Introduction

Health is the general condition of a person in all aspects. It is also a level of functional and/or metabolic efficiency of an organism. According to Clements (1932), ‘Health is of universal interest and concern’. Overall health is achieved through a combination of physical, mental, and social well-being, which, together is commonly referred to as the ‘Health Triangle’. Achieving and maintaining health is an ongoing process. Effective strategies for staying healthy and improving one's health include several elements. The health problems of any community are influenced by interplay of various factors including social, economic and political ones. The common beliefs, customs and practices related to health and disease influence the health seeking behaviour of the community.

The middle childhood, the years between infancy and adolescence, is a unique developmental time when children undergo critical physical, cognitive, and social changes. During this time, children enter school, and their social context broadens beyond their families. There is no exact consensus regarding an age range defining middle childhood. Middle childhood has also been differentiated from adolescence cross-culturally, largely by the onset of puberty (Collins, 1984). Middle childhood has been delimited differently by many scholars, as ages 6 to 10 (Eccles, 1999), and ages 6 to 12 (Collins, 1984).

The Pasi is a scheduled caste and distributed in the states of Bihar, Delhi, Haryana, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Punjab, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal. A small number of Pasi are also found in Terai region of Nepal. The Pasi, supposedly the earliest inhabitants of the Awadh region, are found throughout Uttar Pradesh, but are concentrated in Hardoi, Sitapur, Kheri, Shahjahanpur, Lucknow and Allahabad. Basically, the Pasi community practices agriculture, but many of them have started to migrate in cities and are now engaged in business, private services, government services and as industrial labour. The pasi have a number of exogamous clans, the main ones being Amlak, Bhargav, Jamdagni, Parswa and Piplak. They have sub-groups viz. Bauriya, Bittiha, Ahirs, Gujjar, Khatik, Rajpasi. A small number of Pasi have converted to Islam and are known as Turuk Pasi (Singh, 1971, Nag & Harit, 1972). The colonial anthropologist Ibbetson (1916) claims that the name Pasi is derived from the Hindi word pasa meaning ‘noose’, with the help of which they climb the tall toddy palm tree. During the British rule the Pasi were known as a criminal tribe who were thieves, looters and marauders. They were skilled in the use of bow & arrow and stick. In 1952, when the colonial Criminal Tribes Act, 1924 was repealed in the Parliament, the Pasi were declared a Scheduled Caste. This granted them the benefit of reserved quotas in government jobs, admissions to medical and engineering colleges and many other schemes. However, they still suffer the effects of caste system which has left them despised and rejected.