Gowari

Sculpture of a Gowari man in a traditional costume at Shaheed Gowari Memorial, Nagpur

Gowari or Govari is a Hindu caste/ ethnic tribal group predominantly living in Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh states of India. There is no distinct Gowari language, despite it being assigned two ISO codes: gok ("Gowli") and goj ("Gowlan").[1]

Introduction

The Gowari are traditionally cattle herdsmen in Maharashtra (and are neither milk seller nor cow owner).

Distribution

The maximum concentration of their population is in the districts of Nagpur and Gondia[2] where they are around 50 thousand to 1 lakh.

Gowari stampede

Shaheed Gowari Memorial at Zero Mile, Nagpur

There was a stampede during a protest in Nagpur on 23 November 1994 in which 114 people from the Gowari community were killed and more than 500 were injured.

A monument, the Gowari Shaheed Smarak, has been built in Nagpur near Zero Milestone,[3] (the geographical centre of India) to commemorate those who died in this tragedy. Also the nearby flyover (Sitabuldi area, Nagpur) has been named Adivasi Gowari Shaheed flyover.

References

  1. ↑ Hammarström (2015) Ethnologue 16/17/18th editions: a comprehensive review: online appendices
  2. ↑ "सर्व्हर दोष !" (PDF). Maharashtra.gov.in. Retrieved 2015-03-06.
  3. ↑ Archived August 16, 2010, at the Wayback Machine.
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