What may be called the census approach influenced a great deal of scholarly work. <>
Most associations continue to retain their non-political character. An important idea behind the activities of caste associations is: service to ones caste is service to the nation. Kolis were the largest first-order division in Gujarat. He stated: hereditary specialization together with hierarchical organization sinks into the background in East Africa (293). The urban centres in both the areas, it is hardly necessary to mention, are nucleated settlements populated by numerous caste and religious groups. Once the claim was accepted at either level, hypergamous marriage was possible. Sindhollu, Chindollu. The earliest caste associations were formed in Bombay in the middle of the 19th century among migrants belonging to the primarily urban and upper castes from Gujarat, such as Vanias, Bhatias and Lohanas (see Dobbin 1972: 74-76, 121-30, 227f, 259-61). Simultaneously, there is gradual decline in the strength of the principle of hierarchy, particularly of ritual hierarchy expressed in purity and pollution. In any case, castes are not likely to cease to be castes in the consciousness of people in the foreseeable future. There was not only no pyramid type of arrangement among the many ekdas in a second-order Vania divisionthe type of arrangement found in the Rajput, Leva Kanbi, Anavil and Khedawal divisions-but frequently there was no significant sign of hierarchical relation, except boastful talk, between two neighbouring ekdas. Frequently, social divisions were neatly expressed in street names. I have not yet come across an area where Kolis from three or more different areas live together, excepting modern, large towns and cities. Since Rajput as a caste occurred all over northern, central and western India (literally, it means rulers son, ruling son), the discussion of Rajputs in Gujarat will inevitably draw us into their relationship with Rajputs in other regions. It is not claimed that separation, or even repulsion, may not be present somewhere as an independent factor (1972: 346,n.55b). Dowry not only continues to be a symbol of status in the new hierarchy but is gradually replacing bride price wherever it existed, and dowry amounts are now reaching astronomical heights. This was because political authorities were hierarchized from little kingdom to empire and the boundaries of political authorities kept changing. All of this information supports the point emerging from the above analysis, that frequently there was relatively little concern for ritual status between the second-order divisions within a first- order division than there was between the first-order divisions. Vankar is described as a caste as well as a community. Village studies, as far as caste is a part of them, have been, there fore, concerned with the interrelations between sections of various castes in the local context. Both Borradaile and Campbell were probably mixing up small endogamous units of various kinds. The change from emphasis on hierarchy to emphasis on division is becoming increasingly significant in view of the growth of urban population both in absolute number and in relation to the total population. 91. Plagiarism Prevention 4. They worked not only as high priests but also as bureaucrats. Britain's Industrial Revolution was built on the de-industrialisation of India - the destruction of Indian textiles and their replacement by manufacturing in England, using Indian raw materials and exporting the finished products back to India and even the rest of the world. Roughly, while in the plains area villages are nucleated settlements, populated by numerous castes, in the highland area villages are dispersed settlements, populated by tribes and castes of tribal origin. Nor were ekdas and tads entirely an urban phenomenon. Another clearly visible change in caste in Gujarat is the emergence of caste associations. Marriages were usually confined to neighbouring villages, so that marriage links were spread in a continuous manner from one end of the region to another. To have a meaningful understanding of the system of caste divisions, there is no alternative but to understand the significance of each order of division and particularly the nature of their boundaries and maintenance mechanisms. The associations activities in the field of marriage, such as reform to customs, rituals and ceremonies, and encouragement of inter-divisional marriages, are also seen by the members as a service to the nationas the castes method of creating a casteless modern society. There were about three hundred divisions of this order in the region as a whole. For example, among the Vanias the most general rule was that a marriage of a boy could be arranged with any girl who was bhane khapati, i.e., with whom he was permitted to have commensal relations (roti vyavahar). We will now analyze the internal structure of a few first-order divisions, each of which was split into divisions going down to the fourth order. Unfortunately, such figures are not available for the last fifty years or so. For example, just as there was a Shrimali division among Sonis (goldsmiths). Typically, a village consists of the sections of various castes, ranging from those with just one household to those with over u hundred. For example, a good number of villages in central Gujarat used to have both Talapada and Pardeshi Kolis and Brahmans belonging to two or three of their many second-order divisions. James Campbell (1901: xii), the compiler of gazetteers for the former Bombay presidency comprising several linguistic regions, wrote about Gujarat: In no part of India are the subdivisions so minute, one of them, the Rayakval Vanias, numbering only 47 persons in 1891. Moreover, a single division belonging to any one of the orders may have more than one association, and an association may be uni-purpose or multi-purpose. There were similar problems about the status of a number of other divisions. It is easy to understand that the pattern of change would be different in those first-order divisions (such as Rajput) or second-order divisions (such as Leva Kanbi) which did not have within them subdivisions of lower orders and which practised hypergamy extensively. The Rajputs relationship with the Kolis penetrated every second-order division among them, i.e., Talapada, Pardeshi, Chumvalia, Palia, and so on. Since Vankars were involved in production and business they were known as Nana Mahajans or small merchants. 2 0 obj
I have done field work in two contiguous parts of Gujarat: central Gujarat (Kheda district and parts of Ahmedabad and Baroda districts) and eastern Gujarat (Panchmahals district). Of particular importance seems to be the fact that a section of the urban population was more or less isolatedsome may say, alienatedfrom the rural masses from generation to generation. In some parts of Gujarat they formed 30 to 35 per cent of the population. I will not discuss the present situation in detail but indicate briefly how the above discussion could be useful for understanding a few important changes in modern times. Frequently, the urban population of such a division performed more specialized functions than did the rural one. While we do get evidence of fission of caste divisions of a higher order into two or more divisions of a lower order, the mere existence of divisions of a lower order should not be taken as evidence of fission in a division of a higher order. Srinivas has called the unity of the village manifested in these interrelations the vertical unity of the village (1952: 31f. Literally, ekda meant unit, and gol circle, and both signified an endogamous unit. This list may not reflect recent changes. The following 157 pages are in this category, out of 157 total. It is not easy to find out if the tads became ekdas in course of time and if the process of formation of ekdas was the same as that of the formation of tads. There was apparently a close relation between a castes internal organization and the size and spatial distribution of its population. It reflects, on the one hand, the political aspirations of Kolis guided by the importance of their numerical strength in electoral politics and on the other hand, the Rajputs attempt to regain power after the loss of their princely states and estates. The castes pervaded by hierarchy and hypergamy had large populations spread evenly from village to village and frequently also from village to town over a large area. All the small towns sections in each of the ekdas resented that, while the large town section accepted brides from small towns, they did not reciprocate. These linkages played an important role in the traditional social structure as well as in the processes of change in modern India. They took away offerings made to Shiva, which was considered extremely degrading. While the Rajputs, Leva Patidars, Anavils and Khedawals have been notorious for high dowries, and the Kolis have been looked down upon for their practice of bride price, the Vanias have been paying neither. Our analysis of the internal organization of caste divisions has shown considerable variation in the relative role of the principles of division and hierarchy. A first-order division could be further divided into two or more second-order divisions. Castes which did not sit together at public feasts, let alone at meals in homes, only 15 or 20 years ago, now freely sit together even at meals in homes. Reference to weaving and spinning materials is found in the Vedic Literature. . The decline was further accelerated by the industrial revolution. Hence as we go down the hierarchy we encounter more and more debates regarding the claims of particular lineages to being Rajput so much so that we lose sight of any boundary and the Rajput division merges imperceptibly into some other division. Hence started farming and small scale business in the British Raj to thrive better conditions ahead to maintain their livelihood. Frequently, The ekdas or gols were each divided into groups called tads (split). Usually, these divisions were distinguished from one another by prohibition of what people called roti vyavahar (bread, i.e., food transactions) as well as beti vyavahar (daughter, i.e., marital transactions). Until recently, sociologists and anthropologists described Indian society as though it had no urban component in the past. As could be expected, there were marriages between fairly close kin, resulting in many overlapping relationships, in such an endogamous unit. Data need to be collected over large areas by methods other than those used in village studies, castes need to be compared in the regional setting, and a new general approach, analytical framework, and conceptual apparatus need to be developed. endobj
In all there were about eighty such divisions. To take one sensitive area of purity/pollution behaviour, the concern for observance of rules of commensality has greatly declined not only in urban but also in rural areas. Third, although two or more new endogamous units came into existence and marriage between them was forbidden thereafter, a number of pre-existing kinship and affinal relationships continued to be operative between them. The guiding ideas were samaj sudharo (social reform) and samaj seva (social service). How many sub-divisions existed in the various divisions of the various orders is a matter of empirical investigation. The Chumvalias and Patanwadias migrated possibly from the same tract and continued to belong to the same horizontal unit after migration. But there was also another process. The census reports provide such figures until 1931, but it is well known that these pose many problems for sociological analysis, most of which arise out of the nature of castes as horizontal units. Till the establishment of democratic polity in 1947, hardly any caste association in Gujarat had manifest political functions. endobj
Moreover, some leading Anavils did not wish to be bothered about Brahman status, saying that they were just Anavil. Similarly, although the number of marriages between the second-order divisions in the Vania division, i.e., between Khadayata, Modh, Shrimali, Lad, Vayada, etc., has been increasing, the majority of marriages take place within the respective second-order divisions. One important first-order division, namely, Rajput, does not seem to have had any second-order division at all. Together they provide a slice of Gujarati society from the sea- coast to the bordering highlands. For example, among Vanias in a large town like Ahmedabad many of the thirty or forty second-order divisions (such as Khadayata, Modh, Porwad, Shrimali, and so on) were represented. The Kayatias main occupation was to perform a ritual on the eleventh day after death, during which they took away offerings made to ghosts: this was the main cause of their extremely low status among Brahmans. stream
100 Most Popular Indian Last Names Or SurnamesWhy Don't Tamil People Have Last Names?-----A . Thus, the result was the spread of the population of a caste division towards its fringes. This stratum among the Kanbis coped with the problem mainly by practising remarriage of widows and divorced women. For example, the Khadayata Brahmans worked as priests at important rituals among Khadayata Vanias. The pattern of inter-divisional marriages shows how the idea of free marriage, which guides most of the inter-caste marriages, is restricted, modified, and graded according to the traditional structure of caste divisions. Although some of them set up shops in villages they rarely became full-fledged members of the village community. Significantly, a large number of social thinkers and workers who propagated against the hierarchical features of caste came from urban centres. The patterns of change in marriage and in caste associations are two of the many indications of the growing significance of the principle of division (or separation or difference) in caste in urban areas in Gujarat. In the case of some of them the small population was so dispersed that a division such as that of barbers, blacksmiths, or carpenters, would be represented by only one or two households in each village and by a significant number of households in towns. It used to have a panch (council of leaders) and sometimes also a headman (patel). In 1931, the Rajputs of all strata in Gujarat had together a population of about 35,000 forming nearly 5 per cent of the total population of Gujarat. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. In all there were thirty to forty such divisions. Moreover, the king himself belonged to some caste (not just to the Kshatriya Varna) and frequently a number of kings belonged to the same caste (e.g., Rajput). Although my knowledge is fragmentary, I thought it was worthwhile to put together the bits and pieces for the region as a whole. For describing the divisions of the remaining two orders, it would be necessary to go on adding the prefix sub but this would make the description extremely clumsy, if not meaningless. While fission did occur, fusion could also occur. A block printed and resist-dyed fabric, whose origin is from Gujarat was found in the tombs of Fostat, Egypt. ), as contrasted with the horizontal unity of the caste. Tirgaar, Tirbanda. The Hindu and Muslim kingdoms in Gujarat during the medieval period had, of course, their capital towns, at first Patan and then Ahmedabad. This meant that he could marry a girl of any subdivision within the Vania division. The purpose is not to condemn village studies, as is caste in a better perspective after deriving insights from village studies. For example, there were Khedawal Brahmans but not Khedawal Vanias, and Lad Vanias but no Lad Brahmans. Tapodhans were priests in Shiva temples. There was also a tendency among bachelors past marriageable age to establish liaisons with lower-caste women, which usually led the couple to flee and settle down in a distant village. endobj
Advances in manufacturing technologies flooded markets in India and abroad with cheap, mass-produced fabrics that Indian handlooms could no longer compete with. Frequently, marriages were arranged in contravention of a particular rule after obtaining the permission of the council of leaders and paying a penalty in advance. The co-residence of people belonging to two or more divisions of the lower orders within a division of a higher order has been a prominent feature of caste in towns and cities. Indeed, a major achievement of Indian sociology during the last thirty years or so has been deeper understanding of caste in the village context in particular and of its hierarchical dimension in general. Firstly, there were divisions whose population was found almost entirely in towns. Hypergamy was accompanied by sanskritization of at least a section of the tribal population, their claim to the Kshatriya Varna and their economic and political symbiosis with the caste population. Content Guidelines 2. (surname) Me caste; Mer (community) Meta Qureshi; Mistri caste; Miyana (community) Modh; Motisar (caste) Multani Lohar; Muslim Wagher; Mutwa; N . Almost every village in this area included at least some Leva population, and in many villages they formed a large, if not the largest, proportion of the population. This category has the following 18 subcategories, out of 18 total. They also continued to have marital relations with their own folk. They have been grouped in Vaishya category of Varna system. They married their daughters into higher Rajput lineages in the local area who in turn married their daughters into still higher nearly royal rajput lineages in Saurashtra and Kachchh. The freedom struggle brought the Indian handloom sector back to the fore, with Mahatma Gandhi spearheading the Swadeshi cause. Most of the other eighty or so second-order divisions among Brahmans, however, seem to be subdivided the way the Vania second-order divisions were subdivided into third-order and fourth-order divisions. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Category:Social_groups_of_Gujarat&oldid=1080951156, Social groups of India by state or union territory, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 4 April 2022, at 12:36. As Ghurye pointed out long ago, slow consolidation of the smaller castes into larger ones would lead to three or four large groups being solidly organized for pushing the interests of each even at the cost of the others. Whatever the internal organization of a second-order division, the relationship between most of the Brahman second-order divisions was marked by great emphasis on being different and separate than on being higher and lower. If the Varna divisions are taken into account, then this would add one more order to the four orders of caste divisions considered above. * List of Scheduled Tribes in Gujarat; A. . There was also a third category called Pancha, derived from the word punch (meaning 5) and denoting extremely low Vania. In effect, the Vania population in a large town like Ahmedabad could have a considerable number of small endogamous units of the third or the fourth order, each with its entire population living and marrying within the town itself. There would be a wide measure of agreement with him on both these counts. The small ekda or tad with its entire population residing in a single town was, of course, not a widespread phenomenon. New Jersey had the highest population of Mehta families in 1920. Besides the myths, the members of a second-order division, belonging to all ekdas, shared certain customs and institutions, including worship of a tutelary deity. The census operations, in particular, spread as they were over large areas, gave a great impetus to writings on what Srinivas has called the horizontal dimension of caste (1952: 31f;1966: 9,44,92,98-100,114-17). Division and hierarchy have always been stressed as the two basic principles of the caste system. First, since the tads were formed relatively recently, it is easier to get information about their formation than about the formation of ekdas. A large proportion, if not the whole, of the population of many of such divisions lived in towns. Traditionally, the Brahman division was supposed to provide the priests for the corresponding divisions. Similarly, the Vanias were divided into such divisions as Disawal, Kapol, Khadayata, Lad, Modh, Nagar, Nima, Porwad, Shirmali, Vayada, and Zarola. It has already been mentioned that every first-order division was not divided into second-order divisions, and that every second-order division was not divided into third-order divisions, and so on. The Kolis seem to have had only two divisions in every part of Gujarat: for example, Talapada (indigenous) and Pardeshi (foreign) in central Gujarat and Palia and Baria in eastern Gujarat (significantly, one considered indigenous and the other outsider). Usually, a single Koli division had different local names in different parts of Gujarat, but more about this later. For example, in a Rajput kingdom the families of the Rajput king and his nobles resided in the capital town, while the Rajput landlords and cultivators resided in villages. Apparently this upper boundary of the division was sharp and clear, especially when we remember that many of these royal families practised polygyny and female infanticide until middle of the 19th century (see Plunkett 1973; Viswa Nath 1969, 1976). State Id State Name Castecode Caste Subcaste 4 GUJARAT 4001 AHIR SORATHA 4 GUJARAT 4002 AHIR 4 GUJARAT 4003 ANSARI 4 GUJARAT 4004 ANVIL BRAHMIN 4 GUJARAT 4005 ATIT BAYAJI BAKSHI PANCH 4 GUJARAT 4006 BAJANIYA 4 GUJARAT 4007 BAJIR . Similarly, in Saurashtra, the Talapadas were distinguished from the Chumvalias, immigrants from the Chumval tract in north Gujarat. It will readily be agreed that the sociological study of Indian towns and cities has not made as much progress as has the study of Indian villages. They had an internal hierarchy similar to that of the Leva Kanbis, with tax-farmers and big landlords at the top and small landowners at the bottom. Asking different questions and using different methods are necessary. So instead of a great exporter of finished products, India became an importer of British, while its share of world export fell from 27% to two percent. Second, there used to be intense intra-ekda politics, and tads were formed as a result of some continuing conflict among ekda leaders and over the trial of violation of ekda rules. It was also an extreme example of a division having a highly differentiated internal hierarchy and practising hypergamy as an accepted norm. The handloom weavers of Gujarat, Maharastra and Bengal produced and exported some of the world's most desirable fabrics. Limitations of the holistic view of caste, based as it is mainly on the study of the village, should be realized in the light of urban experience. The village was a small community divided into a relatively small number of castes; the population of each caste was also small, sometimes only one or two households, with little possibility of existence of subdivisions; and there were intensive relationships of various kinds between the castes. This last name is predominantly found in Asia, where 93 percent of Limbachiya reside; 92 percent reside in South Asia and 92 percent reside in Indo-South Asia. Ideally, castes as horizontal units should he discussed with the help of population figures. The marital alliances of the royal families forming part of the Maratha confederacy, and of the royal families of Mysore in south India and of Kashmir and Nepal in the north with the royal families of Gujarat and Rajasthan show, among other things, how there was room for flexibility and how the rule of caste endogamy could be violated in an acceptable manner at the highest level. We have seen how one second-order division among Brahmans, namely, Khedawal, was marked by continuous internal hierarchy and strong emphasis on hypergamy on the one hand and by absence of effective small endogamous units on the other. They co-existed in the highlands with tribes such as the Bhils, so much so that today frequently many high caste Gujaratis confuse them with Bhils, as did the earlier ethnographers. For example, just as there were Modh Vanias, there were Modh Brahmans, and similarly Khadayata Vanias and Khadayata Brahmans, Shrimali Vanias and Shrimali Brahmans, Nagar Vanias and Nagar Brahmans, and so on. In central Gujarat, at least from about the middle of the 18th century, the population of the wealthy and powerful Patidar section of the Kanbis also lived in townsan extremely interesting development of rich villages into towns, which I will not describe here. While some of the divisions of a lower order might be the result of fission, some others might be a result of fusion. There is enormous literature on these caste divisions from about the middle of the 19th century which includes census reports, gazetteers, [] Leva Kanbis, numbering 400,000 to 500,000 m 1931, were the traditional agricultural caste of central Gujarat. 3 0 obj
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Since the beginning of the modern reform movement to encourage inter-caste marriages-most of which are in fact inter-tad or inter-ekda marriagesthe old process of fission into ekdas and tads has come to a halt, and it is, therefore, difficult to understand this process without making a systematic historical enquiry. Caste divisions of the first-order can be classified broadly into three categories. Although they claimed to be Brahman they were closely associated with agriculture. [CDATA[ A great deal of discussion of the role of the king in the caste system, based mainly on Indological literature, does not take these facts into account and therefore tends to be unrealistic. In 1920 there were 2 Mehta families living in New Jersey. The most important example of primarily political caste association is the Gujarat Kshatriya Sabha. Inclusion of a lower-order division in a higher-order one and distinction between various divisions in a certain order was not as unambiguous. window.__mirage2 = {petok:"uGhRfiuY26l2oZgRlfZRFSp4BWPIIt7Gh61sQC1XrRU-3600-0"}; The primarily rural and lower castes were the last to form associations and that too mainly after independence (1947). Each unit was ranked in relation to others, and many members of the lower units married their daughters into the higher units, so that almost every unit became loose in the course of time. Pocock goes on to observe that diminution of emphasis upon hierarchy and increasing emphasis upon difference are features of caste in modern, particularly urban, India: there is a shift from the caste system to individual castes and this reflects the change that is taking place in India today (290). Sometimes a division corresponding to a division among Brahmans and Vanias was found in a third first-order division also. In many villages in Gujarat, particularly in larger villages, one or two first-order divisions would be represented by more than one second-order division. If this rule was violated, i.e., if he married a girl with whom the Vanias did not have commensal relations, the maximum punishment, namely, excommunication, was imposed. The two considered themselves different and separateof course, within the Kanbi foldwhere they happened to live together in the villages in the merger zone between north and central Gujarat and in towns. A block printed and resist-dyed fabric, whose origin is from Gujarat was found in the tombs of Fostat, Egypt. The indigenous Kolis in the highland area of Pal in eastern Gujarat were called Palia, but there was another smaller population of KoUs, who were locally called Baria but were actually Talapada immigrants from central Gujarat. (Frequently, such models are constructed a priori rather than based on historical evidence, but that is another story). There was considerable elaboration in urban areas of what Ghurye long ago called the community aspect of caste (1932: 179) and frequently, this led to juxtaposition rather than hierarchy between caste divisions of the same order. No analytical gains are therefore likely to occur by calling them by any other name. The urban community included a large number of caste groups as well as social groups of other kinds which tended to be like communities with a great deal of internal cohesion. The incidence of exchange marriages and of bachelors in the lowest stratum among the Anavils also was high. www.opendialoguemediations.com. According to the Rajputs I know in central Gujarat, the highest stratum among them consisted of the royal families of large and powerful kingdoms in Gujarat and neighbouring Rajasthan, such as those of Bhavnagar, Jamnagar, Kachchh, Porbandar, Bikaner, Idar, Jaipur, Jaisalmer, Jodhpur, Udaipur, and so on. Usually it consisted of wealthy and powerful lineages, distinguishing themselves by some appellation, such as Patidar among the Leva Kanbi, Desai among the Anavil, and Baj among the Khedawal. With the exclusion of caste (except scheduled caste) from the census since 1951 (practically since 1941, because the census of that year did not result in much reporting), writings on castes as horizontal units greatly declined. What I am trying to point out, however, is that greater emphasis on division (Pococks difference, Dumonts separation. When divisions are found within a jati, the word sub-jati or sub-caste is used. They are divided into two main sub-castes: Leuva Patels and Kadva Patels, who claim to be descendants of Ram's twins Luv and Kush respectively. One of the reasons behind underplaying of the principle of division by Dumont as well as by others seems to be the neglect of the study of caste in urban areas (see Dumonts remarks in 1972: 150). Vankar is described as a caste as well as a community. The division had an elaborate internal hierarchy, with wealthy and powerful landlords and tax-farmers at the top and small landholders, tenants and labourers at the bottom. The Kolis in such an area may not even be concerned about a second-order divisional name and may be known simply as Kolis.