Turha
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Turha
(From People of India/ National Series Volume VIII. Readers who wish to share additional information/ photographs may please send them as messages to the Facebook community, Indpaedia.com. All information used will be gratefully acknowledged in your name.)
Synonyms: Tomar, Tomra [Bihar and/or Jharkhand]
Groups/subgroups: Palak, Turha [Bihar and/or Jharkhand]
Titles: Sah, Sahu [Bihar and/or Jharkhand]
Surnames: Sah, Sahu, Turha [Bihar and/or Jharkhand]
Exogamous units/clans: Induar, Kachhua, Surain [Bihar and/or Jharkhand]
Gotra: Kashyap [Bihar and/or Jharkhand]
Lineages: (Khandan) [Bihar and/or Jharkhand]
Origin
From TURHA SAMAJ - HINDU
The Turha claim to have belonged to the Tomar Rajput community, who arrived from Rajasthan some five hundred years ago. Their ancestors were soldiers of Maharana Pratap.After suffering a defeat in the war with Emperor Akbar, they all were to leave their native places to survive their life. The Tomar took to growing and selling vegetables, to disguise their Rajput identity. Over time Tomar was corrupted to Turha. They are found mainly in Darbhanga and Muzaffarpur districts of Bihar, with a few also found in the neighbouring Terai region of Nepal, eastern U.P., West Bengal and western Bihar. They speak Bajjika, Maithili, Bhojpuri and Hindi.
The Turha are divided into a number of lineages known as khandans. Marriages are forbidden within the khandan. The largest khandan is the Palak Turha. There main occupation remains the growing and selling of vegetables and fruits. They use Sah, Sahu, Sau, Tura etc.
Caste status
Attempts to give SC status to this OBC, indeed MBC
In 2004, ‘with the state assembly elections due to be held within four months, the Bihar cabinet decided to send its recommendation to the Union government for inclusion on the list of scheduled castes 10 castes that presently figure on the list of backward castes (Annexure I) containing the extremely backward castes in the state. These 10 castes included Turha. These castes together constitute a formidable vote bank in the state, and the cabinet decision may help enlarge the support base of the ruling RJD-Congress combine in the next assembly elections.’ (The Times of India | Nov 3, 2004)
In 2013 the Government of Uttar Pradesh recommended several castes, including Turha, for inclusion in the Central list of Scheduled Castes. The proposals were returned to the respective State Government to further justify their recommendation in the light of the observations of the Registrar General of India (RGI). (PIB| 22-July-2014)
In 2015 ‘in an attempt to play the caste card, Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav is demanded that 17 most backward classes (MBCs), including Turha/Turaiha, be included among scheduled castes (SCs). The SP supremo seemed to be taking the cue from Bihar, where his one-time ally Lalu Prasad scripted a spectacular return to the political centrestage for his party by playing the caste card. To be sure, this is part of the SP’s decade-long campaign to bring these 17 MBCs under the SC category. It was in 2005, when Yadav was the CM, that the Uttar Pradesh assembly passed a resolution demanding that the centre accord SC status for these castes. The move was quashed by the Allahabad high court. This process suffered a jolt in 2007 when the SP lost to its arch rival Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) in the assembly election and the then chief minister, Mayawati, quashed the previous government’s notification. Nonetheless, the BSP government made a similar recommendation to the centre in 2008, but with the condition that the 17 MBCs be given the SC status only after the expansion of Dalit quotas. ’ (LiveMint | Dec 02 2015)
In 2017, the Allahabad High Court stalled the Samajwadi Party-ruled Uttar Pradesh government’s decision to include 17 most backward castes (MBCs) in the Scheduled Castes list, a month after the State Cabinet passed the proposal. The court passed the order on a PIL petition filed by a Gorakhpur-based organisation, Dr Ambedkar Granthalaya Evam Jan Kalyan Samiti, arguing that issuing the SC certificate would allow candidates from these castes to contest elections from reserved seats. While this was not the first such move by the SP, it was viewed with suspicion by opposition parties given that elections were near. The 17 castes included Turha. The inclusion of these 17 castes into the Scheduled Caste list has been a contentious issue since 2005, when Mr. Mulayam Singh first initiated the move. His government amended the UP Public Services Act, 1994 to make way for the inclusion. However, since the power to declare any caste as “Scheduled” rests with the Centre, the UP government’s decision came to a zero in absence of the Centre’s consent. The decision was later quashed by the Allahabad HC. When the BSP came to power in 2007, the facilities given under the proposal were also withdrawn. The BSP feared that the motive of the Samajwadi Party move was to dent its votebank rather than benefitting the 17 MBCs. (The Hindu | JANUARY 24, 2017)
Castes with similar sounding names
The Turha emphasise that they are not the same as Turaiha, though even the UP government, in its periodical attempts to get SC status for this caste, has used the two names interchangeably.(LiveMint | Dec 02 2015) So have several writers and activists of the Turaiha fishing caste. In 1885 John Nesfield, M.A., Oxon, Inspector of Schools, Oudh, wrote Brief View of the Caste System of the North-Western Provinces and Oudh, Together With an Examination of the Names and Figures Shown in the Census Report, 1882: Being an Attempt to Classify on a Functional Basis All the Main Castes of the United Provinces, and to Explain Their Gradations of Rank and the Process of Their Formation (Archive.org).
He stated, ‘The caste called Dhuriya, Turha or Turi was originally an offshoot from the savage Dom, but has now become an entirely distinct class. … Turha is the same caste as Dhuriya or Turi and has been included with it… The Turha or fishing caste’
In 2014, Vijay Nath Sah, who got admission in Class six of school and in Guru Govind Singh College of Patna City and himself filled up the admission form in which he stated that he belonged to Turha Caste. However, at the time of filling up of the form for appearing in theexamination of Staff Selection Commission, he filled up his caste as Turi and accordingly he obtained the Caste Certificate of Turi, (Indian Kanoon) obviously to avail of benefits extended to the Turi caste.
According to Find Words ‘they are considered members of the Baniya caste,’ something that the Turha themselves do not claim.
Turaiha indeed is a fishing related caste, and they claim the Turha as a synonym. However, the Turha, a vegetable-selling people, naturally disagree.
