Variant spelling of begar; forced unpaid labor or compulsory service historically imposed in India.
Alternative transliteration of Hindi begar. The multiple spellings (begar, begari, begary) reflect how English speakers adapted this Hindi/Persian word in the 19th century with no standardized system.
The existence of multiple spellings for 'begari' in English texts shows how colonial languages struggled with non-European concepts—there was no agreed-upon way to write Indian words until modern transliteration systems.
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