The Kabaria, sometimes pronounced as Kabariya are a Muslim community found in the state of Uttar Pradesh in India, mainly in the Awadh region. A small number of Kabaria are also found in the Terai region of Nepal. They now have Other Backward Class status in Uttar Pradesh.[1][2]
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The community gets its name from the Urdu word kabariya which literally means someone who sells scrap, and they are said to have originally belonged to the Kunjra community, who evolved into a distinct community when they changed their occupation from selling vegetables to scrap. However, the majority of the Kabaria are still involved in the selling of fruits and vegetables. According to their own traditions, they descend from a community of Arain from Punjab who settled in Lucknow. Other traditions make the community to be converts from the Hindu Murao caste.[3]
The Kabaria are found mainly in Lucknow District, both in the city and in villages near the town of Mohanlalganj. A second settlement is found in Bahraich and Balrampur districts.[4] In the 19th Century, a number of Kabaria began to settle in the Terai region of Nepal, in particularly Nepalganj District. They now form an important element in the Muslim population of Nepal.[5]
The Kabaria are strictly endogamous, and practice both parallel cousin and cross cousin marriages. They speak the Awadhi dialect, although most Lucknow Kabaria speak reasonable Urdu, and belong to the Sunni sect. Like other Indian Muslim castes, they have informal caste council, referred to as a panchayat. The panchayat acts as an instrument of social control, resolving intra community disputes, and punishing community members who transcend cultural norms. Each Kabaria settlement contains its own panchayat, but unlike other communities, they have not set a formal caste association.
The Kabaria of Lucknow city are still involved in the selling of fruits and vegetable. They buy their produce at marts from the Kachhi, Kurmi and Murao communities. While the rural Kabaria are small and medium sized farmers, and cultivate wheat, paddy, maize, millets, pulses, sugar cane and vegetables. They have benefited from the land reforms carried out a Indian independence, when land reforms led to tenant farmers becoming proprietors. The Kabaria live in multi-caste and multi-religious villages, occupying their own quarters.[6]