The story of the ‘Nishad’ community occupies an important place in the socio-economic and political landscape of north India. It illustrates how people from different jatis have come together to forge a common identity to bolster their numerical strength and translate it into political power.Nishads, also known as ‘Gangaputras’, comprise boatmen, fishermen, and net makers whose livelihoods are centred around rivers and water bodies. Although members of the community are known by different names in different regions, like Kaibartas in Assam and Jaliya Kaibartas in West Bengal, the term ‘Nishad’ has emerged as an umbrella identity among members belonging to different sub-castes or jatis in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.The Nishad community includes 22 sub-subcastes, including the Mallahs, Binds, Manjhis, Kewats, Kashyaps, Turhas, Majhwas, Bathams, Beldars, Chaiye, and Tiyar, among others. They are classified as Other Backward Classes (OBC) in Uttar Pradesh and Extremely Backward Castes (EBC) in Bihar. Traditionally, they are associated with fishing, boating, and riverbank agriculture.In rural Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, many Nishads are also engaged in daily-wage labour such as sand mining/dredging and manual work. Migration to metros such as Mumbai and Delhi in search of employment is common. In cities like Prayagraj and Varanasi, where rivers and ghats are vital to the economy, the community is engaged in boating and religious tourism.The term Nishad began gaining prominence in the early twentieth century as part of a broader effort to forge a collective caste identity for members belonging to different sub-castes. According to the 2023 caste-based census of Bihar, the Nishads make up approximately 9.6% of the state’s total population, spread across regions like north Bihar and Mithilanchal, especially in districts such as Muzaffarpur, Darbhanga, Vaishali, Madhubani, Jhanjharpur, Supaul, Samastipur, Begusarai, Munger, and Motihari. Traditionally, the Nishads are associated with fishing, boating, and riverbank agriculture. (Photo by Sarthak Bagchi)Their demographic strength, coupled with geographical spread, enables them to exert considerable influence in a large number of electoral constituencies across the state. It is this numerical strength that the community now seeks to transform into political mobilisation. Across North India, the development or nurturing of political consciousness among marginalised communities has been a gradual process, shaped over decades, where events like the Mungeri Lal Commission in the 1970s, the Mandal Commission in the 1980s, and the post-Mandal politics in the 1990s have acted as catalysts to hasten this process of political awakening.Colonial rootsDespite their numbers, the Nishads remain among India’s most socio-economically disadvantaged communities. A key reason is the colonial classification of certain sub-castes — such as Mallahs (the most dominant among the Nishads) — as criminal tribes under the British colonial Criminal Tribes Act of 1871. As cultural anthropologist Assa Doron writes in her book Life on the Ganga: Boatmen and the Ritual Economy of Banaras (2013), “The Mallah caste was listed as a criminal tribe under the Criminal Tribes Act. Notifying certain groups as such under the Act had important implications.” Such a classification allowed the state to “resettle those notified under it, in other words, to impinge upon and actively reshape and mould the existence of the notified tribes, amplified their social marginalization, for any interaction with such groups could be seen as breach of the law.” (ibid.)Story continues below this adThis classification not only stigmatised the community but also restricted their negotiating powers, leading to further marginalisation. The ‘stigma’ of being referred to as the ‘criminal tribe’ was finally lifted in 1952, five years after India gained independence from British rule.Reclaiming history through Ramayana and MahabharataThe stigma attached to the modes of colonial governance had a deep influence on how the community decided to rewrite its history. In the post-Mandal era of the 1990s, many caste journals emerged in the Hindi heartland, aiming to narrate history through the lens of marginalised communities. One such caste journal, Nishad Jyoti, invokes a mythological past, where the Nishads were portrayed as prosperous and were second to none in terms of wealth, opulence, and knowledge. Intellectuals from the Nishad community, such as Lotan Ram Nishad, who edited Nishad Jyoti, sought to link the mythological past with a historical lineage, an attempt that is commonly visible in the rewriting of several caste-history narratives prevalent among the marginalised backward castes.As Doron writes, “Mythical stories are a common part of the Nishad identity which reinforce the narrative as imagined evidence for their dignified status in the past and how the injustices they are suffering in the present are due to particular high castes like brahmins who want to deny them their exalted status in history.”These journals frequently reference the Hindu epics like the Mahabharata and Ramayana. Figures like Satyavati and Eklavya from the Mahabharata and Guharaj Nishad from the Ramayana are portrayed as central characters whose roles were crucial in shaping the course of these stories. These accounts emphasise that these figures are not mere footnotes, but pivotal protagonists whose actions significantly influenced the epics’ trajectories.Story continues below this adAlso from Express Research | How caste permeated the Sikh communityFor example, it was Satyavati’s fisherman father, Dashraja, who forced Bhishma to pledge celibacy for life to protect the interests of the children born out of his daughter and Bhishma’s father, Shantanu’s marriage, who eventually went on to become the Kauravas and the Pandavas. Similarly, in the Ramayana, Maharaj Guharaj Nishad or Nishad Raj Guha, is depicted as a king of the Nishad community, who was not only a contemporary and compatriot of Lord Rama but was also his friend or ‘bal mitr’. He is celebrated as an equal contemporary of Rama, with his kingdom near modern-day Prayagraj, Uttar Pradesh.A statue of Guharaj Nishad embracing Lord Ram in Shringverpur today symbolises this bond and has also been promoted for political mobilisation among the Nishad community. Statue of Guharaj Nishad at Shringverpur (Photo by Sarthak Bagchi)Nishads refer to these narratives of their caste history, closely embedded in Hindu mythology, as a source of authority for their claim to respectable social status as well as to challenge ideological domination and to affirm their legitimacy to conduct rituals at ghats, which are dominated by Brahmin priests or pandas.From oppression to political mobilisationThe re-telecast of the Ramayana on television during the Covid-19 lockdown in 2020 and ahead of the 2022 Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections, gave the Bharatiya Janata Party and various religious organisations working among the Nishad community an opportunity to leverage the symbolism of Kevatraj or Guharaj Nishad for political mobilisation, using slogans like, “Guharaj Nishad ne ram ki naiyya paar lagayi thi, aap log (nishad ke vashanj) humaari naav paar lagaiye (Your ancestors helped Lord Rama cross the river, now you as their follower must help us (who uphold the name of Lord Rama) cross this (electoral) river).”Story continues below this adHowever, long before this wave of Hinduised mobilisation, it was the Samajwadi Party under Mulayam Singh Yadav that played a key role in nurturing and bringing a distinct political consciousness to the Nishad community in the 1990s.In the post-Mandal phase of politics in the Hindi heartland, when political parties were looking for subaltern symbols of leadership, Yadav elevated the surrendered bandit Phoolan Devi, who belonged to the Bind caste, as a symbol of resistance against patriarchy and the hegemony of the Thakurs (upper castes). The Samajwadi Party took back all cases registered against her and brought her into the political mainstream of Uttar Pradesh, forging a strong connection with large sections of the Nishad community, who saw in her not only a caste kin but also a symbol of resilience and resistance against upper-caste oppression.Before the advent of the Hinduised political mobilisation, the Nishad community found its political consciousness in the framework of subaltern politics challenging the pre-existing mechanisms of upper caste dominance.The futureIn a society embedded with deep-rooted caste-based fault lines, the Nishads continue to face suppression. For instance, in 2022, authorities in Uttar Pradesh were accused of destroying several boats of the Nishad community members near Prayagraj, based on allegations of illegal sand-dredging in the Yamuna.Story continues below this adThe idea of political mobilisation among the community is emerging to challenge such injustices. Like other backward castes with a significant numerical strength, the Nishads aspire to find the strength to be able to create an identity akin to what Benedict Anderson calls “imagined community”.More from the Caste Web series | Pariah: Why the name of a Tamil Dalit caste entered European vocabulary to mean the ‘ostracised’Though the community has engaged in politics since the 1950s, people like Lotan Ram Nishad argue that the community has not seen any significant transformation in their economic, social, or political conditions. However, the emergence of political parties like the Nishad Party and the Vikassheel Insaan Party indicates a shift in the community’s political preferences.Further Readings:Assa Doron, Life on the Ganga: Boatmen and the Ritual Economy of Banaras, 2013.Assa Doron, Caste Away: Subaltern Engagement with the Modern Indian State, Journal of Modern Asian Studies, 2010.Story continues below this adRama Shanker Singh, Nadi Putra: Uttar Bharat mein Nishad aur Nadi, 2022.Sarthak Bagchi, Understanding Small Caste-Based Parties in India, 2019