Gora is a South Asian adjective for a yellow-skinned or light-brown person, whether India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

n, Pakistan

Pakistan

Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...

i or from other regions. The word literally means "white" or "fair-skinned" in Indo-Aryan languages

Indo-Aryan languages

The Indo-Aryan languages constitutes a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages, itself a branch of the Indo-European language family...

 like Hindustani

Hindustani language

Hindi-Urdu is an Indo-Aryan language and the lingua franca of North India and Pakistan. It is also known as Hindustani , and historically, as Hindavi or Rekhta...

 (Hindi-Urdu), and Punjabi

Punjabi language

Punjabi is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by inhabitants of the historical Punjab region . For Sikhs, the Punjabi language stands as the official language in which all ceremonies take place. In Pakistan, Punjabi is the most widely spoken language...

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Although the word distinctly means "yellowish", it is sometimes used informally to include any light-skinned person, whether light-brown, yellow or even white. In place names that date back to the colonial era - there are a number of graveyards in Pakistan such as the Gora Qabristan (the lighter-skinned graveyard) in Peshawar

Peshawar

Peshawar is the capital of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and the administrative center and central economic hub for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan....

, the Gora Kabrastan in Karachi

Karachi

Karachi is the largest city, main seaport and the main financial centre of Pakistan, as well as the capital of the province of Sindh. The city has an estimated population of 13 to 15 million, while the total metropolitan area has a population of over 18 million...

, as well as one in Chillianwala

Chillianwala

Chellianwala is a town and union council of Mandi Bahauddin District in the Punjab province of Pakistan. It is located at 32°39'0N 73°36'0E at an altitude of 218 metres and lies to the north-east of the district capital Mandi Bahauddin...

, the site of a famous battle

Battle of Chillianwala

The Battle of Chillianwala was fought during the Second Anglo-Sikh War in the Chillianwala region of Punjab, now part of modern-day Pakistan. The battle was one of the bloodiest fought by the British East India Company. Both armies held their positions at the end of the battle and both sides...

 involving the British East India Company

British East India Company

The East India Company was an early English joint-stock company that was formed initially for pursuing trade with the East Indies, but that ended up trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent and China...

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According to the Natyasastra, an Indian text, the term refers to "yellowish-reddish". Because of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu's explicitly yellow skin, he was termed "Gauranga".

Usage in Britain and among anglophones on the Subcontinent

The term gora is often used by British Asian

British Asian

British Asian is a term used to describe British citizens who descended from mainly South Asia, also known as South Asians in the United Kingdom...

s and among English-speaking South Asians in the Subcontinent to refer to white people

White people

White people is a term which usually refers to human beings characterized, at least in part, by the light pigmentation of their skin...

, the feminine form being gori. The plural term gore is also used to refer to white people of both genders. In this form it has taken on racial connotations so has acquired the status of a slur, though it is not inherently pejorative.