Meo (ethnic group)

Meo (Hindi: मेव; Urdu: میو) (pronounced: mev or may-o) (also spelled Mayo or occasionally, Mewati) are an ethnic group originating from the Mewat region of north-western India.

Origins and history
The term "Meo" semantically correlates with the historical region of Mewat, which consists of the Nuh district of Haryana and some parts of adjoining Alwar and Bharatpur districts of Rajasthan and parts of western Uttar Pradesh. The term Mewati, in terms of use for ethnic classification, is also interchangeable with Meo. Although, not every Mewati is necessarily an ethnic Meo as the term is a general demonym for someone from Mewat.

The Meos have a diverse theory of origins. According to one theory, they were Hindu Rajputs who converted to Islam between the 12th and 17th century, until as late as Aurangzeb's rule. 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.

Another theory suggests that there is also common kinship with the Meenas (Minas), another group found in the Mewat region. A British Raj-era theory that was first briefly suggested by the colonial ethnographer and political agent for Alwar State, Major P. W. Powlett, stated that the Meo are related to the Meenas. In Powlett's 1878 Gazetteer of Ulwur (later spelt Alwar), he comments: "The similarity between the words Meo and Mina suggests that the former may be a contraction of the latter". He continues by pointing out that several clans in both communities (Singal, Nai, Dulot, Poonglot, Dehngal, Balot) have identical names. These are some of the thirteen pals of Meo, each pal a group of (rather than single) gotras or "clans". The pals traditionally encompass a geographical area and may include non-Muslim allies of any caste within that territory. Powlett mentions the Meo's traditional narrative ballad— understood by Meos as a cultural story, rather than as oral history —of Dariyā Khān ("Daria Meo") and the story of his betrothal to Sisbadani, a Mina woman, their separation and reunion, as possibly suggestive of historical intermarriage between the groups.

According to Shail Mayaram, author, and professor of Subaltern Studies at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, the term Meo was not an interchangeable term of the Minas, as Mewatis was the usual term describing Meos until the nineteenth century. This view was likely constructed from political motives by those with colonial authority. In her view, following the 1857 insurrection in which the Meo joined action against the Company Raj, it was helpful to the British if they could conflate the still-resistant Meos with another nearby group whom they had already classified as "criminal", the Minas. While there had been some instances of Minas prosecuted for theft, dacoity, and similar, in the aftermath of the mutiny, there had been almost no Meo involvement in such cases. Mayaram traces the theory of a Meo–Mina intermixing from its relatively tentative genesis with Powlett, through repetitions of varying strength in colonial reports, to its emergence as a fully-fledged "common origin" in Alexander Cunningham's Eastern Rajputana report. Even the traditional epic of Dariyā Khān and Sisbadani was transmuted from the "story" in Powlett to an acknowledged "historical" event in the later text.

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.

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 neighboring areas in Haryana and Rajasthan. The neighbouring Hindu Jats, Meenas, Ahirs and Rajputs share the same mores. According to some theories, the Meo community may have a common origin with the Meena community. Such views were especially prominent in colonial-era ethnographies, which may be prone to bias.

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.

Gotras
Meos generally claim Kshatriya Rajput descent. This may be true, however, 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. 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.

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

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.

Post-independence change
Despite pressure to do so from the regional princely states of Alwar and Bharatpur, ruled by Gorwal Khanzadas, the Meo Rajput community decided not to migrate to Pakistan during the Partition of India. During 1947, Meo were displaced from Alwar and Bharatpur districts and there was significant loss of life in intercommunal violence. The population of Meos drastically decreased in Alwarand 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 "" 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.

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