of the British Raj to be officially classified differently: disassociating themselves from the Chamar community would they felt, enhance their acceptance as Kshatriya. These claims were not accepted by other castes and, although the government was amenable, no official reclassification as a separate community occurred due to the onset of World War II. An organisation of young Jatavs, called the Jatav Vir, was formed in Agra in 1917, and a Jatav Pracharak Sangh was organised in 1924. They joined with local Banias to establish a front and thus one of them won the seat of the mayor in Agra, and another became a member of the Legislative Council.
Under the leadership of Jatav Mahasabha in the 1931 census, he took an aggressive stand for his demand to include Jatavs in the Kshatriya class and to rename them as 'Jatav' from Chanwar Chamar. They were successful and in the new census of India the Tanners were called 'Jatav'.
Earlier pressing for the Kshatriya status, the new issues emerged among Jatavs in 1944–45. The Jatavs formed the Scheduled Caste Federation of Agra having ties with the Ambedkar-led All India Scheduled Caste Federation. They started recognizing themselves as Scheduled Caste and hence "Dalit". This acceptance is attributed to the protections available to the scheduled castes.
According to Owen Lynch:
Religion Most of the Jatavs belong to the Hindu religion. Some Jatavs also became Buddhists in 1956, after B. R. Ambedkar converted to Buddhism. On September 5, 1990, around a thousand members of the Jatav community from village Jaunpur near Agra converted to Sikhism in a protest against the upper caste people who halted the marriage procession taken out by Jatav Chamar community.
Along with the mainstream religious identity, the Jatav community follows Guru Ravidas as well and gathered in tens of thousands as protestors in Delhi against the demolition of Ravidas Temple.
Demographics Jatavs are often combined with Chamar, Ahirwar, Ravidassia and other subcastes and are given Scheduled Caste in major North Indian states under India's positive reservation system.
As of the 2011 Census, there were 22,496,047 Jatav/Chamars in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, of whom 22,371,352 declared themselves as Hindu, 113,765 declared themselves as Buddhist, and 10,930 declared themselves as Sikh. According to this census, Jatavs make 11.25% of the State's population.
+ Jatavs along with Jhusia, Dhusia, (Chamar Caste) in Uttar Pradesh by Districts (2011)Districts2011 India censusJatav, Chamar, Jhusia, Dhusia Caste PopulationAgra 698,052 Aligarh 448,957 Ambedkar Nagar 476,378 Amroha 272,548 Ayodhya 82,033 Auraiya 252,284 Azamgarh 918,153 Bagpat 101,703 Bahraich 209,787 Ballia 312,313 Balrampur 36,929 Banda 260,450 Barabanki 253,468 Bareilly 285,956 Basti 390,962 Bijnor 664,676 Budaun 395,763 Bulandshahr 543,381 Chandauli 326,088 Chitrakoot 151,148 Deoria 310,322 Etah 158,640 Etawah 230,849 Farrukhabad 150,180 Fatehpur 234,667 Firozabad 274,968 Gautam Buddha Nagar 140,049 Ghaziabad 552,299 Ghazipur 551,443 Gonda 80,635 Gorakhpur 551,785 Hamirpur 132,171 Hardoi 568,601 Hathras 256,879 Jalaun 274,763 Jaunpur 682,060 Jhansi 296,345 Kannauj 169,938 Kanpur Dehat 263,541 Kanpur Nagar 338,979 Kasganj 163,835 Kaushambi 105,054 Kushinagar 313,738 Lakhimpur Kheri 427,978 Lalitpur 168,109 Lucknow 281,541 Maharajganj 289,658 Mahoba 142,036 Mainpuri 173,017 Mathura 363,698 Mau 366,689 Meerut 468,170 Mirzapur 318,382 Moradabad 567,243 Muzaffarnagar 419,594 Pilibhit 119,926 Pratapgarh 249,075 Prayagraj 442,938 Rae Bareli 253,489 Rampur 205,052 Saharanpur 640,625 Sant Kabir Nagar 249,254 Sant Ravidas Nagar 212,174 Shahjahanpur 229,487 Shravasti 41,129 Siddharthnagar 271,095 Sitapur 525,845 Sonbhadra 217,580 Sultanpur 319,156 Unnao 325,301 Varanasi 325,036
Notable Jatavs Chetram Jatav was a freedom fighter who participated in the Indian Rebellion of 1857.
See also Jatav Mahasabha Ravidassia Mochi Chamar Chamar Regiment
References
Sources