Who the Yadav are
The Yadav are a large pastoral and agricultural community across northern India and Nepal, numbering tens of millions. Many trace their lineage to Krishna, and that heritage is woven into family, festival and community identity. In recent decades Yadav communities have become a significant force in north Indian public life.
Followers of Jesus among the Yadav are very few. Scripture exists in the languages they speak; the barrier is that faith in India is lived as community, and a person who turns to Christ is often seen as leaving their people. Where the Gospel has moved among Hindu communities, it has usually moved through families and networks together rather than one by one.
Signs of hope
Scripture, audio and film already exist in Hindi and the major regional languages Yadav families speak.
The honest difficulty
Faith is inseparable from caste and family identity, so following Jesus is widely read as abandoning one's people.
What "Frontier" means
Fewer than 1 in 1,000 follow Jesus, and there is no indigenous movement large enough to grow on its own. Most people in this group will never meet a Christian.
This describes access to the Gospel, not the worth of a people or the sincerity of anyone's faith.
How to pray for the Yadav
Take one of these for a week rather than all of them for a day.
- Pray for Yadav families to meet Jesus together, as households.
- Ask God to raise up Yadav believers who remain within their communities.
- Pray for Indian believers to love their Yadav neighbours across caste lines.
- Pray for freedom of conscience where anti-conversion pressure is rising.
Where the Yadav live
Each nation profile carries church size, unreached peoples, what is going well, what is hard, and four prayer points.
Questions people ask about the Yadav
Who are the Yadav people?
The Yadav (also called Ahir, Yadava) are a people group of roughly 60 million, living mainly in India, Nepal. They speak Hindi, Bhojpuri and regional languages and are predominantly Hinduism. One of the largest communities in South Asia, proud of a heritage traced to Krishna — and almost entirely without a church of their own. Population figures for people groups vary considerably by source and by how a group is defined.
Are the Yadav an unreached people group?
The Yadav are classified as frontier. Fewer than 1 in 1,000 follow Jesus, and there is no indigenous movement large enough to grow on its own. Most people in this group will never meet a Christian. Scripture status: Available in Hindi and the major regional languages.
How can I pray for the Yadav?
Pray for Yadav families to meet Jesus together, as households. Ask God to raise up Yadav believers who remain within their communities. Take one of these for a week rather than all of them for a day.