Sansi people

Sansi (Devnagari: सैंसी) (Gurmukhi: ਸੈਂਸੀ) are a formerly nomadic people from India that were classified as a criminal tribe in the 19th century by the British during the Raj period. They were stealing food supply from British Government. That's why the British government declared them thief [1] They claim Rajput descent. There were two distinct offshoots of the tribe: the first was a vagrant community connected to the Jat tribes of Central Punjab; the second was an agricultural Jat clan found in Sahiwal, Amritsar and Gujranwala.[2]

Sansi people in pre independence India.
Portrait of three unknown people of the Sansi tribe of Lahore with a water pipe, ca.1862–72

The Sansis community traces its origins to their leader and ancestor, maharaja Sansmal, and their name reflects this heritage. They claim to be Rajputs whose ancestors were expelled from Rajasthan by Allaudin Khilji, a Muslim invader who devastated Chittorgarh in the early 13th century A.D. Today; the community is mainly divided into two social divisions - Mahla and Beehdoo - named after the two sons of Sansmal (Sher 97). They have been subdivided into 23 sub-castes and more than 500 exogamous clans (Sher 97). Recently, the Sansis community has preferred formal Hinduism and Sikhism, distancing themselves from the primitive form of Hinduism adhered to by their ancestors.

History and Origin

The Sansis were considered the most prominent criminal tribe in Punjab, with an estimated population of 25,800 in 1912. The British believed other tribes, such as the Baurias and Harnis, were offshoots of the Sansis, who claimed to have originated from Rajput ancestry. Despite acknowledging their ancestry, the British constantly emphasised the Sansis' "degraded" status through stereotypical descriptions. For instance, Sansi men were described as having a dark complexion, foxy expressions, and a distinctive smell of musk-rat and rancid grease due to their habit of eating vermin. Their religion, primarily a form of Hinduism, was considered primitive, mixed, and debased. After the criminal tribes act was imposed, the Sansi were labelled down to a very pitiful position. Initially, they had a premier rank as Maharaja Ranjit Singh also belonged to this tribe (Sher 97). [3]

Language

Their language is Sansiboli, or Bhilki too that is a highly endangered Indo-Aryan language of the Central group, total speakers in India 60,000 (2002) and Pakistan 20,000.[4][5][6] Their traditional occupations vary, from trading to farming.

History

During British rule in India they were placed under the Criminal Tribes Act 1871, hence stigmatized for a long time,[7] after independence, however, they were denotified in 1952.[8] As the Sansiya, they were recorded in Uttar Pradesh in the 2011 Census of India. There they were a Scheduled Caste, with a population of 5689.[9]

Further reading
  • Brown, Mark (2003). "Ethnology and Colonial Administration in Nineteenth-Century British India: The Question of Native Crime and Criminality". The British Journal for the History of Science. 36 (2): 201–219. doi:10.1017/s0007087403005004. JSTOR 4028233.

References
  1. "Sansi | people | Britannica". www.britannica.com. Retrieved 11 May 2023.
  2. Nalwa, V. (2022). Ranjit Singh—monarch mystique. Hari Singh Nalwa Foundation Trust. p. 10. ISBN 978-81-910526-1-9.
  3. Sher, S. S (March 1959). "The panchayat system of the Sansis of Punjab". Sociological Bulletin. 8 (1): 97–102. doi:10.1177/0038022919590106. JSTOR 42864549. S2CID 220050653. Retrieved 30 April 2023.
  4. Parekh, Rauf (2 January 2018). "Some endangered Pakistani languages". DAWN.COM. Retrieved 29 April 2022.
  5. Ethnologue.com: Ethnologue report for Sansi
  6. Language in India: Endangered Language: A Case Study of Sansiboli
  7. Punjab - Police and Jails The Imperial Gazetteer of India, 1908, v. 20, p. 363.
  8. Bania Arrested for Spying by Dilip D'Souza. Rediff.com, 18 January 2003
  9. "A-10 Individual Scheduled Caste Primary Census Abstract Data and its Appendix - Uttar Pradesh". Registrar General & Census Commissioner, India. Retrieved 6 February 2017.
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