But the hypergamous tendency was so powerful that each such endogamous unit could not be perfectly endogamous even at the height of its integration. The three trading castes of Vania, Lohana and Bhatia were mainly urban. In a paper on Caste among Gujaratis in East Africa, Pocock (1957b) raised pointedly the issue of the relative importance of the principles of division (he called it difference) and hierarchy. These linkages played an important role in the traditional social structure as well as in the processes of change in modern India. //]]>. For example, the Khadayata Brahmans worked as priests at important rituals among Khadayata Vanias. The method is to remove first the barriers of the divisions of the lowest order and then gradually those of one higher order after another. Caste divisions of the first-order can be classified broadly into three categories. The Mehta family name was found in the USA, and the UK between 1891 and 1920. Gujarat did not have anything like the non-Brahmin movement of South India and Maharashtra before 1947. Patel is a surname of the Koli caste of Gujarat in India which have most importance in the politics of Gujarat and Koli Patels of Saurashtra was most benefited under the rule of Indian National Congress party. 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. This bulk also was characterized by hierarchy, with the relatively advanced population living in the plains at one end and the backward population living along with the tribal population in the highlands at the other end. Prohibited Content 3. In India Limbachiya is most frequent in: Maharashtra, where 70 percent reside, Gujarat . Although the name of a Brahman or Vania division might be based on a place name, the division was not territorial in nature. As for the size of other castes, I shall make mainly relative statements. 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. 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. 100 Most Popular Indian Last Names Or SurnamesWhy Don't Tamil People Have Last Names?-----A . : 11-15, 57-75). It used to have a panch (council of leaders) and sometimes also a headman (patel). x[? -E$nvU 4V6_}\]}/yOu__}ww7oz[_z~?=|nNT=|qq{\//]/Ft>_tV}gjjn#TfOus_?~>/GbKc.>^\eu{[GE_>'x?M5i16|B;=}-)$G&w5uvb~o:3r3v GL3or}|Y~?3s_hO?qWWpn|1>9WS3^:wTU3bN{tz;T_}so/R95iLc_6Oo_'W7y; Homo Hierarchicus. Srinivas has called the unity of the village manifested in these interrelations the vertical unity of the village (1952: 31f. That the role of the two principles could vary at different levels within a first-order division has also been seen. 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. These and many other artisans, craftsmen and servants reflected the special life-style of the town. 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. This list may not reflect recent changes. There is a patterned widening of the connubial field along an area chalked out historically. Visited Ahmedabad for the weekend to meet a friend but her family had a medical emergency. 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 were Brahman and Vania divisions of the same name, the myths about both of them were covered by a single text. www.opendialoguemediations.com. Kolis were the largest first-order division in Gujarat. The decline was further accelerated by the industrial revolution. However, on the basis of the meagre information I have, I am able to make a few points. 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. Created Date: Britain's response was to cut off the thumbs of weavers, break their looms and impose duties on tariffs on Indian cloth, while flooding India and the world with cheaper fabric from the new steam mills of Britain. 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.). In the village strict prohibition of inter-division marriage as well as the rules of purity and pollution and other mechanisms, of which the students of Indian village communities are well aware since the 1950s, maintained the boundaries of these divisions. The chiefly families constituted a tiny proportion of the total population of any second-order division among the Kolis. Since Vankars were involved in production and business they were known as Nana Mahajans or small merchants. The incidence of exchange marriages and of bachelors in the lowest stratum among the Anavils also was high. It was also an extreme example of a division having a highly differentiated internal hierarchy and practising hypergamy as an accepted norm. No analytical gains are therefore likely to occur by calling them by any other name. endobj 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. 2 0 obj While fission did occur, fusion could also occur. That the sociological study of urban areas in India has not received as much attention as that of rural areas is well known, and the studies made so far have paid little attention to caste in urban areas. Unfortunately, although the Kolis are an important element in Gujarats population, their earlier ethnography is confusing, and there is hardly any modern, systematic, anthropological, sociological or historical study, so that the confusion continues to persist. Vankar is described as a caste as well as a community. The humble Charkha (spinning wheel) and khadi became a dominant symbol of self-reliance, self-determination and nationalist pride. The small town sections therefore separated themselves from the respective large town sections and formed a new ekda. Thus, the result was the spread of the population of a caste division towards its fringes. Similarly, the Khedawal Brahmans were divided into Baj and Bhitra, the Nagar Brahmans into Grihastha and Bhikshuk, the Anavils into Desai and Bhathela, and the Kanbis into Kanbi and Patidar. 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. A large number of priestly, artisan and service castes also lived in both villages and towns: Bramhans, barbers, carpenters, blacksmiths, shoemakers, leather-workers, scavenges, water-carriers, palanquin-bearers, and so on. I have not yet come across an area where Kolis from three or more different areas live together, excepting modern, large towns and cities. 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. 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. These marriage links do not seem to have allowed, among the Kolis, formation of well organized, small, endogamous units (ekadas, gols) as were found among some other castes. These prefixes Visa and Dasa, were generally understood to be derived from the words for the numbers 20 (vis) and 10 (das), which suggested a descending order of status, but there is no definite evidence of such hierarchy in action. 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. 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). The advance made in recent years is limited and much more needs to be done. We have analyzed the internal structure of two first-order divisions, Rajput and Anavil, which did not have any second-order divisions, and of several second-order divisionsTalapada and Pardeshi Koli, Khedawal Brahman, and Leva Kanbiwhich did not have any third-order divisions. Far too many studies of changes in caste in modern India start with a general model of caste in traditional India which is in fact a model of caste in traditional rural India. They were found in almost every village in plains Gujarat and in many villages in Saurashtra and Kachchh. There are other sub-castes like Satpanthis, who are mainly centered in Kutch district and have some social customs akin to Muslims . 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. Plagiarism Prevention 4. There was an emphasis on being different and separate rather than on being higher and lower. caste: [noun] one of the hereditary social classes in Hinduism that restrict the occupation of their members and their association with the members of other castes. 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. 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. Hence started farming and small scale business in the British Raj to thrive better conditions ahead to maintain their livelihood. It is not claimed that separation, or even repulsion, may not be present somewhere as an independent factor (1972: 346,n.55b). Usually, a single Koli division had different local names in different parts of Gujarat, but more about this later. The main aim of this paper is to discuss, on the basis of data derived mainly from Gujarat, these and other problems connected with the horizontal dimension of caste. Patidars or Patels claim themselves to be descendants of Lord Ram. What is really required for a comprehensive understanding is a comparison of traditional with modern caste in both rural and urban areas (including, to be sure, the rural-urban linkages). 92. % All this trade encouraged development of trading and commercial towns in the rest of Gujarat, even in the highland area. The above brief analysis of change in caste in modern Gujarat has, I hope, indicated that an overall view of changes in caste in modern India should include a careful study of changes in rural as well as in urban areas in relation to their past. Weavers became beggars, manufacturing collapsed and the last 2000 years of Indian textile industry was knocked down. Asking different questions and using different methods are necessary. The main thrust of Pococks paper is that greater emphasis on difference rather than on hierarchy is a feature of caste among overseas Indians and in modern urban India. 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. While we can find historical information about the formation of ekdas and tads there are only myths about the formation of the numerous second-order divisions. In fact, inter-tad marriages have increased so much that the tads have more or less lost their identity and such marriages are no longer considered as violating the rule of tad endogamy. So far we have considered first-order divisions with large and widely spread populations. 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. Further, the castes there are unable to take cognizance of each other in terms of hierarchy or of occupation, and it is in this situation that they can be said to exist by virtue of their differences (296) it is the systematic recognition of difference which is most apparent. Firstly, there were divisions whose population was found almost entirely in towns. 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. 100 Most Common Surnames in India | Probability Comparison This was dramatized at huge feasts called chorasi (literally, eighty-four) when Brahmans belonging to all the traditional 84 second-order divisions sat together to eat food cooked at the same kitchen. 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. The understanding of changes in caste is not likely to be advanced by clubbing such diverse groups together under the rubric of ethnic group. Nor do I claim to know the whole of Gujarat. 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 all there were about eighty such divisions. %PDF-1.7 At one end there were castes in which the principle of hierarchy had free play and the role of the principle of division was limited. An important idea behind the activities of caste associations is: service to ones caste is service to the nation. 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. As could be expected, there were marriages between fairly close kin, resulting in many overlapping relationships, in such an endogamous unit. Any one small caste may look insignificant in itself but all small castes put together become a large social block and a significant social phenomenon. The weavers were forced into selling exclusively to the British at extremely low rates, pushing them into poverty. 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. Although caste was found in both village and town, did it possess any special characteristics in the latter? For example, just as there was a Shrimali division among Sonis (goldsmiths). The latter continued to be the provincial capital during Mughal rule. TOS 7. 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. Radhvanaj Rajputs were clearly distinguished from, and ranked much above local Kolis. The small ekda or tad with its entire population residing in a single town was, of course, not a widespread phenomenon. The two categories of castes have been deeply conscious of these differences between them and have been talking freely about them. Usually, the latter were distinguished from one another by prohibition. 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. But many Rajput men of Radhvanaj got wives from people in distant villages who were recognized there as Kolisthose Kolis who had more land and power than the generality of Kolis had tried to acquire some of the traditional Rajput symbols in dress manners and customs and had been claiming to be Rajputs.
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