MAHASHA COMMUNITY IN PUNJAB

                       DOM TO MAHASHA A CONVERSION IN PUNJAB
" Shuddhi prachar,education and social uplifement remained the only effective methods for the protection of urban Hindus and the broader religious community.after fifty years of history many Hindus held hierarchy  of identities." ARYA DHARAM: HINDU CONSCIOUSNESS IN 19TH CENTURY PUNJAB ; WRITTEN BY KENNETH .W.JONES.
T he congress and the Punjab hindu Shaba both appeared inpotent and irrelevant ,unable to combat the most pressing single proplen facing punjabi hindus the dercline in status and number of their community..KHANDAN,MANDAN AND SHUDDHI and education were the blended together as an antidote for the great overriding fdear of numerical decline and the inevitable destr active of the hindu race.
Shuddhi campaigns organised between 1900-1903 among rahtion ,odes and meghs was sucessfull .This lead Aryas toward increased use of shuddhi they were opposed by Hindus Orthodox's or non Hindu leaders.In 1905 sukkus arya samaj of sindh began purification of SHEKHS OF LARKANA-LOW caste muslims and reclaimed them to hinduism.during 1907 -10 RAJPUTS  who had converted to Islam were brought back to Hinduism after shuddhi.

In 1912 Sh RAMBHAJ DUTT CHAUDHARY  President of All India Shuddhi Sahaba  also associated with Punjab Hindu Conference and Hindu sabha started shuddhi process in Gurdaspur  Punjab.He was the first person who sacrifice his whole life for the low caste people of punjab According to him during 1901-10 near about 60 -70 thousand dom community people were converted after shuddhi process He converted near about five lakh people of punjab and bring back them to the mainstream of Hinduism.He traveled from village to village with Aryas preaching and performing shuddhi process when ever it was possible.During 1912 Aryas reported success in the purification of Doms who at least nominally were raised to the level of pure caste-Hindus.
Sh PURAN CHAND  a freedom fighter from gurdaspur and dom by caste opposed the shuddhi movement he believes that it was a tricky method devised by the Aryas samaj to deal with treath opposed by the Christianity.The untouchables were converting to the other religions to find their identity, but the contribution of Arya samaj  to the upliftment of the untouchables cannot be ignored, be it little."SATIS KUMAR SHARAMA ...SOCIAL MOVEMENTS  AND SOCIAL CHANGE (PAGE 105 B.R PUBLISHING CORPORATION DELHI 1985)
MAHASHA KOMI SABHA was trying from many years to build RAM BHAJ DUIT VED BHAWAN in Awankha Dinanagar but due to lack of funds it was not possible .So on 28 feb 1938  on the annual meeting of sabha SH SAT PAL  JI "ARYA BHIKSHU" took pledge to complete the VED BHAWAN in a year in the memory of his guru Sh Ram bhaj dutt. Sh sat pal ji belongs to village SINGOWAL  near Dinanagar Sh sat pal ji left his home and took pledge that he will eat only one time in a day and live bare foot and head and will not visit his village and meet his family until the bhawan is completed  He meet Pandit Jawahar lal Nehru and many other leaders for raising the funds to complete the Ved Bhawan at that time the estimated cost to built the Bhawan was near about 10000 rs .Due to the efforts of Sh Sat Pal Ji in 16 july 1938 the foundation stone of Ved Bhawan was layed down by Smt Kasturba Gandhi wife of Sh Mathama Gandhi in the presence of thousands of mahasha community people and RAJA BALDEO DAS JI BIRLA  donated money to complete  the bhawan.
RAJA BALDEO DAS BIRLA ---son of sh Shiv Narain descendants of seth Shobram member of Maheshwari  marwari community from pilani Rajasthan --was awarded the title of Raja by the then govt of bihar and orissa..

 PANDIT RAMBHAJ DUTT JI WITH HIS WIFE SARLA DEVI JI  1905

MAHASHA CASTE IN PUNJAB

The word DOM is widely used for people having common cultural tradition in South Asia and other parts of the world.DOM is widely used ethnic term in south Asia and other parts of the world.Dom is not a caste but their historical presence suggest that they are a large scale tribe which is conversely called a “race”historians has noted that their presence in 2^nd century BCE.Persian scholar AL BRUNEI noted that Dom in India fall in the lowest class of Indian society.The occupation of Dom people was to sing and dance.ABU SA ID GARDENI  Persian scholar has described Dom as “black skinned” people who played string instruments and dance,they were the untouchable people of the society.In south Asia the occupation of Dom people is different in each country and state.Their main occupation was singing,dancing,scavengers,execution,basket maker, black smiths,weavers etc. as these work was considered menial.The Dom people was considered as low caste untouchables people.

Dom is universally low caste status people.In Punjab,Jammu and Himachal Pardesh Dom constitute a fairly distinct group,largely known as DUM,they are hereditary musicians, bards,genealogists,basket makers but the phenomena of DOM people as musicians is widely spread.As the time past their work of musicians was overlapped with other occoupations such as tailors, barber,basket makers etc we can say that they are the jack of several trades.Descendants of “Dum “divided into several sub castes in Punjab,Himachal and jammu but we Dum are unaware of this and in many places we are still considered as untouchables.The three major community to which we are divided are jogi,mahasha and mirasi

DOM IN MIDDLE EAST COUNTRIES

The term GYPSY is used nomadic people of Europe and N.America of Hindu origin.In India they are called DOM and in Europe ROM.In middle east Africa they are called DOM.Originally Dom scattered from India to the rest of world.The only written records can be collected from the annals of kings and the ancient historians.according to Dr.Donalad Kenrick they first moved from India to Persia.The prince of Persia ,Ardashir conquered India in 227AD during the reign of Bahran Gur,he took many DOM people to Persia along with him to work as musicians and dancers.Persian poet Firdusi has written in his book  Shahname about this.Bahran Gur 8,the king of Iran came to know about these gypsy's in India and he himself want to see them,so he wrote a letter to the ruler of India and asked him to send few families of Dom community to his country.The ruler of India sent him 400 families of DOM by boat to Iran  on their arrival the king of Iran greeted them and give them land and grains and asked them to start cultivation He motivated them to become an agriculturist he came back after few days to see them but he found that they all were singing and dancing .The king get angry and he threw them out of Iran, they went to Mosul,Kirkuk and suleinaniyya and spread around and settled there as the time pass their population grew.When Salah Al Din Al Ayyoubi conquered Arabian peninsula - Iraq, Mosal and moved towards Syria and Lebanon he took some people of this community with him.In this way DOM people spread to these countries some of them settled in Palestine,Syria,Turkey etc.

In Arab countries DOM people accepted Islam religion at that time they did not understand the rituals of Islam and the cultural of that countries but they did not care much about the religion.They speak "aspur" language but the majority of them started speaking Arabic. Their main work was tinker,engravers etc but arab people call them as thieves.Most of them are singers dancers and they perform street dancing and perform in streets during festivals and celebrations

Dom can be seen in middle east countries such as Iran,Iraq Gaza etc as the time past they adopted the language of that countries to which they migrated .They also speak Domari language.Nawari is often used as synonyms of Domari which is a dialect language of Arabic language.Dom adopted different kind of work such as black smith,basket maker weavers etc..In Jordan they started cultivation,in the middle east they are shepherds.DOM are generally know as low caste people, in middle east  Arbic countries they adopted Islam and their main work is craftsman,peddlers etc..They settled in Israel, Lebanon and Cyprus..    .