Pasi (caste)
The Pasi is a Dalit (untouchable) community of India.[1][2] They live in the northern Indian states of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.
| Regions with significant populations | |
|---|---|
| Bihar, Uttar Pradesh | |
| Languages | |
| Hindi | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Turuk Pasi |
Population
The Pasi live mainly in the northern Indian states of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, where their traditional occupation was that of rearing pigs.[3] As of the 2001 Census of India, the Pasi are the second-largest Dalit group in Uttar Pradesh, where they constituted 16 per cent of the Dalit population and were mostly recorded in the Awadh region.[4] The 2011 Census of India for the state recorded their population as 6,522,166. That figure included the Tarmali.[5]
History
Ramnarayan Rawat notes the role of the Pasi community (and other untouchable castes) in the Kisan Sabha Movement to have been understated by earlier historians, in that they documented a minimal and late-arriving Pasi involvement and additionally, one that was inclined to criminal behavior such as rioting, rather than political activism.[2] From a reading of the archives, he notes that the involvement of Pasi and Chamars were significant from the outset and they being land-occupiers had the same concerns as of other savarna groups, rather than being the 'alienated' pig-rearers, hitherto assumed and portrayed.[2] Chandra Bhan Prasad, a political commentator, has recalled about how those who continued pig-rearing were ill-treated by socio-political activists, who blamed the occupation in large part for their untouchable status rather than the Brahminism.[6]
The Pasi have in recent times engaged in invention of tradition. Badri Narayan, a social historian and cultural anthropologist, says that
Sources of vision and contemplation are absent without literature. This feeling, along with the growing urge to construct an assertive identity and the sense of being deprived of history, led the Pasi community towards the invention of heroes, histories and myths and their documentation in the print medium.[7]
Of late, Hindu Nationalists (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and affiliates) have been trying to appropriate different folk-heroes of the Pasi caste, as Hindu icons to mobilize the electoral prospects of Bharatiya Janata Party.[8]
See also
References
- Pandey, Gyan (1988). "Peasant Revolt and Indian Nationalism: The Peasant Movement in Awadh, 1919-1922". In Guha, Ranajit; Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty (eds.). Selected Subaltern Studies. Oxford University Press. p. 274. ISBN 978-0-19505-289-3.
- Rawat, Ramnarayan S. (2011). Reconsidering Untouchability: Chamars and Dalit History in North India. Indiana University Press. pp. 12–15. ISBN 978-0-25322-262-6.
- Hunt, Sarah Beth (2014). Hindi Dalit Literature and the Politics of Representation. Routledge. pp. 8, 23. ISBN 978-1-31755-952-8.
- Vij, Shivam (8 May 2010). "Can the Congress Win Over UP's Dalits?". Economic and Political Weekly.
- "A-10 Individual Scheduled Caste Primary Census Abstract Data and its Appendix - Uttar Pradesh". Registrar General & Census Commissioner, India. Retrieved 4 February 2017.
- Prasad, Chandra Bhan (2011). "My Experiments with Hunting Rats". In Babu, D. Shyam; Khare, Ravindra S. (eds.). Caste in Life: Experiencing Inequalities. Pearson Education India. pp. 161–162. ISBN 978-8-13175-439-9.
- Narayan, Badri (2006). Women Heroes and Dalit Assertion in North India: Culture, Identity and Politics. SAGE Publications India. p. 140. ISBN 978-8-13210-280-9.
- Narayan, Badri (14 January 2009). Fascinating Hindutva: Saffron Politics and Dalit Mobilisation. SAGE Publishing India. pp. 65–72. ISBN 978-93-5280-135-0.
Further reading
- Narayan, Badri (2009). Fascinating Hindutva: Saffron Politics and Dalit Mobilisation. SAGE Publications. ISBN 978-8-17829-906-8.
- Narayan, Badri (2004). "Dalit mobilisation and nationalist past". In Gupta, Dipankar (ed.). Caste in Question: Identity or Hierarchy?. SAGE Publications. ISBN 978-0-76193-324-3.
- Narayan, Badri (2004). "Inventing caste history: Dalit mobilisation and nationalist past". Contributions to Indian Sociology. 38 (193). doi:10.1177/006996670403800108.