The Qizilbash population of Uttar Pradesh, India (William Crooke, 1896)

The Qizilbash population of Uttar Pradesh, India

Mughul, Mughal. — One of the four great Muhammadan sub-divisions known in Europe under the form Mongol. Mr. Ibbetson¹, writing of the Panjab, does not attempt to touch upon “the much debated question of the distinction between the Turks and Mughuls. In the Delhi territory, indeed, the villagers accustomed to describe the Mughuls of the Empire as Turks, used the word as synonymous with ‘official’, and I have heard my Hindu clerks of Kayasth class described as Turks, merely because they were in Government employ. On the Biloch frontier the word Turk is commonly used as synonymous with Mughul. The Mughuls proper probably either entered the Panjab with Babar, or were attracted thither under the dynasty of his successors; and I believe that the great majority of those who have returned themselves as Mughuls in the Eastern Panjab really belong to that race.” In these Provinces they say that they take their name from their ancestor Mughul Khan.

2. In the last Census they are classed under three sub-divisions: Chaghtai, Qazalbash, and Turkman. Writing of Afghanistan Dr. Bellew² says: — “What the origin of these new clans was, whether they were conquered and converted Pathans, who became absorbed into the dominant tribe, and thus, by the mere force of numbers and other favouring circumstances of the period, gave them both their language and social code of laws; or whether they were kindred tribes of Turks imported by Sabaktagin (that is, ‘the one called Sabak;’ as Alaptakin, ‘the one called Alap,’ takin being the distinctive affix of the names of Turk slaves), the founder of the Turk Tatar (as distinguished from the Mongal or Mughul Tatar) dynasty at Ghazni, is not clearly ascertained. Without excluding the possibility of their increase by the occasional immigration of other kindred Turk clans from across the Oxus, it may be considered more probable that the inrease in the clans of the Ghilji took place mostly by the absorption and adoption of subjugated native tribes; for we find several instances of Chaghatai Turk clans living in close proximity to the Ghilji, yet quite distinct from them, and entirely ignorant of any kindred connection with them. Such Turk clans are the Bayat abont Ghazni and Herat, the Carlugh, Chung, and Mughal Turk (Yaka, Chirikcha, etc.) of Balkh, etc. Such also are the Mongol and Chaghatai Turk clans of Mangal, Jaji, Jadran, Khitai, etc., who are settled about the Pewar and the head-waters of the Kurram river, and who were brought to these situations on the invasions of Changhis and Tymur — the Tatar scourges of the world during the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries. These clans, with the exception of the Jadran, though they have almost entirely lost the typical physiognomy of their race, their mother tongue, and indeed, everything else, but their names, which would connect them with their original stock, hold themselves entirely distinct, political relations always excepted, from the Ghilji, who are their neighbours.”

3. Other clans in these Provinces are the Qazalbash or Qizilbash, “red heads”, Uzbak, Turk, Kai, Chak, Tajik. In the Panjab the main tribes are the Chaghtai and Barla. Some of these, especially the Chaghtai, are claimed by the Bhatti Jadons to have descended from them when they were rulers of Ghazni and Zabalistan. The last Imperial family was drawn from the Chaghtai. The Jhojha also call themselves Mughul, but they are supposed to be slaves of Mughul or low caste Hindus converted to Islam by some Mughul nobleman. They are not suffered to intermarry with the Rajput Musulmans, or with any of the pure Muhammadan tribes.³

Distribution of the Mughuls according to the Census of 1891:

Districts	Chaghtai	Qazalbash	Turkman	Others	Total
Dehra Dun	108	—	—	93	201
Saharanpur	477	1	30	1,916	2,424
Muzaffarnagar	305	16	832	578	1,731
Meerut	880	5	40	1,181	2,106
Bulandshahr	780	17	9	1,657	2,463
Aligarh	16	—	101	785	902
Mathura	112	56	15	215	398
Agra	520	26	76	1,400	2,022
Farrukhabad	375	—	27	673	1,075
Mainpuri	100	—	—	117	217
Etawah	162	—	9	460	631
Etah	264	2	15	415	696
Bareilly	1,162	—	1	2,040	3,203
Bijnor	1,341	7	—	489	1,837
Budaun	809	26	3	618	1,456
Moradabad	713	77	2,015	9,629	12,434
Shahjahanpur	721	2	39	561	1,323
Pilibhit	338	—	—	406	744
Fatehpur	708	—	—	594	1,302
Banda	103	2	10	299	414
Hamirpur	—	—	—	468	468
Allahabad	42	—	—	487	529
Jhansi	65	—	—	213	278
Jalaun	122	—	218	317	657
Lalitpur	10	—	1	53	64
Benares	123	—	—	997	1,120
Mirzapur	55	—	—	265	320
Jaunpur	—	—	—	548	548
Ghazipur	227	—	18	319	564
Ballia	17	—	—	193	210
Gorakhpur	332	3	11	943	1,289
Basti	81	—	—	1.696	1,777
Azamgarh	139	—	256	1,632	2,027
Kumaun	—	—	—	10	10
Garhwal	—	—	—	40	40
Tarai	1	—	—	143	144
Lucknow	1,370	673	37	11,143	13,223
Unao	249	6	6	646	907
Rae Bareli	211	27	—	362	600
Sitapur	1,084	69	50	1,225	2,428
Hardoi	—	1	—	427	725
Kheri	864	—	—	520	1,384
Faizabad	1,102	190	—	1,378	2,670
Gonda	780	—	86	527	1,393
Bahraich	429	15	20	883	1,347
Sultanpur	118	—	—	784	902
Partabgarh	38	—	5	348	391
Barabanki	721	—	—	466	1,187
Total	19,038	1,237	3,982	52,416	76,683

¹⁾ Panjab Ethnography, paras. 506, 507.

²⁾ The Races of Afghanistan, 101.

³⁾ Williams, Oudh Census Report, 76; Raja Lahman Sinh, Bulandshahr Memo., 191. sq. 

William Crooke — The Tribes and Castes of the North-Western Provinces and Oudh. Volume [04] (1896)