Beldar Samaj Information
Beldar Samaj Information Who are they? The Beldar, also known as Lonia, are construction workers who till, dig and carry earth and supply bricks, clay and sand to construction sites. Their existence as a distinct community can be traced to the reign of an Afghan ruler of Northern India, Sher Shah Suri (1539-1545 AD). At that time, people who were engaged in construction and road measurement were called Dhakbel. Beldar is derived from the words bel, meaning ‘hoe’, and dar, meaning ‘one who handles the hoe’. Thus, Beldar means ‘one who works with the hoe’. Anthropologist William Crooke (1896) mentions in his study of the Beldar that, “Beldar is a general term for the aggregate of low Hindu tribes who make their living by earth work.” Another authority, Risley (1891), describes them as “a wandering caste of earth workers and natives in Bihar and Western Bengal, many of whom labour, the former digging the earth and the latter removing it in a basket carried ...