Muslims

The Muslims are not evenly distributed over the state. They are found in western divisions of Meerut, Agra and Rohilkhand and in the eastern districts in the terai area, in Gonda and Bahraich, in Azamgarh, Jaunpur and Ghazipur.

The fertile plains of Uttar Pradesh offered an ideal habitat for the early Muslim settlers who came in the wake of the establishment of Turkish rule in India. The hostility was confined mainly within the ruling classes - The Rajas, Rawats, Rais and the original village echelons and the muqtis and their subordinates. Years before the Ghurid conquest of northern India, the Muslims had settled in Badaun, Bahraich, Kannauj, Unnao and Bilgram.

Muslim concentration in towns was primarily due to their socio-political organizations, their exclusive racial and religious complexion. Muslims have always had an influential upper class consisting of Nawabs, Rajas and Chaudhries because of their historical antecedents. Included in this class, before zamindari abolition, was a large retinue of personal staff and hangers-on (musahibs) who maintained the airs of their aristocratic masters and liked to be classified along with them.

The middle class, comparatively thin among Muslims, is engaged in the traditional trades like leather, timber (in the terai area), tobacco and perfume (in Lucknow). There is only a sprinkling of Muslims in the services and professions. Commerce and trade was not a Muslim forte.

Muslims have overwhelmingly large lower class, appallingly poor, conservative and hide-bound. It consists of artisans, petty traders, weavers, carpet makers, labourers, butchers, hide-flayers, vegetable-settlers and the like. They have no independent thinking and are guided solely by their religious leaders. The Muslims are stratified into four broad divisions. There were Sayyid, Shaikh, Mughal and Pathan.

These four broad divisions and their further sub-divisions are besides the two principal sects in which Muslims can be classified - Sunnis and Shias. The Shias form a fractional minority and are concentrated mostly in Lucknow, Jaunpur and Amroha. Their number is less than that of Sunnis. The former Nawabs of Avadh and Rampur were Shias. Only in Lucknow the Shias form an influential minority among Muslims.

The caste system among Muslims has outgrown its rigidity. Intermarriages among Shias and Sunnis take place, not to speak of intermarriages among Sunni castes themselves and there are no inter-dining or pollution taboos. A process of raising of caste status is prevalent among the Muslim. The term ‘Ashrafization’ has been coined for the process of elevation of lower ranks on the Ashraf pattern. The purdah or seclusion of women had become a common practice. With the abolition of Zamindari, the upper class - the landed aristocracy - has vanished into thin air.

Tribes

A part of Uttar Pradesh mainly tribal areas with the following districts such as Dehradun, Uttarkashi, Tehri Garhwal, Rudraprayag, Chamoli, Hardwar, Pauri Garhwal, Bageswar, Pithoragarh, Almora, Nainital, Champawat and Udham Singh Nagar has been formed into a new state Uttaranchal. So part of the tribal population is now in the state of Uttaranchal.

The population of the tribal communities in the state is not large. They constitute the weakest section of the society and form distinct ethnic groups which have preserved their own separate culture identities in their original environment despite the ravages of time.

The tribes live in three well-defined regions - the mountain tracts of Garhwal, Kumaon and Uttrakhand, the terai-bhabhar area extending from Dehra Dun to Bahraich district and the Vindhyan tracts of Mizapur, Allahabad, Varanasi and Bundelkhand. They also live in Pithoragarh, Uttarkashi, Tehri, Banda and Jhansi districts.

Garhwal, Kumaon, Pithoragarh, Uttarkashi and Chamoli have the habitats of the Bora, Bhotia and Raji tribes. The Jaunsari type of tribal groups include the Khasas of the Jamuna tract of Dehra Dun district who claim to be Rajputs and Brahmins and the Aujis, Doms and Kolis, Koisor Koltas who are Harijans. The Jaunsari types are also found in the adjoining areas of Rawain (Uttarkashi) and Jaunpur (Tehri). The Bhoksas and the Tharus inhabit the Terai-bhabhar area. The Vindhyan tracts have the largest number of tribes, including Agaria, Bhil, Bhumiyar, Chero, Ghasia, Gond, Kol, Korwaa, Oroan, Parahiya, Panika, Pathari and Sahariya. The Jaunsaris are numerically the largest group.

Only five of the states tribal communities have been recognised by the central government as scheduled tribes in terms of the provisions of the constitution. They are the Bhotia, Bhoksa, Jaunsari, Raji and Tharu tribes, inhabiting the sensitive border area. The remaining tribes with the exception of Bhil , Bora and sections of the polyandrous people of Uttarkashi and Tehri, are termed as scheduled castes.

Tharus and Bhoksas are of Mongoloid stock and the Khasas of the Himalayan region of Indo-Aryan stock. The remaining Jaunsari types are of mixed descent. Of the Vindhyan tribes, the Gonds and Kols belong to Munda-Dravidian stock. The Bhils and Saharujas are of Indo-Dravidian origin.

The tribal areas suffered from poor communications and roads were unsuitable for the major portion of the year. There was extreme scarcity of water during summer, specially in Mirzapur and Banda districts. The Bhotias of the northern frontier suffered a severe setback on account of sudden stoppage of trade with Tibet. The Jaunsaris, had little land of their own and generally worked as labourers on farms or in forests.

The problems of Tharus and Bhoksas in the terai areas were quite different. Those lands which were previously defined as fallow land, were captured and developed by this community. The development had already been completed, thousands of outsiders and fortune-seekers were trying to come over and prosper at the cost of local tribes by displacing them from their paternal land. The state governments efforts to meet the situation had met with only partial success.