Language:

Badar Zaman, in his paper on Gojri Language, writes that Linguists have considered Gojri language a branch of the Indo-Aryan family. European and Asian researchers have given the Gojri language different names, e.g., Gojri, Gujri, etc. But its real name is Gojri. At present, the Gojri language is spoken in most areas of Azad Kashmir, whereas in Pakistan, it is spoken in the upper Panjab, KPK, and the Northern areas. Gujjar tribes speak Gojri at home and in the bazaar, and they also know other local languages, including Punjabi, Pushto, Urdu, Hindko, Kashmiri, Shina, and Kohastani. The birthplace of Gojri is in the Indian state of Gujarat. The regions of Dili and Saharanpur were part of Gujarat, but afterwards, this language spread across

the subcontinent, Indo-Pak, Kashmir, and Afghanistan. Zabih (1999) states that the Gujjarsi’ Gojri language was spoken in Gujrat, Dakan, Rajasthan, and the Ganga-Jamuni regions of South Asia, and from there it reached Punjab, NWFP, Northern areas, Jammu & Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, and Assam. A century ago, the Gujjars of Punjab spoke the Gojri language, but it gradually changed into Punjabi. Another view holds that the language of these regions was Gojri. Still, when Arabic historians wrote history, they recorded the name of this (Gojri) language according to regional names, e.g., the language spoken in Rajasthan was called Rajasthani, the language spoken in Mewat was called Mewati, etc. Originally, these were not different languages but regional varieties of Gojri spoken in different regions with little difference. It is well known that these languages resemble Gojri, but they are named after their respective regions. Gojri is an ancient language of the Indo-Pak region. It has numerous dialects, including Burj Bahasha, Dakni, Gujrati, Haryanvi, Rajasthani, Hindi, Mewati, Mewari, and Johadpuri. Gojri is a verb- final language; the verb is the final component of the sentence.

However, the rich agreement system makes the word order free. Another view is that Gojri is older than Sanskrit. When the Gujjars came to India with the Aryans, they spoke Gojri. Many historians hold that Gojri is one of the Prakrit languages spoken across different regions of India, with slight differences from Sanskrit. It shows that Sanskrit did not change completely,

but it incorporated new words from languages spoken in different regions, which brought slight changes. These languages were known as Prakrits and were later divided into two groups. One of them was Eastern Shoresani Apbharnish, and the second was Western Shoresani Apbharnish. Western Shoresani was known as Gojri Apbharnish. Modern researchers hold that Gojri is a branch of the Indo-Aryan languages. Losey (2002) claims that Sanskrit is the origin of Gojri. When Gujjars migrated from Gujarat because of the invasion by Mehmood Ghazanvi, most Gujjar families came to Punjab, Rajistan, Kathiawar, Mewat, Meware, Kaghan, and Sawat, and from there they came to Kashmir. In the 14th and 15th centuries, Gojri continued to decline after losing its official supervision, but some poets worked to develop the language through poetry.

Cultural Heritage and Society:

The Gujjars are one of the most prominent, ancient, and deeply rooted semi-nomadic tribal communities in the Indian subcontinent. With a strong cultural identity, their history stretches back thousands of years. Today, the Gujjar population is widespread, living across 12 states in India—including Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Haryana, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, and Delhi—as well as in neighbouring countries such as Pakistan and Afghanistan. In Jammu and Kashmir, they form the third-largest demographic group and hold a vital place in the socio-economic and cultural landscape.

Despite being geographically dispersed and facing the complexities of modern governance, the Gujjars have maintained strong cultural unity. Their tribal identity is marked by specific customs, rich folklore, a unique language, and a pastoral economy that sets them apart from surrounding settled agricultural societies. This essay explores the multifaceted nature of Gujjar society and culture, focusing on their historical lineage, social subdivisions, nomadic lifestyle, linguistic heritage, and contemporary challenges.

Their glorious history deeply informs the cultural psyche of the Gujjars. The community traces its lineage to ancient martial races and ruling dynasties that shaped the geopolitical boundaries of early South Asia. Historical evidence of their prominence is documented in the Panch Tantra, one of the subcontinent's oldest texts, which explicitly mentions "Gurjar Desa" (the kingdom of the Gujjars).

The pinnacle of Gujjar political and cultural influence was between the 5th and 13th centuries A.D., often called the golden period of Gujjar identity. In the 9th and 10th centuries, the Gurjara-Pratihara emperors, especially Mihirbhoj, established a vast empire stretching from Peshawar in the north to Broach in the south and to Kannauj in the east. This empire brought political stability to northern India and rivalled the earlier Gupta Empire in scale and administrative success. The Gujjars also fiercely defended their territories, and their martial legacy continued into the modern era, where they played a key role in the freedom struggle against colonial rule and in an extraordinary flourishing of the arts, sciences, and architecture. The Gurjara-Pratihara rulers were great patrons of culture, leaving behind a vast array of forts, sculptures, and temples across Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra, and Delhi. The artistic remnants of this period—such as the temples at Osian, Abhaneri, and Kotah, as well as the

intricately carved Viswaroopa image of Vishnu and the charming Sursundari sculpture of Gwalior—display a lyrical grace and creativity. Furthermore, Gujjar cultural influence permeated classical Indian aesthetics; specific musical forms like Gurjjar rag, Gurjjar malhar, and Gurjari Bherveen were named after the tribe, as were traditional women's ornaments like the Gujri (a bracelet) and the Gurjjar Hari (a jewelled garland).

Gujjar society is characterised by distinct internal stratifications largely dictated by their economic practices and relationship to the land. In pastoral regions such as Jammu and Kashmir, the community is broadly classified into three primary subgroups: the Gujjars, the Dodhi Gujjars, and the Bakarwals.

• The Gujjars: This segment of the population usually owns small tracts of agricultural land. They balance their pastoral activities with farming, primarily keeping herds of buffalo and cows while cultivating crops.

• The Dodhi Gujjars: Unlike the land-owning Gujjars, the Dodhi Gujjars rarely possess agricultural land. They are heavily reliant on a dairy-based economy and move frequently to ensure their cattle have access to optimal grazing grounds.

• The Bakarwals: The Bakarwals are a highly nomadic subgroup that specialises in breeding flocks of sheep and goats rather than larger cattle. Like the Dodhi Gujjars, they generally do not own permanent agricultural lands.

Despite these occupational differences, the Gujjars are united by strict social codes. They practice endogamy, marrying within their own community to preserve their tribal lineage. The nomadic Gujjars are also divided into sub-castes that mirror the social structures of the plain dwelling Gujjars and Rajputs, reflecting a shared ancestral heritage.

The Nomadic Lifestyle and Settlement Patterns Nomadism is central to Gujjar culture. Their way of life is closely tied to the needs of their livestock, which are their main wealth and livelihood. This pastoral nomadism involves a biannual migration known as transhumance. Every year, these groups undertake long journeys along traditional migratory routes, often travelling 200 to 300 kilometres. During winter, they move to the plains or foothills where the climate is milder. As summer brings fresh vegetation to the mountains, they migrate to high altitude pastures called toks. They stay in these toks for five to six months, from April to October.

The logistics of migration vary among the subgroups. Dodhi Gujjars and Bakarwals migrate with their families, using horses as pack animals to transport tents and essential belongings

across the rugged terrain. Land-owning Gujjars often leave an elderly family member at their permanent homes to guard crops and stored grass for winter.

When they establish permanent or semi-permanent settlements, Gujjar housing reflects their need for large grazing spaces. They build homes on high hills, with family homesteads far apart. Because of uneven terrain and natural dividers like rivers and ravines, houses in the same village can be miles apart. This isolation, while good for livestock, limits daily social interaction among community members. The traditional Gujjar economy is fundamentally pastoral. Their primary economic activity is breeding livestock and processing dairy products. They are prolific producers of milk, ghee (clarified butter), and cheese, while the Bakarwal subgroup supplies the region with raw wool and mutton. Recently, some members of the community have begun expanding into agriculture, growing staple crops such as maize and rice.

However, the Gujjars face major economic challenges due to their isolation and reliance on old trading systems. In local markets, they are often exploited by village intermediaries and shopkeepers. Without direct access to broader markets and transportation, they must trade high quality goods such as pure ghee, raw wool, and eggs by barter. In return, shopkeepers give them cheap necessities like salt and basic clothing. This unequal exchange keeps Gujjar producers from receiving fair value for their labour, trapping many families in debt and dependence on these middlemen.

Religion and religious festivals:

The religious practices among the Gujjars community are different. Hindu Gujjars usually appear as Saivas or Saktas and are particularly careful in worshipping Sitala Bhawani, the smallpox goddess. Among minor gods, they worship chamar, but their tribal worship is that of Pyareji and Baba Sabha Ram. On the other hand, Muslim Gujjar followed Islamic law, and

they were mainly Sunnis. They also visit the shrines of Rauza Mandhali Sharif, Panj Pir, and Baba Farid. On the evening of Thursday, they make an offering of food to their deceased ancestors. When a death occurs, their family feeds beggars in the hope that the food will reach the deceased in the afterlife. According to Varinder Shastri, ‘The Hindu Gujjar of Punjab,

visiting shrines and lighting a diya on them is a common practice among them’. In the words of B.S. Nijjar, certain Gujjars residing in Garhshankar tehsil of Hoshiarpur district, Nurpur Bedi tehsil of Ropar, and Balachaur tehsil of Nawanshahr district converted to Sikhism during and after the time of Guru Gobind Singh, but in numbers having a thin population, and one thing is also common in Sikh Gujjars, they also visit shrines. Hence, visiting shrines is common among the Gujjars, regardless of whether they practice Hinduism, Islam, or Sikhism. Among the Gujjar community of Punjab, several unique customs are followed during births and weddings, reflecting both Hindu and Muslim traditions.

Rafaqat Hussain and Mohammad Idris write in their paper that in Hoshiarpur, a special practice called mudda ji rupaiya involves wealthy Gujjars giving money to every Mirasi present at a wedding, including a double amount for pregnant women. Such kindness earns the giver high social respect, being called gharbhan ka datu. A related custom, bhaji, has linked specific families through mutual wedding payments over generations. In Nakodar, remnants of marriage by capture survive in Pindwalna, where young men of the groom’s side attempt to encircle the bride’s village, while being resisted by her kin. In Jhalka-bhathi, girls block a brother-in-law from lighting the wedding fire unless he succeeds and wins a gift for them. In Gurdaspur, Muslim Gujjars trace their conversion to Aurangzeb’s time yet retain Hindu rites, such as making a cow-dung idol (govardhan) at a son’s birth, along with ceremonies involving Brahmins who bless the father with sacred grass, while gifts of clothes, livestock, or money go to the child’s female relatives. At weddings, the boy sits on a basket before changing into bridal garments, and marriage within the same goot (clan) is forbidden, though some groups like the Bhatia no longer follow this rule. In Gujrat, Muslim Gujjars share similarities with Jats but retain special rituals, such as on Dhanteras day, when the mother bathes and a Brahmin prepares a sacred square (chauka) with a floor lamp. At the same time, large rotis (flatbread) and halwa (sweet pudding) are distributed among clan members, though married daughters may not partake as they belong to another goot. At marriages, they replace the Hindu milni with a dua, where a Mirasi inspects the groom’s procession before departure, receiving gifts in return. They also practice darr, a system of payments to Mirasistied to specific families. Weeks before weddings, the gala ceremony begins preparations, with women gathering to grind grain,

place flour into a decorated pitcher, and tie sacred threads onto household implements, symbolising the start of wedding arrangements. Together, these customs highlight how the Gujjars preserve distinctive social, religious, and kinship traditions that mix Hindu survivals with local Muslim practices. According to Krishan Lal, the practice of Polyandry also existed

among the Hindu Gujjars, and the custom was mainly due to the scarcity of women in the tribe. This scarcity was the result of female infanticide, practised to a considerable extent before the passing of the Infanticide Act of 1870.

Marriage:

A significant aspect of the Gujjar social life was the organisation of marriage ceremonies. Girls are granted no autonomy before marriage, and an unmarried girl seen engaging in immoral behaviour is ostracised from the community. Restoration and remarriage within the tribe are contingent upon her lover being a tribe member, contingent upon her provision of sustenance to the clan members. Rafaqat Hussain and Mohammad Idris write in their paper that marriages typically occur between the ages of 9 and 16.35. The wedding ceremony and rituals vary among Hindu Gujjars. A notable aspect of their practice is the giving away of the bride (Kanyadan), which is typically followed by a procession of the pair (bhanwari) around the marriage shed.

Conversely, Muslim Gujjars choose to engage in nikah ceremonies.

Nevertheless, several Muslim Gujjars continue to uphold certain of their traditional rituals. When the bride arrives at her husband’s house, her mother-in-law performs the wave ceremony (Parachhan) over her head to ward off evil spirits. She then takes her into the household chapel (deoghar), where she worships the family’s guardian deities, whom they still respect. Widow marriage and the levirate are allowed among both.

Economy, Profession and Lifestyles:

The Gujjar community in Punjab has historically been seen as economically disadvantaged. Various variables, encompassing social, economic, and political transformation over time,

have influenced their financial circumstances. In the words of William Crooke, ‘Gujjars are an important agricultural and pastoral tribe principally in several places, such as Gujjar Khan in the Sindh Sagar doab, Gujrat in the Chaj doab, and Gujranwala in the Rachna doab, including Hasan Abdal and Jhelum to Sutlej were associated with Gujjars.’ In areas such as Rawalpindi, Hoshiarpur, and Jalandhar, Gujjars primarily practised cultivation, but they showed a clear preference for cattle rearing over plough-based agriculture. Principally engaged in making butter and ghi, which their women sell, and which is looked down on by others as derogatory. This combination of agricultural and pastoral practices was evident in their settlement patterns and economic activities across these regions. According to Debi Prasad, the community has been trapped in a cycle of ignorance and backwardness, with their economic condition remaining pitiful across all aspects of life. Thomson writes that the Gujjars of Jhelum are the best farmers in the district. Steedman provides a similar account of the Gujjars of Rawalpindi, describing them as ‘excellent cultivators’. So, the Gujjars of Hoshiarpur are said to be ‘a quiet and well-behaved set.’ In Jalandhar, Sir Richard Temple describes them as ‘here as elsewhere of pastoral habits, but ‘more industrious and less predatory than usual’, and Barkley writes: At present, after thirty years of British rule, they are probably as little ‘given to crime as any other large class in the agricultural population. It remains usually accurate that they engage more in grazing than in agriculture; however, this is not universally applicable. In Firozpur, Brandreth characterises them as ‘unwilling cultivators, and greatly addicted to thieving’, providing examples of their criminal tendencies. Consequently, it seems that the farther the Gujjars migrate from their indigenous hills, the more they decline and the more disagreeable they become to their neighbours.

Through his work, Debi Prasad provides a detailed study of the Gujjar community. The focus of the analysis is the Gujjar family's monthly food expenditure , which amounts to 84 rupees for five family members and one dog. Such consumption includes staple foods (such as corn and lentils), confectionery, processed foods, oil, certain medications, and miscellaneous charges, totalling a per-capita yearly expenditure of 1,008 rupees. Clothing requirements, fulfilled biannually, cost 140 rupees (including fabric for shirts, pyjamas, and turbans, as well as ready-made outfits), resulting in a total family clothing expenditure of 3500 rupees. Livestock maintenance, central to both nutrition and income generation, requires 480 rupees annually to support two dairy buffaloes (including 6 months of upkeep, grazing taxes, salt, and dry-season fodder). On the revenue side, the family derives 5,800 rupees/year from

diversified sources: 2,600 rupees from ghee & butter production (all buffaloes yielding roughly 65 kg ghee/ year), Rs. 700 from direct milk sales, Rs 2,000 from crop cultivation, Rs. 400 from manual labour, and Rs 100 from wool and miscellaneous activities. Nonetheless, these profits are insufficient to cover the total expenditures of 6,310 rupees, which include food, clothing, and livestock prices, resulting in a persistent deficit of 510rupees. Conversely, Atha Khan delineated the economic circumstances of the Gujjars in Punjab, observing that their financial standing was not uniformly distributed. While the majority relied on cattle, approximately 30% of the community was comparatively affluent, possessing both land and livestock. Simultaneously, numerous Gujjars were employed as labourers, particularly those in Hoshiarpur. Land ownership in Punjab has consistently represented social rank. Before British control, the Gujjars in Punjab constituted approximately 10% of the agricultural sector; however, following the conquest, their involvement in agriculture progressively increased, reaching 30% over a period of 50 years. He also mentioned that the reason behind their shift towards a settled lifestyle was the introduction of the new British land revenue policy, which restricted their access to grazing lands and required passes for entering forest areas.

In historical texts, there are vivid descriptions of Gujjar desh. It says that over there, wheat, barley, grams, millets (Jawar, bajra), pulses, cotton, sugarcane, rice, indigo pepper, ginger, castor-oil plant, etc., were grown. Hundreds of kinds of fruit, such as mango, orange, Jamun, tamarind, jackfruit, etc., were grown throughout the country. In northern regions as well as in southern parts, fine apples, almonds, grapes, pomegranates, etc., were grown. There were

machines made of hardwood for crushing sugarcane; a hundred kinds of sweetmeats were prepared with sugar. Cotton and silk clothes were made on handlooms. These clothes had a great reputation all over the world because, in those times, people around the world wore clothes made from animal skin, wool, and hair. The trade in Gurjjar Desh was carried to all the

countries of the world by land and sea. On the west side, a trade route ran through Shivi (Sibi) and Hindu Bagh (renamed Muslim Bagh around 1960 A.D.). The most famous land route was that through Peshawar and Kabul.

Food and Drinks:

In the region of Jammu-Kashmir, the Gujjar’s traditional diet is primarily based on vegetables, pulses, and cereals, particularly maize flour and whole wheat flour. Birds include hen, cock, pigeon, and crane, and animals such as goats, sheep, and cows are eaten occasionally. In addition to meat, organs and many parts of animals are eaten, such as tongue, kidney, liver, brain, stomach, head, and heart. Wildberries are the most popular fruit that are dried and canned, and are then added to traditional drinks (sharbat) and sweets. In general, most vegetables are dried for the winter use. However, the primary methods of cooking food are stewing and roasting over fire. Plants of several kinds are harvested for food and medicine. For example, Kutwol (a wild plant) is used to treat bone and joint problems. Dandas (walnut bark) are used to clean teeth. Chutyad (a wild herb) is used for hair growth. Noon chai is considered to have significant medicinal value. It reduces stress, boosts immunity, and is highly effective during pregnancy. However, ghee, sheera kadai, semolina sharbat, wild greens, and eggs are part of the traditional diet for pregnant women. Kehwa, or kodi chai, is used to treat cough, cold, fever, and body aches. In addition, rice paste, or the outer gourd covering, is used to treat mumps, a common illness among the community's children.

Dress and Ornaments:

The women wear sultan (trousers) in hilly, cold regions; heavy ones are called shalwar, kurtak (kurta-shirt) with open sleeves, and chadar (Scarf). Some women put on a shawl at least 6 feet by four feet in place of a chadar. All the women wore colourful dresses. The colouring powder or colouring liquid was procured from the flowers, leaves, branches, barks and roots of different tree plants, bushes or grass. The bride used a red dress and the widow a white dress. The men used trousers, a kurta (shirt), and a pagri (turban). Some used a loincloth (dhoti) shirt and a pagri. Over the shirt, angrakha (long coat now called sherwani) was put on. The men used a white dress. The women bedecked themselves with jewellery and ornaments of hundreds of types from head to toe. The men also used some ornaments such as finger rings, garlands, and earrings.