Jatav

Clans and Kinship

Descent is patrilineal. Lynch describes nested kin groups: the household (parivar, ghar); the kutumb, brothers and cousins who stand by one another; the khandan, all male descendants of a known ancestor; and the biradari, the whole community. Totemically named gotras exist, but their rule of exogamy is not strictly kept: marriage is outside the khandan and within the community, and not with anyone related through both the father's and the mother's lines. All members of one neighbourhood or village count as kin (bhaiband) and do not marry each other. Hereditary headmen (chaudhari) and councils of adult men (panchayat) once settled disputes; in cities much of their role has passed to the courts and to educated leaders.

No published list of Jatav gotras was opened for this page, so none is given.

In the Official Lists

• Scheduled Caste

  Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Haryana, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Delhi

  Listed as: Jatav

  In every state part of one combined entry that also carries an older name. Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand list Jatava with Dhusia and Jhusia; Haryana and Rajasthan list both Jatav and Jatava; Delhi lists Jatav within a compound name.

Checked against Wikipedia's compilation of the Scheduled Castes order, not against the ministry's own list. Owen Lynch notes that the census does not count Jatavs separately but under the combined entry, so state counts include other communities.

Checked on 2026-11-06 against the sources below. The lists are amended from time to time and can differ by district; for a certificate, the current order or the state's list is what counts.

Name and Origin

The meaning of the name is not settled. Owen Lynch, who studied the Jatavs of Agra, records that many Jatavs derive it from Yadav, the line of Krishna, while others give other derivations. In the 1920s Jatav writers claimed Kshatriya descent, holding that the community's ancestors had gone into hiding after Parashurama's war on the Kshatriyas; after independence many identified instead with India's ancient Buddhists (Lynch).

History

Jatav associations formed in Agra in the early twentieth century: the Jatav Vir, a body of young Jatavs, in 1917, and the Jatav Pracharak Sangh in 1924. They claimed Kshatriya status, reformed customs, built up a literate leadership, and asked the colonial government to record the community separately. In 1944 and 1945 Jatav leaders in Agra joined the movement led by B. R. Ambedkar, and the community's organising moved from the Kshatriya claim to the Ambedkar movement, a change Owen Lynch traced in his study of Agra (1969). After Ambedkar's conversion in 1956 some Jatavs became Buddhist, and Lynch notes that his statues and pictures in public places became a mark of the community's claim to equal citizenship.

Faith and Worship

Most Jatav families are Hindu (Lynch; Wikipedia). Some became Buddhist after B. R. Ambedkar's conversion in 1956, and Lynch writes that Ambedkar and the Buddha now have a place in Jatav devotion. Many Jatavs also follow Guru Ravidass.

Customs

Lynch records that Ambedkar's birthday is the community's main public festival. Birth, the first haircut, marriage and death are the main family ceremonies; marriage is the most important, with public feasts and gifts over many years to the families of married daughters. Poetry and song are cultivated arts.

Festivals