The Pothohar Plateau is a plateau and historical sub-region in northern parts of the Punjab region, present-day Punjab, Pakistan. Ethnic Punjabis are the native people of the area and are subdivided into many tribes and clans (Baradari). [1]
During the medieval era in Punjab, most of the tribes in northern Punjab converted to Islam and various Punjabi tribes, as well as foreign powers, fought for control over the region.
The major biradaris in the area (tribes or clans) include Rajput, Janjua, Jatt, Awan, Arain, Gujjar, Gakhars, Kharal, and Khokhars. [2] [3] [4] [5] Prior to the partition of India, other biradaris including the Khatris, Mohyal Brahmins, and Aroras were also present in large numbers throughout the region. [6] [7] [8]
The anthropologist Pnina Werbner have confirmed the continuing strength of tribal feelings among emigrants from Punjab in the United Kingdom. [9] This area was and still is an important source of recruitment into the old colonial British Indian Army, under the martial race designation of the Punjabis in colonial era, and its successor, the Pakistan Army. [10] Official recruitment policies have also encouraged a sense of tribal belonging amongst Punjabis. [11]
Khatri is a caste originating from the Malwa and Majha areas of Punjab region of South Asia that is predominantly found in India, but also in Pakistan and Afghanistan. The Khatris claim they are warriors who took to trade. 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 such as silk production and weaving.
Sohawa is an administrative sub-division (Tehsil) of the Jhelum District, situated in the Punjab province of Pakistan, located in the northwestern part of the district. One sign of Sohawa is the toll plaza by the name of 'Tarakki' on the Grand Trunk Road. The main bazaar of Sohawa attracts people from nearby villages.
Arain are a large Punjabi Muslim agricultural community with a strong political identity and level of organisation.
Martial race was a designation which was created by army officials in British India after the Indian Rebellion of 1857, in which they classified each caste as belonging to one of two categories, the 'martial' caste and the 'non-martial' caste. The ostensible reason for this system of classification was the belief that a 'martial race' was typically brave and well-built for fighting, while the 'non-martial races' were those races which the British considered unfit for battle because of their sedentary lifestyles. The British had a policy of recruiting the martial Indians from those who has less access to education as they were easier to control.
The Gakhar is a historical Punjabi Muslim tribe with origins in the northern Punjab, Pakistan.
Khokhar is a historical Punjabi tribe primarily native to the Pothohar Plateau of Pakistani Punjab. Khokhars are also found in the Indian states of Punjab and Haryana. Khokhars predominantly follow Islam, having converted to Islam from Hinduism after coming under the influence of Baba Farid.
The Sial or Siyal is a Punjabi clan found in the Punjab region of the Indian subcontinent, split between India and Pakistan.
Mohyal Brahmins are an Indian sub-caste of Saraswat Brahmins from the Punjab region. A sub-group of the Punjabi Hindu community, Mohyal caste comprises seven clans named Bali, Bhimwal, Chhibber, Datt, Lau, Mohan and Vaid.
Jat Sikh or Jatt Sikh is an ethnoreligious group, a subgroup of the Jat people whose traditional religion is Sikhism, originating from the Indian subcontinent. They are one of the dominant communities in the Punjab, India, owing to their large land holdings. They form an estimated 20–25% of the population of the Indian state of Punjab. They form at least half of the Sikh population in Punjab, with some sources estimating them to be about 60–66% appx. two-third of the Sikh population.
Hunjan is a surname found among Persian and Tarkhan and Mohyal Brahmins originating from Hunejan, Iran and who settled in the Salt Range and Majha regions of Punjab.
The Gurjar are an agricultural ethnic community, residing mainly in India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, divided internally into various clan groups. They were traditionally involved in agriculture, pastoral and nomadic activities and formed a large heterogeneous group. The historical role of Gurjars has been quite diverse in society: at one end they have been found related to several kingdoms and, at the other end, some are still nomads with no land of their own.
Kariyala is a village in the Chakwal District in Punjab, Pakistan.
The demographics of Rawalpindi District, a district of Punjab in Pakistan, has undergone significant changes over the years. It has been affected by turmoil in the surrounding districts.
Garha are a Muslim community in the subcontinent. They live pre-dominantly in the states of Punjab, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Uttarakhand and Rajasthan.
Shaikh, also rendered as Sheikh, Sheik, Shaik, Shaykh, Shaikh, Shekh, Cheikh, Šeih, Šejh, Şeyh and other variants, is a title given to many South Asian Muslim castes. It originally was a word or honorific term in the Arabic language that commonly designated a chief of a tribe, royal family member, Muslim religious scholar, or "Elder". However in Northern India, Shaikh was used as an ethnic title, by those with Arab descent & Upper caste coverts to Islam like Khatris, Brahmins & Rajputs etc, particularly from prominent Muslim figures such as the Rashidun Caliphs, majority of these.
The Pothohar Plateau, also spelled Pothwar, is a plateau in the Sind Sagar Doab of northern Punjab, Pakistan, located between the Indus and Jhelum rivers.
The Budhal are a clan of the Golra division of the Awan tribe,
Punjabi Muslims are Punjabis who are adherents of Islam. With a population of more than 112 million, they are the third-largest predominantly Islam-adhering Muslim ethnicity in the world, after Arabs and Bengalis.
The Jat people, also spelt Jaat and Jatt, are a traditionally agricultural community in Northern India and Pakistan. Originally pastoralists in the lower Indus river-valley of Sindh, many 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 regions of Sindh, Punjab and AJK.
Gujars of this tract are wholly Muslims, and so are the Khokhar who have only a few Hindu families. In early stages, the converted Rajputs continued with pre-conversion practices.
Rajputs Kokhar were the domiciles of India and were originally followers of Hinduism, later on they embraced Islam and with the passage of time most of them settled near Jehlam, Pindadan Khan, Ahmed Abad and Pothar. In Rajouri District, Khokhars are residing in various villages.
This caste of Brahmins trace their origins to the Gandhara region, located in contemporary northwest Pakistan between Peshawar and Taxila. The region has long been associated with governmental administrative and military service. In addition to being referred to as "Husaini" Brahmins for their rituals of devotion to Imam Husain, which will be discussed below, this caste is more formally known as Mohyal.
The surname — Mehta — is actually a title granted to the more erudite and better educated amongst the Mohyal community, originating from the Gandhara region.