Dhanuk

Dhanuk
Regions with significant populations
India
Languages
• Hindi • Maithili • Bhojpuri
Religion
Predominantly:
Hinduism

The Dhanuk is an ethnic group found in India.

Geography

Dhanuks are found in the Indian states of Bihar, Haryana, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh. Dhanka people in Rajasthan claim that their name is a variant and they are the same community. However, the veracity of this claim is extremely difficult to ascertain due to the numerous other claims. Their claim sometimes seem contradictory to the Madheshi people who are found in Terai Nepal.[1] The state has a community called Dhanuk or Dhanushk, whose traditional occupation was watchmen.[2]

In India

Bihar

The Dhanuk of Bihar are deemed to be an Other Backward Class in India's reservation system.[3]

In the 19th century, Dhanuks were among the communities of the region whose landless members were employed as agricultural labourers by small landowners and peasants from higher castes who deemed work such as ploughing to be ritually impure. Such labourers were considered as slaves under the kamia system and were often referred to as Jotiyas. The Dhanuks had largely escaped the system towards the end of the century, although some other communities such as the Kahars did not. Many of the former slave workers took up lowly positions in the industries and commerce of the developing towns, aided by improvements in transport, but were ultimately no better off either economically or socially.[4]

Haryana

The Dhanak of Haryana, also known as Kabirpanthi Pandit, is a community of weavers. They have been granted Scheduled Caste status in the reservation system, and are found throughout the state.

Uttar Pradesh

In Uttar Pradesh, Dhanuks are given Scheduled Caste status and at the time of the 2011 Census of India, their population was 651,355 people.[5]

There is some ambiguity in the use of the term dhanuk in the state. Aside from referring to a community of sweepers, it can also refer more generally to people performing trash-related work and to midwives. The latter has been considered a particularly prominent use in western Uttar Pradesh. Professor Susan Wadley has described the Dhanuk as a "midwife caste". Janet Chawla has noted that using the term for midwives and people who work with trash "highlights the idea that birth-related work, indeed vitally important body work, and trash work can be part of the same matrix of tasks".[6]

Sarah Pinto, an anthropologist has noted that although the community are considered an untouchables due to their association with sweeping and making brooms. However, most people are engaged in agricultural work. She believes that there is an "overidentification of caste with iconic labour", and being more a reflection of the worldviews of both Brahmins and the later British colonisers than of reality.[7]

References
  1. Moodie, Megan (2015). We Were Adivasis: Aspiration in an Indian Scheduled Tribe. University of Chicago Press. p. 49. ISBN 978-0-22625-304-6.
  2. Debnath, Debashis (June 1995). "Hierarchies Within Hierarchy: Some Observations on Caste System in Rajasthan". Indian Anthropologist. 25 (1): 23–30. JSTOR 41919761.
  3. Jaffrelot, Christophe (2003). India's silent revolution: the rise of the lower castes in North India. London: C. Hurst & Co. p. 356. ISBN 978-1-85065-670-8.
  4. Faisal, Aziz (2004). "Agricultural Labourers in Patna - Gaya Region During the 19th Century". Proceedings of the Indian History Congress. 65: 477–483. JSTOR 44144762.
  5. "A-10 Individual Scheduled Caste Primary Census Abstract Data and its Appendix – Uttar Pradesh". Registrar General & Census Commissioner, India. Retrieved 6 February 2017.
  6. Chawla, Janet, ed. (2006). Birth and Birthgivers: The Power Behind the Shame. Har-Anand Publications. pp. 215–216. ISBN 978-8-12410-938-0.
  7. Pinto, Sarah (2008). Where There is No Midwife: Birth and Loss in Rural India. Berghahn. pp. 47–48. ISBN 978-1-84545-310-7.
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