Dalits and the Raj: The persistence of the Jatavs in the United Provinces

The Jatavs of western UP during the 1930s fought a long campaign to be recognised as a separate caste. In this article, the progress and eventual success of that campaign are documented and described in detail for the first time. In addition, it is suggested that the Jatav efforts to establish a separate official identity cannot be fully understood within the framework provided by the notion of Sanskritisation. It is argued here that the Jatav endeavours need to be analysed as an expression of a purposeful Dalit engagement with the emerging political framework of the period. In particular, the negotiations about constitutional reform opened up the possibility of challenging the ways in which the colonial regime had previously used the names and numbers of castes as part of its techniques of governance. Dalit groups, often in association with Dr Ambedkar, intervened in the formal investigations conducted in relation to the reforms to expose the frailty and fiction of many of the assumptions of the colonial authorities.