What is "rankhandi"

Rankhandi is a village in Saharanpur district of Uttar Pradesh, located 7 kilometers from Deoband. It served as a research site for the Cornell University researchers in Anthropology / Sociology. Cornell maintains research documents on the Rankhandi project in its archives.

The village is largely inhabited by the Pundir Rajputs and has been a major centre of education in the area for many years. Its intermediate level school is the Thakur Phool Singh Memorial Intercollege (formerly Kissan Vidyalya). Other castes in the village include the Brahmin, Kori, Gosain, Barhai and Ranghar.

Cornell also helped establish a hostel, called the Cornell Hostel, for the Thakur Phool Singh School. Now there is also a degree college called Kripal Singh memorial providing graduation and masters degree in various courses.