Jamnagar

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History of the Khojas in Jamnagar State

According to community oral history, the Khojas had the traditional protection of the Jadeja Rajput rulers of Sindh and fled with them to Kutch after the Jadejas defeat against the Samna Muslim tribes of Sindh in early 1400's. This is plausible as the Jadejas were amongst the many fluid and syncretic peoples of Kutch and Kathiawar, which was a contested zone between Islamist conquerors and Indic populations and their rulers, for over a millennia.

The Jádejás have for long been half Hindus half Musalmáns. At the time of Mahmud Begada's conquest (1472), though appearing pagans in their practice, they were anxious to learn the true doctrines of Islám, to some heretical form of which, they had long been converted. In Akbar's time (1590) they were still Musalmáns (A'in-i-Akbari, II. 72), and till the beginning of the present century (1800's),they were quite as much Musalmán as Hindu. In 1818, they took oaths on the Kurán, considered it an authority in law and morals, followed its rules about eating, married freely with Musalman families, and worshipped in mosques. (MacMurdo. Trans. Bom. Lit. Soc. II. 237). Since then under the influences noted above (p. 63, note 3), they have, to a great extent, gone back to their first faith.^[1]

Following a fatal family feud amongst the Jadejas, the Mughal Emperor Jahanghir decided to attack the Jadeja chief, Jam Rawal and so the Jam fled with his entourage out of Kutch, conquered the town of Dhrol and its dependencies in Kathiawar which he bestowed under the rule of his brother Hardholji and went on to conquer other parts of Kathiawar to form his new kingdom.^[2] On the 7th day of the bright half of the month of Srawan, VS 1956 (August 1540 AD) on the banks of two rivers Rangmati and Nagmati, he lay the foundation of his new capital and named it Nawanagar (new town). Nawanagar eventually came to be known as Jamnagar meaning the Town of the Jams.^[3]

In terms of political and military power and economic potential, Nawanagar (founded by Jam Rawal, a political faction which left Kachh in the middle of the sixteenth century) happened to be the most important of these chieftaincies in the peninsula (Abul Fazl 1978: 256). Also known as Little Kachh (Kachh-i khurd) in Mughal accounts, Nawanagar was another sarkar in the province of Gujarat that remained outside of Mughal imperial control. ^[4]

According to popular folklore, the Khojas received grants of free land across the new Jamnagar State from Jam Rawal and went on to establish themselves in all the centres of Kathiawar as traders as well as farmers.

..someone in Mundra connected me to a Mr. Jadeja - a Rajput from Dhrafa. Met and Spoke to him in 2017 - he said that the Rajputs and Khojas Ismailis walked from Jamnagar to Dhrafa, as they could all claim land. There was a thriving Ismaili merchant class there, a Jamatkhana also; and Mohamedali Jinnah was born in Dharafa" ^[5]

See Kanji Jetha Lala a Khoja cultivator with inherited land from the Jam. See Lakha Manji Lalji Surji, a Khoja cultivator from Jamnagar area.

Various merchant communities including the Marwari (originally from Marwar in present day Rajasthan, but dispersed over a large part of the trading world of Eurasia), Bhatia, Khoja, and Memon created extensive inland and overseas trading networks. ^[6]

In the Kathiawar region much cotton was produced as well, mainly in Nawanagar and some parts of Sorath.9 The former was a major center of textile production where the water of the river Rangmati was particularly suitable for bleaching and printing cloth (Ali Mohammad Khan Khatma 1930:^[7]

The Khojas, with their extensive jati communal networks with the exporters from Mundra & Mandvi and their overseas connections in the Western Indian Ocean in Muscat, the Persian Gulf and Eastern Africa including Mozambique and Madagascar, were instrumental in the prosperity of Jamnagar state from its inception.

The agronomy of Kachh and Nawanagar (as that of Ahmadabad, Broach, Baroda, and Surat) had apparently been well commercialized at least since the seventeenth century. Cash crops like indigo and cotton occupied a good proportion of the total cultivable land. Peasants and artisans too seem to have worked in conformity with the demand for particular commodities in order to squeeze the maximum advantage from what was probably a sellers’ market (Prakash 1998: 343). ^[8]

Khoja merchants were involved in the purchase and export of textiles from the Jamnagar area, through the port of Mandvi, to sell to the Dutch East India Company around 1753.

..the Dutch soon contemplated to ask permission from the Raja of Nawanagar to be allowed to trade at that place.25 They got the desired permission through a parwana (a formal letter/an order) issued by the Raja which gave the Company access to this potential region for trading purposes. ^[9]

In the subsequent centuries, many Khojas migrated to Zanzibar and later, others to Mombasa, on their way to establishing successful business ventures in Eastern Africa and the rest of the world.

Jamnagar

History of the Khojas in Jamnagar State

References & Notes

Personal Histories of Jamnagar residents in Khojawiki (2024)

Photo Gallery of Jamnagar

Notes and References