Balija is a sub-caste of the Kapu caste. Most Balijas refer to themselves as "Kapu"or "Telaga" in Andhra and as "Munnuru Kapu" in Telangana. In the Rayalaseema area (where "Kapu" refers to the Reddy community), they call themselves "Balija", "Setty" or "Balija Naidu". Balija is the only sub-caste of the Kapu caste which bears both the titles "Setty" and "Naidu".
Origins
Primarily traders or agriculturists by occupation they seem to have been formed by a small social change that seem to have occurred among some sections of the Kapu community according to some historians. The original Balijas seem to have migrated from the Balijipeta, Srikakulam District.
Veera Balaingyas were mentioned in Kakatiya dynasty inscriptions as powerful and wealthy merchants who were highly respected in the Kakatiya society. The Balijas were primarily tax collectors and merchants.
Thurston and Rangachari describe the Telugu trading classes as fire-born merchant and artisan castes: Balijas (with their offshoots Kavarais and Janappans) believe they originated when their God Chamundeshwari threw rice into the sacrificial fire from which a host of warriors sprang out.
Acording to David West Rudner in 'Religious Gifting and Inland Commerce in Seventeenth-Century South India' (The Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 46, No. 2 (May, 1987), page 361): "Balija Chettis are a caste that fissioned off from Balija Nayaks ("warrior") caste as recent as the 19th century. Accordingly they have closer kinship ties to these Nayak warriors than to Chetti merchants".
According to the 1891 census data, the merchant groups of Agrawal, Khatri, Balija, Barnwal together constituted just 5% of the population. However, in the census of 1981 (2), Balija formed 22.5% of the total population of Andhra Pradesh. It may be hypothesised that the Balija grouping received members from other castes during this time as a generic term for 'trader'. This may be so expected since the ties of kin and caste did play an important but unexplored role in South Indian commerce (Refer: Caste and Capitalism in Colonial India).
[edit] Origin of the name
R.V. Russell in the bookThe Tribes and Castes of Central Provinces of India, recorded that the "name of Balija seems also to have been applied to a mixed caste started by Basava, the founder of the Lingayat sect of Saivites..". A. Vijaya Kumari and Sepuri Bhaskar in their book 'Social Change Among Balijas' suggest that the name Balija either comes from a dynasty belonging to King Balichakravarthi (also known as Mahabali) or from the Sankrit 'Bali' (sacrifice) and 'Ja' (born), meaning 'born from sacrifice'.
