Figure 1.--The photo shows Bhoka Sada, 36, with his wife and their five children. They are Musahar from Bihar's Darbhanga district. This ethnic group still lives in extreme poverty and faces social stigma. The photo was taken during the rice harvesting season. The children are muddy because, during this season, they are engaged in catching rats to provide meat for the family (from that the social stigma). In their estreme poverty they live in straw huts; the young children don't wear clothing and few have any form of footwear.

There are many Dalit communities ecompassing a range of ethnic groups. One of these is the Musahar people. Musahar/Mushahar मुसहर जाति) are a Dalit community in Bihar and other states in the eastern Gangetic plain and the Terai--baically ense populated eastern India. For some reson there are many reason for these people used in various different areas (Banbasi, Bhuiyan, Manjhi, Rajawar, Rishidev, and Sada). The word Musahar according to one authoriyy is said in Bihar to have evolved from Bhojpuri meaning rat eater. This wasdue because of their traditional roles as rat catchers. There are other possible origins based on other forms of meat eating. One local legend depicts Lord Brahma creating man and providing him a horse to ride. According to this legend, the very first Musahar dug holes in the belly of the horse to accomodate his feet whe riding. This angered Lord Brahma, who cursed him and his descendants turning them into rat-catchers. 【Sharda】 One early ethnologust studying Bengal, Herbert Hope Risley, concluded that peculated that the Musahars were related to thee hunter-gatherer Bhuiya people from the Chota Nagpur Plateau who had migrated to the Gangetic plains. 【Mukul, p. 3465.】 Modern DNA studies gives some credence to this. 【Chaubey】

Sources

Chaubey, Gyaneshwer. "Language shift by indigenous population: A model genetic study in South Asia" International Journal of Human Genetics.Vol. 8, No. 8 (February 2008).

Mukul (1999). "The untouchable present: Everyday life of Musahars in North Bihar," Economic and Political Weekly Vol. 34, No. 49 (December 1999), pp. 3465-70.

Sharda, Shailvee. "UP elections 2017: Plagued by 'divine curse', Musahars see no redemption in new politicians," The Times of India (March 2, 2017).

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Created: 11:40 PM 5/19/2025
Last updated: 11:40 PM 5/19/2025