Dogar

The Dogar are a Punjabi people of Muslim heritage (bradari).[1] 'Dogar' is commonly used as a last name.[1]

History

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Dogar people settled in Punjab during the Medieval period.[2] They have been classified as a branch of the Rajput[3] (a large cluster of interrelated peoples from the Indian subcontinent). Initially a pastoral people, the Dogar took up agriculture in the Punjab, where they became owners of land in the relatively arid central area where cultivation required particularly strenuous work.[4] In addition to cultivating crops such as jowar (millet) and wheat, they seem partly to have continued pastoral practices, sometimes as nomads.[2] The arid conditions proved challenging, especially in the light of competition from peoples with more established agricultural ways (notably the Jats), and over the centuries the Dogar people developed a long-lasting reputation for marauding behaviour,[4] such as animal raiding and other types of theft, including highway robbery.[2]

In the late 17th century, the Dogars residing within the faujdari of Lakhi Jangal (in present-day Multan) were among the tribes that challenged the authority of the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb.[5]

In literature

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In the Sufi poet Waris Shah's tragic romance of 1766, Heer Ranjha, Dogars are scorned as commoners (along with Jats and other agricultural groups).[6]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ a b John, A (2009). Two dialects one region: a sociolinguistic approach to dialects as identity markers (PDF) (MA thesis). Ball State University. Archived from the original on 5 November 2022.
  2. ^ a b c Singh, C (1988). "Conformity and conflict: tribes and the 'agrarian system' of Mughal India" (PDF). The Indian Economic & Social History Review. 25 (3): 319–340. doi:10.1177/001946468802500302.[permanent dead link]
  3. ^ Fiaz, HM; Akhtar, S; Rind, AA (2021). "Socio-cultural condition of South Punjab: a case of Muzaffargarh District". International Research Journal of Education and Innovation. 2 (2): 21–40. doi:10.53575/irjei.3-v2.2(21)21-40.
  4. ^ a b Chaudhuri, BB (2008). Peasant History of Late Pre-colonial and Colonial India. Vol. 8. Pearson Education India. pp. 194–195. ISBN 978-8-13171-688-5.
  5. ^ Singh C (1988). "Centre and periphery in the Mughal State: the case of seventeenth-century Panjab". Modern Asian Studies. 22 (2). 313. doi:10.1017/s0026749x00000986. JSTOR 312624. S2CID 144152388.
  6. ^ Gaeffke, P (1991). "Hīr Vāriṡ Śāh, poème panjabi du XVIIIe siècle: Introduction, translittération, traduction et commentaire. Tome I, strophes 1 à 110 by Denis Matringe [review]". Journal of the American Oriental Society. 111 (2): 408–409. doi:10.2307/604050. JSTOR 604050. ...and we come across scathing remarks about 'plebeians' such as Jats, Dogars and other agricultural castes.

Further reading

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