Kanjar

Kanjar
Regions with significant populations
India and Pakistan
Languages
Kanjari • Hindi • Rajasthani • Bhojpuri • Urdu • Punjabi Dogri Kishtwari
Religion
Hinduism • Sikhism • Islam
Related ethnic groups
Patharkat

Kanjars

The Kanjar tribe is a historically nomadic group in various parts of South Asia, including India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. Today, there are reportedly 211,000 Kanjars living in Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh. Almost 100,000 dwell in India's northern state of Uttar Pradesh, where about 189,000 reside, and over 38,000 live in Rajasthan (Piliavsky 2). The tribe has faced a long history of discrimination and persecution and has been labelled a "criminal tribe" under the Criminal Tribes Act of 1871 in British India. Under the act, the Kanjar tribe was forced to live in designated settlements and could not move freely. They were also required to report to the local authorities regularly and were subjected to constant surveillance. The act also allowed for the arrest and imprisonment of any member of the tribe who was suspected of committing a crime without any trial or due process. This label of being a "criminal tribe" had a long-lasting impact on the Kanjar community, and they faced discrimination and marginalisation even after the act was repealed in 1949. They were often denied access to education, healthcare, and other essential services and were treated with suspicion and hostility by the wider society.

Kanjar is a tribe with significant populations in India and Pakistan.

The Kanjari language is spoken mostly by the Kanjari people living mostly in Punjab. Kanjari is a lesser-known Indo Aryan language, but almost all also speak Punjabi.[1] The Kanjari speak 4-5 languages along with their native language, called Narsi.It consists of different sounds of animals and birds, coded words, and signs.[2]

A closed society

Kanjars are locally known as a “thieve cast". They no longer rob or hustle cattle; however, they are associated with the term and have never been able to break free. They are described as “ fierce and dangerous people who live in the jungly wastelands, rear lizards for wall-scaling burglary, know secret tongues, and possess hidden treasures and magical healing techniques….Kanjars defecated ceremonially on the site of their burglary, sacrificed children to bloodthirsty goddesses, outran police jeeps, and could even vanish magically on the spot. They were a closed, secret society, which no ordinary human could hope to penetrate” (Piliavsky 327). The Kanjar colonies were run in Fararpur between 1930 and 1952 when the Criminal Tribes Act was repealed and its administration disbanded. The Kanjar convicts of these colonies were subject to mandatory registration, regular roll-call, absentee passes, and preemptive arrests. During this time, inspectors in charge of the colonies began to safeguard some of their citizens by allowing them to steal freely on the land under their control in exchange for a loot cut.

History

In the Colonial period, Kanjaris were listed under the Criminal Tribes Act, 1871, as a tribe "addicted to the systematic commission of non-bailable offenses."[3]

Kanjar Women- Kanjari & Kāncanī

It is reported that Kanjars were also present at the Delhi Imperial Court, where the men of the tribe wrote plays and women sang and danced. Akbar called the women Kanchanis or the “golden ones” (Piliavsky 68). “ Singing and dancing was only part of these Golden Girls’ business, which was just one part of their trade in a wider variety of pleasures, which they offered to their male audiences” (Piliavsky 69). Hence, the current social stigma attached to them as courtesans or prostitutes. The Golden Girls, female performers in the Mughal Empire, entertained audiences in both the imperial court and bazaars. They were initially referred to as "Kanjari" and "Kāncanī" interchangeably. However, they later came to represent two distinct classes of performers: the elite "Kāncanī", who had royal patrons, and the lowly "Kanjari", who performed in the marketplace. Kāncanīs had a formal arrangement with the emperor and received pay for their performances at court. At the same time, Kanjaris were left to entertain various clients and were considered disreputable performers. Kāncanīs were highly respected and had exclusive attachments to their royal patrons, while Kanjaris received gifts from any and every man and were known as socially marginal and morally suspect. Today, the distinction between Kanjari and Kāncanī is still used in the red light district of Lahore, where "Kanjari" refers to a common prostitute and "Kāncanī" refers to a respectable dancing girl. "Kanjar" has become a label for vagrant groups and is associated with a generic label of ill repute (Piliavsky 73).

Present circumstances

India

The Kanjari were denotified in 1952, when the Criminal Tribes Act was replaced by the Habitual Offenders Act, but the community carries considerable social stigma, mainly due to the association of their culture with traditions distinct from mainstream Indian culture.[4] Kanjaris are also known as Gihar which is not notified.

The 2011 Census of India for Uttar Pradesh showed the Kanjari with a population of 115,968.[5]

Pakistan

In Pakistan, two distinct communities go by the name Kanjari. Over the centuries they became associated with the profession of peripatetic craftsmen and entertainers, best known for the terracotta toys they produce. In Karachi, the Urdu-speaking community has large numbers of descendants of Kanjaris from Northern India. Most of them moved from Delhi and Lucknow to Karachi. The term 'Kanjar' is more generally used to refer to a person of low moral character than as a reference to the tribe.[6][7]

The Kanjaris are sometimes associated with the Lahore neighborhood.They are originally a hindu tribe later some converted to sikh and muslim and his famous bazaar was inhabited and later flourished under influence of Kanjaris of Lucknow and Kanjaris of other parts of northern India. For centuries Lucknow was a hub for affluent families would send their children to be educated in Lucknow. It was believed those women carried the roots of Urdu speaking cultures and pride. From there many moved after partition established in Karachi. In Karachi, such Urdu-speaking families are well educated but their lineage is easily traceable to Kanjaris. This has been home to a large community of Kanjari for centurie. A recent study found that: "A Kanjari hears the music of tabla and ghungroo from the day of her birth and must begin her formal education before her non-Kanjari friends start going to school."[8]

Although nomadic, the Kanjari follow a set route and often maintain a relationship with the villages they visit. Many of the men work as agricultural labourers. Their tents are made from split bamboo or munji grass, and their encampments can be found at the edges of villages, as well as in urban areas such as Faisalabad and Lahore.[1]

They are the subject of the Hindi story Indrajal (Magic in English), by Jaishankar Prasad.

In the Lollywood film Bol, prominent character Saqa Kanjari, financially helps a fanatic hakim after the latter bribes the police to bury the honour killing of his son. The hakim in return had to bear a daughter for Saqa Kanjar's daughter Meena.

See also

References
  1. Kanjar Social Organization by Joseph C Berland in The other nomads: peripatetic minorities in cross-cultural perspective / edited by Aparna Rao pages247 to 268 ISBN 3-412-08085-3 Köln : Böhlau, 1987.
  2. Madan Meena: Secret Language of the Kanjar Community, Fellowship from Firebird Foundation for Anthropological Research, USA
  3. Nanta Village The Imperial Gazetteer of India, 1908, v. 18, p. 367.
  4. Dayal, Surbhi (February 2020). "Kanjar subculture: socialisation for amongst traditional entertainers in India". Culture, Health & Sexuality. Taylor & Francis. 23 (2): 273–283. doi:10.1080/13691058.2019.1705397. eISSN 1464-5351. ISSN 1369-1058. OCLC 41546256. PMID 32031496. S2CID 211047159.
  5. "A-10 Individual Scheduled Caste Primary Census Abstract Data and its Appendix - Uttar Pradesh". Registrar General & Census Commissioner, India. Retrieved 6 February 2017.
  6. Kanjar Social Organization by Joseph C Berland in The other nomads : peripatetic minorities in cross-cultural perspective / edited by Aparna Rao pages247 to 268 ISBN 3-412-08085-3 Köln : Böhlau, 1987.
  7. Taboo: The Hidden Culture of a Red Light Area by Fouzia Saeed, Oxford University Press ISBN 0195797965
  8. Taboo: The Hidden Culture of a Red Light Area by Fouzia Saeed, Oxford University Press, page 61

[1][2]

  1. Piliavsky, Anastasia (2011). "Theft, Patronage and Society in Western India". DPhil thesis, Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University.
  2. Piliavsky, Anastasia (2015). "The 'Criminal Tribe' in India before the British". Comparative Studies in Society and History. 57 (2): 323–54. Retrieved 30 April 2023.
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