The Amazing Khatris of Punjab

Delhiwala #151, 152: No that was only second time on Chowk and first on FP, I asked you what the full story about your Taya and the Muslim girl was. Can you clear the air instead of people being mislead by half baked people like me?

Your family came from Pakistan with no money. HOw and when did they acquire hundreds of acres around Chandigarh?

`Are you from Gujrawalan?`

No Sir Tahmed is from Jullundher in Himachal Pardesh via Jammu but went to Gujrawalan in winter months. Gujars are nomadic people but experts in fighting and animal husbandry.

tahmed sahib

if you have an interest, maybe you could investigate the history yourself, and inform us of the outcomes of your research.

ahmedzai/delhiwala/drlokraj: greetings, friends.

delhiwala: thanks for providing the full name of the indian army officer (brigadier Kuldip Singh Chandpuri) based on whose actions the movie Border is based. I googled the name, and see that he received the MVC (the highest indian military honor i believe) for holding back our (pakistani) tanks in rajasthan in 1971 long enough for the indian air force to end that push. Names like Qila Gujjar Singh and Gujranwala do serve as mute reminders of this this tribe, and I am sorry to say I have no idea of the history behind them. Perhaps next time I talk to someone from my previous generation (precious few of them being left now) I will learn more about it.

ahmedzai: it is true that a study of the gujjars would serve as a ``case study`` of the panjab people in general - as the example of Brig. Chandpuri shows, panjab has indeed been a great mixing bowl through history.

Thus, (to continue with this ``case study``), we have gujjars who have fought on opposite sides both militarily (and received in fact the highest awards for bravery from both sides) as well as at the political level (Ch. Rehmat Ali vs Sardar Vallabhai Patel). And yet, both sides are members of the same tribe that entered India around 5 AD!! And many among whom shared a common ancestor between the last 10 - 30 generations, per my rough calculations.

So what would the history of the gujjars (if it is ever written, i.e.) look like: based on what all sources of information seem to agree on, they came to India around the the 5th century AD. I have no clue on their culture. Clearly they must not have followed any of the major religions extant today at that time (perhaps they followed the hun cultural and religious traditions). We know also that the majority of them (around 3 million??) are today muslims in Pakistan, another 1-2 million are hindus and sikhs in India. We also know that they were once spread over a much broader area (down to the state of Gujrat in India) than they are today (foothills of the himalayas and kashmir in India, panjab/frontier in Pakistan).

There are lots of unanswered questions about the history of these people. A properly researched history of the gujjars would probably go a long way towards providing some interesting insights to the history of the panjabis and of this part of the sub-continent as well. Someone needs to write it...

Re: # 139
Basically there were two important kingdoms that existed in old India. Punjabi(Ramayan, MahaBharat, Veds etc), headquartered at Taxilia and Kasur.
Second one at Patliputra and their intellectual base at Kashi.

Punjab at the cross roads of any invasion from the West fell first.

From:
COMMENT: Sunil Dutt: a humanist, a Punjabi, a world citizen

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_7-6-2005_pg3_2



The Dutt Brahmins are also known as Hussaini Brahmins. In undivided Punjab they were to be found all over that province but considered the Rawalpindi-Jhelum tract their original homeland. According to their family belief and legend their ancestor Rahab Dutt was settled in Arabia and had met Imam Hussain and became his admirer and supporter. He and his seven sons died fighting on the side of the Imam at the battle of Karbala. The Dutts had subsequently continued to observe the month of Muharram with great solemnity and took part in the various ceremonies related to the tragedy of Karbala, but remained Hindus. The following folk quote reflects this:

Wah Dutt Sultan,

Hindu ka dharm

Musalman ka iman,

Adha Hindu adha Musalman

(Oh! Dutt the king

With the religion of the Hindu

And the faith of the Muslim

Half Hindu, half Muslim)

---

illustrates an aspect of indian culture both very distinctive and quite endangered today.

Re: # 149
You are quoting from a book that is work of fiction.

Nalwa was fighting wars not carrying flowers in a basket to the Pathans. He rescued your Pakistan from Afghans. A good number of his soldiers were Punjabi Muslims, did you know that?

Afghans were alien rulers and Punjab was a vassal to them. No Punjabi would tolerate that.

You are a biased and bigoted person with half baked knowledge and this is the third time that I have observed that you are using my old post as a reference to mislead others.

I suggest that you mind your own business and do not respond to any of my posts.

I AM NOT INTERESTED IN YOUR NONSENSE.

Re: # 135
Tahmed Sir, Major Kuldip Singh Chandpuri(Brigdarier Retd) is living in Chandigarh. I saw his picture as a champion of Ex-Serviceman in a News Paper only last week. If I am not mistaken he is a Gujjar too.

Do you happen to know about the history of Kila Gujjar Singh and Gujrrawala distt in Pakistan?

Are you from Gujrawalan?

Re: # 137
Sethi is probably been forced to become a Muslim by now and most likely a born again Jihadi.

DW: Did the Muslim girl, who delivered milk to your house for free also a Gujjar? The Gujjars who rented the land from you came from Jammu but they lived in Himachal Pardesh. Why did they go to Jammu now?

I knew about Nalua`s bravery before you were born. I also knew about his cruelty too. Have you read `Killi da Buha`, where Nalua throws a Pathan boy to his death? Nalua sounds like your brave Taya, who used to hunt down unarmed Muslim civilians in 1947. Is this a characteristic of the Uppal caste, oops or clan if you prefer?

Can you please clean up your language on FP or go to the sewers of UP, if your vocabulary is limited?

Thanks Veeresh ji. Do you agree by the way that Taneja, Kukreja type last names were originally from Jhang or am I mistaken there? Bharat Bhushan and Rajunder Kumar also had the soft lilt of Jhangi accent. Do you know any more anout them?

Re: # 144, the three nobel prize winners from Jhung were Hargobind Khurana, Abdus Salam and one more Indian, who chose to show another city since Jhung was getting crowded.

Dughda means milk in Hindi, and is spelt literally that way for the Inglisi. When I went there last week there were some British tourists asking for porridge and bananas with hot milk.

Aman #145: Yes thanks very much. These workers would all be considered part of the village or even city life. I had not heard of the word `Tonkkshtrya` before.)

The trade of `tailor master` had been taken over by all kinds of other castes. What did the ahluwalias do as a trade then? I know an Ahluwalia engineer/doctor couple in my circle of friends. Were they not also founders of one of the Sikh misals and Maharajas of some state?

The town I grew up in was more like a small overgrown village and I could walk past the Ghumar within two blocks. All these trades of pottery, tanning, shoe-making and retailing have been industrialized now and open to all the Babu lok and Singh Sahibs of all castes.

i would like to know how a punjabi village works these days without barter.

# 142,
You have not mentioned the Ramgharias [ tarkaan], Ahluwalias, Mehras, Jullahas, Tonkkshtrya[tailor] Nai etc. They all lived in the villages. Villages had barter system, for e.g the carpenter will make charpoys etc and be paid with grains etc. The Jullaha made cloth, the Nai made food for marriages etc, the Mehra fetched water from the wells, Ghummaar made vessels etc. I have never lived in a village, but was fascinated by village life whenever I visited, My nani used to tell me about village culture. This was before the 20`s 30`s, when my nani was a young girl. After she started living in the city she used to miss her village terribly and talked non stop about it.

Veeresh # 129: `and then I have to remind them about the three Nobel Prize winners from Jhung.` Who were they veeresh Sahib?
`Singh Dughda Bhandar, established 1948`
Is that a typo in Dughda? It sounds like `Pantry of Dukh`, not an appetising name...LOL

Amansandhu #97: Thanks for the writeup on the Bishnois. These people are the true tree huggers.
`Within seconds of the gun shot, Bishnois were spilling out of their beds like minutemen. The hero panicked and bolted in his jeep.`

That was funny.

DM ji, It is very much possible that I am confusing the name of the novel. It was almost fifty years ago that I read it.

Some of the `Shudra` names in Punjab are Mitroo, Gogna, Khurmi. There are Punjabi Jains, Brahmins, Banias, Rajputs, Chauhans, Parmars and of course Jats. Taking these thirty, forty names out, the rest seem to be all Khatri.

Some of the Kamboj surnames span Hindu, Muslim and Sikh religions and belonged to the Khastriya clans of NWFP, Afghanistan and even Iran. They are an other interesting group of `Khatris`, outside Punjab and may even have ruled Combodia at one time.

The Tajiks, Siyaposh tribe (Kam/Kamoz, Katir/Kamtoz) of Nuristan, Yashkuns and the Yusufzais of Eastern Afghanistan and NWFP of Pakistan are said by various scholars to have descended from the ancient Kambojas. For what it is worth:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kambojas