The Banjara are an ethnic trading group which may have origins in the Mewar region of what is now the state of Rajasthan, India
Etymology
The Gor usually refer to themselves as Banjaras and outsiders as Kor but this usage does not extend outside their own community. A related usage is Gor Mati or Gormati, meaning Own People. Motiraj Rathod believes that the community became known as banjara from around the fourteenth century AD and but previously had some association with the Laman, who claim a 3000-year history.
Irfan Habib believes the origin of banjara lies in the Sanskrit word variously rendered as vanij, vanik and banik, as does the name of the Bania caste, which historically was India's "pre-eminent" trading community. However, According to B. G. Halbar, the word Banjara is derived from the Sanskrit word vana chara.
Despite the community adopting a multitude of languages, Banjara is used throughout India, although in Karnataka the name is altered to Banijagaru. A survey conducted in 1968 by the All India Banjara Seva Sangh, a caste association, recorded 27 synonyms and 17 sub-groups.
History
According to author J. J. Roy Burman, Banjaras have settled across Rajasthan and other parts of India. Together with the Bhopa, Domba and Kalbelia, they are sometimes called the "Gypsies of India". Professor D. B. Naik says that, "There are so many cultural similarities in the Roma Gypsies and the Banjara Lambanis".
Together with the Bhopa, Domba and Kalbelia, they are sometimes called the "Gypsies of India". Professor D. B. Naik says that, "There are so many cultural similarities in the Roma Gypsies and the Banjara Lambanis".
Author B. G. Halbar says that, Most of nomadic communities believe that they are descended from Rajput ancestry. All these nomadic tribal groups who claim Rajput ancestry says that during the time of Mughal domination they were retreated to the forests and vowed to return only when the foreign influence had gone. B. G. Halbar says they appear to be of mixed ethnicity, possibly originating in north-central India. However, Habib notes that their constituent groups may not in fact share a common origin, with the theories that suggest otherwise reflecting the systemic bias of nineteenth-century British ethnographers who were keen to create simple classifications. Laxman Satya notes that "Their status as Banjaras was circumscribed by the colonial state disregarding the rich diversity that existed among various groups".
Although not referred to as Banjara until the sixteenth century, Habib believes that the royal court chroniclers Ziauddin Barani and Shaikh Nasiruddin documented them operating in the Delhi Sultanate some centuries earlier, around the time of the rule of Alauddin Khalji. Halbar dates things earlier, suggesting that Dandin, a Sanskrit writer who lived in the sixth century, refers to them but, again, not by name.
Activities
Banjaras were historically pastoralists, traders, expert breeders and transporters of goods on the inland regions of India, for which they used boats, carts, camels, oxen, donkeys and sometimes the relatively scarce horse, hence controlling a large section of trade and economy. The mode of transport depended upon the terrain; for example, camels and donkeys were better suited to the highlands which carts could not negotiate, whilst oxen were able to progress better through wet lowland areas. Their prowess in negotiating thick forests was particularly prized. They often travelled in groups for protection, this tanda being led by an elected headman variously described as a muqaddam, nayak or naik. Such tandas usually comprised carriage of one specific product and thus were essentially a combined trade operation. They could be huge assemblies, some being recorded as comprising 190,000 beasts, and they also serviced the needs of armies, whose movements naturally followed the same trade and caravan routes. The Duke of Wellington used them for that purpose in his campaign against the Maratha Confederacy around the late 1790s and Jahangir, a Mughal emperor who reigned in the early seventeenth century, described them as