The Pallar is a caste from the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. The Pallar are mostly agriculturalists in Tamil Nadu, Sri Lanka, and most of them are still involved as agricultural labourers. They are spread across the Tamil diaspora demographic and densely populated in southern parts of Tamil Nadu.
The Pallar are distributed mostly in the districts of Thanjavur, Madurai and Ramanathapuram and, as of 2001, numbered around 2.2 million.
The name of the caste has previously been spelled as Pallan, however some caste members replaced the Tamil non-honorific terminal-"n" with an honorific "r", resulting in the name Pallar; a similar process was seen in the fellow Dalit Paraiyar (or Paraiyan) community.
The Pallar name may be derived from pallam, which means a pit or low-lying area. This aligns with their traditional occupation of cultivators of the low wetlands. However, there is literary evidence that suggests that pallars are farmers who produced large quantities of food grains.and they were traditional farmers.
Mallar may refer to the following:
Mallar is a census town in Udupi district in the Indian state of Karnataka.
As of 2001, India census, Mallar had a population of 6052. Males constitute 47% of the population and females 53%. Mallar has an average literacy rate of 75%, higher than the national average of 59.5%: male literacy is 80%, and female literacy is 71%. In Mallar, 10% of the population is under 6 years of age.