Meo (ethnic group)

Oirigins and history

Meos consider themselves as a mainly Rajput caste. According to one theory of origin they were Hindu Rajputs who converted to Islam between the 11th and 17th centuries, until as late as Aurangzeb's rule.

The Meos embraced Islam primarily through the influence of the Sufi saint Ghazi Saiyyad Salar Masud, who was the nephew of Mahmud Ghaznavi. Over the centuries, various other Sufi saints also played significant roles in shaping the Islamic beliefs of the Meo community. Notable figures include Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti, Hazrat Nizamuddin Aulia, and Miran Sayyed Husain Khang Sawar. As a result of these influences, the Meos gradually became a prominent community in the Mewat region.

Over the centuries, they have maintained their age-old distinctive cultural identity. According to S. L. Sharma and R. N. Srivastava, Mughal persecution had little effect on the strengthening of their Islamic identity, but it reinforced their resistance to Mughal rule.

Though the general claim of Kshatriya Rajput descent may be true, some of them may be descendants of other castes who might have laid claim to this ancestry after converting to Islam to enhance their social standing. The names of many gots (gotra) or exogamous lineages of Meos are common with other Hindu castes as Meena, Ahir and Gujjar who live in their vicinity. While the kinship structure is closer to Jat system prevalent in Punjab and Rajasthan. It thus seems possible that the Meos belonged to many different castes and not just to the Rajputs; this phenomenon is also seen in other Rajput communities and is not limited to the Meos.

Cultural connections

Meos speak Mewati, a language of the Indo-Aryan language family, although in some areas the language dominance of Urdu and Hindi has seen Meos adopt these languages instead.

The Hindu inhabitants of Mewat, although belonging to the same Kshatriya castes to which the Meos belonged before conversion to Islam, are not called Meo. Thus the word Meo is both region-specific and religion-specific. According to many, Meos come from many Hindu clans who converted to Islam and amalgamated as the Meo community, however there is no solid basis for this claim.

Meos profess Islam but the roots of their ethnic structure are in Hindu caste society. Meos share most of their culture with their Hindu counterparts from neighbouring areas in Haryana and Rajasthan.

Like Hindus of the north, the Meo do not marry within their own gotras although Islam permits marriage with cousins. Solemnization of marriage among Meos was not complete without both nikah and saptapadi, although the latter has been mostly abandoned with the advent of Islam. Some gotras of the Meos believe that they are direct descendants of Krishna and Rama.

Clans (Gotras)

Meos were divided into three groups (vansh), thirteen pals and fifty-two clans (gotras) by Rana Kaku Balot Meo in the 13th century. Meos have twelve pals including a thirteenth inferior pal.

Pals and Clans (Gotras)

List of Pals

• Ratwat
• Dedwal
• Lundawat
• Balot
• Nai
• Poonglot
• Dulot
• Chhirkalot
• Demrot
• Kalisa
• Sengal
• Dhengal
• Pahat (thirteenth inferior pal)

Marriage and kinship customs

Meos generally do not follow the Muslim law of inheritance and so among them, like various other communities in the region, custom makes a younger cousin marry the widow of the deceased by a simple Nikah ceremony.

Geography and demography

Post-independence change

Despite pressure to do so from the regional princely states of Alwar and Bharatpur, ruled by Hindu princes, the Meo Rajput community decided not to migrate to Pakistan during the Partition of India. During 1947, Meo were displaced from Alwar and Bharatpur States and there was significant loss of life in intercommunal violence. The population of Meos drastically decreased in Alwar and Bharatpur. However, many old mosques from pre-independence era are still present there.

In 1947, Mahatma Gandhi visited Ghasera, a village in present-day Nuh district to urge the Muslims living there not to leave, calling the Meos "Iss desh ki reed ki haddi" or 'the backbone of the country', India. Due to this, the people of Ghasera still celebrate Mewat Day.

Although on the whole the community did not migrate, there were a number of gotras of the Meos who, on an individual basis, did decide to relocate to Pakistan during partition. They were mostly settled in Pakistani districts of Sialkot, Lahore, Karachi, Narowal, Dera Ghazi Khan, Sheikhupura, Gujranwala, Multan, Haiderabad and Kasur, among others.

According to the 2023 Pakistani census, there are around 1.1 million Mewati speakers in Pakistan, virtually all of them in Punjab. While the estimated population of Meos is over 2 million.

Legacy

Resisting Regimes is the first political anthropological and social-historical study detailing the Meos.