Nats of North India.

Nat is a caste community found in North India. They traditionally earn their living by juggling, acrobatics, and dancing. They are also called jugglers or acrobats. Their main profession is to entertain people by making body parts flexible, making different postures, walking on ropes, and showing different types of stunts. Along with being beautiful, their women are skilled in performing dance and singing with gestures. They are also experts in playing different types of musical instruments.

So to earn their living they have to travel from village to village singing, dancing, showing games, and entertaining people. But during British rule, many tribes were blamed for theft and dacoity. Because of this, it became difficult for these people to get out of their settlement. Due to the lack of entry in the cities, the traditional business of these people got affected and the problem of livelihood and food started coming into everyday life.

Due to the closure of the medium of earning, hunger started increasing in these communities. The women of these settlements who settled away from the village were forced to take the path of prostitution and over time this became the profession of these communities. In these communities, the birth of a girl child is considered auspicious as it helps her to feed her family later on. At the age of 12-13, it is decided whether to make her a prostitute or get her married. If the girl is good-looking and has the right manner of speaking, then she is brought into the business of prostitution. If the girl is ugly and not good-looking, then she is married. The thing to see is that the family members of the girl do all this on their own wish. Being beautiful in a way becomes a curse for that girl. It is also a tradition in these communities that only daughters are made into prostitution, daughters-in-law are kept away from it.

Many NGOs are making Efforts and working to take these women out of this world and give them a good life. And some of them are also getting positive results.

I don't know if this family of Nats is involved in this kind of thing or not but still Majority of them are. This article is just an attempt to educate a little bit about the Life and History of Nats.