Regions with significant populations | |
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• India | |
Bihar | 17,579 (0.0134% of the population of Bihar) [1] |
Religion | |
Hinduism |
Tili is a Bengali Hindu middle-ranking caste, found in the state of Bihar and West Bengal in India. [2] [3] By the late nineteenth century they were one of the fourteen castes belonging to 'Nabasakh' group in Bengal. [4]
The Tili caste belongs to West Bengal and Bihar. Tilis speak in Angika and Bengali. Tilis are now found mainly in Bhagalpur and Banka District of Bihar, and also in Bankura, Hooghly and Midnapore districts of West Bengal. [5] According to Ramkrishna Mukherjee, some Bengali Telis are gradually converting their caste to Tili. [6]
Tilis was included in the list of 177 "backward classes" for the state of West Bengal by Mandal Commission, but the state government has not yet recognised them as such, and they still belong to General category. [7] [8]
Kayastha or Kayasth denotes a cluster of disparate Indian communities broadly categorised by the regions of the Indian subcontinent in which they were traditionally located—the Chitraguptavanshi Kayasthas of North India, the Chandraseniya Kayastha Prabhus of Maharashtra, the Bengali Kayasthas of Bengal and Karanas of Odisha. All of them were traditionally considered "writing castes", who had historically served the ruling powers as administrators, ministers and record-keepers.
Mandal, also spelled Mondal, is an honorific title that was used for local chieftains in present-day Bangladesh, India and Nepal. The title was usually hereditary and so, in modern times, the term is a common surname for both males and females. In West Bengal and Jharkhand, many Muslims have this surname, depicting a socio-cultural integration.
Teli is a caste traditionally occupied in the oil pressing and trade in India, Nepal and Pakistan. Members may be either Hindu or Muslim; Muslim Teli are called Roshandaar or Teli Malik.
Mahishya is a Bengali Hindu traditionally agrarian caste, and formed the largest caste in undivided Bengal. Mahisyas were, and still are, extremely diverse caste consisting of all possible classes in terms of material conditions and ranks.
In India, a caste although it's a western stratification arrived from Portuguese word Casta and Latin word castus ,is a social group where membership is decided by birth. Broadly, Indian castes are divided into the Forward Castes, Other Backward Classes, Scheduled Castes, and Scheduled Tribes. Indian Christians and Indian Muslims are also function as castes. With castes separating individuals into different social groups, it follows that each group will have conflicting interests; oftentimes putting those with lower social standing in less favorable positions. An attempt to address this inequality has been the reservation system, which essentially acts as affirmative action to provide representation to caste groups that have been systematically disadvantaged. There have also been other cases where political parties, like the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), was formed to challenge the power of the upper castes.
Bhumihar, also locally called Bhuinhar and Babhan, is a Hindu caste mainly found in Bihar, the Purvanchal region of Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, the Bundelkhand region of Madhya Pradesh, and Nepal.
Sadgop, also spelled as Sadgope, is a Bengali Hindu Yadav (Gopa) caste. Traditionally they are engaged in cultivation. Since late mediaeval period Sadgops had established themselves as dominant political power in peripheral lateritic forest areas of Rarh region, now included in Birbhum, Burdwan and Midnapore districts. Karnagarh, Narajole, Narayangarh and Balarampur in Midnapore and several other zamindari estates in Burdwan, Hooghly, Birbhum belonged to them. As of late nineteenth century they were one of the fourteen castes belonging to 'Nabasakh' group.
The Matua Mahasangha is a Hindu reform movement that originated around 1860 AD in modern-day Bangladesh. Today, it has a considerable number of adherents both in Bangladesh and in West Bengal, India.
Upendranath Biswas or U. N. Biswas is a retired Indian Police Service (IPS) officer, caste historian, and an Indian politician. He is widely known for his probe into the Fodder Scam and for bringing down the once-powerful RJD leader and Bihar Chief Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav in 1997.
The Koeri, also referred to as Kushwaha and more recently self-described as Maurya in several parts of northern India are an Indian non-elite caste, found largely in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, whose traditional occupation was agriculture. According to Arvind Narayan Das they were horticulturists rather than agriculturists. They are also recorded as performing the work of Mahajan in credit market of rural parts of Bihar and Bengal in 1880s. Koeris have attempted Sanskritisation— as part of social resurgence. During the British rule in India, Koeris were described as "agriculturalists" along with Kurmis and other cultivating castes. They are described as a dominant caste in various opinions.
The Rajbanshi, also Rajbongshi and Koch-Rajbongshi, are peoples from Lower Assam, North Bengal, eastern Bihar, Terai region of eastern Nepal, Rangpur division of North Bangladesh and Bhutan who have in the past sought an association with the Koch dynasty. Koch-Rajbanshi people speak Kamatapuri, belong to Indo-Aryan languages likely due to language shift, and in the past they might have spoken Tibeto-Burman languages. The community is categorised as OBC in Assam and Bihar, and SC in West Bengal. In Nepal they are considered part of the Plains Janjati. In Bangladesh the community is classified as Plains ethnic group under 'Barman'. They are the largest Scheduled Caste community of West Bengal.
Bengali Kayastha is a Bengali Hindu caste originated from the Bengal region of Indian subcontinent, and is one of the main subgroups of the Kayastha community. The historical caste occupation of Kayasthas throughout India has been that of scribes, administrators, ministers and record-keepers; the Kayasthas in Bengal, along with Brahmins and Baidyas, are regarded among the three traditional higher castes that comprise the "upper layer of Hindu society". During the British Raj, the Bhadraloks of Bengal were drawn primarily, but not exclusively, from these three castes, who continue to maintain a collective hegemony in West Bengal.
Baishya Saha or Saha, is a Bengali Hindu trading caste traditionally known to have the occupation of grocers, shopkeepers, dealers moneylenders, and farming.
Jotedars, also known as Hawladars, Ganitdars,Jwaddars, or Mandals, were landlords or, they can be well-to-do ryots, wealthy peasants who exercised control and influence comparable to that of a Zamindar but they were perceived as significantly below them in social strata in agrarian Bengal during Company rule in India. Jotedars owned relatively extensive tracts of land; their land tenure status stood in contrast to those of poor ryots and bargadars (sharecroppers), who were landless or land-poors. Many Hindu Jotedars in West Bengal were from the Bhadralok community, members of Hindu upper-castes of Bengal such as Kayastha, Brahmin, etc. Many Muslim Jotedars were from an Ashraf or Khandani family background, belonging the elite nobility of Bengali Muslims who descended from settled foreigners such as the Afghans, Mughals, Arabs, Persians, Turks and North Indian Immigrants. These socially high-standing Hindu and Muslim Jotedars who were not actually peasants had adopted the de jure status of ryot (peasant) solely for the financial benefit that the Bengal Tenancy Act of 1885 afforded to ryots, in addition due to consideration of the claim that Jotedars were got more freedoms and powers then Zamindars. Others belonged to the intermediate landowning peasant castes such as Sadgops, Aguris, Mahishyas, Rajbongshis, Shershahabadia and the rural, less educated Brahmins. By the 1920s a gentrified fraction of Jotedars emerged from the more prosperous peasants among the tribes such as Santhals and the Scheduled Castes such as the Bagdi and the NamasudrasJotedars were in actual control of village land and economy for a long period of time in history.
Manoranjan Byapari is an Indian Bengali writer, socio-political activist, and a politician. He stands as one of the pioneering authors in the realm of Dalit literature in Bengali, hailing from the Indian state of West Bengal. Hindered by financial constraints, he was precluded from availing formal education, thereby distinguishing himself as a unique exemplar—a former convict turned rickshaw puller—having authored a substantial corpus comprising twelve novels, in addition to over a hundred short stories and non-fiction essays.
Ramkrishna Mukherjee was a scientist at the Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata, President of the Indian Sociological Society (1973–75) and recipient of the Indian Sociological Society's Lifetime Achievement Award in 2005.
Ramkrishna Biswas was an Indian revolutionary and martyr. He was an active member of Surya Sen's revolutionary group.
Rajputs in Bihar are members of the Rajput community living in the eastern Indian state of Bihar. They traditionally formed part of the feudal elite in Bihari society. Rajputs were pressed with the Zamindari abolition and Bhoodan movement in post-independence India; along with other Forward Castes, they lost their significant position in Bihar's agrarian society, leading to the rise of Other Backward Classes (OBCs).
Bagal is a cattle herding caste of East India. Bagal people are living in the state of West Bengal, Jharkhand and Odisha. They use Kudmali/ Manbhumi dialect of Bengali as their mother tongue and use Bengali, Hindi and Odia language to communicate with the outside society.