Dogar people settled in Punjab during the Medieval period.[2] They have been classified as a branch of the Rajput[3] (a large cluster of interrelated peoples from the Indian subcontinent). Initially a pastoral people, the Dogar took up agriculture in the Punjab, where they became owners of land in the relatively arid central area where cultivation required particularly strenuous work.[4] In addition to cultivating crops such as jowar (millet) and wheat, they seem partly to have continued pastoral practices, sometimes as nomads.[2] The arid conditions proved challenging, especially in the light of competition from peoples with more established agricultural ways (notably the Jats), and over the centuries the Dogar people developed a long-lasting reputation for marauding behaviour,[4] such as animal raiding and other types of theft, including highway robbery.[2]
In the late 17th century, the Dogars residing within the faujdari of Lakhi Jangal (in present-day Multan) were among the tribes that challenged the authority of the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb.[5]
In literature
In the Sufi poet Waris Shah's tragic romance of 1766, Heer Ranjha, Dogars are scorned as commoners (along with Jats and other agricultural groups).[6]
^Gaeffke, P (1991). "Hīr Vāriṡ Śāh, poème panjabi du XVIIIe siècle: Introduction, translittération, traduction et commentaire. Tome I, strophes 1 à 110 by Denis Matringe [review]". Journal of the American Oriental Society. 111 (2): 408–409. doi:10.2307/604050. JSTOR604050. ...and we come across scathing remarks about 'plebeians' such as Jats, Dogars and other agricultural castes.
Rose, HA (1911). "Dogar". A glossary of the tribes and castes of the Punjab and North-West Frontier province. Vol. II. Lahore: Samuel T Weston. pp. 244–246.
