The word Pashi, according to William Crooke, has been derived from the Sanskrit word Pashika, a noose used by Pasis to climb and tap toddy, a drink obtained from palm tree. The tapping of toddy is the original occupation of the Pasi community. However, just like other aspirational caste groups of India, Pasis have a myth of origin. They claim that they originate from the sweat of Parshuram, an incarnation of Vishnu. They claim support for this in the wordsweat being derived from the Hindi word Pasina and it further paves the way for their claim of "Kshatriyatva".
Population
The Pasi live mainly in the northern Indian states of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, were their traditional occupation was that of rearing pigs. The Pasis of most of the north Indian states has been classified by the Government of India as Scheduled Caste. As of the 2001 Census of India, the Pasi are the second-largest Dalit group in Uttar Pradesh, where they constituted 16 per cent of the Dalit population and were mostly recorded in the Awadh region. The 2011 Census of India for the state recorded their population as 6,522,166. That figure included the Tarmali.
History
notes the role of the Pasi community in the Kisan Sabha Movement to have been understated by earlier historians, in that they documented a minimal and late-arriving Pasi involvement and additionally, one that was inclined to criminal behavior such as rioting, rather than political activism. From a reading of the archives, he notes that the involvement of Pasi and Chamars were significant from the outset and they being land-occupiers had the same concerns as of other savarna groups, rather than being the 'alienated' pig-rearers, hitherto assumed and portrayed. Chandra Bhan Prasad, a political commentator, has recalled about how those who continued pig-rearing were ill-treated by socio-political activists, who blamed the occupation in large part for their untouchable status rather than the Brahminism. The Pasi have in recent times engaged in invention of tradition. Badri Narayan, a social historian and cultural anthropologist, says that Of late, Hindu Nationalists have been trying to appropriate different folk-heroes of the Pasi caste, as Hindu icons to mobilize the electoral prospects of Bharatiya Janata Party. The Hindu nationalists have supported claims that there was a Pasi kingdom that ruled in what are now Uttar Pradesh and Bihar during the 11th and 12th centuries. The rulers of this claimed state included Suhaldev and Bijli Pasi.
Ramnarayan Rawat notes the role of the Pasi community in the Kisan Sabha Movement to have been understated by earlier historians, in that they documented a minimal and late-arriving Pasi involvement and additionally, one that was inclined to criminal behavior such as rioting, rather than political activism. From a reading of the archives, he notes that the involvement of Pasi and Chamars were significant from the outset and they being land-occupiers had the same concerns as of other savarna groups, rather than being the 'alienated' pig-rearers, hitherto assumed and portrayed. Chandra Bhan Prasad, a political commentator, has recalled about how those who continued pig-rearing were ill-treated by socio-political activists, who blamed the occupation in large part for their untouchable status rather than the Brahminism.
