Mercantile and Shop-Keeping Castes

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This article is an extract from PANJAB CASTES SIR DENZIL CHARLES JELF IBBETSON, K.C. S.I. Being a reprint of the chapter on The Races, Castes and Tribes of the People in the Report on the Census of the Panjab published in 1883 by the late Sir Denzil Ibbetson, KCSI Lahore: Printed by the Superintendent, Government Printing, Punjab, 1916. Indpaedia is an archive. It neither agrees nor disagrees with the contents of this article. Secondly, this has been scanned from a book. You can help by sending the corrected version to the Facebook page, Indpaedia.com. All information used will be duly acknowledged.

Merchants and Shop-keepers

The group of mercantile castes for which the figures will be found in Abstract No. 91 on the next page practi cally hold the whole commerce of the Panjab In their hands. They do not engage in the carrying trade, nor do they traffic in cattlo ; being for the most part Hindus they will not sell liquor or meat ; and being of fair social standing they do not sell vegetables ; but with these exceptions almost the whole of the mercantile and commercial transactions of the Province, excepting as a general rule petty hawking and pedling, are conducted by one or other of the castes which I have included In this abstract. They may be divided Into five groups, the first consisting of Banyas, Dhnnsars, Bohras, and Pahari Mahajans ; the second of Suds and Bhabras ; the third of Khatris, Khakhas, and Bhatlas ; the fourth of Aroras ; and the fifth of Khojahs and Parachas.

The territorial distribution of these groups Is very well marked. The first or Banya group Is almost confined to the eastern and south-eastern divisions of Dehli, HIssar, and Ambala, and to the central Native States, though a few of them have spread along the north of the Eastern Plains and into the Hill States. West of Lahore they are practically unknown. The second or Sud andBhabra group Is found only in the districts that lie under the hills on the northern border of the Province from Ambala to Rawalpindi. The third or Khatri group constitutes a large proportion of the mercantile classes of all the centre and, excluding the frontier, of the north-west of the Province, being most numerous In the Jalandhar, Amritsar, Lahore, and Rawalpindi divisions. The fourth or Arora group have the IMultan and Derajat divisions and Baha walpur almost to themselves, extending also Into Peshawar and Kohat, and crossing the Satluj In Sirsa to meet the Banya group of the east. Finally, the fifth or Mahomeflan group Is confined to the central and western districts and the Salt-range Tract.

On the whole this class constitutes 7 per cent, of the population of the Province. But in the districts of the Multan and Derajat divisions and in Bahawalpui- the proportion rises to from N to 17 percent. This however is due, not to the fact that a larger proportion of the population of these parts is engaged in commerce, but to the peculiar versatility of the Arora of the south western Panjab, who is a trader first indeed, but aFter that anything and every thing*. Throughout the Eastern Plains the proportion is very uniform, naturally rising highest in the districts which include large cities. Through out the hills and submontane districts the proportion is singularly low, for these tracts include none of the commercial centres of the Panjab, and the needs of the people are simple and easily supplied. In the central districts and the Salt-range Tract the proportion is large, probably because the Khatris like the Aroras by no means confine themselves to commerce as an occu pation.