रौनियार वैश्य समाज

The Roniaur are a Vaishya caste found in North India. They are also known as Rauniyar and sometimes Roniyar. Like many other North India Bania castes, they use Gupta and Prasad as surnames.

The Rauniyar/ Rouniyar / Rownier / Roniaur are a sub-group within the Bania community, and they get their name from the Hindi word 'rauna'. They are found throughout Bihar, Eastern UP, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Chhatishgarh but their main concentration is the Sasaram. In addition, there are also small communities found inGorakhpur, Lucknow, Mirzapur, Ballia, Lucknow, Kanpur Varanasi in Uttar Pradeshand the Saran District, Patna, Danapur, Ranchi, Bokaro in Bihar. They speak Bhojpuri/ Awadhi among themselves, and Hindi with outsiders. Like other Banias, they are non vegetarians aswell vegetarians.

Origin

In Bihar, the Rauniyar are also known as Rouniyar. They claim to have come fromAwadh some three hundred years. The Roniaur are found mainly in the districts of Muzaffarpur, East Champaran, West Champaran, Munger, Bhagalpur, Nawada andGaya. Their common surnames are Sah, Sahu, Gupta, Kesri and Modi. They are strictly endogamous, and practice clan exogamy. The Ronoaur speak Maithili in north east Bihar and Bhojpuri in western Bihar.

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Present circumstances

The Roniaur / Rauniyar/Rouniyar are a landless community, and their traditional occupation has been the selling of food grains and pulses. They are often the petty shopkeepers in the villages of north Awadh. A few Roniaur were jagirdars, but they rarely ever cultivated their own land, depending on sharecroppers. Their customs are similar to other Awadh Bania, such as the Omar.

In Bihar, the Roniaur were both traders and landowners. Many were substantialjagirdars, but with the land reforms carried out after independence in 1947, and seen a break up of the larger estates in Bihar. Like other Bania communities, they are partially poor and undergoing urbanization. Many rural Raniaur are village shopkeepers and money lenders. They have a state wide caste association, the Raniaur Mahasabha, which acts both as an instrument of social control as well as a communal welfare association. It should be noted that noted literary figure and one of the greatest publishers of his time Acharya Ramlochan Saran was also a Roniaur.He was the direct descendent of the last Hindu emperor of India -Hemu Vikramaditya,Many of his surviving relatives live in India ,Nepal and United States of America. for details visit at www.rouniyar.com

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