Arunthathiyar
Arunthathiyar
Dalit caste in South India
Arunthathiyar is a scheduled caste community mostly found in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. The term has two distinct usages: for the purposes of the state government's positive discrimination program, in 2009 it was designated an umbrella term for the Arunthatiyar, Chakkiliyar (Sakkiliyar[2]), Madari, Madiga, Pagadai, Thoti and Adi Andhra communities with a total population of 2,150,285, accounting for 14.89% of the Scheduled Caste population according to the 2011 Census of India.[3][4][5] While the Office of the Registrar-General, which administers the census of India, does not recognize all of those communities as one.[6]
Specifically, within Arunthathiyar caste it is reported that there were 1,084,162 individuals in Tamil Nadu, being 7.52 percent of the Scheduled Caste population of the state.[6]