Chauhan

Chauhan, Chouhan or Chohan is a caste. In the medieval period some those associated with it ruled parts of Northern India and one, Prithviraj Chauhan, was the king of Delhi.

Myth of origin

Rajput bardic accounts, which are based on mythology, describe the Chauhans as one of the four Agnikula Rajput clans who claim to have originated from a sacrificial fire-pit (agnikunda) at Mount Abu. These claims of supernatural origin are clearly improbable and unacceptable to the modern mind. However, these have numerous variants and give rise to the Chauhans claiming to be a clan of the Agnivanshi dynasty.

Ethnographic status

Denzil Ibbetson, an administrator of the British Raj, classified the Chauhans as a tribe rather than as a caste. He believed, like Nesfield, that the society of the Northwest Frontier Provinces and Punjab in British India did not permit the rigid imposition of an administratively-defined caste construct as his colleague, H. H. Risley preferred. According to Ibbetson, society in Punjab was less governed by Brahmanical ideas of caste, based on varna, and instead was more open and fluid. Tribes, which he considered to be kin-based groups that dominated small areas, were the dominant feature of rural life. Caste designators, such as Jat and Rajput, were status-based titles to which any tribe that rose to social prominence could lay a claim, and which could be dismissed by their peers if they declined. Susan Bayly, a modern anthropologist, considers him to have had "a high degree of accuracy in his observations of Punjab society ... [I]n his writings we really do see the beginnings of modern, regionally based Indian anthropology."

Shivraj Singh Chouhan

Shivraj Singh Chouhan (born 5 March 1959) is the 18th and current Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh, a central Indian state. He replaced Babulal Gaur as chief minister on 29 November 2005. As a leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party, he has served as its general secretary and as president of its Madhya Pradesh state unit. He joined the RSS in 1972, as a 13-year-old. He has been a five-time Member of Parliament, representing Vidisha in the Lok Sabha since 1991. At present, he represents Budhni constituency, a tehsil place in Sehore district, in the Madhya Pradesh assembly. In 2007, he had introduced schemes named as Ladli Laxmi Yojna,Kanyadhan Yojna and Janani Suraksha Yojna to focus on the prevention of female infanticide in the state.

Early life and education

Shivraj Singh Chouhan was born in the family of Prem Singh Chouhan and his wife Sundar Bai Chouhan in the Jait village of Sehore district. Belonging to Kirar community is a gold medalist in M. A. (Philosophy) from Barkatullah University, Bhopal. He is an agriculturist by profession. He was married to Sadhna Singh and they have two sons Kartikey and Kunal.

Bahadur Singh Chouhan

Bahadur Singh Chouhan (born 8 February 1946) is a former Indian athlete who won gold medals in shot put in 1978 and 1982 Asian Games. He was honoured with Arjuna award and Padma Shri. He is a recipient of Dronacharya Award, by the government of India. Presently he is working as a chief coach of Indian athletics team.

References

Madhya Pradesh

Madhya Pradesh (MP) (/ˈmɑːdjə prəˈdɛʃ/,   , meaning Central Province) is a state in central India. Its capital is Bhopal, and the largest city is Indore. Nicknamed the "heart of India" due to its geographical location in India, Madhya Pradesh is the second-largest state in the country by area. With over 75 million inhabitants, it is the sixth-largest state in India by population. It borders the states of Uttar Pradesh to the north-east, Chhattisgarh to the south-east, Maharashtra to the south, Gujarat to the west, and Rajasthan to the northwest.

The area covered by the present-day Madhya Pradesh includes the area of the ancient Avanti mahajanapada, whose capital Ujjain (also known as Avanti) arose as a major city during the second wave of Indian urbanisation in the sixth century BCE. Subsequently, the region was ruled by the major dynasties of India, including the Gurjar pratihara, Mauryans, Gupta Empire, Harshavardhana, then Rajput kings of Paramara, Chandelas, Bundela, Tomaras, subsequently by the Mughals and later by the Marathas. By the early 18th century, the region was divided into several small kingdoms which were captured by the British and incorporated into Central Provinces and Berar and the Central India Agency. After India's independence, Madhya Pradesh state was created with Nagpur as its capital: this state included the southern parts of the present-day Madhya Pradesh and north-eastern portion of today's Maharashtra. In 1956, this state was reorganised and its parts were combined with the states of Madhya Bharat, Vindhya Pradesh and Bhopal to form the new Madhya Pradesh state with Bhopal as its capital; the Marathi-speaking Vidarbha region was removed and merged with the then Bombay State. This state was the largest in India by area until 2000, when its southeastern Chhattisgarh region was made a separate state.