The Kalwar,KalalorKalar are an Indian caste historically found in Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Punjab, Haryana, Jammu & Kashmir and other parts of north and central India. The caste is traditionally associated with the distillation and selling of liquor, but around the start of the 20th century assorted Kalwar caste organisations sought to leave that trade and redefine their community through Sanskritisation process. [1]
Because their hereditary occupation of distilling and selling liquor was considered degrading, the Kalals held a very low status in the traditional caste hierarchy of South Asia. This situation changed when the Kalal chief Jassa Singh rose to political power in the 18th century. Jassa Singh styled himself as Ahluwalia after the name of his native village, and established the ruling dynasty of the Kapurthala State. [2]
Following Jassa Singh's rise, other Sikh Kalals also adopted Ahluwalia as the name of their caste, and started giving up their traditional occupation. The regulations imposed by the colonial British administration on manufacture and sale of liquor accelerated this process, and by the early 20th century, most Kalals had abandoned their traditional occupation. By this time, they had started claiming Khatri or Rajput origins to try and enhance their social status. [2]
Before the advent of the British rule, the Muslim Kalals also attempted to raise their social status by adopting the Kakezai Pashtun identity. Some of these Kalal-turned-Kakezais, such as the Hoshiarpur family that ruled the Jalandhar Doab in the 1840s, further raised their status by claiming to be high-caste Shaikhs. Sikh Kalals also claimed Khatri or Rajput origin. [2]
Kalwars in Allahabad were claiming themselves to be of the Kshatriya status in the 1890s. [1]
During the British rule, the Kalals took up a variety of occupations, including trade, agriculture, army service (especially the Ahluwalias), government service, and law. [2]
Singh is a title, middle name, or surname that means "lion" in various South Asian and Southeast Asian communities. Traditionally used by the Hindu Kshatriya community, it was later mandated in the late 17th century by Guru Gobind Singh for all male Sikhs as well, in part as a rejection of caste-based prejudice and to emulate Rajput naming conventions. As a surname or a middle name, it is now found throughout the world across communities and religious groups, becoming more of a generic, caste-neutral, decorative name.
Rajput, also called Thakur, is a large multi-component cluster of castes, kin bodies, and local groups, sharing social status and ideology of genealogical descent originating from the Indian subcontinent. The term Rajput covers various patrilineal clans historically associated with warriorhood: several clans claim Rajput status, although not all claims are universally accepted. According to modern scholars, almost all Rajput clans originated from peasant or pastoral communities.
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 mercantile 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. Khatris of Punjab specifically were scribes and traders. They secured good employment in the Mughal imperial service by several of them taking membership in the Madrasas and learning Persian.
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. The Bhatias, Lohanas and Khatris were similar communities and were known to intermarry. The Bhatias recruit Saraswat Brahmins as priests.
Lohana are a trading or mercantile jāti mostly in India and also in Pakistan.
Sanskritisation is a term in sociology which refers to the process by which castes or tribes placed lower in the caste hierarchy seek upward mobility by emulating the rituals and practices of the dominant castes or upper castes. It is a process similar to 'passing' in sociological terms. This term was made popular by Indian sociologist M. N. Srinivas in the 1950s. Sanskritisation has in particular been observed among mid-ranked members of caste-based social hierarchies.
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.
Patidar, formerly known as Kanbi, is an Indian land-owning and peasant caste and community native to Gujarat. The community comprises at multiple subcastes, most prominently the Levas and Kadvas. They form one of the dominant castes in Gujarat. The title of Patidar originally conferred to the land owning aristocratic class of Gujarati Kanbis; however, it was later applied en masse to the entirety of the Kanbi population who lay claim to a land owning identity, partly as a result of land reforms during the British Raj.
The Ramgarhia are a community of Sikhs from the Punjab region of northwestern India, encompassing members of the Lohar (blacksmiths) and Tarkhan (carpenters) subgroups.
Guru Nanak founded the Sikh religion in the Punjab region of the northern part of the Indian subcontinent in the 15th century and opposed many traditional practices like fasting, janeu, idolatry, caste system, ascetism, azan, economic materialism, and gender discrimination.
Ahluwalia is a surname native to the Punjab region of India. It is derived from the words "Ahlu" and "walia". It was first adopted by the Sikh Kalal chief Jassa Singh, the leader of the Ahluwalia misl. The surname was later adopted by many others, including the members of the Kalal caste who were not his descendants, leading to the formation of the Ahluwalia caste.
Sultan-ul-Qaum Sardar Jassa Singh Ahluwalia was a Sikh leader during the period of the Sikh Confederacy, being the Supreme Leader of the Dal Khalsa. He was also Misldar of the Ahluwalia Misl. This period was an interlude, lasting roughly from the time of the death of Banda Bahadur in 1716 to the founding of the Sikh Empire in 1801. He founded the Kapurthala State in 1772.
Sansi are a formerly nomadic people from India that were classified as a criminal tribe in the 19th century by the British during the Raj period. They were stealing food supply from British Government. That's why the British government declared them thief They claim Rajput descent. There were two distinct offshoots of the tribe: the first was a vagrant community connected to the Jat tribes of Central Punjab; the second was an agricultural Jat clan found in Sahiwal, Amritsar and Gujranwala.
Kapurthala State, with its capital at Kapurthala, was a former Princely state of the Punjab Province of India. Ruled by Ahluwalia Sikh rulers, spread across 510 square miles (1,300 km2). According to the 1901 census the state had a population of 314,341 and contained two towns and 167 villages. In 1930, Kapurthala became part of the Punjab States Agency and acceded to the Union of India in 1947.
The Khatris are desandants of the Khatri community of Indian subcontinent which embraced Islam during medieval period. They are now mostly concentrated in Pakistani provinces of Punjab, Sindh, Azad Kashmir as well as Northern India. The community is scattered throughout Punjab and Kutch region.
The Jat people are a traditionally agricultural community in Northern India and Pakistan. Originally pastoralists in the lower Indus river-valley of Sindh, Jats migrated north into the Punjab region in late medieval times, and subsequently into the Delhi Territory, northeastern Rajputana, and the western Gangetic Plain in the 17th and 18th centuries. Of Hindu, Muslim and Sikh faiths, they are now found mostly in the Indian states of Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan and the Pakistani provinces of Sindh and Punjab.
Ahluwalia was a misl, that is, a sovereign state in the Sikh Confederacy of Punjab region in present-day India and Pakistan. The misl's name is derived from Ahlu, the ancestral village of the misl leaders. The Ahluwalia misl was one of the 12 major Sikh misls, and held land to the north of Sutlej river.
Ahluwalia is an Indian caste native to the Punjab region.
Modern historians agree that Rajputs consisted of a mix of various different social groups and different varnas. Rajputisation explains the process by which such diverse communities coalesced into the Rajput community.
Bhāt is a "generic term" used to refer to a bard in India. The majority of Bhats hail from Rajasthan and worked as genealogists for their patrons, however, they are viewed as mythographers. In India, the inception of Rajputization was followed by the emanation of two groups of bards with a group of them serving the society's influential communities and the other serving the communities with lower ranking in the social hierarchy.
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