Bhatia caste

Last updated

Bhatia
Religions Hinduism, Islam and Sikhism
Populated states Punjab, Gujarat, Sindh
Subdivisions Kutchi, Halai, Kanthi, Navgam, Pachisgaam, Thathai

Bhatia is a group of people and a caste found in Punjab, Sindh and Gujarat. Traditionally, they have been a trading and merchant community. The Bhatias primarily live in Northwestern India and Pakistan. [1] The Bhatias, Lohanas and Khatris were similar communities and were known to intermarry. The Bhatias recruit Saraswat Brahmins as priests. [2]

Contents

History

Bhattias (9938720746).jpg
Bhatia men in western India (c. 1855-1862)
Bhattia Women (9938694664).jpg
Bhatia women in western India (c. 1855-1862)

The Bhatias are a mercantile community - traditionally they were merchants and traders. [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] The Bhatias primarily live in Northwestern India and Pakistan. [1] [8] According to B.N. Puri, Bhatias are a part of the Khatri community but them along with Aroras and Soods maintained a distinct identity. [9]

Before their traditional occupation of traders, both the Lohanas and Bhatia were involved in the profession of Agriculture. Historian Goswami states that their ritual position was "ambiguous", and, "they were considered neither a high nor a low caste". She further adds that as per the British Raj era Major general Alexander Cunningham, the word "Bhatia" is derived from the word "Bhat" meaning a warrior. The Bhatias claim that they are of Rajput origin. As per Goswami, they are a "traditional Bania caste". [8] Historian Dwijendra Tripathi states that the Bhatias are associated with the Vaishyas like the Vaishnava Banias [10] and sociologist A.M.Shah also considers the Bhatias to belong to the Vaishya varna like the Lohanas and Vanias. [11]

The geographical origins of the Bhatia caste are uncertain. A more recent study by André Wink traces a 12th-century connection between the Bhatias of Jaisalmer and the Caulukyas of Gujarat, while Anthony O'Brien almost-contemporaneous attempt to discover their homeland caused him to place them around Sindh from the 7th century. Wink, who is a professor with interests in medieval and early modern Indian history, records that many of the community in Sindh converted to Islam during the reign of Firoz Shah Tughluq. [12]

The Bhatias, who had been associated in particular with the Multan area in Sindh, were historically merchants and they probably formed part of the earliest Indian diaspora found in Central Asia, together with the Bhora and the Lohana communities. [lower-alpha 1] Their emergence as a significant merchant group pre-dates the 17th century and certainly by the time that India became subject to colonial rule, the Bhatias and the other two early diaspora communities had established trade and moneylending networks that, according to Scott Levi, who specialises in the history of Central Asia, "... extended across Afghanistan, Central Asia, and eventually reached even beyond the Arabian Peninsula and East Africa to the Caribbean islands in the west, and to Southeast Asia and China in the east." [14]

The Battle of Muktsar, in which 12% of known soldiers were Bhatias. MaiBhago.jpg
The Battle of Muktsar, in which 12% of known soldiers were Bhatias.

Bhatias along with Khatris and Lohanas were prominent merchants who had contacts right from Volga River (Russia) to Kolkata (India) The Bhatias, who had been associated in particular with the Multan area in Sindh, were historically merchants and they probably formed part of the earliest Indian diaspora found in Central Asia, together with the Bohra and the Lohana communities. [lower-alpha 2] Their emergence as a significant merchant group pre-dates the 17th century and certainly by the time that India became subject to colonial rule, the Bhatias and the other two early diaspora communities had established trade and moneylending networks that, according to Scott Levi, who specialises in the history of Central Asia, "... extended across Afghanistan, Central Asia, and eventually reached even beyond the Arabian Peninsula and East Africa to the Caribbean islands in the west, and to Southeast Asia and China in the east." [14] Bhatias of Thatta (Sindh) established a colony in Muscat (Oman) where they conducted international trade between Arabian peninsula and India. [12]

During the Battle of Chamkaur, 5 out of the 40 Punjabi soldiers were Sikh Bhatias. They fought against a large army of Mughals. [16] [ page needed ][ verification needed ] During the Battle of Mukstar, 40 Punjabis laid down their lives fighting against the Mughals. Out of the 25 soldiers whose caste is recorded, 3 soldiers belonged to Sikh Bhatia families. [16] [ page needed ][ verification needed ]

Formerly the Bhāṭiyās were non-vegetarian. [17] [18]

Religion

The oldest temple of Gulf was constructed by Bhatias of Thatta, Sindh in 1817. Shrinathji Temple, Bahrain.jpg
The oldest temple of Gulf was constructed by Bhatias of Thatta, Sindh in 1817.

Hindu Bhatias follow Vaishnavism. They revere Vishnu's avatars including Rama and Krishna. [19] They also worship Hinglaj Mata as well as Dariya Sagar (sea). [20] [21] Moreover, some Bhatias are Jains. [19] The oldest temple of Gulf, Shrinathji Temple in Bahrain was constructed by the Thatthai Bhatia community in 1814 and is still managed by them. It is dedicated to Lord Shrinathji, a form of Krishna. [22] Dwarka Temples were largely funded by Bhatias. [23]

Many Bhatias followed Sikhism. Bhai Banno was the son of Bishan Chand Bhatia of village Mangat of district Gujrat in Punjab (now in modern-day Pakistan). He became a faithful follower of Guru Arjan who involved him in the preparation of the Adi Granth. [24] Maharaja Ranjit Singh's ancestors were initiated into Sikhism by the efforts of Bhai Banno Bhatia. [25]

Sub-groups

Among the Bhatias, there are different sub-castes, such as Jakhar, Kutchi, Veha, Halai, Kanthi, Pavrai, Navgam, Pachisgaam, Thattai and Punjabi. Bhatias from Kutch are Kutchi Bhatias, those from around Jamnagar district are known as Halai Bhatia, those from Sindh in present-day Pakistan are known as Sindhi Bhatias and those from Punjab in present-day India and Pakistan are known as Punjabi Bhatias. A large number of Punjabi Bhatias settled in Pakistani Punjab in 1947. [26]

Some of the major groups derived from the principal professions they follow or the crafts they practice. [27]

See also

Related Research Articles

The Memon are a Muslim community in Gujarat India, and Sindh, Pakistan, the majority of whom follow the Hanafi fiqh of Sunni Islam. They are divided into different groups based on their origins: Kathiawari Memons, Kutchi Memons and Bantva Memons from the Kathiawar, Kutch and Bantva regions of Gujarat respectively, and Sindhi Memons from Sindh.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Khatri</span> Caste in South Asia

Khatri is a caste originating from the Punjab region of South Asia that is predominantly found in India, but also in Pakistan and Afghanistan. In the Indian subcontinent, they were mostly engaged in mercantilistic professions such as banking and trade. They were the dominant commercial and financial administration class of late-medieval India. Some in Punjab often belonged to hereditary agriculturalist land-holding lineages, while others were engaged in artisanal occupations and some were scribes learned in Sanskrit or Persian.

Lohana, also referred to as Loharana, Thakkar, and Barai, are a trading or mercantile jāti. Lohanas claim to be descendants of Lava, son of Rama, and to descend from the Raghuvamsha dynasty. Whereas some claim brahminical lineage in chaurishi gotra Chaurasia community from northern Indian which claim Brahmin lineage from saint chaurishi and have some surnames in common The Lohanas are divided into many separate cultural groups as a result of centuries apart in different regions. Thus there are significant differences between the culture, language, professions and societies of Gujarati Lohanas, Sindhi Lohanas, and Kutchi Lohanas.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Arora</span> Community in India

Arora is a community of Punjab, comprising both Hindus and Sikhs. The name is derived from their native place Aror. In 712, the Arora people left Aror and started to settle in the cities of Punjab.

Muslim Rajputs or Musalman Rajpoots are the descendants of Rajputs in the northern regions of the Indian subcontinent who are followers of Islam. They converted from Hinduism to Islam from the medieval period onwards, creating various dynasties and states while retaining Hindu surnames such as Chauhan. Today, Muslim Rajputs can be found mostly in present-day Northern India and Pakistan. They are further divided into different clans.

Shaikh usually refers to:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nanakpanthi</span> Religious community in Pakistan and India

Nanakpanthi, also known as Nanakshahi, is a Sikh sect which follows Guru Nanak (1469-1539), the founder of Sikhism.

Hirabad is one of the oldest parts of the city of Hyderabad in Sindh, Pakistan. Before partition in 1947, Hirabad was a thriving township of wealthy Hindu Sindwork merchants and traders who generally belonged to the Amil and Bhaiband castes of Hindu Lohanas.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sikhism in India</span> Overview of the presence and role of Sikhism in India

Indian Sikhs number approximately 21 million people and account for 1.7% of India's population as of 2011, forming the country's fourth-largest religious group. The majority of the nation's Sikhs live in the northern state of Punjab, which is the only Sikh-majority administrative division in the world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hinglaj Mata mandir</span> Hindu temple in Balochistan, Pakistan

Hinglaj Mata, also known as Hinglaj Devi, Hingula Devi and Nani Mandir, is a Hindu temple in Hinglaj, a town on the Makran coast in the Lasbela district of Balochistan, and is the middle of the Hingol National Park. It is one of the 51 Shakti Peethas in Shaktism denomination of Hinduism. It is one of the three Shakti Peethas in Pakistan, other two being Shivaharkaray and Sharada Peeth. It is a form of Durga or Devi in a mountain cavern on the banks of the Hingol River. Over the last three decades the place has gained increasing popularity and became a unifying point of reference for Pakistan's many Hindu communities. Hinglaj Yatra is the largest Hindu pilgrimage in Pakistan. More than 250,000 people take part in the Hinglaj Yathra during the spring.

Bhaiband, meaning “brotherhood”, are a Hindu jāti within the Sindhi caste of India and Pakistan.

The Sikhs are adherents to Sikhism, the fifth largest organized religion in the world, with around 25 million adherents. Sikh History is around 500 years and in that time the Sikhs have developed unique expressions of art and culture which are influenced by their faith and synthesize traditions from many other cultures depending on the locality of the adherents of the religion. Sikhism is the only religion that originated in the Punjab region with all other religions coming from outside Punjab. All the Sikh gurus, many saints, and many of the martyrs in Sikh history were from Punjab and from the Punjabi people. Punjabi culture and Sikhism are mistakenly considered inseparably intertwined. "Sikh" properly refers to adherents of Sikhism as a religion, strictly not an ethnic group. However, because Sikhism has seldom sought converts, most Sikhs share strong ethno-religious ties, therefore it is a common stereotype that all Sikhs share the same ethnicity. Many countries, such as the U.K., therefore misconcievingly recognize Sikh as a designated ethnicity on their censuses. The American non-profit organization United Sikhs has fought to have Sikhs included on the U.S. census as well, arguing that Sikhs "self-identify as an 'ethnic minority'" and believe "that they are more than just a religion".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jhulelal (Hinduism)</span> Incarnation of Varuna

A folkloric deity among the sect of Sindhis, Jhulelal is the most revered deity of Sindhi Hindus in the modern-day republics of Pakistan and India.

The Sindhi diaspora consists of Sindhi people who have emigrated from the historical Sindh province of British India, as well as the modern Sindh province of Pakistan, to other countries and regions of the world, as well as their descendants.

Sindhis in India refer to a socio-ethnic group of people living in the Republic of India, originating from Sindh. After the 1947 Partition of India into the dominions of new Muslim-majority Pakistan and remaining Hindu-majority India, a million non-Muslim Sindhis migrated to independent India. As per the 2011 census of India, there are 2,772,364 Sindhi speakers in the Indian Republic. However, this number does not include ethnic Sindhis who no longer speak the language.

Sahiti may refer to:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sindhi Hindus</span> Sindhi adherents of Hinduism

Sindhi Hindus are Sindhis who follow Hinduism. They are spread across modern-day Sindh, Pakistan and India. After the partition of India in 1947, many Sindhi Hindus were among those who fled from Pakistan to the dominion of India, in what was a wholesale exchange of Hindu and Muslim populations in some areas. Some later emigrated from the Indian subcontinent and settled in other parts of the world.

Sindhi workies, (alternativelySindworkis, SindworkiesorSindwork merchants,, were wealthy Hindu traders and merchants from the Sindh region of British India. This merchant class rapidly gained prominence during the British rule of India and spread their businesses overseas to places as far as Malta, South Africa and Singapore.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hinduism in Sindh</span> Overview of Hinduism in the Sindh province of Pakistan

Hinduism is the second-largest religion in Sindh, numbering 4.17 million people and comprising 8.73 percent of the province's population in the 2017 Pakistani census. Sindh has the largest population and the highest percentage of Hindus in Pakistan. Sindh has the Shri Ramapir Temple, whose annual festival is the country's second-largest Hindu festival.

References

Informational notes

  1. ↑ Claude Markovits, whose studies encompass commercial networks in colonial India, says that the Lohana term referred to all merchant communities of Sindh other than the Bhatias and the Khatris. [12] Mark-Anthony Falzon considers all Sindhi Hindu communities to be jatis of the Lohana caste, with the exception of Brahmins and Bhatias. [13]
  2. ↑ Claude Markovits, whose studies encompass commercial networks in colonial India, says that the Lohana term referred to all merchant communities of Sindh other than the Bhatias and the Khatris. [12] Mark-Anthony Falzon considers all Sindhi Hindu communities to be jatis of the Lohana caste, with the exception of Brahmins and Bhatias. [15]

Citations

  1. 1 2 Tribalism in India, pp 160, By Kamaladevi Chattopadhyaya, Edition: illustrated, Published by Vikas, 1978, Original from the University of Michigan.
  2. ↑ Schaflechner, Jürgen (2018). Hinglaj Devi: Identity, Change, and Solidification at a Hindu Temple in Pakistan. Oxford University Press. pp. 71–75. ISBN   978-0-19-085052-4.
  3. ↑ David S. Landes; Joel Mokyr; William J. Baumol (31 January 2010). The Invention of Enterprise: Entrepreneurship from Ancient Mesopotamia to Modern Times. Princeton University Press. pp. 463–. ISBN   978-0-691-14370-5.
  4. ↑ A.M. Shah (6 December 2012). The Structure of Indian Society: Then and Now. Routledge. pp. 175–. ISBN   978-1-136-19771-0.
  5. ↑ Claude Markovits (1 February 2004). A History of Modern India, 1480-1950. Anthem Press. pp. 565–. ISBN   978-1-84331-004-4.
  6. ↑ Claude Markovits (22 June 2000). The Global World of Indian Merchants, 1750–1947: Traders of Sind from Bukhara to Panama. Cambridge University Press. pp. 38–. ISBN   978-1-139-43127-9.
  7. ↑ Scott Levi (15 January 2016). Caravans: Punjabi Khatri Merchants on the Silk Road. Penguin UK. ISBN   9789351189169.
  8. 1 2 Chhaya Goswami (18 February 2016). Globalization before Its Time: The Gujarati Merchants from Kachchh. Penguin UK. ISBN   9789385890703.
  9. ↑ Puri, Baij Nath (1988). The Khatris, a Socio-cultural Study. M.N. Publishers and Distributors. p. 150.
  10. ↑ Dwijendra Tripathi (1984). Business Communities of India: A Historical Perspective. Manohar. p. 156. ISBN   978-0-8364-1276-5. Whatever the origin of the Jains and the Bhatias, in popular imagination , they are associated with the Vaishya stock no less than the Vaishnava Banias
  11. ↑ A.M. Shah (6 December 2012). The Structure of Indian Society: Then and Now. Routledge. pp. 99–. ISBN   978-1-136-19771-0. Although the Vanias, Bhatias and Lohanas belong to the Vaishya varna, the third in the varna hierarchy, why are they the largest constituent of the sect?
  12. 1 2 3 4 Levi, Scott (2007). "Multanis and Shikarpuris: Indian Diasporas in Historical Perspective". In Oonk, Gijsberk (ed.). Global Indian Diasporas: Exploring Trajectories of Migration and Theory. Amsterdam University Press. pp. 64–65. ISBN   978-90-5356-035-8 . Retrieved 1 May 2013.
  13. ↑ Falzon, Mark-Anthony (2004). Cosmopolitan Connections: The Sindhi Diaspora, 1860-2000. Brill. pp. 32–34. ISBN   978-90-0414-008-0 . Retrieved 1 May 2013.
  14. 1 2 Levi, Scott (2007). "Multanis and Shikarpuris: Indian Diasporas in Historical Perspective". In Oonk, Gijsberk (ed.). Global Indian Diasporas: Exploring Trajectories of Migration and Theory. Amsterdam University Press. pp. 44–46. ISBN   978-90-5356-035-8 . Retrieved 1 May 2013.
  15. ↑ Falzon, Mark-Anthony (2004). Cosmopolitan Connections: The Sindhi Diaspora, 1860-2000. Brill. pp. 32–34. ISBN   978-90-0414-008-0 . Retrieved 1 May 2013.
  16. 1 2 Singh, Jagjit (1981). The Sikh Revolution: A Perspective View. Bahri.
  17. ↑ Basu, Helene (2018). "Gujarat". In Jacobsen, Knut A.; Basu, Helene; Malinar, Angelika; Narayanan, Vasudha (eds.). Brill’s Encyclopedia of Hinduism Online. Brill.
  18. ↑ Cort, John E. (February 2004). "Jains, caste and hierarchy in north Gujarat". Contributions to Indian Sociology. 38 (1–2): 76.
  19. 1 2 Goswami, Chhaya (18 February 2016). Globalization before Its Time: The Gujarati Merchants from Kachchh. Penguin UK. ISBN   978-93-85890-70-3.
  20. ↑ The Great Circle: Journal of the Australian Association for Maritime History. Australian Association for Maritime History. 1983.
  21. ↑ Schaflechner, Jürgen (2018). Hinglaj Devi: Identity, Change, and Solidification at a Hindu Temple in Pakistan. Oxford University Press. ISBN   978-0-19-085052-4.
  22. ↑ "PM Modi to take part in Janmashtami event in Bahrain temple on Sunday". Zee News. 24 August 2019. Retrieved 11 May 2022.
  23. ↑ Tambs-Lyche, Harald (9 August 2017). Transaction and Hierarchy: Elements for a Theory of Caste. Routledge. ISBN   978-1-351-39396-6.
  24. ↑ Singha, H. S. (2000). The Encyclopedia of Sikhism (over 1000 Entries). Hemkunt Press. ISBN   978-81-7010-301-1.
  25. ↑ Bhatia, Harbans Singh (1986). Political, Legal, and Military History of India. Deep & Deep Publications.
  26. ↑ People of India: Gujarat Part 1, pp 201, 899, By Kumar Suresh Singh, Rajendra Behari Lal, Published by Popular Prakashan, 2003
  27. ↑ The Sikhs in History, pp 92, By Sangat Singh, Edition: 2, Published by S. Singh, 1995, Original from the University of Michigan

Further reading

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.