Yadav

This article is about modern communities. For other uses, see Yadav (disambiguation).

Yadav
Regions with significant populations
Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Haryana, Punjab, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, West Bengal, Assam, Odisha, Bihar, Jharkhand, Nepal, Mauritius, Karnataka, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh
Languages
Hindi, Ahirwati, Haryanvi, Telugu, Gujarati, Rajasthani, Bhojpuri, Marwari, Kannada, Odia, Bengali
Religion
Hinduism

Yadavs are a grouping of traditionally non-elite,[1][2] peasant-pastoral communities or castes in India that since the 19th and 20th centuries[3][4] have claimed descent from the legendary king Yadu as a part of a movement of social and political resurgence.[5] The term Yadav now covers many traditional peasant-pastoral castes such as Ahirs of the Hindi belt and the Gavli of Maharashtra.[1][6]

Historically, the Ahir, Gopi and Goala groups had an ambiguous ritual status in caste stratification.[7][a] Since the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the Yadav movement has worked to improve the social standing of its constituents,[9] through Sanskritisation, adoption of Yadav as a surname,[10][11] active participation in the armed forces,[3] expansion of economic opportunities to include other, more prestigious business fields, and active participation in politics.[9] Yadav leaders and intellectuals have often focused on their claimed descent from Yadu, and from Krishna,[12] which they argue confers caste Hindu status upon them,[13] and effort has been invested in recasting the group narrative to emphasise a martial character,[14] however, the overall tenor of their movement has not been overtly egalitarian in the context of the larger Indian caste system.[15] Yadavs benefited from Zamindari abolition in some states of north India like Bihar, but not to the extent that members of other Upper Backward Castes did.[16]

  1. ^ a b Susan Bayly (2001). Caste, Society and Politics in India from the Eighteenth Century to the Modern Age. Cambridge University Press. p. 200, 383. ISBN 978-0-521-79842-6. Quote: Ahir: Caste title of North Indian non-elite 'peasant'-pastoralists, known also as Yadav."
  2. ^ Michelutti, Lucia (2004), "'We (Yadavs) are a caste of politicians': Caste and modern politics in a north Indian town", Contributions to Indian Sociology, 38 (1–2): 43–71, doi:10.1177/006996670403800103, ISSN 0973-0648, S2CID 144951057 Quote: "The Yadavs were traditionally a low-to-middle-ranking cluster of pastoral-peasant castes that have become a significant political force in Uttar Pradesh (and other northern states like Bihar) in the last thirty years."
  3. ^ a b Pinch, William R. (1996). Peasants and monks in British India. University of California Press. p. 90. ISBN 978-0-520-20061-6. Quote: "Gopis, Goalas, and Ahirs, who would by the early 1900s begin referring to themselves as Yadav kshatriyas, had long sought and attained (after 1898) recruitment as soldiers in the British Indian army, particularly in the Western Gangetic Plain."
  4. ^ Hutton, John Henry (1969). Caste in India: its nature, function and origins. Oxford University Press. p. 113. Quote: "In a not dissimilar way the various cow-keeping castes of northern India were combining in 1931 to use the common term of Yadava for their various castes, Ahir, Goala, Gopa, etc., and to claim a Rajput origin of extremely doubtful authenticity."
  5. ^ Jassal, Smita Tewari; École pratique des hautes études (France). Section des sciences économiques et sociales; University of Oxford. Institute of Social Anthropology (2001). "Caste in the Colonial State: Mallahs in the census". Contributions to Indian sociology. Mouton. pp. 319–351. Quote: "The movement, which had a wide interregional spread, attempted to submerge regional names such as Goala, Ahir, Ahar, Gopa, etc., in favour of the generic term Yadava (Rao 1979). Hence a number of pastoralist castes were subsumed under Yadava, in accordance with decisions taken by the regional and national level caste sabhas. The Yadavas became the first among the shudras to gain the right to wear the janeu, a case of successful sanskritisation which continues till date. As a prominent agriculturist caste in the region, despite belonging to the shudra varna, the Yadavas claimed Kshatriya status tracing descent from the Yadu dynasty. The caste's efforts matched those of census officials, for whom standardisation of overlapping names was a matter of policy. The success of the Yadava movement also lies in the fact that, among the jaati sabhas, the Yadava sabha was probably the strongest, its journal, Ahir Samachar, having an all-India spread. These factors strengthened local efforts, such as in Bhojpur, where the Yadavas, locally known as Ahirs, refused to do begar, or forced labour, for the landlords and simultaneously prohibited liquor consumption, child marriages, and so on."
  6. ^ Jaffrelot, Christophe (2003). India's silent revolution: the rise of the lower castes in North India. London: C. Hurst & Co. p. 187-188. ISBN 978-1-85065-670-8. [187] The term "Yadav" covers many castes which initially had different names: Ahir in the Hindi belt, Punjab and Gujarat, Gavli in Maharashtra, Gola in Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka etc. Their traditional common function, all over India, was that of herdsman, cowherds and milksellers. [188] In practice, the Yadavs today spend most of their time tilling the land. At the turn of the century in the Central Provinces two-thirds of Ahirs were already cultivators and labourers while less than one third raised cattle and dealt with milk and milk products.
  7. ^ Michelutti, Lucia (2008), The Vernacularisation of Democracy: Politics, Caste and Religion in India, Exploring the Political in South Asia, London and New York: Routledge, p. 220, ISBN 978-0-415-46732-2, Historically, the Ahir caste/community also had an ambiguous ritual status in the caste hierarchy. Amongst the Ahir/Yadav case we find rajas, zamindars, sepoys, and cowherders who have been conceived and categorised either as warriors and as belonging to the Kshatriya varna, or as lower caste and belonging to the shudra varna. In Ahirwal, members of Ahir seigneurial lineages have come to be known by the title Rajput. (p. 220)
  8. ^ Rand, Gavin (6 June 2013), "Reconstructing the Imperial Military after the Rebellion", in Rand, Gavin; Bates, Crispin (eds.), Mutiny on the Margins: New Perspectives on the Indian Uprising of 1857, Volume 7, p. 101, ISBN 978-81-321-1053-8, However, while ethnography was thus made central to the process of reconstruction, there remained a good deal of ambiguity regarding distinctions of race, caste and tribe. An investigation into the utility of various 'low caste' levies raised during 1857 was abandoned in 1861 when it emerged that while some officers had raised troops from sweepers and outcastes, others understood the term to refer simply to those regiments raised without Brahmins. This is simply one example of the numerous, wider ambiguities which inflect colonial knowledge in this period and which (amongst other factors) militated against radical change in the aftermath of the rebellion. This ambiguity was reflected in much of the evidence gathered by the Royal Commission, where geographic and regional distinctions overlapped and complicated religious and ethnic identities. Nevertheless, the administrative impulse to know India after 1857 is evident throughout the process of reflection and reconstruction undertaken by the imperial military. However, as the diversity of opinion gathered by the Royal Commission makes clear, while there was general recognition that ethnographic knowledge was key to the business of administering the Native army, there was much less agreement on the precise mechanisms by which such administration could be carried forth and, often, widespread confusion over the most salient aspects of Indian ethnography, culture and tradition. In part, the injunction to know India and its peoples is characteristic of the period.<Footnote 35 (p. 111)>: See, for example, the illustrated taxonomy of Indian ethnographic types prepared by Kaye, Watson, and Meadows Taylor and published as The People of India: A Series of Photographic Illustrations with Descriptive Letterpress, of the Races and Tribes of Hindustan, Originally Prepared under the Authority of the Government of India and Reproduced by the Order of the Secretary of State in Council (London: W. H. Allen, 1868)>
  9. ^ a b Leshnik, Lawrence S.; Sontheimer, Günther-Dietz (1975). Pastoralists and nomads in South Asia. O. Harrassowitz. p. 218. ISBN 9783447015523. Quote: "The Ahir and allied cowherd castes (whether actually pastoralists or cultivators, as in the Punjab) have recently organized a pan-Indian caste association with political as well as social reformist goals using the epic designation of Yadava (or Jadava) Vanshi Kshatriya, ie the warrior caste descending from the Yadava lineage of the Mahabharata fame."
  10. ^ Cite error: The named reference Jaffrelot2003p196 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  11. ^ Jaffrelot, Christophe (2003). India's silent revolution: the rise of the lower castes in North India. Columbia University Press. pp. 210–211. ISBN 978-0-231-12786-8. Quote: "In his typology of low caste movements, (M. S. A.) Rao distinguishes five categories. The first is characterised by 'withdrawal and self-organisation'. ... The second one, illustrated by the Yadavs, is based on the claim of 'higher varna status' and fits with Sanskritisation pattern. ..."
  12. ^ Gooptu, Nandini (1997), "The Urban Poor and Militant Hinduism in Early Twentieth-Century Uttar Pradesh", Modern Asian Studies, 31 (4 (Oct., 1997)): 879–918, doi:10.1017/s0026749x00017194, JSTOR 312848, S2CID 146484298 Quote: " ... Lord Krishna, a legendary warrior and a Hindu deity, whom some shudra castes, notably the ahir or yadav, claim to be their ancestor." (page 902)
  13. ^ Bayly, Susan (2001). Caste, Society and Politics in India from the Eighteenth Century to the Modern Age. Cambridge University Press. p. 84. ISBN 978-0-521-79842-6. Quote: "They had many counterparts elsewhere, most notably in the Gangetic plain where users of titles like Ahir, Jat and Goala turned increasingly towards the cow-cherishing rustic piety associated with the cult of Krishna. With its visions of milkmaids and sylvan raptures, and its cultivation of divine bounty in the form of sweet milky essences, this form of Vishnu worship offered an inviting path to 'caste Hindu' life for many people of martial pastoralist background.42 Footnote 42: "From the later nineteenth century the title Yadav was widely adopted in preference to Goala. ..."
  14. ^ Flueckiger, Joyce Burkhalter (1996). Gender and Genre in the Folklore of Middle India. Cornell University Press. p. 137. ISBN 978-0-8014-8344-8. Quote: "Another way to confirm their warrior status was to try to associate themselves with Yadav cowherding caste of the divine cowherd Krishna, calling themselves Yadavs instead of Ahirs. Ahir intelligensia "rewrote" certain historical documents to prove this connection, forming a national Yadav organization that continues to coordinate and promote the mobility drive of the caste. Integral to this movement are retelling of caste history that reflect its martial character; ..."
  15. ^ Jaffrelot, Christophe (2003). India's silent revolution: the rise of the lower castes in North India. Columbia University Press. p. 211. ISBN 978-0-231-12786-8. Quote: "Rather, the low caste movements can more pertinently be regrouped in two broader categories: first, the reform movements situating themselves within the Hindu way of life, be they relying on the mechanisms of Sanskritisation or on the bhakti tradition; and second those which are based on an ethnic or western ideology with a strong egalitarian overtone. The Yadav movement—and to a lesser extent the Ezhavas—can be classified in the first group whereas all the other ones belong to the second category. Interestingly none of the latter has a North Indian origin."
  16. ^ Ranabir Samaddar (2016). Government of Peace: Social Governance, Security and the Problematic of Peace. Routledge. p. 169. ISBN 978-1317125372. Retrieved 1 January 2021.


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