Mazhabi

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Mazhabi (also spelled Majhabi), is a term that's used in Sikhi to refer to people who were of the Chuhra (scavenger) caste. Many Churas became Sikhs to rid themselves of the Chura 'label', because Sikhi forbade any recognition of caste. But slowly many have recognized that castism is deeply rooted in the minds of many Sikhs, even today. Sikh Mazhabi are mostly found in the Districts and States immediately east and southeast of Lahore, which form the historic centre of Sikhism.

A Mazbi a member of the former scavenger class of Hindu religion who converted to Sikhism. The Majhabis take Pahul wear their hair long, and abstain from tobacco. They apparently refuse to touch night-soil, though they perform all the other offices hereditary to the Chuhra caste. Their great guru is Tegh Bahadur, whose mutilated body was brought back from Delhi by Chuhras who were then and there admitted to the faith by Guru Gobind Singh as a reward for their devotion.

But though often good Sikhs, so far as religious observance is concerned, the taint of hereditary pollution is upon them and Sikhs of other castes refuse to associate with them even in religious ceremonies. Guru Nanak's, as well as the admonitions of all the other Sikh Gurus, have been apparently insufficient to wash their fellow Sikh brethren's minds of the memories of their ancestors once having done the 'dirtiest work' of the Hindu caste system.


They often intermarry with the Lal Begi or Hindu Chuhra. They make capital soldiers and some of our Pioneer regiments are wholly composed of Masbis. One of the bravest of the generals of the Gurus, was Jiwan Singh, a Majhabi, whose tomb is still shown at Chamkaur in Ambala. He fell at its siege in 1705-06. During the' Muhammadan persecution of the Sikhs they dropped out of notice and failing a supporter in the place of Guru Gobind, they never came to the front as a class, although Maharaja Ranjit Singh had a great admiration for their bravery and enlisted them freely.

Being afraid, however, to form them into separate corps, he attached a company to various battalions. They were, however, looked down upon by the other men and naturally became discontented. When the Punjab was annexed, the Majhabi was a dacoit, a robber and often a thug. In this capacity he was generally styled a Rangretha. The latter are a class of Majhabi apparently found only in Ambala, Ludhiana, and the neighbourhood who consider themselves socially superior to the rest. The origin of their superiority, according to Srt. Denail Ibbetson 's information, lies in the fact that they were once notorious as highway robbers! But it appears that the Rangrethas have very generally abandoned scavenging for leather-work, and this would at once account for their rise in the social scale.

In the hills Rangreta is often used as synonymous with Rangrez, or Chhimba or Lilari, to denote the cotton dyer and stamper, and in Sirsa the Sikhs will often call any Chuhra whom they wish to please Rangretha, and a rhyme is current Rangretha:

Guru ka beta, or "the Rangreta is the son of the Guru".

The Majhabis have social distinctions among themselves. The descendants of the true Majhabis who rescued Tegh Bahaldur's Head are strictly speaking, the only asl or real Majhabi.

The term is applied loosely to more recent converts. Recent converts are looked upon more or less with a critical eye and are termed Malwais. This term was probably a geographical distinction at first, but is now merely a caste one. It takes some generations to make a Mazbi, but how many he cannot say. Much depends on circumstances, and on the strictness of the convert's adherence to the faith as to when he may be admitted to an equal footing with a true Mazbi. For this reason the asl Majhabi is scarce and his physique is falling off. Until quite lately he was never found in large numbers in any special locality, except for the purpose of work on a new canal or railway. Two or three Majhabi houses are attached to the villages where they work as labourers. Grants of land have, however, been made in Gujranwala to pensioners of Pioneer regiments. The Majhabi gotras are numerous and many of them are the same as those of the Jat, doubtless following the family or group whose hereditary servants they were. In their customs too, at weddings, etc., they conform to a great extent to those prevalent among the Jats.

The above basically restated

MAZHABI SIKHS (Mazhabi = steadfast in religious faith), commonly pronounced as Mazhbi Sikhs, is the name given to SIKH converts from the Chuhra community, among the lowest in the Hindu caste order. Chuhras in medieval Punjab, corresponding to the Bhangis of the Hindi speaking regions, were the village menials who received customary payment in kind at harvest time for such services as sweeping and scavenging.

They lived in separate quarters, sequestered from the main village population, and were allowed neither instruction nor entry into places of worship. They were the "untouchable" class, for a mere touch by anyone of them "polluted" members of the upper castes. With the advent of Islam, some of them sought amelioration of their social status in conversion gaining the title of mihtar, Persian for chief, but the bulk still remained in the Hindu fold. The teachings of GURU NANAK and his nine spiritual successors, with their rejection of distinctions based upon caste or birth and their emphasis on the equality of all human beings, had a special appeal for them.

Ranghreta

Those of them who joined the new faith gained admittance along with others to SANGAT, religious congregation, and pangat, commensality. They received the high sounding designation of Ranghreta, reminiscent of Ranghars, Rajput converts to Islam. A special honour was earned for the community by Bhai Jaita, a Rarnghreta Sikh when he boldly lifted the severed head of Guru Teg Bahadur, martyred in the Chandni Chowk in Delhi on 11 November 1675, and brought it to Kiratpur, covering a distance of 300 odd km in five days. Guru Gobind Singh, coming out of Anandpur to receive him at Kiratpur, embraced him warmly, and exalted his whole tribe by conferring on it the blessing:

"Ranghrete Guru ke bete," Ranghretas are the Guru`s own sons".

Upon the creation of the Khalsa in 1699, Bhai Jaita took the rites of the double edged sword and was renamed Jivan Singh. Several others of his caste also took khande di pahul and joined the order of the Khalsa. The new spirit infused by khande di pahul added to the native tenacity and hardiness of the Ranghretas as a class and during the troubled eighteenth century, they suffered and fought valiantly hand in hand with other Sikhs.

Bota Singh and Garja Singh

Bhai Bota Singh who, with nothing but a heavy club in his hand, dared the Mughal might while proclaiming the sovereignty of the Khalsa, started to levying a toll on Mughal passerbys on the main Punjab highway. A Ranghreta Sikh, Garja Singh, was his sole comrade in arms while the two took to reaffirming the sovereignty of the Sikhs. After they baited the Mughals by speaking in familiar terms (terms only used in a family not vulgar terms) of a Mughal's female relative they were attacked by a punitive contingent sent by the governor of Lahore, the two stood back-to-back fighting until their last breath. This was in 1739. Earlier, in 1735, when Nawab Kapur Singh, the chosen leader of the Dal Khalsa, as the guerrilla force of the Sikhs was called, reorganized the Dal into five jathas (fighting bands), one of the jathas consisted exclusively of Ranghreta Sikhs.

According to Ratan Singh Bhangu, Prathm Panth Prakash, Bir Singh, the leader of tins jatha, commanded 1300 horse. With the virtual establishment of their sovereignty in the plains of the central Punjab, the Sikh's slowly reverted to their traditional village life, with farming as their main occupation, the Ranghreta Sikhs resumed their old role of scavenging and field labour, but they were no longer the outcastes they had been.

They wore unshorn hair and abstained from tobacco and meat. They were endearingly called Mazhabi Sikhs (lit. Sikhs steadfast in their religious faith), the term Ranghreta gradually falling into disuse. During the reign of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, Mazhabi Sikhs were freely enlisted in the Khalsa army, especially in the infantry, and were generally deployed for duty on the northwestern frontier. Demobilization followed the annexation in 1849 of the Sikh country to the British dominions. Many of the Mazhabi soldiers, no longer content with their former station as village menials, resorted to highway robbery, theft and dacoity so that the British government declared them to be a criminal tribe.

About 1851, Maharaja Gulab Singh of Jammu and Kashmir raised a corps of Mazhabi Sikhs. The British recruited them for a coolie corps meant for road construction. In 1857, they were also enlisted, 1200 of them, to form the 23rd, 32nd and 34th Pioneer Regiments. Their extraordinary bravery and endurance earned them a high reputation as soldiers. They were no longer considered a criminal tribe and formed a significant component of the regular Indian army. In 1911, there were 1,626 Mazhabi Sikhs out of a total strength of 10,866 Sikhs in the Indian army.

Thus 17 per cent of the Sikh soldiers were Mazhabis. Mazhabi Sikhs were also employed on canal digging and road construction projects in the new canal colonies in West Punjab, to which a large number of them had migrated for permanent settlement as farm hands and agricultural tenants. A number of them, mostly retired soldiers, were even allotted lands in the lower Chenab colony. This brought them a better economic and social status as a class. In the Chenab colony (Lyallpur and Gujranwala districts), Mazhabi Sikhs were officially declared to be an agricultural caste and in the census reports they were reckoned separately from Chuhra Sikhs, i.e. those who had not received the Khalsa baptism.

The Singh Sabha, launched in 1873 with the object of reforming Sikh practice and ceremonial, preached against caste distinctions and brought further prestige to Mazhabi Sikhs. Many more now opted for the rites of initiation. The population of the Mazhabi Sikhs increased from 8,961 in 1901 to 21,691 in 1911 and 169,247 in 1931. During the Second World War (1939-45). Mazhabi Sikhs along with Ramdasia (Weavers) Sikhs recruited to the newly raised Mazhabi and Ramdasia battalions, later redesignated as the Sikh Light Infantry.

Their pioneer regiments had already been amalgamated in the Bombay Engineers Group. Mazhabi Sikhs, as an integral part of the Sikh community, took an active part in the Gurdwara Reform movement and the freedom struggle. After Independence, when the Constitution of India was being framed, the Shiromani Akali Dal, in order to obtain for the Sikh backward classes benefits and privileges being provided for similar sections of the Hindu population, insisted on and secured the inclusion of Mazhabi Sikhs (along with Ramdasia, Kabirpanthi and Sikligar Sikhs) among the scheduled classes. Although this was not consistent with the basic Sikh doctrine of castelessness, Mazhabi and other backward Sikhs have benefited from the concessions statutorily provided to them in the field of education, employment and political representation.

References

1. Marenco, Ethne K., The Transformation of Sikh Society. Portland, Oregon, 1974

2. Rose, H. A., A Glossary of the Tribes and Castes of the Punjab and North-West Frontier Province. Lahore, 1911-19

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