Pasi

Clans and Kinship

The Pasi are made up of several sub-castes that have usually married within themselves and that differ from district to district. Crooke (1896) gives the Arakh, Baurasi, Kaithwan and Rajpasi among those of his time, and recent accounts name the Gujjar, Kaithwas and Boria. Crooke names no exogamous clans: the rule for avoiding marriage between related families was not rigidly fixed, many families barred all near relations, and at Mirzapur the families of the maternal uncle, the paternal uncle and both aunts were barred for seven generations. Questions of marriage went to the community council (panchayat), whose chairman, the chaudhari, was chosen at each meeting from the most influential men present. When a widow married her late husband's brother, he managed the property until her sons came of age and succeeded to it; at Mirzapur a man adopted only his brother's son, with the council's leave. The sources used do not say how descent is reckoned.

No list is given: Crooke (1896) names Pasi sub-castes, which married within themselves, but no exogamous clans or gotras, and none were found in the other sources opened.

In the Official Lists

• Scheduled Caste

  Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Odisha, Delhi, Chandigarh, Haryana, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra

  Listed as: Pasi

  Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand list 'Pasi, Tarmali' in one entry; elsewhere 'Pasi' (Census 2011, Table A-10 Appendix).

Checked in Census 2011 Table A-10 Appendix for all sixteen states and union territories, and against Wikipedia's compilation of the Scheduled Castes order; the tables reflect the 2011 lists, so check the current order before relying on it.

Checked on 2026-11-07 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

Pasi tradition derives the name from pasina, sweat. In the form Crooke (1896) recorded at Mirzapur, Parashurama made five men from grass and brought them to life with drops of his sweat to rescue cows from a cow-killer, and from them the Pasis descend; the community has used this account in claiming Kshatriya status. Pasi accounts also name chiefs who, they hold, ruled in the region in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, among them Bijli Pasi, and Crooke recorded traditions all through Awadh that Pasi kings once reigned at Sandila, Dhaurahra, Mitauli and Ramkot. Historians have not confirmed these accounts, and Badri Narayan has studied how the community has written down its heroes and histories.

History

The historian Ramnarayan Rawat argues that the part played by the Pasi in the Kisan Sabha movement of 1919 to 1922 in Awadh was significant from the outset and has been understated; Madari Pasi led the peasant Eka movement in Awadh. The community's best-known figure from 1857 is Uda Devi, who fought the East India Company's forces at Sikandar Bagh in Lucknow in November 1857 and was killed there; a British account of the battle describes her. Badri Narayan writes that, lacking a written history, the community has in recent decades set down its heroes, histories and myths in print.

Faith and Worship

Most Pasi families are Hindu, and some are Buddhist (Wikipedia). The Pasis of Pilibhit gather each year on 16 November to mark the anniversary of Uda Devi's death.

Festivals

Stories and Legends

Notable Personalities