Marwari people
Total population | |
---|---|
c. 8 million[1] | |
Regions with significant populations | |
India | 7,800,000 |
Pakistan | 500,000 |
Nepal | 33,803[2] |
Languages | |
Marwari, Rajasthani | |
Religion | |
Majority: Hinduism Minority: Jainism, Islam, Christianity | |
Related ethnic groups | |
Rajasthani people |
The Marwari or Marwadi (Devanagari: मारवाड़ी) are an Indo-Aryan ethno-linguistic group that originate from the Marwar region of Rajasthan, India. Their language, also called Marwari, comes under the umbrella of Rajasthani languages, which is part of the Western Zone of Indo-Aryan languages. Apart from India, they have sizeable presence in the neighbouring countries of Pakistan and Nepal.
Etymology
The term Marwari once referred to the area encompassed by the former princely state of Marwar, also called the Jodhpur region of southwest Rajasthan in India. It formed from the two constituent words, Maru(region of Thar desert)[3] and Wadi(enclosure),[4] effectively indicating the western part of modern day Rajasthan. The Jodhpur region includes the present districts of Barmer, Jalore, Jodhpur, Nagaur, Churu, Pali and Sikar.[5][unreliable source?] It has evolved to be a designation for the Rajasthani people in general but it is used particularly with reference to certain jātis that fall within the Bania community. The most prominent among these communities, are the Agrawals, Khandelwals, Maheshwaris and Oswals.[6] It is possible that the association of the Marwari term with Jodhpur owes more to the high status of that place in pre-independence India.[7]
Dwijendra Tripathi believes that the term Marwari was probably used by the traders only when they were outside their home region; that is, by the diaspora.[8] Anne Hardgrove also supports this argument, saying that the Marwari identity could only exist in the context of a diaspora who came from somewhere and that until they migrated they had no such designation.[7]
History
Early origins
Marwari traders have historically been migratory in habit. The possible causes of this trait include the proximity of their homeland to the major Ganges - Yamuna trade route; movement to escape famine; and the encouragement given to them by various rulers of northern India who saw advantages in having their skills in banking and finance.[6]
The pattern of Marwari migration became increasingly divergent following the decline in wars between Rajput kingdoms, which the Marwaris had helped to finance, and the decreasing influence of the community over the North Indian caravan trading routes that resulted from the British establishing themselves in the region. The changed focus of migration was also encouraged by the British, who established or patronised new trading routes and centres, as well as by the decline in the political significance of the Rajput courts whose famed conspicuous consumption had been supported by Marwari money. The community welcomed the relative safety that the British presence offered, as well as the commercial and legal frameworks that they provided and which were more favourable to Marwari activities than the systems prevalent during the earlier period of Mughal and Rajput rule.[9]
The Marwari Jagat Seth family served as banker to the Nawab of Bengal.[citation needed]
British era
After the decline of Mughal authority, Marwari traders, bankers and financiers migrated to the growing British power in Calcutta.[10] There were particularly significant population shifts to Bombay between 1835-1850 and Kolkata from the 1870s, as well as to Madras.[9]
Historian Medha M. Kudaisya has said that the Marwaris:
made the transition from being niche players in trading to becoming industrial conglomerates ... From being brokers and bankers, the Marwaris went on to break the British monopoly over the jute industry after World War I; they then moved into other industrial sectors, such as cotton and sugar, and set up diversified conglomerates. By the 1950s, the Marwaris dominated the India private industry scenario, emerging as the establishers of its most prominent business houses.[11]
A considerable number of Marwari business groups made their fortune on speculative markets in the nineteenth and early twentieth century.[12]
Although maintaining close and public ties with the British authorities, members of the Marwari business community were early financial supporters of the Indian National Congress, often in secret.[12]
Independent India
In 1956, the All-India Marwari Federation opposed a linguistic organisation of states while buying up regional language newspapers in Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh.[13] Today, they control many of the country's largest media groups.[14]
The community's influence over the Indian economy declined following the country's 1991 economic reforms. From a peak of controlling 24 per cent of economic activity in 1990, it had fallen to less than 2 per cent in 2000. This reflects the growth of new industries outside of commodities trading and primary production. The figure for 2000 is considered to be lower than the position in 1939, when the community first began its resurgence.[15]
Language
Marwari, or Marrubhasha, as it is referred to by Marwaris, is the traditional, historical, language of the Marwari ethnicity. The Marwari language is closely related to the Rajasthani language. The latter evolved from the Old Gujarati (also called Old Western Rajasthani, Gujjar Bhakha or Maru-Gurjar), language spoken by the people in Gujarat and Rajasthan.[16] It has been noted that throughout the state of Rajasthan, people avoid identifying their language by name, preferring to identify themselves as speaking "Rajasthani" with Marwari literature being taught as Rajasthani until secondary level.[17]
Culture
Marwaris have been known for a tightly knit social solidarity, described by Selig Harrison in 1960 as "indissoluble under the impact of the strongest regional solvents".[18] According to Hardgrove, "The main duty for Marwari women, it would seem, is to provide a stable household life for their husbands, sons and brothers-in-law", although she acknowledges that some such women have in recent years been attempting to carve out roles in the wider world through engagement in charitable ventures and even running their own businesses.[7]
Demographics outside India
Pakistan
Following the 1947 partition, many Marwari Muslims moved to the new state of Pakistan, mainly in Karachi with some in southern Punjab, and as of 2007 their numbers were estimated at around 500,000 in the country.[19]
The Ghazdarabad neighbourhood of Karachi has a Marwari Muslim majority, numbering around 20,000 and having mostly moved from Jaisalmer in Rajasthan after the partition and earlier in the 19th century as well.[20][21]
Nepal
The Central Bureau of Statistics of Nepal classifies the Marwaris (called Marwadis in the Nepal census) as a subgroup within the broader social group of "Indian Nepalis".[22] At the time of the Nepal census of 2011, 51,443 people (0.2% of the population of Nepal) were Marwadi. The frequency of Marwadis by province was as follows:
- Koshi Province (0.4%)
- Bagmati Province (0.3%)
- Madhesh Province (0.2%)
- Lumbini Province (0.1%)
- Gandaki Province (0.0%)
- Karnali Province (0.0%)
- Sudurpashchim Province (0.0%)
The frequency of Marwadis was higher than national average (0.2%) in the following districts:[23]
- Morang (1.0%)
- Parsa (0.9%)
- Kathmandu (0.8%)
- Sunsari (0.6%)
- Jhapa (0.5%)
- Banke (0.3%)
- Kapilvastu (0.3%)
- Sarlahi (0.3%)
Notable people
- Anil Agarwal[24]
- Ritesh Agarwal[25]
- Nidhhi Agerwal[26]
- Janaki Devi Bajaj[27]
- Rahul Bajaj[27]
- Benu Gopal Bangur[28]
- Sooraj Barjatya[29]
- Tarachand Barjatya[29]
- Shobhana Bhartia[30]
- Aditya Vikram Birla[31]
- Kumar Mangalam Birla[32]
- Om Birla[33]
- Kishore Biyani[34]
- Binod Chaudhary[35]
- Ritu Dalmia[36]
- Jagmohan Dalmiya[37]
- Radhakishan Damani[34]
- Harsh Goenka[38]
- R. P. Goenka[39]
- S. N. Goenka[40]
- Abhishek Jain[41]
- Ravi Jaipuria[42]
- Shyamanand Jalan[43]
- Rakesh Jhunjhunwala[44]
- Savitri Jindal[45]
- Rajeev Khandelwal[46]
- Rohit Khandelwal[47]
- Mangal Lodha[48]
- Shailesh Lodha,[49] actor, writer and poet
- Shantanu Maheshwari.[50]
- Smriti Mandhana[51]
- Lakshmi Mittal[52]
- Palak Muchhal[53]
- Hanuman Prasad Poddar[54]
- Shashi and Ravi Ruia[55]
- Kiku Sharda[56]
- Lala Kamlapat Singhania[57]
- Abhishek Singhvi[27]
- Ashok Kumar Singhvi[58]
- Laxmi Mall Singhvi[59][27]
- Liaquat Soldier, comedy actor, writer and director.[60]
- Vijay Varma[61][62]
See also
References
- ^ "Marwari". Ethnologue.
- ^ National Statistics Office (2021). National Population and Housing Census 2021, Caste/Ethnicity Report. Government of Nepal (Report).
- ^ "मरु के राजस्थानी अर्थ | maru meaning in Rajasthani | Anjas". anjas.org. Retrieved 7 October 2024.
- ^ "वाड़ी के राजस्थानी अर्थ | vaadii-1 meaning in Rajasthani | Anjas". anjas.org. Retrieved 7 October 2024.
- ^ "Marwari - Meaning, People, Religion, Caste, History". WebConte.
- ^ a b Kudaisya, Medha M. (2009). "Marwari and Chettiar Merchants. 1850s-1950s: Comparative Trajectories". In Kudaisya, Medha M.; Ng, Chin-Keong (eds.). Chinese and Indian Business: Historical Antecedents. Leiden: BRILL. p. 87. ISBN 978-90-04-17279-1. Retrieved 23 May 2012.
- ^ a b c Hardgrove, Anne (August 1999). "Sati Worship and Marwari Public Identity in India". The Journal of Asian Studies. 58 (3): 723–752. doi:10.2307/2659117. JSTOR 2659117. S2CID 162498846.
- ^ Tripathi, Dwijendra (1996). "From Community to Class: The Marwaris in a Historical Perspective". In Bhandani, B. L.; Tripathi, Dwijendra (eds.). Facets of a Marwar Historian. Jaipur: Publication Scheme. pp. 189–196. ISBN 978-81-86782-18-7.
- ^ a b Kudaisya, Medha M. (2009). "Marwari and Chettiar Merchants. 1850s-1950s: Comparative Trajectories". In Kudaisya, Medha M.; Ng, Chin-Keong (eds.). Chinese and Indian Business: Historical Antecedents. Leiden: BRILL. p. 88. ISBN 978-90-04-17279-1. Retrieved 23 May 2012.
- ^ Strasser, Susan (2013). Commodifying Everything : Relationships of the Market. Hoboken: Taylor and Francis. p. 197. ISBN 978-1-13670-685-1.
- ^ Kudaisya, Medha M. (2009). "Marwari and Chettiar Merchants. 1850s-1950s: Comparative Trajectories". In Kudaisya, Medha M.; Ng, Chin-Keong (eds.). Chinese and Indian Business: Historical Antecedents. Leiden: BRILL. p. 86. ISBN 978-90-04-17279-1. Retrieved 23 May 2012.
- ^ a b Timberg, Thomas A. (2014). The Marwaris: from Jagat Seth to the Birlas. New Delhi: Portfolio Penguin. p. 56. ISBN 978-0-14342-405-5.
- ^ The Times of India, 11 February 1956, p. 3.
- ^ Ajwani, Deepak (18 March 2014). "Indian Media: Marwaris Write the Script | Forbes India". Forbes India. Retrieved 25 November 2017.
- ^ Niyogi, Subhro (6 May 2002). "Marwaris losing business acumen". The Times of India. Retrieved 27 November 2017.
- ^ Ajay Mitra Shastri; R. K. Sharma; Devendra Handa (2005). Revealing India's past: recent trends in art and archaeology. Aryan Books International. p. 227. ISBN 978-81-7305-287-3.
It is an established fact that during 10th-11th century ... Interestingly the language was known as the Gujjar Bhakha.
- ^ Mukherjee, Kakali (2011). "Marwari" (PDF). Census India. p. 35.
- ^ Harrison, Selig, S. (1960). India: the most dangerous decades. Princeton University Press. p. 116. ISBN 978-1-40087-780-5.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ^ "Karachi's own Marwari community". The News International. 27 May 2007. Archived from the original on 21 July 2024.
After partition some Muslim members moved to Sindh and southern Punjab in Pakistan. Today there are about half a million Marwaris living in the country.
- ^ Rafi, Yumna (31 May 2015). "In the heart of Karachi, women rule the streets at night". Dawn News.
The community that dominantly occupies this locality, the Marwari Salawat, migrated a little before partition from Jaisalmer city in Rajasthan, India and settled in Karachi and Hyderabad. The Marwaris are a close-knit community, numbering about 20,000 strong in the Ghazdarabad; they refuse to shift from the area that their forefathers had settled in.
- ^ Khan, Naimat (22 December 2023). "'Our lifeline': In Pakistan's Karachi, a small migrant community's nightlife in 'bakaras'". Arab News.
Such late-night rendezvous spent at gazebo-like community spaces called "bakaras" are an integral part of the social fabric of Muslim Marwaris, or Silawats, who migrated from India to Karachi in the nineteenth century (...) Silawats number around 20,000 and live together in one crowded locality in Gazdarabad where they have preserved the tradition of spending long nights in bakaras.
- ^ Population Monograph of Nepal, Volume II [1]
- ^ 2011 Nepal Census, District Level Detail Report
- ^ Tripathy, Srikanta (22 February 2022). "Hard-working Rajasthanis sacrificed a lot to build businesses: Anil Agarwal". The Times of India. Retrieved 12 June 2023.
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- ^ "Nidhhi Agerwal: I am a Tollywood buff who grew up watching Telugu films dubbed in Hindi - Times of India". The Times of India. Retrieved 12 November 2019.
- ^ a b c d Taknet, D. K. (2016). The Marwari Heritage. IntegralDMS. ISBN 9781942322061. Retrieved 12 November 2019.
- ^ "Meet billionaire Benu Gopal Bangur, 92, whose net worth is Rs 59,000 crore, know about his business empire". DNA. 11 April 2023. Retrieved 12 June 2023.
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- ^ Jain, Gunjan (2018). Shobhana Bhartia: (Penguin Petit). Penguin Random House India Private Limited. ISBN 9789353054175. Retrieved 12 November 2019.
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- ^ "The story of the first couple of the Birla empire". Rediff. 6 June 2011. Retrieved 12 November 2019.
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- ^ a b Sharma, Dimple (24 June 2020). "A tale of two Marwari merchants: Kishore Biyani and Radhakishan Damani". Times Now. Retrieved 21 February 2022.
- ^ "Binod Chaudhary – My Story: From the Streets of Kathmandu to a Billion Dollar Empire" (PDF). 28 May 2019. Archived from the original (PDF) on 24 October 2018. Retrieved 28 May 2019.
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- ^ Taknet, D. K. (22 July 2016). The Marwari Heritage. IntegralDMS. p. 201. ISBN 978-1-942322-06-1.
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- ^ Shailesh Lodha - मारवाड़ी भाषा री बात ही निराळी | शैलेश लोढ़ा | Raipur Live Video | RDC Rajasthani. RDC Rajasthani. 23 February 2018. Archived from the original on 21 February 2022. Retrieved 21 December 2022 – via YouTube.
At 3:06
- ^ ""I am Marwadi, must have regifted some gift," Shantanu Maheshwari's Never Have I Ever with ETimes TV | TV - Times of India Videos". The Times of India. 8 September 2021. Retrieved 29 July 2023.
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- ^ Muchhal, Palak [@palakmuchhal3] (14 October 2019). "My First Performance on stage!!! 😇 I was two and a half years old.. this was actually the first time I ever sang anything! No one in my Marwadi family would sing so It came as a surprise to my parents! ♥️ Singing Lataji's "Chalri Sajni Ab Kya Soche" here in the picture... 🎵 https://t.co/tySx2iZP3k" (Tweet). Archived from the original on 14 October 2019. Retrieved 21 December 2022 – via Twitter.
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External links