Aguri, also known as Ugra Kshatriya, is an agricultural

caste Caste is a form of social stratification characterised by endogamy, hereditary transmission of a style of life which often includes an occupation, ritual status in a hierarchy, and customary social interaction and exclusion based on cultural ...

or community of Hindus found in the districts of

Bardhaman Bardhaman (, ) is a city and a municipality in the state of West Bengal, India. It is the headquarters of Purba Bardhaman district, having become a district capital during the period of British rule. Burdwan, an alternative name for the city, ...

Birbhum Birbhum district () is an administrative unit in the Indian state of West Bengal. It is the northernmost district of Burdwan division—one of the five administrative divisions of West Bengal. The district headquarters is in Suri. Other impor ...

, Hooghly and

Bankura Bankura () is a city and a municipality in the state of West Bengal, India. It is the headquarters of the Bankura district. Etymology In the Mahabharata, Bankura was described as Suhmobhumi. The word or (in Nagari: rāḍh) was introduced a ...

in the state of

West Bengal West Bengal (, Bengali: ''Poshchim Bongo'', , abbr. WB) is a state in the eastern portion of India. It is situated along the Bay of Bengal, along with a population of over 91 million inhabitants within an area of . West Bengal is the four ...

in India. Aguris are now considered as a middle-caste group and according to Gail Omvedt, constitute "more prosperous owner-peasants" among the peasant communities of

Bengal Bengal ( ; bn, বাংলা/বঙ্গ, translit=Bānglā/Bôngô, ) is a geopolitical, cultural and historical region in South Asia, specifically in the eastern part of the Indian subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal, predom ...

History

Aguris are a cultivating and trading caste. According to Santosh Kumar Kundu, they were brought by the ruler of

Burdwan Bardhaman (, ) is a city and a municipality in the state of West Bengal, India. It is the headquarters of Purba Bardhaman district, having become a district capital during the period of British rule. Burdwan, an alternative name for the city, ...

from Agra to West Bengal to fight against the British colonists.

William Benjamin Oldham William is a masculine given name of Norman French origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norman conques ...

, a British civil servant and

ethnographer Ethnography (from Greek ''ethnos'' "folk, people, nation" and ''grapho'' "I write") is a branch of anthropology and the systematic study of individual cultures. Ethnography explores cultural phenomena from the point of view of the subject o ...

who wrote ''Some Historical and Ethnical Aspects of Burdwan District'' (1891), said that they originated from marriage alliances between the

Sadgop The Sadgop sub-caste is a Bengali Hindu Yadav caste, found in West Bengal, Odisha, Jharkhand and parts of Bihar state in India. People of India Bihar Volume XVI Part Two edited by S Gopal & Hetukar Jha pages 827 to 831 Seagull Books Traditional ...

rulers of

Gopbhum Gopbhum or Gopbhumi is a historical region of West Bengal state in Eastern India. It included the entire area between the Ajay and Damodar rivers, which is present-day Purba Bardhaman, Birbhum, Jamtara, Purulia and Paschim Bardhaman districts ...

and the

Khatri Khatri is a caste of the Indian subcontinent that is predominantly found in India, but also in Pakistan and Afghanistan. In the subcontinent, they were mostly engaged in mercantilistic professions such as banking and trade, they were the d ...

rulers of Burdwan. He based this on the Aguri's own account but McLane believes that Oldham was misled by the Aguri. Citing a 1589 work by Mukundaram. McLane says that the Aguri were present "almost certainly" before the arrival of the Khatris in Burdwan. ''

Manu Manu may refer to: Geography *Manú Province, a province of Peru, in the Madre de Dios Region ** Manú National Park, Peru **Manú River, in southeastern Peru * Manu River (Tripura), which originates in India and flows into Bangladesh *Manu Temp ...

'', a Hindu religious text, says Ugra (meaning ''aggressive'') was born to a

Shudra Shudra or ''Shoodra'' (Sanskrit: ') is one of the four ''Varna (Hinduism), varnas'' of the Hindu caste system and social order in ancient India. Various sources translate it into English as a caste, or alternatively as a social class. Theoret ...

girl by a Kshatriya father. This mixed origin meant that the community was considered to have an ambivalent position in the Hindu varna system, although by the 1960s they were claiming to be Kshatriya.

Culture

Around the beginning of the 20th century, the Aguri were among the agricultural communities that still predominantly adhered to the custom of paying a

bride price Bride price, bride-dowry ( Mahr in Islam), bride-wealth, or bride token, is money, property Property is a system of rights that gives people legal control of valuable things, and also refers to the valuable things themselves. Depending on ...

at the time of marriage, although some more prosperous members among them were already adopting the increasingly common alternative of paying a

dowry A dowry is a payment, such as property or money, paid by the bride's family to the groom or his family at the time of marriage. Dowry contrasts with the related concepts of bride price and dower. While bride price or bride service is a payment ...

. This minority believed that bride price was deprecated by higher castes.

References

{{Bengali Hindu people Bengali Hindu castes Social groups of West Bengal