Nagpuria people
The Nagpuria people, also Nagpuri or Sadan, are an Indo-Aryan speaking ethnolinguistic group who are the native speakers of the Nagpuri language and natives of the western Chota Nagpur Plateau region of Indian states of Jharkhand, Bihar, Chhattisgarh and Odisha.
According to Peter Shanti Naurangi (1956), the word Sadan probably derives from Nishada, referring to an ethnic group of North India.
[16][17][18] The Nagpuri community is a heterogeneous group with an amalgamation of various castes with diverse occupations, origins, history, customs and values who share common language, music tradition, oral and written literature.
[6] Stone tools and microliths were discovered from the Chota Nagpur plateau region, which are from the Mesolithic period.
[21] According to many historians, the Copper hoard people were early Indo-Aryan speakers, who came to South Asia earlier than Vedic Aryan and spread farther to the East.
[24] Various copper hoard artifacts were discovered in Chotanagpur, such as copper ornaments, celts, axes, axe ingots, vessels, toys, anklets, bracelets, chains, magical figures of man and woman which are from the transition period from the Neolithic to the Chalcolithic period.
[31] Excavation at Urn burial site of Khuntitola exhibited redware pottery with coarse fabrics, copper and iron tools.
Nagvanshi king Gajghat Rai built Mahamaya temple in Vikram samvat 965 (908 CE) in Hapamuni village in Gumla district.
[33] During the 12th century, Nagvanshi king Bhim Karn shifted his capital to Khukhragarh after defeating Raksel of Surguja when they invaded the region.
It includes the Sankha dwip where the Sankh river flows from the hill near the kingdom of the Naga King (Nagvanshi), where precious stones are found.
Maninath Shah (1748-1762) consolidated his authority in Chotanagpur by conquering the neighbouring small kingdoms of Bundu, Silli, Barwe, Rahe, Tamar.
[37] After the Battle of Buxar, the East India Company got rights to collect taxes from Bihar and Bengal territory.
Due to conflict with the tribes of Singhbhum and Ramgarh Raj, Dripnath Shah became tributary to the East India Company.
Later, Bakhtar Say and Mundal Singh, two landowners from Gumla, joined the rebellion and fought against the British East India Company in 1812 against tax impositions on farmers.
[38] Between 1831 and 1833, during the reign of Jagannath Shah Deo, the Kol uprising occurred due to the disposition of some Mankis in Sonepur Pargana and tribal Munda and Ho insurgents resorted in plundering and burning of houses of Sikh and Thikedars as well as villages of Sadans.
[39] In 1854, the South West Frontier under the East India Company was renamed as Chota Nagpur Division.
In the 1857 rebellion, Thakur Vishwanath Shahdeo and Pandey Ganpat Rai led rebels against the British East India Company.
Most writers of movements put too much emphasis on tribal aspects of Jharkhand, which led to the tribal-Sadan divide.
[43] The Jharkhand Party, led by Jaipal Singh Munda, submitted a memoir to the State reorganization commission in 1955 to form a separate state for tribes in south Bihar, but it got rejected due to lack of the common language in the region, tribes being in the minority, the Hindi was the predominant language of the region and adverse effect on economy of Bihar.
Later, Sadan politicians, lawyers, writers as well as other non-tribals were also involved in creating a separate state, such as Lal Ranvijay Nath Shahdeo, Binod Bihari Mahato, Bisheshwar Prasad Keshari, Bhuneshwar Anuj, Lal Pingley Nath Shahdeo .
The Jharkhand coordination committee (JCC), consisting of Ram Dayal Munda, B. P. Keshri, Binod Bihari Mahato, Santosh Rana and Suraj Singh Besra formed and sent a memoir to form the separate Jharkhand state to the central government in 1989.
[47] Various Sadan communities or Jati in Chota Nagpur Plateau speak the Nagpuri language, including the Ahir, Bhuiya, Binjhia, Bhogta, Brahmin, Chik Baraik, Dom, Chamar, Ghasi, Jhora/Kewat, Kurmi, Kumhar, Lohra/Lohar, Mahli, Nagvanshi, Rautia, Sonar, Teli and Turi among others.
In 1936, many Sadan communities such as Bhogta, Bhuiya, Chik Baraik, Ghasi, Lohar, Mahli, Turi were included in the backward tribe list in Chota Nagpur Division of Bihar Province.
Some lineages among some nagpuri speaking social groups such as Chik Baraik, Ghasi, Lohra, Rautia are Baghel (tiger), Barha (boar), Bira (hawk), Dhan (rice), Hathi (elephant), Induar (eel), Kachhua (turtle), Kansi (Kans grass), Nag (cobra), Sand (bull), Sona (gold).
[4] The Nagpuri language is primarily spoken in the western and central Chota Nagpur plateau region.
[73] Some prominent writers of the modern period are Praful Kumar Rai, Lal Ranvijay Nath Shahdeo, Bisheshwar Prasad Keshari, Sahani Upendra Pal Singh, Bhuneshwar Anuj, Girdhari Ram Gonjhu and Shakuntala Mishra.
[51] Some wedding rituals of the Nagpuri speaking social groups such as Chik Baraik are madwa, baraat, parghani, sindoordan, bidai etc.
[89] Sadan observes festivals such as Ashadhi, Nawakhani, Sohrai, Surjahi Puja, Fagun and Bad Pahari.
[81][91] In 1989, the Jharkhand Co-ordination committee (JCC), who was instrumental in the demand for a separate Jharkhand state in front of the central government, also stated in their paper that Sadan may be the earliest Aryan population and could be the subcategoriable as Naga people as they differ from other Aryan group and did't strictly follow Brahmanical religion.
