The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India, Volume 2

7. Social rules and customs.

The Parwārs abstain from eating any kind of flesh and from drinking liquor. They have a panchāyat and impose penalties for offences against caste rules like the Hindus. Among the offences are the killing of any living thing, unchastity or adultery, theft or other bad conduct, taking cooked food or water from a caste from which the Parwārs do not take them, and violation of any rule of their religion. To get vermin in a wound, or to be beaten by a low-caste man or with a shoe, incidents which entail serious penalties among the Hindus, are not offences with the Parwārs. When an offender is put out of caste the ordinary deprivation is that he is not allowed to enter a Jain temple, and in serious cases he may also not eat nor drink with the caste. The Parwārs are generally engaged in the trade in grain, ghī, and other staples. Several of them are well-to-do and own villages.

Bania, Srimāli

Bania, Srimāli.—This subcaste takes its name from the town of Srimāl, which is now Bhinmāl in Mārwār. They numbered 600 persons in the Central Provinces in 1911, most of whom belonged to the Hoshangābād District. More than two-thirds were Hindus and the remainder Jains. Colonel Tod writes of Bhinmāl and an adjoining town, Sanchor: “These towns are on the high road to Cutch and Gujarāt, which has given them from the most remote times a commercial celebrity. Bhinmāl is said to contain about 1500 houses and Sanchor half that number. Very wealthy mahājans or merchants used to reside here, but insecurity both within and without has much injured these cities.” From Bhinmāl the Srimālis appear to have gone to Gujarāt, where they are found in considerable numbers. Their legend of origin is that the goddess Lakshmi created from a flower-garland 90,000 families to act as servants to the 90,000 Srimāli Brāhmans, and these were the ancestors of the Srimāli Banias.168 Both the Jain and Hindu sections of the Srimāli Banias employ Srimāli Brāhmans as priests. Like other classes of Banias, the Srimāli are divided into two sections, the Bīsa and Dasa, or twenty and ten, of which the Bīsa are considered to be of pure and the Dasa of somewhat mixed descent. In Gujarāt they also have a third territorial group, known as Lādva, from Lād, the old name of Gujarāt. All three subdivisions take food together but do not intermarry.169 The two highest sections of the Oswāl Banias are called Sri Srimāl and Srimāl, and it is possible that further investigation might show the Srimāls and Oswāls to have been originally of one stock.

Bania, Umre

Bania, Umre.—This Hindu subcaste belongs to Damoh and Jubbulpore. They are perhaps the same as the Ummar Banias of the United Provinces, who reside in the Meerut, Agra and Kumaon Divisions. The name Umre is found as a subdivision of several castes in the Central Provinces, as the Telis and others, and is probably derived from some town or tract of country in northern or central India, but no identification has been made. Mr. Bhīmbhai Kirpārām states that in Gujarāt the Ummar Banias are also known as Bāgaria from the Bāgar or wild country, comprised in the Dongarpur and Pertābgarh States of Rājputāna, where considerable numbers of them are still settled. Their headquarters is at Sāgwāra, near Dongarpur.170 In Damoh the Umre Banias formerly cultivated the al plant,171 which yielded a well-known dye, and hence they lost caste, as in soaking the roots of the plant to extract the dye the numerous insects in them are necessarily destroyed. The Dosar subcaste172 are a branch of the Umre, who allow widow-remarriage.

Banjāra

1. Historical notice of the caste.

Banjāra, Wanjāri, Lahāna, Mukeri.173—The caste of carriers and drivers of pack-bullocks. In 1911 the Banjāras numbered about 56,000 persons in the Central Provinces and 80,000 in Berār, the caste being in greater strength here than in any part of India except Hyderābād, where their total is 174,000. Bombay comes next with a figure approaching that of the Central Provinces and Berār, and the caste belongs therefore rather to the Deccan than to northern India. The name has been variously explained, but the most probable derivation is from the Sanskrit banijya kara, a merchant. Sir H. M. Elliot held that the name Banjāra was of great antiquity, quoting a passage from the Dasa Kumara Charita of the eleventh or twelfth century. But it was subsequently shown by Professor Cowell that the name Banjāra did not occur in the original text of this work.174 Banjāras are supposed to be the people mentioned by Arrian in the fourth century B.C., as leading a wandering life, dwelling in tents and letting out for hire their beasts of burden.175 But this passage merely proves the existence of carriers and not of the Banjāra caste. Mr. Crooke states176 that the first mention of Banjāras in Muhammadan history is in Sikandar’s attack on Dholpur in A.D. 1504.177 It seems improbable, therefore, that the Banjāras accompanied the different Muhammadan invaders of India, as might have been inferred from the fact that they came into the Deccan in the train of the forces of Aurāngzeb. The caste has indeed two Muhammadan sections, the Turkia and Mukeri.178 But both of these have the same Rājpūt clan names as the Hindu branch of the caste, and it seems possible that they may have embraced Islām under the proselytising influence of Aurāngzeb, or simply owing to their having been employed with the Muhammadan troops. The great bulk of the caste in southern India are Hindus, and there seems no reason for assuming that its origin was Muhammadan.

2. Banjāras derived from the Chārans or Bhāts.

It may be suggested that the Banjāras are derived from the Chāran or Bhāt caste of Rājputāna. Mr. Cumberlege, whose Monograph on the caste in Berār is one of the best authorities, states that of the four divisions existing there the Chārans are the most numerous and by far the most interesting class.179 In the article on Bhāt it has been explained how the Chārans or bards, owing to their readiness to kill themselves rather than give up the property entrusted to their care, became the best safe-conduct for the passage of goods in Rājputāna. The name Chāran is generally held to mean ‘Wanderer,’ and in their capacity of bards the Chārans were accustomed to travel from court to court of the different chiefs in quest of patronage. They were first protected by their sacred character and afterwards by their custom of trāga or chāndi, that is, of killing themselves when attacked and threatening their assailants with the dreaded fate of being haunted by their ghosts. Mr. Bhimbhai Kirparām180 remarks: “After Parāsurāma’s dispersion of the Kshatris the Chārans accompanied them in their southward flight. In those troubled times the Chārans took charge of the supplies of the Kshatri forces and so fell to their present position of cattle-breeders and grain-carriers....” Most of the Chārans are graziers, cattle-sellers and pack-carriers. Colonel Tod says:181 “The Chārans and Bhāts or bards and genealogists are the chief carriers of these regions (Mārwār); their sacred character overawes the lawless Rājpūt chief, and even the savage Koli and Bhīl and the plundering Sahrai of the desert dread the anathema of these singular races, who conduct the caravans through the wildest and most desolate regions.” In another passage Colonel Tod identifies the Chārans and Banjāras182 as follows: “Murlāh is an excellent township inhabited by a community of Chārans of the tribe Cucholia (Kacheli), who are Bunjārris (carriers) by profession, though poets by birth. The alliance is a curious one, and would appear incongruous were not gain the object generally in both cases. It was the sanctity of their office which converted our bardais (bards) into bunjārris, for their persons being sacred, the immunity extended likewise to their goods and saved them from all imposts; so that in process of time they became the free-traders of Rājputāna. I was highly gratified with the reception I received from the community, which collectively advanced to meet me at some distance from the town. The procession was headed by the village elders and all the fair Chāranis, who, as they approached, gracefully waved their scarfs over me until I was fairly made captive by the muses of Murlāh! It was a novel and interesting scene. The manly persons of the Chārans, clad in the flowing white robe with the high loose-folded turban inclined on one side, from which the māla or chaplet was gracefully suspended; and the naiques or leaders, with their massive necklaces of gold, with the image of the pitriswar (manes) depending therefrom, gave the whole an air of opulence and dignity. The females were uniformly attired in a skirt of dark-brown camlet, having a bodice of light-coloured stuff, with gold ornaments worked into their fine black hair; and all had the favourite chūris or rings of hāthidānt (elephant’s tooth) covering the arm from the wrist to the elbow, and even above it.” A little later, referring to the same Chāran community, Colonel Tod writes: “The tānda or caravan, consisting of four thousand bullocks, has been kept up amidst all the evils which have beset this land through Mughal and Marātha tyranny. The utility of these caravans as general carriers to conflicting armies and as regular tax-paying subjects has proved their safeguard, and they were too strong to be pillaged by any petty marauder, as any one who has seen a Banjāri encampment will be convinced. They encamp in a square, and their grain-bags piled over each other breast-high, with interstices left for their matchlocks, make no contemptible fortification. Even the ruthless Tūrk, Jamshīd Khān, set up a protecting tablet in favour of the Chārans of Murlāh, recording their exemption from dīnd contributions, and that there should be no increase in duties, with threats to all who should injure the community. As usual, the sun and moon are appealed to as witnesses of good faith, and sculptured on the stone. Even the forest Bhīl and mountain Mair have set up their signs of immunity and protection to the chosen of Hinglāz (tutelary deity); and the figures of a cow and its kairi (calf) carved in rude relief speak the agreement that they should not be slain or stolen within the limits of Murlāh.”

In the above passage the community described by Colonel Tod were Chārans, but he identified them with Banjāras, using the name alternatively. He mentions their large herds of pack-bullocks, for the management of which the Chārans, who were graziers as well as bards, would naturally be adapted; the name given to the camp, tānda, is that generally used by the Banjāras; the women wore ivory bangles, which the Banjāra women wear.183 In commenting on the way in which the women threw their scarves over him, making him a prisoner, Colonel Tod remarks: “This community had enjoyed for five hundred years the privilege of making prisoner any Rāna of Mewār who may pass through Murlāh, and keeping him in bondage until he gives them a got or entertainment. The patriarch (of the village) told me that I was in jeopardy as the Rāna’s representative, but not knowing how I might have relished the joke had it been carried to its conclusion, they let me escape.” Mr. Ball notes a similar custom of the Banjāra women far away in the Bastar State of the Central Provinces:184 “Today I passed through another Banjāra hamlet, from whence the women and girls all hurried out in pursuit, and a brazen-faced powerful-looking lass seized the bridle of my horse as he was being led by the sais in the rear. The sais and chaprāsi were both Muhammadans, and the forward conduct of these females perplexed them not a little, and the former was fast losing his temper at being thus assaulted by a woman.” Colonel Mackenzie in his account of the Banjāra caste remarks:185 “It is certain that the Chārans, whoever they were, first rose to the demand which the great armies of northern India, contending in exhausted countries far from their basis of supply, created, viz. the want of a fearless and reliable transport service.... The start which the Chārans then acquired they retain among Banjāras to this day, though in very much diminished splendour and position. As they themselves relate, they were originally five brethren, Rāthor, Turi, Panwār, Chauhān and Jādon. But fortune particularly smiled on Bhīka Rāthor, as his four sons, Mersi, Multāsi, Dheda and Khāmdār, great names among the Chārans, rose immediately to eminence as commissariat transporters in the north. And not only under the Delhi Emperors, but under the Satāra, subsequently the Poona Rāj, and the Subāhship of the Nizām, did several of their descendants rise to consideration and power.” It thus seems a reasonable hypothesis that the nucleus of the Banjāra caste was constituted by the Chārans or bards of Rājputāna. Mr. Bhimbhai Kirparām186 also identifies the Chārans and Banjāras, but I have not been able to find the exact passage. The following notice187 by Colonel Tone is of interest in this connection:

“The vast consumption that attends a Marātha army necessarily superinduces the idea of great supplies; yet, notwithstanding this, the native powers never concern themselves about providing for their forces, and have no idea of a grain and victualling department, which forms so great an object in a European campaign. The Banias or grain-sellers in an Indian army have always their servants ahead of the troops on the line of march, to purchase in the circumjacent country whatever necessaries are to be disposed of. Articles of consumption are never wanting in a native camp, though they are generally twenty-five per cent dearer than in the town bazārs; but independent of this mode of supply the Vanjāris or itinerant grain-merchants furnish large quantities, which they bring on bullocks from an immense distance. These are a very peculiar race, and appear a marked and discriminated people from any other I have seen in this country. Formerly they were considered so sacred that they passed in safety in the midst of contending armies; of late, however, this reverence for their character is much abated and they have been frequently plundered, particularly by Tipu.”

The reference to the sacred character attaching to the Banjāras a century ago appears to be strong evidence in favour of their derivation from the Chārans. For it could scarcely have been obtained by any body of commissariat agents coming into India with the Muhammadans. The fact that the example of disregarding it was first set by a Muhammadan prince points to the same conclusion.

Mr. Irvine notices the Banjāras with the Mughal armies in similar terms:188 “It is by these people that the Indian armies in the field are fed, and they are never injured by either army. The grain is taken from them, but invariably paid for. They encamp for safety every evening in a regular square formed of the bags of grain of which they construct a breastwork. They and their families are in the centre, and the oxen are made fast outside. Guards with matchlocks and spears are placed at the corners, and their dogs do duty as advanced posts. I have seen them with droves of 5000 bullocks. They do not move above two miles an hour, as their cattle are allowed to graze as they proceed on the march.”

One may suppose that the Chārans having acted as carriers for the Rājpūt chiefs and courts, both in time of peace and in their continuous intestinal feuds, were pressed into service when the Mughal armies entered Rājputāna and passed through it to Gujarāt and the Deccan. In adopting the profession of transport agents for the imperial troops they may have been amalgamated into a fresh caste with other Hindus and Muhammadans doing the same work, just as the camp language formed by the superposition of a Persian vocabulary on to a grammatical basis of Hindi became Urdu or Hindustāni. The readiness of the Chārans to commit suicide rather than give up property committed to their charge was not, however, copied by the Banjāras, and so far as I am aware there is no record of men of this caste taking their own lives, though they had little scruple with those of others.

3. Chāran Ranjārans employed with the Mughal armies.

The Chāran Banjāras, Mr. Cumberlege states,189 first came to the Deccan with Asaf Khān in the campaign which closed with the annexation by the Emperor Shāh Jahān of Ahmadnagar and Berār about 1630. Their leaders or Nāiks were Bhangi and Jhangi of the Rāthor190 and Bhagwān Dās of the Jādon clan. Bhangi and Jhangi had 180,000 pack-bullocks, and Bhagwān Dās 52,000. It was naturally an object with Asaf Khān to keep his commissariat well up with his force, and as Bhangi and Jhangi made difficulties about the supply of grass and water to their cattle, he gave them an order engraved on copper in letters of gold to the following effect:

Ranjan kā pāniChhappar kā ghāsDin ke tīn khūn muāf;Aur jahān Asaf Jāh ke ghoreWahān Bhangi Jhangi ke bail,

which may be rendered as follows: “If you can find no water elsewhere you may even take it from the pots of my followers; grass you may take from the roofs of their huts; and I will pardon you up to three murders a day, provided that wherever I find my cavalry, Bhangi and Jhangi’s bullocks shall be with them.” This grant is still in the possession of Bhangi Nāik’s descendant who lives at Musi, near Hingoli. He is recognised by the Hyderābād Court as the head Nāik of the Banjāra caste, and on his death his successor receives a khillat or dress-of-honour from His Highness the Nizām. After Asaf Khān’s campaign and settlement in the Deccan, a quarrel broke out between the Rāthor clan, headed by Bhangi and Jhangi, and the Jādons under Bhagwān Dās, owing to the fact that Asaf Khān had refused to give Bhagwān Dās a grant like that quoted above. Both Bhangi and Bhagwān Dās were slain in the feud and the Jādons captured the standard, consisting of eight thāns (lengths) of cloth, which was annually presented by the Nizām to Bhangi’s descendants. When Mr. Cumberlege wrote (1869), this standard was in the possession of Hatti Nāik, a descendant of Bhagwān Dās, who had an estate near Muchli Bunder, in the Madras Presidency. Colonel Mackenzie states191 that the leaders of the Rāthor clan became so distinguished not only in their particular line but as men of war that the Emperors recognised their carrying distinctive standards, which were known as dhal by the Rāthors themselves. Jhangi’s family was also represented in the person of Rāmu Nāik, the patel or headman of the village of Yaoli in the Yeotmāl District. In 1791–92 the Banjāras were employed to supply grain to the British army under the Marquis of Cornwallis during the siege of Seringapatam,192 and the Duke of Wellington in his Indian campaigns regularly engaged them as part of the commissariat staff of his army. On one occasion he said of them: “The Banjāras I look upon in the light of servants of the public, of whose grain I have a right to regulate the sale, always taking care that they have a proportionate advantage.”193

4. Internal structure.

Mr. Cumberlege gives four main divisions of the caste in Berār, the Chārans, Mathurias, Labhānas and Dhāris. Of these the Chārans are by far the most numerous and important, and included all the famous leaders of the caste mentioned above. The Chārans are divided into the five clans, Rāthor, Panwār, Chauhān, Puri and Jādon or Burthia, all of these being the names of leading Rājpūt clans; and as the Chāran bards themselves were probably Rājpūts, the Banjāras, who are descended from them, may claim the same lineage. Each clan or sept is divided into a number of subsepts; thus among the Rāthors the principal subsept is the Bhurkia, called after the Bhīka Rāthor already mentioned; and this is again split into four groups, Mersi, Multāsi, Dheda and Khāmdār, named after his four sons. As a rule, members of the same clan, Panwār, Rāthor and so on, may not intermarry, but Mr. Cumberlege states that a man belonging to the Bānod or Bhurkia subsepts of the Rāthors must not take a wife from his own subsept, but may marry any other Rāthor girl. It seems probable that the same rule may hold with the other subsepts, as it is most unlikely that intermarriage should still be prohibited among so large a body as the Rāthor Chārans have now become. It may be supposed therefore that the division into subsepts took place when it became too inconvenient to prohibit marriage throughout the whole body of the sept, as has happened in other cases. The Mathuria Banjāras take their name from Mathura or Muttra and appear to be Brāhmans. “They wear the sacred thread,194 know the Gayatri Mantra, and to the present day abstain from meat and liquor, subsisting entirely on grain and vegetables. They always had a sufficiency of Chārans and servants (Jāngar) in their villages to perform all necessary manual labour, and would not themselves work for a remuneration otherwise than by carrying grain, which was and still is their legitimate occupation; but it was not considered undignified to cut wood and grass for the household. Both Mathuria and Labhāna men are fairer than the Chārans; they wear better jewellery and their loin-cloths have a silk border, while those of the Chārans are of rough, common cloth.” The Mathurias are sometimes known as Ahiwāsi, and may be connected with the Ahiwāsis of the Hindustāni Districts, who also drive pack-bullocks and call themselves Brāhmans. But it is naturally a sin for a Brāhman to load the sacred ox, and any one who does so is held to have derogated from the priestly order. The Mathurias are divided according to Mr. Cumberlege into four groups called Pānde, Dube, Tīwari and Chaube, all of which are common titles of Hindustāni Brāhmans and signify a man learned in one, two, three and four Vedas respectively. It is probable that these groups are exogamous, marrying with each other, but this is not stated. The third division, the Labhānas, may derive their name from lavana, salt, and probably devoted themselves more especially to the carriage of this staple. They are said to be Rājpūts, and to be descended from Mota and Mola, the cowherds of Krishna. The fourth subdivision are the Dhāris or bards of the caste, who rank below the others. According to their own story195 their ancestor was a member of the Bhāt caste, who became a disciple of Nānak, the Sikh apostle, and with him attended a feast given by the Mughal Emperor Humayun. Here he ate the flesh of a cow or buffalo, and in consequence became a Muhammadan and was circumcised. He was employed as a musician at the Mughal court, and his sons joined the Chārans and became the bards of the Banjāra caste. “The Dhāris,” Mr. Cumberlege continues, “are both musicians and mendicants; they sing in praise of their own and the Chāran ancestors and of the old kings of Delhi; while at certain seasons of the year they visit Chāran hamlets, when each family gives them a young bullock or a few rupees. They are Muhammadans, but worship Sārasvati and at their marriages offer up a he-goat to Gāji and Gandha, the two sons of the original Bhāt, who became a Muhammadan. At burials a Fakīr is called to read the prayers.”

5. Minor subcastes.

Besides the above four main divisions, there are a number of others, the caste being now of a very mixed character. Two principal Muhammadan groups are given by Sir H. Elliot, the Tūrkia and Mukeri. The Tūrkia have thirty-six septs, some with Rājpūt names and others territorial or titular. They seem to be a mixed group of Hindus who may have embraced Islam as the religion of their employers. The Mukeri Banjāras assert that they derive their name from Mecca (Makka), which one of their Nāiks, who had his camp in the vicinity, assisted Father Abraham in building.196 Mr. Crooke thinks that the name may be a corruption of Makkeri and mean a seller of maize. Mr. Cumberlege says of them: “Multānis and Mukeris have been called Banjāras also, but have nothing in common with the caste; the Multānis are carriers of grain and the Mukeris of wood and timber, and hence the confusion may have arisen between them.” But they are now held to be Banjāras by common usage; in Saugor the Mukeris also deal in cattle. From Chānda a different set of subcastes is reported called Bhūsarjin, Ladjin, Saojin and Kanhejin; the first may take their name from bhūsa, the chaff of wheat, while Lad is the term used for people coming from Gujarāt, and Sao means a banker. In Sambalpur again a class of Thuria Banjāras is found, divided into the Bandesia, Atharadesia, Navadesia and Chhadesia, or the men of the 52 districts, the 18 districts, the 9 districts and the 6 districts respectively. The first and last two of these take food and marry with each other. Other groups are the Guār Banjāras, apparently from Guāra or Gwāla, a milkman, the Gūguria Banjāras, who may, Mr. Hira Lāl suggests, take their name from trading in gūgar, a kind of gum, and the Bahrūp Banjāras, who are Nats or acrobats. In Berār also a number of the caste have become respectable cultivators and now call themselves Wanjāri, disclaiming any connection with the Banjāras, probably on account of the bad reputation for crime attached to these latter. Many of the Wanjāris have been allowed to rank with the Kunbi caste, and call themselves Wanjāri Kunbis in order the better to dissociate themselves from their parent caste. The existing caste is therefore of a very mixed nature, and the original Brāhman and Chāran strains, though still perfectly recognisable, cannot have maintained their purity.