The Paharis of Dinajpur
Pahari or “person of the hills” is a commonly heard term used to refer indiscriminately to the many minority peoples of the Hill Tracts. But in Shahargachhi village of Dinajpur'sGhoraghat are about 400 households of ethnic Paharis.
“I took the title from my father,” says LaluramKabirajPahari, approaching 60. “We are flatland Paharis.” What that means is unclear – the 'flatland' as likely added to distinguish their ethnicity from any of the Hill Tractspeoples to whom they are unrelated.
As Ghoraghat'sPahari community is very poor with low rates of education, much of the clarity of their ancestral origin has been lost. Laluram says his forefathers came from a place called Dumkai.
Members of the small community speak the Pahari language, a term used to describe a wide group of Indo-Aryan languages spoken from Kashmir through the Himalayan foothills to eastern Nepal. Nepali, Kumaoni, Garhwali, Jumli and Palpa are all considered Pahari languages.
Pahari was also an ancient language with origins in Jammu and Kashmir at the time it was a Hindu state. As Buddhism spread across the region, Buddhist priests searched for a new language to replace Sanskrit which was aligned with Hinduism. They created the Pahari language in about 400 BCE. Various scripts developed for writing Pahari, one of which is said to have been introduced by King Asoka.
But with the fall of Buddhism and return to Hinduism, Pahari came into disuse. Its unique scripts were abandoned and the language gradually became infused with words from languages spoken by Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs. Nonetheless, the majority of people in Pakistan-administered Kashmir are considered to be Pahari-speaking, with the language formally acknowledged as distinct from Punjabi in 1969.
As far as Laluram knows, the Hindu Pahari community first settled in Ghoraghat during the British era, when the area was jungle. “There were tigers here,” he heard.
Laluram remembers that even at the time of the birth of his elder son much of the surrounding area was uncleared. “When my son was born I only had a tiny place to sleep with him and his mother and I thought, 'What will become of us?'” This realisation of responsibility he names as the most frightening moment of his life.
Over the years Laluramgradually improved the family home, relying on his work as a kabiraj, a traditional healer, the profession inherited from father and grandfather. He also keeps pigeons.
“Most Paharis work as day-labourers or farmers,” he says of the small community still struggling to find its way out of poverty's grasp. According to the 1991 census there were 1,853 Paharis in Bangladesh.
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