Sansi people

They claim to be Rajputs whose ancestors were expelled from Rajasthan by Allaudin Khilji, a Muslim invader who devastated Chittor in the early 13th century A.D. Today; the community is mainly divided into two social divisions - Mahla and Beehdoo - named after the two sons of Sansmal (Sher 97). They have been subdivided into 23 sub-castes and more than 500 exogamous clans (Sher 97). Recently, the Sansis community has preferred formal Hinduism and Sikhism, distancing themselves from the primitive form of Hinduism adhered to by their ancestors. During the Delhi Sultanate era, due to their alliance with the local Rajput rebels, their caste was banned and as of the 15th century no traces of the Sansis were there.[2]

Bhai Barah Sansi was the only Sansi left in India at the time, he was a rich farmer hiding away in Dhaka who led a gang of thieves, highway bandits and cattle robbers. Guru Nanak met him and asked him to forgo his thievery and afterwards Bhai Bhumiya Sansi decided to travel to Punjab with him eventually settling in Rajasthan. Guru Nanak blessed him with reviving his creed and hence all modern Sansis can trace their heritage to Bhai Barah Sansi. Bhai Barah Sansi's descendants decided to take up Sikhism and many of them converted and took Amrit, started tying turbans and following Guru Gobind Singh's Hukamnamas. One of these was Sardar Budda Singh, whose grandson was Sardar Charat Singh, whose son was Raja Maha Singh and his son was the ruler of the Sikh Raj from Tibet to Kabul; Maharaja Ranjit Singh.

After the Anglo-Sikh Wars most Sansis were left in bad conditions as the British saw them as a threat to society. During British rule in India they were placed under the Criminal Tribes Act 1871, hence stigmatized for a long time,[3] after independence, however, they were denotified in 1952.[4] Despite leaving Sikhism, the Sansis were being helped by another criminal tribe during their persecution; the Nihang Sikhs who provided the Sansis with shelter, food, protection and homes. The Sansis were recorded in Uttar Pradesh in the 2011 Census of India. There they were a Scheduled Caste, with a population of 5,689.[5] The Sansis were considered the most prominent criminal tribe in Punjab, with an estimated population of 25,800 in 1912. The British believed other tribes, such as the Baurias and Harnis, were offshoots of the Sansis, who claimed to have originated from Rajput ancestry.

Despite acknowledging their ancestry, the British constantly emphasised the Sansis' "degraded" status through stereotypical descriptions. For instance, Sansi men were described as having a dark complexion, foxy expressions, and a distinctive smell of musk-rat and rancid grease due to their habit of eating vermin. Their religion, from being mostly Sikh, became a primarily a form of Hinduism, was considered primitive, mixed, and debased. After the criminal tribes act was imposed, the Sansi were labelled down to a very pitiful position. [6] When they were Sikhs they were mostly rich, aristocratic noblemen who lived lavish lives, although once their tribe became a criminal class they started mingling with the Hindu society and their Sikh roots started fading away.

Their language is Sansiboli, or Bhilki too that is a highly endangered Indo-Aryan language of the Central group, total speakers in India 60,000 (2002) and Pakistan 20,000.[7][8][9] Their traditional occupations vary, from trading to farming.

• Brown, Mark (2003). "Ethnology and Colonial Administration in Nineteenth-Century British India: The Question of Native Crime and Criminality". The British Journal for the History of Science. 36 (2): 201–219. doi:10.1017/s0007087403005004. JSTOR 4028233.