endobj Although my knowledge is fragmentary, I thought it was worthwhile to put together the bits and pieces for the region as a whole. It owned corporate property, usually in the form of vadis (large buildings used for holding feasts and festivals, accommodating wedding guests, and holding meetings), huge utensils for cooking feasts, and money received as fees and fines. This was about 22% of all the recorded Mehta's in USA. Asking different questions and using different methods are necessary. The handloom weavers of Gujarat, Maharastra and Bengal produced and exported some of the world's most desirable fabrics. In all there were thirty to forty such divisions. Marco Polo a Venetian merchant on his visit to India in 13th century Gujarat observed that "brocading art of Gujarat weavers is par excellent". These coastal towns were involved in trade among themselves, with other towns on the rest of the Indian sea coast, and with many foreign lands. In each of these three divisions the top stratum was clear. 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. It seems the highland Bhils (and possibly also other tribes) provided brides to lower Rajputs in Gujarat. All Brahman divisions did not, however, have a corresponding Vania division. The highland Bhils seem to have provided brides to lower Rajputs on the other side of the highlands also, i.e., to those in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh (see, for example, Doshi, 1971: 7f., 13-15; Aurora 1972: 16, 32f.). The idea of inter-caste marriage is, moreover, linked with the idea of creating such a society involves a compromise with, if not subtle negation of, the ideal. They adopted Rajput customs and traditions, claimed Rajput status, and gave daughters in marriage to Rajputs in the lower rungs of Rajput hierarchy. Most of them were, true to their name, rulers at various levels of the political hierarchy from the kingly level to the level of dominant caste in many villages. The primarily urban castes linked one town with another; the primarily rural linked one village with another; and the rural-cum-urban linked towns with villages in addition to linking both among themselves. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. 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 decline was further accelerated by the industrial revolution. 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. For example, among the Khadayata Vanias there are all-Khadayata associations as well as associations for the various ekdas and sometimes even for their tads (see Shah, Ragini 1978). 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. A fundamental difficulty with these paradigms of change, as indicated by the above analysis, is that they are based on a partial conception of the systematic or structural whole in the past partially because it does not cover the urban situation and the complexity of horizontal units. Kuntasi, Lothal and Somnath of Gujarat regions in Harrapan civilization were familiar with weaving and the spinning of cotton for as long as four thousand years ago. While almost all the social structures and institutions which existed in villagesreligion, caste, family, and so onalso existed in towns, we should not assume that their character was the same. 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. Patidars or Patels claim themselves to be descendants of Lord Ram. Thus, while each second-order Koli division maintained its boundaries vis-a-vis other such divisions, each was linked with the Rajputs. As regards the specific case of the Rajput-Koli relationship, my impression is that, after the suppression of female infanticide in the first half of the 19th century, the later prohibition of polygyny, and the recent removal of princely states and feudal land tenures among the Rajputs on the one hand, and the increasing sanskritization as well as Rajputization among the Kolis on the other, marriage ties between these divisions have become more extensive than before. The degree of contravention is less if the couple belong, let us say, to two different fourth-order divisions within a third-order division than if they belong to two different third-order divisions within a second-order division, and so on. But during the 18th century, when the Mughal Empire was disintegrating, a large number of small kingdoms came into existence, and each had a small capital town of its own. There is a patterned widening of the connubial field along an area chalked out historically. The members of a kings caste were thus found not only in his own kingdom but in other kingdoms as well. To obtain a clear understanding of the second-order divisions with the Koli division, it is necessary first of all to find a way through the maze of their divisional names. Although the ekda or tad was the most effective unit for endogamy, each unit of the higher order was also significant for endogamy. Within each of these divisions, small endogamous units (ekdas, gols, bandhos) were organized from time to time to get relief from the difficulties inherent in hypergamy. 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). I shall first provide an analysis of caste in the past roughly during the middle of the 19th century, and then deal with changes in the modern times. History. 3 0 obj I am dealing here only with certain typical situations. Bougies repulsion) rather than on hierarchy was a feature of caste in certain contexts and situations in traditional India, and increasing emphasis on division in urban Indian in modern times is an accentuation of what existed in the past. Privacy Policy 8. More common was an ekda or tad having its population residing either in a few neighbouring villages, or in a few neighbouring towns, or in both. The most important example of primarily political caste association is the Gujarat Kshatriya Sabha. Many of these names were also based on place names. 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. There were similar problems about the status of a number of other divisions. 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. What I am trying to point out, however, is that greater emphasis on division (Pococks difference, Dumonts separation. Until recently, sociologists and anthropologists described Indian society as though it had no urban component in the past. Created Date: The Khadayatas were divided into about 30 ekdas. This reflects the high degree of divisiveness in castes in Gujarat. Because of these two major factors, one economic and the other political, Gujarat at the beginning of the 19th century had a large urban population, distributed over a large number of small towns. 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. It is not claimed that separation, or even repulsion, may not be present somewhere as an independent factor (1972: 346,n.55b). Many primarily rural castes, such as Kolisthe largest castehave remained predominantly rural even today. 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. But there were also others who did not wield any power. Today majority of these community members are not engaged in their ancestral weaving occupation still some population of these community contribute themselves in traditional handloom weaving of famous Patola of Patan, Kachchh shawl of Bhujodi in Kutch, Gharchola and Crotchet of Jamnagar, Zari of Surat, Mashroo of Patan and Mandvi in Kutch, Bandhani of Jamnagar, Anjar and Bhuj, Motif, Leheria, Dhamakda and Ajrak, Nagri sari, Tangaliya Shawl, Dhurrie, Kediyu, Heer Bharat, Abhala, Phento and art of Gudri. 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). I have, therefore, considered them a first-order division and not a second-order one among Brahmans (for a fuller discussion of the status of Anavils, see Joshi, 1966; Van der Veen 1972; Shah, 1979). I know some ekdas, and tads composed of only 150 to 200 households. Many of them claimed that they were Brahmans but this claim was not accepted by most established Brahmans. But there was also another process. We had seen earlier that in the first-order division, such as that of the Rajputs, there were no second-order divisions, and no attempt was made to form small endogamous units: hypergamy had free play, as it were. Unfortunately, such figures are not available for the last fifty years or so. Real Estate Software Dubai > blog > manvar surname caste in gujarat. 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. Since Vankars were involved in production and business they were known as Nana Mahajans or small merchants. 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. 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. 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). Homo Hierarchicus. Once the claim was accepted at either level, hypergamous marriage was possible. 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. The guiding ideas were samaj sudharo (social reform) and samaj seva (social service). Copyright 10. In no other nation has something as basic as one's clothing or an act as simple as spinning cotton become so intertwined with a national movement. As a consequence, the continuities of social institutions and the potentiality of endogenous elements for bringing about change are overlooked (for a discussion of some other difficulties with these paradigms, see Lynch 1977). In some other cases, mainly of urban artisans, craftsmen and specialized servants, such as Kansaras (copper and bronze smiths), Salvis (silk weavers), Kharadis (skilled carpenters and wood carvers), Chudgars (bangle-makers) and Vahivanchas genealogists and mythographers), the small populations were so small and confined to so few towns that they had few subdivisions and the boundaries of their horizontal units were fairly easy to define. 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. Among the Kanbis, while there was hypergamy within the Leva division and possibly, similar hypergamy within the Kadva division, there was no hierarchy or hypergamy between the two second-order divisions. In other words, it did not involve a big jump from one place to another distant place. The unit might possess some other corporate characteristics also. Although the name of a Brahman or Vania division might be based on a place name, the division was not territorial in nature. The Rajputs, in association with the Kolis, were probably the only horizontal unit which had continuous internal hierarchy, i.e., hypergamy unbroken by any endogamous subdivisions, and which did not have discernible boundaries at the lowest level. 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. Briefly, while the Varna model was significant in the total dynamics of the caste system to fit the numerous first-order divisions into the four-fold Varna model in any part of India is impossible, and, therefore, to consider varnas as caste divisions as such is meaningless. 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. He does not give importance to this possibility probably because, as he goes on to state, what is sought here is a universal formula, a rule without exceptions (ibid.). There was apparently a close relation between a castes internal organization and the size and spatial distribution of its population. 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. In the city, on the other hand, the population was divided into a large number of castes and each of most of them had a large population, frequently subdivided up to the third or the fourth order. There were also a number of first-order divisions, mainly of artisans, craftsmen and specialized servants, with small populations. Leva Kanbis, numbering 400,000 to 500,000 m 1931, were the traditional agricultural caste of central Gujarat. 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. Firstly, there were divisions whose population was found almost entirely in towns. They were involved in agriculture in one way or another. 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. It is noteworthy that many of their names were based on names of places (region, town, or village): for example, Shrimali and Mewada on the Shrimal and Mewar regions in Rajasthan, Modh on Modhera town in north Gujarat, and Khedawal on Kheda town in central Gujarat. 3.8K subscribers in the gujarat community. During Mughal Empire India was manufacturing 27% of world's textile and Gujarati weavers dominated along with Bengali weavers in Indian textile trade industry overseas. The larger castes and even larger subdivisions among them used to have their houses segregated on their own streets (called pol, sheri, khadki, vad, khancho). The point is that the Rajput hierarchy, with the princely families at the top, merged at the lower level imperceptibly into the vast sea of tribal and semi-tribal people like Bhils and Kolis. In most parts of Gujarat it merged into the various second-order divisions of the Koli division and possible also into the widespread tribe of Bhils. And how flexibility was normal at the lowest level has just been shown. Tapodhans were priests in Shiva temples. Most associations continue to retain their non-political character. I hope to show in this paper how the principle of division is also a primary principle competing with the principle of hierarchy and having important implications for Indian society and culture. Report a Violation, Caste Stratification: Changing Rural Caste Stratification, Caste in Rural India: Specificities of Caste in Rural Society. Similarly, in Saurashtra, the Talapadas were distinguished from the Chumvalias, immigrants from the Chumval tract in north Gujarat. Srinivas has called the unity of the village manifested in these interrelations the vertical unity of the village (1952: 31f. The institutions of both bride and bridegroom price (the latter also called dowry) were rampant in castes with continuous internal hierarchydowry mainly at the upper levels, bride price mainly at the lower levels, and both dowry and bride price among status-seeking middle level families. 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. To whichever of the four orders a caste division belonged, its horizontal spread rarely, if ever, coincided with that of another. It has been pointed out earlier that an emphasis on the principle of division existed in the caste system in urban centres in traditional India. r/ahmedabad From Mumbai. At the other end were castes in which the principle of division had free play and the role of the principle of hierarchy was limited. [1], People of India Gujarat Volume XXI Part Three edited by R.B Lal, P.B.S.V Padmanabham, G Krishnan & M Azeez Mohideen pages 1126-1129, Last edited on 14 November 2022, at 23:04, Learn how and when to remove this template message, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Vankar&oldid=1121933086, This page was last edited on 14 November 2022, at 23:04. The small town sections therefore separated themselves from the respective large town sections and formed a new ekda. Typically, a village consists of the sections of various castes, ranging from those with just one household to those with over u hundred. No sooner had the village studies begun that their limitations and the need for studying caste in its horizontal dimension were realized. <>/Metadata 3086 0 R/ViewerPreferences 3087 0 R>> Visited Ahmedabad for the weekend to meet a friend but her family had a medical emergency. . 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. In spite of them, however, sociologists and social anthropologists have not filled adequately the void left by the disappearance of caste from the census and the gazetteer. 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. In 1931, their total population was more than 1,700,000, nearly one-fourth of the total population of Gujarat. 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. To give just one example, one large street in Baroda, of immigrant Kanbis from the Ahmedabad area, named Ahmedabadi Pol, was divided into two small parallel streets. Secondly, it is necessary to study intensively the pattern of inter-caste relations in urban centres as something differentat least hypotheticallyfrom the pattern in villages. 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. As for the size of other castes, I shall make mainly relative statements. % Content Filtrations 6. It is possible that there were a few divisions each confined to just one large city and, therefore, not having the horizontal dimension at all. Usually, it was a small population. The number of tads in an ekda or go I might be two or more, and each of them might be an endogamous units. 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. Although it has been experiencing stresses and strains and has had ups and downs on account of the enormous diversity between the royal and the tribal ends, it has shown remarkable solidarity in recent years. 1 0 obj We need to formulate some idea of the nature of the Indian urban society and its relation with the rural society in the past, at least at the beginning of the 19th century. : 11-15, 57-75). 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. The name, Talapada, meaning mdigenous, commonly used in the 19th century, is most clear, since it is clearly distinguished from the other division called Pardeshi, meaning foreign, who during the last one or two centuries immigrated here from the area around Patan in north Gujarat and were, therefore, also called Patan- wadias. Also, the horizontal spread of a caste rarely coincided with the territorial boundaries of a political authority. All associations originated in large towns, are more active in towns than in villages, and are led by prominent members in towns. The three trading castes of Vania, Lohana and Bhatia were mainly urban. The most Mehta families were found in USA in 1920. That there was room for flexibility and that the rule of caste endogamy could be violated at the highest level among the Rajputs was pointed out earlier. These and many other artisans, craftsmen and servants reflected the special life-style of the town. They took away offerings made to Shiva, which was considered extremely degrading. New Jersey had the highest population of Mehta families in 1920. They then spread to towns in the homeland and among all castes. Division and hierarchy have always been stressed as the two basic principles of the caste system. endobj They also continued to have marital relations with their own folk. Caste divisions of the first-order can be classified broadly into three categories. In all there were about eighty such divisions. First, since the tads were formed relatively recently, it is easier to get information about their formation than about the formation of ekdas. Not only that, there were also third-order divisions (i.e., ekdas) in one or more second-order divisions, and finally one or more fourth-order divisions (i.e., tads) in one or more third-order divisions. 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. After the commercial revolution of the 16th and 17th centuries, Gujarat had a large number of tradition towns on its long sea-coast. Further, during this lengthy process of slow amalgamation those who will marry in defiance of the barriers of sub-caste, will still be imbued with caste mentality (1932: 184). For example, just as there was a Shrimali division among Sonis (goldsmiths). 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. Frequently, each such unit had a patron deity, housed in a large shrine, with elaborate arrangements for its ownership. One of the clearly visible changes in caste in Gujarat is the increasing number of inter-divisional or so-called inter-caste marriages, particularly in urban areas, in contravention of the rule of caste endogamy. ), as contrasted with the horizontal unity of the caste. On the other hand, there was an almost simultaneous spurt in village studies. 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. This was unlike the situation among the Rajputs who did not make any attempt to form small endogamous units. Most inter-divisional marriages take place between boys and girls belonging to the lowest order in the structure of divisions. 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. The advance made in recent years is limited and much more needs to be done. Broach, Cambay and Surat were the largest, but there were also a number of smaller ones. I have not yet come across an area where Kolis from three or more different areas live together, excepting modern, large towns and cities. While certain first-order divisions were found mainly in towns, the population of certain other first-order divisions was dispersed in villages as well as in towns, the population of the rural and the urban sections differing from one division to another. In these divisions an increasing number of marriages are taking place against the grain of traditional hierarchy, i.e., girls of traditionally higher strata marry boys of traditionally lower strata. The following 157 pages are in this category, out of 157 total. 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. Till the establishment of democratic polity in 1947, hardly any caste association in Gujarat had manifest political functions. 100 Most Popular Indian Last Names Or SurnamesWhy Don't Tamil People Have Last Names?-----A . Although I have not, during my limited field work, come across hypergamous marriages between Rajputs and Bhils, ethnographic reports and other literature frequently refer to such marriages (see, for example, Naik 1956: 18f; Nath I960. No one knows when and how they came into existence and what they meant socially. Together they provide a slice of Gujarati society from the sea- coast to the bordering highlands. The most important of them was the Koli division, which was, the largest division and mainly included small landholders, tenants and labourers. A comment on the sociology of urban India would, therefore, be in order before we go ahead with the discussion of caste divisions. Similarly, the Vanias were divided into such divisions as Disawal, Kapol, Khadayata, Lad, Modh, Nagar, Nima, Porwad, Shirmali, Vayada, and Zarola. In some parts of Gujarat they formed 30 to 35 per cent of the population. 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. Sindhollu, Chindollu. So in this way, the Maharashtra caste list is given to all cast Aarakshan belonging to the Scheduled Castes category for the state of MH. The castes of the three categoriesprimarily urban, primarily rural, and rural-cum-urbanformed an intricate network spread over the rural and urban communities in the region. Hindu society is usually described as divided into a number of castes the boundaries of which are maintained by the rule of caste endogamy. The chiefly families constituted a tiny proportion of the total population of any second-order division among the Kolis.

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