Niari

This article is about the Indian caste. For the department of the Republic of the Congo, see Niari Department. For the valley in that department, see Niari Valley. For the river, see Kouilou-Niari River.

Niari are a caste in Odisha .They are similar to the Dewar caste, and belong to the Sebc category.

History

The Niari have a history of being unemployed and poor, and alongside a few other castes, mostly adopted the profession of preparing flattened rice, which has traditionally been an offering to the deity Prasad. According to the Hindu scriptures the caste known as[Puranas-Ganga Dynasty] Radhi/Niari (Region du Niari) belonged to upper caste. In early times they were involved in govt offices but later the kayastha's were moved to this position and then they were moved out of the offices. Later they started their business like running sugar mills and preparing flattened rice. Modern Era: A return has been filed by the State. In paragraph-3 of the counter affidavit it has been averred that: "............ It has been seen from the Record-of-Rights of the Tahasil that caste "Kaibarta" has been recorded against some individual tenants and Niari against some other individual tenants. So the Kaibarta and Niari are two completely different castes having different occupations. The caste Niari has not yet been included in the Orissa Scheduled Caste list. The clarification issued by the Government vide letter No. 25943/HTW dated 22-8-1989 from joint Director-cum-Deputy Secretary to Government, H. & T. W. Department Orissa, Bhubaneswar does not show that Niari is a sub- caste of caste Kaibarta as claimed by the petitioner. In forming a general opinion it is seen at this place that there are some persons belonging to different castes are also occupying the profession of "Chudakuta" and "Mudhibhaja" and also fishing with their own nets. But certainly they are not Kaibarta, Keuta or Dhibara. Therefore Niari cannot be treated as Dewar". So, the Niaris doesn't belong to Kaibarta community or keuta community. They are not included in SC/ST list. Their origin have descended from khsatriya and they have been moved from the govt offices to the local business. Govt of India has denied their inclusion in SC/ST list as it belongs to General caste and they are not included in Kaibarta/keuta. Kaibarta/Keuta are lower caste and have been identified as SC under Govt of India. But Niari (Region du Niari)/Nyayari belong to upper caste whose occupational activity was running local business like sugar mills, mines and making flattened rice and they don't belong to keuta community. [[1]]