A Glossary of the Tribes and Castes of the Punjab and North-West Frontier Province

[dharamyudh]

A Glossary of the Tribes and Castes of the Punjab and North-West Frontier Province by Horace Arthur Rose in 1911, is a great little skim through to read. He mentions quite a bit about Sikhs and even dives into the caste dynamic in these regions. 

[dharamyudh]

Briefly touching on the Kukas or NaamDharis. 

[dharamyudh]

The Akaali Fauj or the Nihangs

[puzzled]

I think I've seen this book online. Does it have photos as well?  and there is a page for Sodhi Sikhs?    

Or maybe I'm talking about a different book ...

[dharamyudh]

Wow. So he is implying that Nihangs didn't eat meat? 

[intrigued]

Book online: https://archive.org/details/glossaryoftribes03rose

[dharamyudh]

Just now, puzzled said:

I think I've seen this book online. Does it have photos as well?  and there is a page for Sodhi Sikhs?    

Or maybe I'm talking about a different book ...

No, it's just straight text. It talks about the Khatris as a whole along with the Sodhis and Bedis. I first heard about this text when some Muslim guy found out that his family were originally pandits that were forcibly converted to Islam. I just checked it out today. 

[dharamyudh]

3 minutes ago, intrigued said:

Book online: https://archive.org/details/glossaryoftribes03rose

Here is the one I am currently reading. You can control + f this version: https://www.forgottenbooks.com/en/download/AGlossaryoftheTribesandCastesofthePunjabandNorthWestFrontierProvince_10854869.pdf

[dharamyudh]

The most interesting thing about this is looking at how wide the Sikh identity was. The book mentions this and much of our numbers drastically decreased with the introduction of census data and grouping people into faiths. Also, though this dives into castes and what not, it mentions how some Jat clans claimed Rajput ancestry such as Bhatti Rajput.  

[puzzled]

24 minutes ago, dharamyudh said:

The most interesting thing about this is looking at how wide the Sikh was. The book mentions this and much of our numbers drastically decreased with the introduction of census data and grouping people into faiths. Also, though this dives into castes and what not, it mentions how some Jat clans claimed Rajput ancestry such as Bhatti Rajput.  

I saw a similar book online but it had photos as well. It described the various different tribes, castes, clans, religious sects of South asia, one tribe on each page and a photo of a person on the other page. I didn't read it tbh! just looked through it because I liked the photos. There was a page about Sodhi Sikhs and on the next page there was a photo of a old Sodhi from Lahore wearing some very interesting looking glasses! 

Similar to what you said, it was interesting because it described either Sidhu or Sandhu Sikhs, and how they have assimilated in Jatt Sikhs.  Which suggests that at one point Sidhus or Sandhus were a separate tribe all together. 

I think when people started considering udasis, Sindhi Hindus, nirmalas etc as non-Sikhs that really decreased the number of Sikhs. 

I read an article about Rajput Sikhs and it said that Rajput Sikhs continued practicing Rajput traditions and had a unique identity but many of them later assimilated into Jat Sikhs. 

According to his descendant on a youtube video, Maharaja Ranjit Singh was a Bhatti Jat, and that the tribe is of Rajput ancestry. They settled in the pind Raja Sansi and many of them adopted the pinds name as their surname, something like that! I don't remember the whole thing.

But this kind of stuff happened a lot back in those days. I think as people changed professions, moved from rural to urban areas, or urban to rural areas, status changed and people assimilated into different communities.

Sodhis are of Khatri origin, but most Sodhis today are Jatts. My family are Sodhi too. But during the Sikh empire Sodhis were considered separate from all other castes, they were considered like a priestly class, elite Sodhis even received money from the empire for no reason!  It was the same with the Bedis as well, they were considered a priestly class. But its good all this bs ended! It was verging on Brahminism.   A lot of Bedis and Sodhis became corrupt because of all this. 

 

So basically people have been changing identities for a very long time, its still happening tbh ...   For a lot of Sikhs, go back a few generations and your forefathers are likely to be very different people!