Khatik

The Khatik or Khateek are an ethnic group found in the Indian subcontinent, mainly modern-day India, Pakistan and Nepal. The Hindu Khatik have gerneral, OBC and scheduled caste status varied according to different states in India.[3] They are one of the most widespread communities in modern South Asia. Indian Khatik have a population of approximately above 4.8 crore and are located mainly in Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Haryana, New Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Bihar, West Bengal, Punjab and Himachal Pradesh.[4]

Khatik
ReligionsHinduism,
Languages• Hindi • Punjabi • Rajasthani • Tamil • Telugu• Marathi• Bhojpuri• Bengali
Country• India • Nepal • Pakistan[1][2]
Populated statesUttar Pradesh,West Bengal, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Telangana, Haryana Andhra pradesh,Punjab, uttrakhand, Himachal pardesh, Maharashtra, Delhi, jharkhand, Chhatisgarh, odisha, Karnataka.
Notable membersJagannath Pahadia, Udit Raj, Virendra Kumar Khatik, Rajnath Sonkar Shastri
SubdivisionsRangiya and Mewafarosh Suryavanshi khatik

It is also believed that some groups of Khatik community, mainly living in areas of Punjab and Pakistan turned to Islam in the early days, they were mainly involved in tannery and meat business.

Etymology

Khatik is derived from the Sanskrit (Indic ancient language) word, "Khattik or Aakhetak" means Hunter or Predator and Hindi word "Khatt" Means immediate killing. Since historical times they mostly seem to be in the business and profession of getting and selling the Forest and Village supplies (like meat, fruit, vegetables) in the towns, rearing of animals and tanning of raw hide.

The Khatik (खटिक/ķhâťïk) have widely distributed community in Indian Subcontinent , and each Khatik group has its own origin myth. What they have in common is that they were historically kshtriyas who were assigned to kill animals in yagas performed by kings. Also today, only khatiks has the right to kill animals during bali offerings at Hindu temples. According to their traditions, the god Brahma assigned to them a goats skin, the bark of trees and lac- so they could graze cattle, dye skins of goat, and deer; and tan hides with bark and lac. Another tradition, claims that the origin of the word Khatik has been derived from the Hindi word khat, which, means an immediate killing. They relate this to early days when they used to supply mutton to the kings of Rajasthan. While other sources claim that the word khatik is said to have originated from the Sanskrit word kathika, which means to butcher or hunter.

Gobinda Chandra Khatik Road - John Burdon Sanderson Haldane Avenue - Kolkata 2013-04-10 7722

The Hindu Khatik have gerneral, OBC and scheduled caste status varied according to different states in India. Khatiks are identified as Scheduled Caste in some states of India including West Bengal,Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh while they have OBC status in Gujarat, Bihar, jharkhand,telangana, Andhra Pradesh and karnataka. and also have General status in some states.[5]

Political involvement

Khatiks actively participate in politics and they are not dependent on single party but they are distributed in various political party as per their belief & interest.[6] Only a few people from the group have risen to high political positions, hence the community has little say in political decision making.

Jagannath Pahadia (born 15 January 1932) was an Indian politician and a leader of the Indian National Congress party. He was a Governor of Haryana, a Governor of Bihar and a former Chief Minister of Rajasthan, his home state.

         He was Chief Minister of Rajasthan state from 6 June 1980 to 14 July 1981. He was a Minister in the government of India for many years. He was a member of the 2nd, 4th, 5th and 7th Lok Sabha. He represented Sawai Madhopur (Lok Sabha constituency) in the 2nd Lok Sabha and Bayana constituency in Rajasthan in the 4th, 5th and 7th Lok Sabha. His wife Shanti Pahadia was also a member of Lok Sabha. He was governor of Bihar from 3 March 1989 to 2 February 1990. Later, he served and was appointed as the governor of Haryana from 27 July 2009 to 26 July 2014

Vinod Kumar Sonkar is an Indian politician, a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party. He is currently (2014 & 2019) the Member of parliament from Kaushambi (Lok Sabha constituency) he is also the National President for BJP S.C morcha and the current chairperson of parliamentary committee on Ethics.[1]

Virendra Kumar Khatik is an Indian politician serving as the Member of Parliament in the 17th Lok Sabha from Tikamgarh.[1] He is an MP since 1996 and was a member in the 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th, 15th and 16th Lok Sabha.He was also the chairperson of Standing Committee on Labour and Member of General Purpose Committee. He was chosen as the Pro-tem speaker of the 17th Lok Sabha in June 2019.[2]

Current status
  • Today, some people of this group are the business related to fruit and vegetable, animal husbandry, butchering, agriculture. While most of the other people are into all sorts of businesses, professions and jobs, like Government Services, Private Jobs, IT Professions, Scientists, Engineers, Medical Professionals, service industry, shop owners, contractors, real estate developers, builders and others. A good number of these professions are working in different countries through out the world. Some people of this group have also been involved in Sports, modern day body building and traditional wrestling (Kushti)
  • Among the major caste , Khatiks have registered the overall literacy rate (64.4 per cent) and highest women literacy rate.[4]

Subdivisions

Hindu Khatik caste has divided into various subgroups or gotras based on their livelihood or profession and some time based on the names of there villages. These include:

  • Rangiya - they used to colour goat and deer skin to sell.[7] They also sometimes to do goat and sheep rearing.
  • Mewafarosh - There traditional profession is to sell fruits, dry-fruits and vegetables. They also work as meat sellers, mostly selling Goat meat (lamb) or Pig (pork) and some times poultry and fish. They sell jhatka meet as opposed to halal. A number of people from this group are also involved in wholesale business of Fruits and Vegetables, where they are called 'Adhatias' (working as commission agent between seller and buyer). They also own shops in 'Mandis' (wholesale markets and auction houses) from where they wholesale and retail these products. The most common surname of this group is Sonkar or Sonker.[8] They have been historically living in cities mostly in the state of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bangal, etc. Being city dwellers originally they own residential and commercial properties in old parts of the town. Some times these residences are in cluster these cluster are called ' Khatkana', these are mostly in the heart of the cities, and mostly in congested places.
  • In rural parts of Uttar Pradesh (specially in central UP) Khatki's traditionally take up profession of Mason (Rajgir Mistry) and Civil Contractors or Agriculture, where they do farming on there own land holdings and also lease orchards and farms. These groups have there subcast's named after the names of villages were they belong to. This group had a system where members discouraged marriages among certain subgroups or gotras to prevent inbreeding. They do not write any specific surname with there names, but use of word 'Ram' as first or last name is very commonly seen in the names of the older generation.
  • There are various other subgroups mostly divided and named after their occupations.
  • Marriage among these subgroups was traditionally discouraged. But a number of inter-group marriages now are taking place.

Languages

People of this group have no different language either written or spoken. They speak Hindi and all the other regional languages spoken in their particular area.

References
  1. Jaffrelot, Christophe. A History of Pakistan and Its Origins. Anthem Press. p. 212.
  2. http://idsn.org/wp-content/uploads/user_folder/pdf/New_files/Nepal/Caste-based_Discrimination_in_Nepal.pdf
  3. People of India Uttar Pradesh Volume XLII Part Two edited by A Hasan and J C Das pages 811 to 815
  4. "CHAPTER – 3 : DEMOGRAPHIC PROFILE OF SCHEDULED CASTE DALITS IN INDIA" (PDF). Shodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in. Archived from the original (PDF) on 14 February 2019. Retrieved 6 May 2019.
  5. "खटीक समाज की मांग, अनुसूचित जाति में किया जाए शामिल". Navbharat Times (in Hindi). 18 October 2018. Retrieved 22 June 2019.
  6. "Chandigarh Congress welcomes members of Khatik community into party fold". The Indian Express. 8 April 2019. Retrieved 22 June 2019.
  7. Shastri, Vijay Sonkar (1 January 2014). Hindu Khatik Jati (in Hindi). Prabhat Prakashan. ISBN 9789350485675.
  8. Narayan, Badri (7 November 2006). Women Heroes and Dalit Assertion in North India: Culture, Identity and Politics. SAGE Publishing India. ISBN 9789352800575.
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