The Rathva[2] or Rathwa[3] (also spelled as Rathava[4] and Rathawa) is a Subcaste of the Koli caste found in the Indian state of Gujarat.

[5][6] Rathava Kolis were agriculturist by profession and turbulent by habits[4][7] but now lives like Adivasis such as Bhil because of their neighborhood[8] Their communal belief is that they came to the Gujarat area in the Middle Ages from what is now known as Madhya Pradesh.

[13] The Rathwa themselves were barely studied until a seminal paper produced by R. B. Lal in 1970, in part because they lived as niche communities in steep, densely forested, relatively inaccessible areas.

[17] Lal recorded the community as practising a patrilineal system of inheritance and subsisting mainly through agriculture, supplemented by food gathering, fishing and hunting.

They believe in an omnipresent deity called Babo Pithora or Baba Deb, who is depicted with other scenes of everyday life in religious paintings on the walls of their houses.

[14] The community is classified as a Scheduled Tribe in three states under India's system of positive discrimination, those being Gujarat, Karnataka and Maharashtra.