Saini

Clans and Kinship

Saini families are divided into exogamous clans called got. The Anthropological Survey of India, as quoted on Wikipedia, describes the Sainis as an endogamous community that observes exogamy at the level of the village and the gotra. Rose (1911 to 1919) found no large clans except in Hoshiarpur and named the principal gots of Jalandhar and Hoshiarpur, noting that some got names are shared with the Arains; in Gurdaspur the Salahri got was numerous.

The principal gots of Jalandhar and Hoshiarpur and the numerous Salahri got of Gurdaspur, as Rose's glossary gives them; Rose says two of the Jalandhar gots are also found in Hoshiarpur. Spellings are from a scanned copy and may differ from the forms families use today.

In the Official Lists

No listing is shown. Wikipedia says the Sainis are counted among the Other Backward Classes in Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, citing news reports and the Chandigarh administration's OBC list, but none of these lists was opened for this check and no NCBC citation was given. Check the central and state lists for the current entries.

Checked on 2026-11-07 against the sources below. The lists are amended from time to time and can differ by district; for a certificate, the current order or the state's list is what counts.

Name and Origin

H. A. Rose's glossary (1911 to 1919), drawing on Ibbetson and Purser, records two accounts. In Jalandhar the Sainis were said to claim Rajput origin; by their own account to Purser, they were Malis who had lived in the Mathura district and came into the Jalandhar country at the time of Mahmud of Ghazni's invasions, where they took up the land. Wikipedia cites writers who find a common origin with the Malis of Rajasthan who also claim Rajput descent.

History

Rose found the Sainis settled all along the foot of the hills between the valleys of the Yamuna and the Ravi, numerous in Ambala, and holding the Painrla tract of Shakargarh tahsil in Gurdaspur; about one in ten was Sikh. Under British rule, Wikipedia records, they were notified as an agricultural tribe in the Punjab, took up land grants in the canal colonies, especially the Chenab Colony after the Punjab Land Alienation Act of 1900, and served in the army; some landholders were appointed zaildars. Since independence the community has moved into many professions.

Faith and Worship

Rose found about nine in ten Sainis Hindu and one in ten Sikh in the Punjab of his time.

Customs

According to the Anthropological Survey of India, as quoted on Wikipedia, marriage is within the community and outside one's own village and gotra, and remarriage after the death of a spouse and divorce are now permitted.