Chamār

List of Paragraphs

1. General notice of the caste.

Chamār, Chambhār.[1]—The caste of tanners and menial labourers of northern India. In the Central Provinces the Chamārs numbered about 900,000 persons in 1911. They are the third caste in the Province in numerical strength, being exceeded by the Gonds and Kunbis. About 600,000 persons, or two-thirds of the total strength of the caste in the Province, belong to the Chhattīsgarh Division and adjacent Feudatory States. Here the Chamārs have to some extent emancipated themselves from their servile status and have become cultivators, and occasionally even mālguzārs or landed proprietors; and between them and the Hindus a bitter and long-standing feud is in progress. Outside Chhattīsgarh the Chamārs are found in most of the Hindi-speaking Districts whose population has been recruited from northern and central India, and here they are perhaps the most debased class of the community, consigned to the lowest of menial tasks, and their spirit broken by generations of servitude. In the Marātha country the place of the Chamārs is taken by the Mehras or Mahārs. In the whole of India the Chamārs are about eleven millions strong, and are the largest caste with the exception of the Brāhmans. The name is derived from the Sanskrit Charmakāra, a worker in leather; and, according to classical tradition, the Chamār is the offspring of a Chandāl or sweeper woman by a man of the fisher caste.[2] The superior physical type of the Chamār has been noticed in several localities. Thus in the Kanara District of Bombay[3] the Chamār women are said to be famed for their beauty of face and figure, and there it is stated that the Padminis or perfect type of women, middle-sized with fine features, black lustrous hair and eyes, full breasts and slim waists,[4] are all Chamārins. Sir D. Ibbetson writes[5] that their women are celebrated for beauty, and loss of caste is often attributed to too great a partiality for a Chamārin. In Chhattīsgarh the Chamārs are generally of fine stature and fair complexion; some of them are lighter in colour than the Chhattīsgarhi Brāhmans, and it is on record that a European officer mistook a Chamār for a Eurasian and addressed him in English. This, however, is by no means universally the case, and Sir H. Risley considers[6] that “The average Chamār is hardly distinguishable in point of features, stature or complexion from the members of those non-Aryan races from whose ranks we should primarily expect the profession of leather-dressers to be recruited.” Again, Sir Henry Elliot, writing of the Chamārs of the North-Western Provinces, says: “Chamārs are reputed to be a dark race, and a fair Chamār is said to be as rare an object as a black Brāhman:

Karia Brāhman, gor Chamār,

Inke sāth nā utariye pār,

that is, ‘Do not cross a river in the same boat with a black Brāhman or a fair Chamār,’ both being of evil omen.” The latter description would certainly apply to the Chamārs of the Central Provinces outside the Chhattīsgarh Districts, but hardly to the caste as a whole within that area. No satisfactory explanation has been offered of this distinction of appearance of some groups of Chamārs. It is possible that the Chamārs of certain localities may be the descendants of a race from the north-west, conquered and enslaved by a later wave of immigrants; or that their physical development may owe something to adult marriage and a flesh diet, even though consisting largely of carrion. It may be noticed that the sweepers, who eat the broken food from the tables of the Europeans and wealthy natives, are sometimes stronger and better built than the average Hindu. Similarly, the Kasais or Muhammadan butchers are proverbially strong and lusty. But no evidence is forthcoming in support of such conjectures, and the problem is likely to remain insoluble.

“The Chamārs,” Sir H. Risley states,[7] “trace their own pedigree to Ravi or Rai Dās, the famous disciple of Rāmānand at the end of the fourteenth century, and whenever a Chamār is asked what he is, he replies a Ravi Dās. Another tradition current among them alleges that their original ancestor was the youngest of four Brāhman brethren who went to bathe in a river and found a cow struggling in a quicksand. They sent the youngest brother in to rescue the animal, but before he could get to the spot it had been drowned. He was compelled, therefore, by his brothers to remove the carcase, and after he had done this they turned him out of their caste and gave him the name of Chamār.” Other legends are related by Mr. Crooke in his article on the caste.