Arora
[12] Per Sikhism, the Arora are divided into four territorial groups: the Uttarādhīs from the north, the Ḍakhaṇās from the south, the Dāhrās from the West and the Sindhīs, from Sindh.
[18] Roruka (Aror), capital of the Sauvira Kingdom, is mentioned as an important trading center in early Buddhist literature.
[22] On 13 April 1752, Lahore and Multan in Punjab were ceded to Ahmad Shah Durrani after the fall of Kaura Mal in the battlefield and retreat of Adina Beg.
Moreover, the disappointed princes of India "encouraged Zaman Shah Durrani to invade the subcontinent and overthrow the British" in 1798.
[23] To restrict the Afghans in Punjab, Hindu Diwan Kaura Mal Arora "died while fighting against the army of Ahmed Shah Durrani on March 6, 1752".
Post his victory over Multan, "Diwan Kaura Mall was given the title of Maharaja Bahadur" by the Mughals.
[26] According to Sugata Bose, it was only "'when British rule freed him from restraint and armed him with the power of the law ... [that] he became as oppressive as he had been submissive'".
[28] Pettigrew notes that in the 19th century, the Aroras were working as shopkeepers and small traders within the Sikh community in Punjab.
[34]Uttaradhi (north), Dakhanadhi (south) and Dahre (west) are three major sub-groups of the Arora people based on territorial differentiations.
[36] British ethnographer Denzil Ibbetson observed that Arora-Khatris were centered in Multan and Derajat (region consisting of Dera Ismail Khan and Dera Ghazi Khan) which are now part of Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa regions of modern-day Pakistan.
An economic survey conducted by Maharishi Dayanand University states that Arora/Khatri people have good representation both in government as well as private sector.
[11] According to the University of Utah sociologist, Bam Dev Sharda, in the "status allocation in village India", the Aroras are considered a mercantile caste belonging to the Vaishya varna - like the Khatris, Agarwal, Bania and Ahluwalia, and they claim "twice-born" status.
[44] According to the University of Toronto anthropologist, Nicola Mooney, the Aroras are of Kshatriya varna, along with the Khatris.
[45] Similarly, Grant Evans describes Arora as a "sub-group of the Khatri jati of the Kshatriya Varna".
However in Punjab, there is a large number of merchant type jatis, "Arora" being their generic name, both Hindu and Sikh, and they are not twice-born.
[47] In the opinion of a Professor of Sociology at Lucknow University (India), "every Hindu is supposed to have a caste" and Aroras (including its sub-castes) are identified as a sub-division of the Khatris.
Majority of the male members of the Arya Samaj in the late 19th century Punjab came from the Arora and Khatri merchant castes.
Christophe Jaffrelot explains the attraction of these trading castes to the Arya Samaj as a means of social mobility associated with their prosperity during the British rule.
He cites N.G.Barrier to show that the philosophy of the Arya Samaj founder, Dayananda Saraswati, was responsible for the aspirations of these Vaishya castes from Punjab to higher status:[50] Dayananda's claim that caste should be determined primarily by merit not birth, opened new paths of social mobility to educated Vaishyas who were trying to achieve social status commensurate with their improving economic status[50]In a study of cultural geography and pilgrimage in India, it was recorded that "Khatri-Aroras are surely among the most numerous Hindu caste groups" in the areas of Punjab and Delhi.
