Muslims Pastoralists of Thar, North West Rajasthan

From mungersar der to the pastoral complex of Chhatragarh

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Chhatragarh is located on the right bank of the IGNP main canal around 82km from Bikaner in the north western direction on the Bikaner - Anupgarh route. U

nlike Pugal and Sattasar , Chhatragarh was a made a state directly under the rule of the rajas of Bikaner sometime in the end of the nineteenth century.

It owed it's importance in those days to the fact of being an important settlement on the routes which connected Bikaner with Bahawalpoor and Multan . Situated on the north western frontier of Bikaner it always had strong ties with the settlements across the border spread out along the eastern bank of Indus.

Hindal Khan Chauhan a pastoralist from the Vangrala johadi of Chhatragarh related to us the story of the origin of the settlement of Chhatragarh.

There was a _mungersar der_ where no one used to live. Once two Chauhan muslims from Kela lost their way in the dunes. While looking for the way they felt thirsty and were not carrying water with them. They looked around for water everywhere but couldn't find it. Dejected and tired they sat under a khejri tree waiting for their doom. After some time they saw a sparrow who sat on the slender khejri tree. Seeing drops of water in the wings of the sparrow they thought that there must be water nearby. They looked around amidst the dunes to discover to their surprise a small pit around two feet deep full of sweet water. Both of them drank the life saving water and

came back to Kela.

They told their kinsmen about the place their life got saved. Mungersar der was lucky and had sweet water as well. So they had decided to go, and settle there. Many people dissuaded them but they just didn't listen and went back to the pit with their families and livestock. They tried digging a well there. They would have barely dug some feet that the thakur of Sattasar used to forcibly fill that pit with sand. They pleaded to the raja of Bikaner for help.

The Raja stopped the Thakur and gave the Chouhan pastoralists money to dig the well. In this way they started a settlement and named it Chhatragarh after one of the princes of the Rajas of Bikaner. To make the settlement into a proper village where more people could come and settle they had to get some banias. So two families of Rathi banias was brought from Marot in Bahawalpoor. Five families of Parihar muslims from Raner were brought and were made headmen of the village. In this way the settlement of Chhatragarh came into being. At that time Chhatragarh was a big village which covered the areas of present day villages of Awa, Surjanwali, and Kharwali.

Till 1955-56 one could find Muslims, Nais, Meghwals, Rajputs, Bania, Brahmins residing in the village. Routes to Bikaner were tracks which were sandy and difficult to traverse, the only mode of transport being either camels or on foot. It used to take four days to make a to and fro trip to Bikaner for replenishing the daily necessities of the village.

Having access to a water source was a necessary precondition for settling in Chhatragarh. The semi nomadic pastoral population of Chhatragarh survived on more than twenty five johads or tobas which were either owned by some families or a community. The water structures supported several permanent and kutcha nomadic encampments, where pastoralists lived with their livestock. The region (rohi) around Chattragarh, called Chitrang in local parlance supported some of the best grasslands of sewan, dhaman, bhurat.

-->Chhatragarh got connected to Bikaner though a metal road when the construction work for the IGNP canal began in the early seventies. The construction of the canal in the area, as elsewhere, initiated a process of destruction of grasslands by excessive cutting of Khejri and Phog which were sold in the brick kilns. The only business which attracted the Banias and Joshi Brahmins to the market of Chhatragarh was buying of wool and ghee from the pastoralists and selling the pastoralists items needed by them for daily subsistence.

From a handful of shops which used to deal with only daily necessities which the Chhatragarh bazaar offered have increased,in a span of three decades, from early sixties to nineties to more than eight hundred shops which deal with a wide variety of commodities.

Based on notes of field work in 1993-95

Photo Credits: Vikram Channa

For more on the pastoralism and grasslands of Thar,Read: