Khatri () is a caste originating from the Malwa and Majha areas of Punjab region of South Asia that is predominantly found in India, and in small numbers in Pakistan. In the Indian subcontinent, they were mostly engaged in mercantile professions such as banking and trade. In late-medieval India they were the dominant commercial and financial class, while in Punjab some were hereditary landholding agriculturalists and others worked as artisans, such as silk weavers.
The Khatris of Punjab, specifically, were scribes and traders during the medieval period, with the Gurmukhi script used in writing the Punjabi language deriving from a standardised form of the Lāṇḍa script used by Khatri traders; the invention of the script is traditionally ascribed to Guru Angad. During the medieval period, with the rise of Persian as an elite vernacular due to Islamic rule, some of the traditional high status General caste literate elite such as the Khatris, Kashmiri Brahmins and Kayasthas took readily to learning Persian from the times of Sikandar Lodi onwards and found ready employment in the Imperial Services, specifically in the departments of accountancy (siyaq), draftsmanship (insha) and offices of the revenue minister (diwan).
In the 15th century, Sikhism was founded by Guru Nanak, a Bedi Khatri. The second guru, Guru Angad was a Trehan Khatri. The third guru, Guru Amar Das was a Bhalla Khatri. The fourth through tenth gurus were all Sodhi Khatris. In the Sikh Empire, many Khatris formed the military vanguard of the Khalsa Army and its administrative class as Dewans of several provinces. Hari Singh Nalwa, the commander-in-chief of the Sikh Khalsa Army, was an Uppal Khatri and responsible for most of the Sikh conquests up until the Khyber Pass.Singh, Gulcharan (October 1976), "General Hari Singh Nalwa", The Sikh Review, 24 (274): 36–54 Others such as Mohkam Chand commanded the Sikh Army against the Durrani Empire at Attock while those such as Sawan Mal ruled Multan after wrestling it from the Afghans.
Etymology Scholars, including W. H. McLeod and Louis Fenech, Peter Hardy, and A. R. Desai agree that the Punjabi term Khattrī has its origin in the Sanskrit Kṣatriya, not particularly surprising as Punjabi evolved from Old Indo-Aryan through intermediate stages of Middle Indo-Aryan and Apabhraṃśa, making it a descendant of the Sanskrit lineage. The Shabda-Sāgara, a Sanskrit–English lexicon, also supports this etymology, stating “the word Khattrī – used for the caste of Hindus from Punjab – derives from the Sanskrit Kṣatriya, with the female member being a Khatrānī (Skt. Kṣatrāṇī).”
Dr. Dharamvir Bharati comments that in Punjabi language, Kṣatriya is pronounced as Khattrī. As per Dr. G. S Mansukhani and R. C. Dogra, "Khatri appears to be unquestionably a Prakritised form of Sanskrit word Kshatriya." According to the philologist Ralph Lilley Turner, in his etymological Dictionary of the Indo-Aryan Lexicon, it is the Punjabi word "khattrī", meaning "warrior", derived from Sanskrit "kṣatriya", whereas another Gujarati word "khātrī", meaning "a caste of Hindu weavers", derives from Sanskrit "kṣattr̥", meaning "carver, distributor, attendant, doorkeeper, charioteer, son of a female slave".
John Stratton Hawley and Mann clarify the word Khatri derives from the Sanskrit Kshatriya, in Punjab's context Khatri refers to a "cluster of merchant castes including Bedis, Bhallas and Sodhis". Purnima Dhavan sees the claim as originating from a conflation of the phonetically similar words Khatri and Kshatriya, but refers to Khatris as a "trading caste" of the Sikh Gurus.
History
Early modern era Emperor Jahangir in his autobiography Jahangirnama while talking about the castes observed "The second highest caste (after Brahmins in the caste system) is the Chhatri which is also known as Khattri. The Chhatri caste's purpose is to protect the oppressed from the aggression of the oppressors".
Punjab Historian Muzaffar Alam describes the Khatris of Punjab as a "scribe and trading caste". They occupied positions in revenue collection and record keeping and learnt Persian during Mughal era. However, this profession often created conflicts with the Brahmin scribes who discontinued the use of Persian and started using Marathi in the Deccan districts of the Mughal Empire. Because the Khatris were not only scribes but also merchants and traders, by the 1700s (but likely earlier) they dominated trade in Punjab, Afghanistan, and many parts of India. This complete domination by the eighteenth century has led some historians to hypothesize that the Khatris may have been present in Bengal before the Mughals arrived in 1576.
According to a 17th-century legend, Khatris continued their military service until the time of Aurangzeb, when their mass death during the emperor's Deccan Campaign caused him to order their widows to be remarried. The order was made out of sympathy for the widows but when the Khatri community leaders refused to obey it, Aurangzeb terminated their military service and said they should be shopkeepers and brokers. This legend is probably fanciful: McLane notes a more likely explanation for their revised position was that a Sikh rebellion against the Mughals in the early 1700s severely compromised the Khatri's ability to trade and forced them to take sides. Those who were primarily dependent on the Mughals went to significant lengths to assert that allegiance in the face of accusations they were in fact favouring "Jat Sikh followers of the rebel leader Banda". The outcome of their assertions - which included providing financial support to the Mughals and shaving their beards - was that the Khatris became still more important to the Mughal rulers as administrators at various levels, in particular because of their skills in financial management and their connections with bankers.
Khatri standards of literacy and caste status were such during the early years of Sikhism that, according to W. H. McLeod, they dominated it.
Kashmir Sukh Jiwan Mal, a Dewan of Ahmad Shah Durrani, was a Khatri officer from Bhera. He liberated Kashmir from Afghan dominancy in 1754 and ratified his control over the valley by assuming his duties as a Raja. Mal was subsequently defeated in 1762 by Nur-ud-Din Bamzai, a general deputed by Durrani himself.
Bengal In Bengal, Burdwan Raj (1657–1955) was a Khatri dynasty, which gained a high social position for Khatris in the region resulting in the increased migration of Khatris from Punjab to Bengal. When Guru Tegh Bahadur visited Bengal in 1666, he was welcomed by the local Khatris, thereby supporting earlier waves of migration of Khatris to Bengal as well.
Trans-regional trading history The Khatris, as a part of the diaspora community known as Multani or Shikarpuri, played an important role in India's trans-regional trade during the period, being described by Levi as among the "most important merchant communities of early modern India." Levi writes: "Stephen Dale locates Khatris in Astrakhan, Russia during the late 17th century and, in the 1830s, Elphinstone, was informed that Khatris were still highly involved in northwest India's trade and that they maintained communities throughout Afghanistan and as far away as Astrakhan". According to Kiran Datar, they often married Tatar local women in Astrakhan and the children from these marriages were known as Agrijan. As per Stephen Dale, the children born out of Indo-Turkic alliance were in sufficient number to form an Agrizhan suburb in the city.
Dale states most of the 10,000 (as estimated by Jean Chardin) Indian merchants and money-lenders in Isfahan (Iran) in 1670, belonged to the Khatri caste of Punjab and north-west India. In Iran's Bazaars, Khatris sold cloth and various items and also practised money-lending. Dale believes Khatris had possibly been travelling from Punjab via caravans since the era of Ziauddin Barani (around 1300 AD). Chardin specifically stereotyped and expressed disapproval of the money-lending techniques of the Khatri community. According to Dale, this racist criticism was ironic given Chardin's non-English background but adds it was Chardin's way of giving an "ethnic explanation" to the economic disparity between Iran and India at that time.
Afghanistan According to historians Roger Ballard and Harjot Oberoi, Afghan Hindus and Sikhs descend from the members of the country's indigenous Khatri population who resisted the conversion from Buddhism to Islam between 9th and 13th centuries. Later, they aligned themselves to the teachings of Guru Nanak, himself a Khatri and converted to Sikhism. Hence, Khatris of Afghanistan are in no way of "Indian origin" but are components of the original population of the region. George Campbell says "I do not know the exact limits of Khatri occupation to the West, but certainly in all Eastern Afghanistan they seem to be just as much part of the community as they are in the Punjab. They find their way into Central Asia."
Sikh Empire Sardar Gulab Singh Khatri founded the Dallewallia Misl, an independent 18th century Sikh sovereign state in Ludhiana and Jalandhar districts that would be later on conquered by Maharaja Ranjit Singh. Purnima Dhawan described that together with Jat community, the Khatris gained considerably from the expansion of the Mughal empire, although both groups supported Guru Hargobind in his campaign for Sikh self-government in the Punjab plains.
According to the Khalsa Darbar records, most of Maharaja Ranjit Singh's army was composed of Jats followed by Khatris. In the Sikh Empire, Hari Singh Nalwa (1791–1837), an Uppal Khatri from Gujranwala, became a commander of the Sikh Khalsa Army. He was responsible for expanding the frontier of Sikh Empire to beyond the Indus River, up to the mouth of the Khyber Pass. Mohkam Chand (1750–1814) also became a distinguished leader of the Khalsa Army. He was the commander in Battle of Attock which defeated Durrani Wazir Fateh Khan and Dost Mohammad Khan. His son Moti Ram and grandson Kirpa Ram were governors of Kashmir.
Another Khatri Sawan Mal served as governor of Multan, while his son Mulraj Chopra (1814–1851), the last Punjabi ruler of Multan led a rebellion against the British in the siege of Multan. He was arrested after the fall of Multan and was exiled.Hernon, Ian (2002). Britain's Forgotten Wars. Sutton Publishing
British colonial era In Punjab, they were moneylenders, shopkeepers and grain-dealers among other professions. A Peshawari Khatri family in Hyderabad State would become part of the Hyderabadi nobility and occupy the post of Prime Minister of Hyderabad. Notable individuals of the family include Maharaja Kishen Prasad, GCIE who would serve as Prime Minister of the State twice. In Hyderabad, around the mid-20th century, Khatris and Padmasalis were the leading "Hindu weaving castes" who owned 43% of the looms. The Khatris specialised in silk, while the Padmasalis in cotton weaving.
In the early 19th century, the Khatris, Bhatias and Lohanas were the main trading castes in Rajasthan, Delhi, Agra, Sind and Punjab. Banking, trading and business were considered "traditional occupations of the Khatri in Rajasthan".
During the Partition of British India in 1947, Khatris migrated en masse to India from the regions that comprise modern-day Pakistan.
Post independence Harish Damodaran says the rise of Khatri industrialists in post-1947 India was a consequence initially of the cataclysmic Partition, which pushed them in droves towards Delhi and its neighbourhoods. This exodus opened new opportunities for them. A combination of enterprise, articulation, and strategic closeness to the national capital— which, in itself, was becoming a major growth hub - created conditions for Khatri capital to flourish in the post-Partition period.