The Jhinwar, also known as Jhirs, are a caste in India and Pakistan.[1] The community is sometimes referred to as a subcaste of boatmen.[2] They have been traditionally engaged as water-carriers, as well as being basket-makers, cooks, field labourers, river fishermen and woodcutters, as and when required. Some women work as midwives. In modern Pakistan, they are bound by the seypi system in village life.[3][4] They are also known as Kashap Rajput, which is considered a more respectful term to refer to them.[1]
They were regarded as an untouchable caste, living outside the traditional varna system of ritual ranking in Vedic Hinduism.[5] However, in the latter stages of World War I, they were among the lower-caste groups who were accepted for recruitment to Jat Sikh regiments in the British Army.[6]
Traditionally, the Jhinwar community found in Punjab and Uttar Pradesh was associated with occupations such as boating,[2]carrying water[7] and river fishing.[3]
Communities that are related to the Jhinwar by occupation in Uttar Pradesh include the Batham, Bind, Bhar, Dhimar, Dhinwar, Dhewar, Gariya, Gaur, Godia, Gond, Guria, Jhimar, Jhir, Jhiwar, Kahar, Kashyap, Keot, Kewat, Kharwar, Khairwar, Kumhar, Machua, Majhi, Majhwar, Mallah, Nishad, Prajapati, Rajbhar, Riakwar, Tura, Turah, Turaha, Tureha and Turaiha. There were proposals in 2013 that some or all of these communities in the state should be reclassified as Scheduled Castes under India's system of positive discrimination; this would have involved declassifying them from the Other Backwards Class category.[2] Whether or not this would happen was a significant issue in the campaign for the 2014 Indian general election.[8]
Jhir Sikhs
Bhai Himmat Singh, a Jhir who became one of the first panj piare, detail from a hand-coloured woodblock print depicting Guru Gobind Singh initiating the first-five members of the Khalsa (Panj Piare) in 1699, Amritsar, Punjab, published by Bhai Buta Singh, 1875
Some of the water-carrier caste converted to Sikhism, who are known as Jhir Sikhs.[1] One of the inaugural panj piare quintets, named Himmat Singh, was said to have been a Jhir.[1] Another Sikh figure claimed by the Jhirs is Bhai Kanhaiya.[1] Jhir Sikhs tend to be clean-shaven rather than keeping their kesh and have Hindu-inflected name, but they still assert their identity as Sikhs and attend gurdwaras.[1]Local deities of the Jhirs in Punjab is Khawaja, who is a water-god, and the snake-god Guā.[1] To venerate the water-god on his festival day, they carry-out a ritual called bera tarna ("sailing a bark") which consists of sailing a piece of bark on a local canal or village-tank, and cooked, sweet dalia (porridge) is given-out to attendees to consume.[1] However, these folk-customs are in-decline.[1] Jhir Sikhs practice arranged marriages and caste endogamy.[1] They tend to avoid using the names of their got (clan) as their surname, as this would reveal their low-caste origin to others.[1] Instead, they often adopt the toponym of their ancestral locality as their surname.[1]
The Jhirs were considered a low-caste in Punjab.[1] In Punjabi society, they traditionally served as kammis (servants) in the jajmani system, with their role consisting of supplying water to their jajman (patron), including for agricultural purposes during harvests.[1] Jhir women were tasked with roasting wheat or corn for the village in a type of open-pan, sand oven known as a bhathi.[1] They were also tasked with preparing meals and washing dishes for their jajman's family.[1] The jajman would pay them biannually for their service.[1] They also had their own unique rituals, such as the kumbh, which was peformed by Jhir women and involved pouring coins into a jug of water being carried by a Jhir woman, being considered a reward.[1] In the U.K. diaspora, these coins are often donated to gurdwaras.[1] Technology like hand-pumps has rendered their traditional role as warrier carriers in Punjabi villages obsolete but they continued to carry-out their other menial roles under the jajmani system.[1]
Mota Singh, a Jhir Sikh, was an Indian independence movement activist and later became an Indian National Congress leader in Punjab.[1] In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the Jhir Sikhs began migrating to the United Kingdom, establishing a British diaspora for the community.[1] In Britain, they worked as unskilled labourers.[1] Some were twice-migrants, who came to the U.K. from the East African diaspora.[1]
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