Ahir or Aheer (derived from the Sanskrit word: abhira)[1] is a community of traditionally non-elite pastoralists in India, most of whom now use the Yadav surname, as they consider the two terms synonymous.

Apart from India, Ahirs have significant population in Nepal, Mauritius, Fiji, South Africa and the Caribbean especially Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, and Suriname.

[8] The sociologist M. S. A. Rao and historians such as P. M. Chandorkar and T. Padmaja say that epigraphical and historical evidence exists for equating the Ahirs with the ancient Yadava tribe.

[9][10][11] Whether they were a race or a tribe, nomadic in tendency or displaced or part of a conquering wave, with origins in Indo-Scythia or Central Asia, Aryan or Dravidian – there is no academic consensus, and much in the differences of opinion relate to fundamental aspects of historiography, such as controversies regarding dating the writing of the Mahabharata and acceptance or otherwise of the Indo-Aryan migration (which is universally accepted in mainstream scholarship).

[16] Similarly, there is no certainty regarding the occupational status of the Abhira, with ancient texts sometimes referring to them as pastoral and cowherders but at other times as robber tribes.

[26] However, the martial races were also considered politically subservient, intellectually inferior, lacking the initiative or leadership qualities to command large military formations.

These were part of the jostling among various castes for socio-economic status and ritual under the Raj and they invoked support for a zealous, martial Hindu ethos.

[36] Arya Samaj, a Hindu reformist organization also played an important role in ritual purification of Ahir/Yadavs and many low castes in order to incorporate them into Vedic Hinduism.

[38] At the same time Ahir/Yadav intelligentsia also emphasized the socio-economic backwardness faced by their community and in 1927, a petition was sent to the Simon Commission describing how the Ahirs suffers from the same social disabilities and discrimination as the Chamars.

In one of the instances before independence, Hindu shudra caste groups such as the Ahirs actively participated in a counter-reactionary communal conflict orchestrated by Arya Samaj.

[54][55] Through Sanskritization,[3] the Ahirs linked themselves to the Yadu tribe by claiming descent from Nandavanshi, Yaduvanshi, and Goallavanshi, elevating their status within the caste hierarchy.