Chamar (or Jatav)[2] is a community classified as a Scheduled Caste under modern India's system of affirmative action that originated from the group of trade persons who were involved in leather tanning and shoemaking.

He claimed to have obtained this information from Chanvar Purana, an ancient Sanskrit-language text purportedly discovered by a sage in a Himalayan cave.

When the king apologized, the god declared that the Chamars will get an opportunity to rise again in the Kaliyuga after the appearance of a new sage (whom Raghuvanshi identifies as Ravidas).

[13] In the first half of the early 20th century, the most influential Chamar leader was Swami Achutanand, who founded the anti-Brahmanical Adi Hindu movement, and portrayed the lower castes as the original inhabitants of India, who had been enslaved by Aryan invaders.

[16] In the second half of the 20th century, the Ambedkarite Republican Party of India (RPI) in Uttar Pradesh remained dominated by Chamars/Jatavs, despite attempts by leaders such as B.P.

The Pasis worked as lathail or stick wielders for the "Upper Caste" landlords and the later had compelled them in past to beat Chamars many a times.

[21] In reference to villages of Rohtas and Bhojpur district of Bihar, prevalence of a practice was revealed, in which it was obligatory for the women of Chamar, Musahar and Dusadh community to have sexual contacts with their Rajput landlords.

In order to keep their men in submissive position, these upper-caste landlords raped these Dalit women, and often implicate the male members of latter's family in false cases, when they refused sexual contacts with them.

In the 1970s, the activism of peasant organizations like "Kisan Samiti" is said to have brought an end to these practices and subsequently the dignity was restored to the women of lower castes.

There are reports which indicates that the upper-caste landlords often took the help of Police in order to beat the women of Chamar caste and draw them out of their villages on the question of parity in wages.

[22][23][24] The Ad-Dharmi is a Chamar caste sect in the state of Punjab, in India and is an alternative term for the Ravidasia religion, meaning Primal Spiritual Path.

[35] The 2001 Census of India recorded them in the Bundelkhand area and as the largest caste group in Lalitpur district, Uttar Pradesh, with a total population of 138,167.

According to the 2011 Census of India, the Jatav community of Uttar Pradesh comprised 54% of that state's total 22,496,047 Scheduled Caste population.

[46] Apart from the Indian subcontinent, there is a large and well-established community of Chamars throughout different continents of the world, including Malaysia, Canada, Singapore, Caribbean, USA and UK, where they have established themselves as a trade diaspora.

[50] In the ship records on which Indian laborers migrated to Mauritius, around ten percent of the boarded people mentioned their caste as Chamar.

[80] The Central Bureau of Statistics of Nepal classifies the Chamar as a subgroup within the broader social group of Madheshi Dalits.