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Arora

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For other uses, see Arora (disambiguation).

Arora
ReligionsHinduism • Sikhism
LanguagesPunjabi, Sindhi
RegionPrimarily the Punjab region of India and Pakistan
Related groupsKhatri • Bhatia • Sood

The Arora is a community of Punjab, comprising both Hindus and Sikhs. The name is derived from their native place Aror.[1][2][3]

Historically, the Arora section of the Khatri community had been principally found in West Punjab, in the districts to the south and west of Lahore. Scott Cameron Levi, believes that they are a "sub-caste of the Khatris".[4]

After Partition of India, Punjabis who migrated from erstwhile Punjab were mostly Khatris and Aroras. Studies reveal that "Arora Khatri, Bedi, Ahluwalia etc. are some of the important castes among the Punjabis".[5]

The town of Rohri in Sukkur District of Sindh, sketched in 1842.

Mughal decline and Afghan Revival[]

On 13 April 1752, Lahore and Multan of Punjab were ceded to Ahmad Shah Durrani after the fall of Kaura Mal in the battlefield and retreat of Adina Beg. Afghanistan was the conduit for the trade between Central Asia and India. Grain trade in Afghanistan was in the hands of the Hindu Punjabi Arora/Khatris. Reportedly, they gave loans to the Durrani rulers to carry out military expeditions in India. Moreover, the disappointed princes of India "encouraged Zaman Shah Durrani to invade the subcontinent and overthrow the British" in 1798.[6]

To restrict the Afghans in Punjab, Hindu Diwan Kaura Mal Arora "died while fighting against the army of Ahmed Shah Durrani on March 6, 1752". He was the Governor of Multan and had also served as the Minister of Lahore twice. Earlier, he led the Lahore Darbar and "made a joint-attack on Multan in 1749", along the Sikhs led by Jassa Singh. Post his victory over Multan, "Diwan Kaura Mall was given the title of Maharaja Bahadur" by the Mughals.[7][8]

Prior to the British colonial rule, Aroras were one the three main money-lending castes of Punjab. The Hindu Aroras were often subjected to discrimination and humiliation by Muslim farmers in the Muslim dominated districts of West Punjab. Bose believes that the arrival of the British freed the Arora community from this humiliation.[9][10]

British Colonial Era[]

Pettigrew notes that in the 19th century, the Aroras were working as shopkeepers and small traders within the Sikh community in Punjab.[11] During the British Raj, in some parts of Punjab their population was so high that they had to seek employment outside their traditional occupations shopkeeping, accountancy and money-lending[12][13] For the Hindu merchant castes, Agarwal Banias, Khatris and Aroras, Timber trade was also one of the trades they followed before 1900. However, since 1900 the smallest merchant sect, the Suds, started this trade and later dominated it in eastern Punjab.[14]

The Amritsar Gazetteer says:

Aroras trace their origin from the Khatris. It is said that Khatris are Khatris of Lahore and Multan, whereas Aroras are Khatris of Aror, modern Rori and Sukkar (Sind) in Pakistan. There is a street in Amritsar named as ‘Arorianwali Gali’. The Aroras seem to have settled in Amritsar during the time of Maharaja Ranjit Singh or even earlier. It is presumed that they migrated to Amritsar from Lahore to which place they might have originally migrated from Sind or Multan.[15]

The Hoshiarpur Gazetteer says:

Before independence, the Aroras did not constitute a sizeable population in the district. With the migration of the non-Muslim population from Pakistan to India in 1947, they settled here, though in small numbers. The Aroras were generally settled in West Punjab (Pakistan) and in the Firozepur District. Their representation in the eastern districts of the Punjab was not notable. Whatever be their origin, the fact is that they resemble Khatris in certain traits. They are also divided into many groups and castes, Uchanda, Nichanda, etc., but in social life, these groups are of no importance. They intermarry in their groups like others. They also intermarry among Khatris. In the All-India meeting in 1936, held by the Khatris at Lahore (Pakistan), it was decided that the Aroras, Soods and Bhatias were Khatri for all intents and purposes. And, as such, they should be admitted to the Khatri stock. This interpretation did not find much favour then, but with the lapse of time, it has almost been accepted.[16]

Uttaradhi (north), Dakhanadhi (south) and Dahre (west) are three major sub-groups of the Arora people based on territorial differentiations.[17] Before the independence of India, Arora used to marry in their own sub-group i.e. Uttradhi, Dakkhna or Dahra but after the independence, spheres of permissible arranged matrimonial alliances were widened to include other sub-groups of Arora.[18]

British ethnographer Denzil Ibbetson observed that Arora-Khatris were centered in Multan and Derajat (region consisting of Dera Ismail Khan and Dera Ghazi Khan) which are now part of Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa regions of modern-day Pakistan. They conducted business throughout Afghanistan and Central Asia.[19]

Post-Independence[]

In the census of 1951, Aroras that were settled in Punjab returned their caste names as Khatris, Arora Khatris, Arorae, Rore, Aror, Rora Khatris, Arore, Aror Khatris etc. Some of the Aroras simply returned their caste names with Arora sub-caste names such as Arya, Ahuja, Batheja, Bathla, Chawla, Chabbra, Juneja, Jadeja, Taneja, Upneja, Wadhwa etc. [20]

According to the Commission Reports by Justice Gurnam Singh (1990) and Justice K.C. Gupta (2012), Arora is a forward caste socially, educationally and economically. It was reported that "despite of being uprooted from their homeland", Arora community has high literacy rate. An economic survey conducted by Maharishi Dayanand University states that Arora/Khatri people have good representation both in government as well as private sector. They are both in business, services and other fields. They are "economically well-off and not dependent on money-lending or shopkeeping". They are engaged as "doctors, engineers, administrators and are represented in white-collar jobs". The Arora were divided in two main sub groups, namely Hindu Arora and Sikh Arora depending upon the religion pursued.[21]

As of 2009, many Aroras were prominent shopkeepers in several cities of Punjab including Amritsar.[2] McLeod adds that they played prominent role in the Singh Sabha movement. Aroras such as Vir Singh and Mehtab Singh[a] were influential within the Sikh community.[2]

In Haryana, a majority of Aroras follow Hinduism while some follow Sikhism.[22]

Culture[]

McLeod notes that marriages between Aroras and the Khatris are common.[2]

According to the University of Utah sociologist, Bam dev Sharda, in the "status allocation in village India", they are considered a mercantile caste belonging to the Vaishya varna - like the Khatris, Agarwal, Bania and Ahluwalia.[23]So does historian Kenneth Jones by citing Denzil Ibbetson's study.[24]

According to the University of Toronto anthropologist, Nicola Mooney, the Aroras are of Kshatriya varna, along with the Khatris.[25] Similarly, Grant Evans describes Arora as a "sub-group of the Khatri jati of the Kshatriya Varna".[26][clarification needed]

According to one legend, the Aroras are of Kshatriya stock, but dissociated themselves from the other Kshatriyas and escaped prosecution by Parashurama, calling themselves aur (someone else).[1][better source needed]

In the opinion of a "Ford-Maxwell Professor of South Asian Studies" at Syracuse University, the merchant-type castes such as the Rajasthani Baniyas, Agarwals, Guptas, Mittals, Goels are twice born castes, unlike the caste of Sikh and Hindu Aroras of Punjab in a "all-Hindu ranking". Despite this, they have similar status as prior communities in the "wider regional ranking" of Punjab. He calls this "deferred caste denial" which he explains as the rule that "hierarchy persists in the Hindu mind even where caste is denied in any of the senses and by any of the strategies adumbrated".[27][better source needed][clarification needed]

See also[]

References[]

Citations

  1. ^ Mehtab Singh, a Sikh Arora, was an eminent political leader in the early 20th century.[2]
  1. ^ a b Hanks, Patrick (8 May 2003). Dictionary of American Family Names. Oxford University Press. p. 58. ISBN 978-0-19-977169-1.
  2. ^ a b c d e McLeod, W. H. (24 July 2009). The A to Z of Sikhism. Scarecrow Press. pp. 21, 213, 128. ISBN 978-0-8108-6344-6.
  3. ^ Commissioner, India Census (1912). Census of India, 1911 ... Printed at the Government central Press. p. 445. The Arora or Rora is evidently connected with Arorkot near Rori ( Sukkur ) , the ancient capital of Sindh .
  4. ^ Levi (2002), p. 107
  5. ^ Government of Haryana, Department of Welfare. "Report of Backward Classes Commission". Welfare of Scheduled Caste & Backward Classes Department. pp. 05, 135. Archived from the original on 15 May 2021. Retrieved 15 May 2021.
  6. ^ Roy, Kaushik (2015). "Mughal Decline and Afghan Revival :1707-1810". War and Society in Afghanistan From the Mughals to the Americans, 1500–2013. Oxford University Press India. p. 64. ISBN 978-0-19-908944-4.
  7. ^ Dilagīra, Harajindara Siṅgha (1997). The Sikh reference book. Internet Archive. Edmonton, Alb., Canada : Sikh Educational Trust for Sikh University Centre, Denmark ; Amritsar : Available from Singh Bros. p. 480. ISBN 978-0-9695964-2-4.
  8. ^ Ahluwalia, M. L. (1989). Life and Times of Jassa Singh Ahluwalia. Publication Bureau, Punjabi University. p. 43.
  9. ^ B.B.Chaudhari (2008). D.P.Chattopadhayaya (ed.). Peasant History of Late Pre-colonial and Colonial India-Volume 8. Pearson Longman. pp. 137–138. ISBN 9788131716885.
  10. ^ Sugata Bose (1994). Credit, Markets, and the Agrarian Economy of Colonial India. Oxford University Press. p. 7. Yet he read reports by his predecessors carefully and possessed the sharpness of observation to pick up that in the north - western frontier region in precolonial times the Arora moneylender was ' nothing but a servile adjunct to the' nothing but a servile adjunct to the Muhammadan cultivator '. It was only ' when British rule freed him from restraint..
  11. ^ Joyce Pettigrew (1975). Robber Noblemen: A Study of the Political System of the Sikh Jats. Routledge & Kegan Paul. p. 41. The Aroras, who formed 9 per cent of the Sikh population and who generally supplied most of Punjab's petty traders and small shopkeepers...
  12. ^ Kesar Singh (1997). B. L. Abbi (ed.). Post-green revolution rural Punjab: A profile of economic and socio-cultural change, 1965-1995. p. 36. Of the clean caste households in the village , Arora , a traditional shopkeeping and petty - business caste , is lacking in the Jat's prestige and power in this village
  13. ^ J. Royal Roseberry (1987). Imperial Rule in Punjab: The Conquest and Administration of Multan 1818-1881. p. 4. The Aroras were so numerous that many had to find employ outside the traditional caste occupations of shopkeeper, moneylender and village accountant.
  14. ^ Richard P. Tucker (2011). A Forest History of India. SAGE. p. 79. ISBN 9788132119524. Others represented several Hindu merchant castes, who invested in timber as only one of several lines of trade. They included Agarwal Banias, Khatris, and Aroras. From about 1900 the smallest Hindu merchant sect, the Suds, began moving toward their later dominance in the timber trade of eastern Punjab.
  15. ^ Gazetteers of India, State Editor (1976). Amritsar. Chandigarh: Government of Punjab. p. 88. {{cite book}}: |first= has generic name (help)
  16. ^ "Chapter Iii". Archived from the original on 24 October 2010. Retrieved 21 November 2010.
  17. ^ Singh, Surely Kumar (1997). People of India: India's communities. Kolkata: Anthropological Survey of India. p. 126.
  18. ^ "Religions And Castes". District Gazetteer - Amritsar. Department of Revenue, Rehabilitation and Disaster Management, Government of Punjab. 1976. Archived from the original on 26 September 2007. Retrieved 23 October 2011.
  19. ^ Oonk, Gijsbert (2007). Global Indian Diasporas: Exploring Trajectories of Migration and Theory. Amsterdam University Press. p. 43. ISBN 978-90-5356-035-8.
  20. ^ Government of India, Deputy Registrar General (23 August 1956). "GLOSSARY OR CASTE NAMES RETURNED AT THE CENSUS OF 1951 IN THE DISTRICTS OF PEPSU" (PDF). Linguistic Survey of India. Archived from the original on 23 August 1956. Retrieved 4 May 2021.
  21. ^ Government of Haryana, Department of Welfare. "Report of Backward Classes Commission". Welfare of Scheduled Caste & Backward Classes Department. pp. 135–136. Archived from the original on 15 May 2021. Retrieved 15 May 2021.
  22. ^ Singh, K.S.; Sharma, Madan Lal; Bhatia, A.K. (1994). People of India: Haryana. New Delhi: Manohar Publishers. p. 25.
  23. ^ Bam Dev Sharda (2005). David Bills (ed.). The Shape of Social Inequality: Stratification and Ethnicity in Comparative perspective. p. 253. ISBN 9780080459356.
  24. ^ Kenneth W. Jones; Kenneth W.Jones (1976). Arya Dharm: Hindu Consciousness in 19th-century Punjab. University of California Press. pp. 4–5. ISBN 978-0-520-02920-0.
  25. ^ Mooney, Nicola (17 September 2011). Rural Nostalgias and Transnational Dreams: Identity and Modernity Among Jat Sikhs. University of Toronto Press. p. 152. ISBN 978-1-4426-6268-1. Aroras, however, are significantly higher than Jats in the caste hierarchy: along with Khatris, they are of the warrior varna, Kshatriya, the second of the four varna
  26. ^ Evans, Grant (1993). Asia's Cultural Mosaic: An Anthropological Introduction. Prentice Hall. p. 299. ISBN 978-0-13-052812-4. An example of a jati might be to be the member of a Lahore Arora , a regional sub - group within the Khatri jati of the Kshatriya varna.
  27. ^ Paul Hockings, ed. (1987). "The Denial of Caste in modern Urban Parlance". Dimensions of Social Life: Essays in Honor of David G. Mandelbaum. Walter de Gruyter. p. 518. ISBN 9783110846850.

Bibliography

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