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. 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. There were Brahman and Vania divisions of the same name, the myths about both of them were covered by a single text. 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. While some of the divisions of a lower order might be the result of fission, some others might be a result of fusion. Content Filtrations 6. The Brahmans were divided into such divisions as Audich, Bhargav, Disawal, Khadayata, Khedawal, Mewada, Modh, Nagar, Shrigaud, Shrimali, Valam, Vayada, and Zarola. I have discussed above caste divisions in Gujarat mainly in the past, roughly in the middle of the 19th century. Real Estate Software Dubai > blog > manvar surname caste in gujarat. Finally, while an increasing number of marriages are taking place even across the boundaries of first-order divisions, as for example, between Brahmans and Vanias, and between Vanias and Patidars, such marriages even now form an extremely small proportion of the total number of marriages. 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. In all there were thirty to forty such divisions. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. Since after expansion of British textile markets and decline of Indian textile industry Vankars suffered a lot. 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. Thus, at one end, there were first-order divisions, each of which was sub-divided up to the fourth-order, and at the other end there were first-order divisions which were not further divided at all. But there was also another process. They were thus not of the same status as most other second-order divisions among Brahmans. 4 GUJARAT 4273 SHODA . This meant that he could marry a girl of any subdivision within the Vania division. The lowest stratum among the Khedawals tried to cope with the problem of scarcity of brides mainly by practising ignominious exchange marriage and by restricting marriage of sons in a family to the younger sons, if not to only the youngest. 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. 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. 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. 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). For example, among almost every Vania division there was a dual division into Visa and Dasa: Visa Nagar and Dasa Nagar, Visa Lad and Dasa Lad, Visa Modh and Dasa Modh, Visa Khadayata and Dasa Khadayata, and so on. Created Date: The two categories of castes have been deeply conscious of these differences between them and have been talking freely about them. In the second kind of area, indigenous Kolis live side-by-side with immigrant Kolis from an adjoining area. 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. Rajput hypergamy seems to have provided an important mechanism for integration of the lower caste and tribal population into the Hindu society over the entire length and breadth of northern, western, central and even eastern India. They adopted Rajput customs and traditions, claimed Rajput status, and gave daughters in marriage to Rajputs in the lower rungs of Rajput hierarchy. The essential idea in the category was power, and anybody who wielded powereither as king or as dominant group in a rural (even tribal) areacould claim to be Rajput. They also continued to have marital relations with their own folk. 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. They have been grouped in Vaishya category of Varna system. 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. This was dramatized in many towns at the mahajan (guild) feasts when all the members of the guild of traders would eat together. As soon as there is any change in . 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. 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. The sub- the manner in which the ideas of free marriages and castles society are used by both the old and the young in modern India and how a number of new customs and institutions have evolved to cope with these new ideas is a fascinating subject of study. 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. Nor do I claim to know the whole of Gujarat. In each of these three divisions the top stratum was clear. 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). 91. To illustrate, among the Khadayata or Modh Vanias, an increasing number of marriages take place between two or more tads within an ekda. 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. I have bits and pieces of information about relations between a considerable numbers of other lower-order divisions in their respective higher-order divisions. I have not yet come across an area where Kolis from three or more different areas live together, excepting modern, large towns and cities. Usually, the affairs of the caste were discussed in large congregations of some fifty to hundred or even more villages from time to time. The Kanbis (now called Patidars) had five divisions: Leva, Kadya, Anjana, Bhakta, and Matia. Visited Ahmedabad for the weekend to meet a friend but her family had a medical emergency. 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. The small endogamous units, on the other hand, did not practise either. The Chumvalias and Patanwadias migrated possibly from the same tract and continued to belong to the same horizontal unit after migration. 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. 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. The three trading castes of Vania, Lohana and Bhatia were mainly urban. 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. This list may not reflect recent changes. Marco Polo a Venetian merchant on his visit to India in 13th century Gujarat observed that "brocading art of Gujarat weavers is par excellent". 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 castes are described as becoming ethnic groups in modern India, particularly in urban India. 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). In central Gujarat, for example, one and the same division, freely arranging marriages within it, was known by several names such as Baraiya, Dharala, Khant, Kotwal, Pagi, Patelia, Talapada, Thakarada, and Thakor. The Rajputs, in association with Kolis, Bhils, and such other castes and tribes, provide an extreme example of such castes. This surname is most commonly held in India, where it is held by 2,496 people, or 1 in 307,318. 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. 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. Pages in category "Social groups of Gujarat" The following 157 pages are in this category, out of 157 total. 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. 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. However, it is well known that there were subtle arguments regarding the status of certain royal families being Rajput. A new view of the whole, comprising the rural and the urban and the various orders of caste divisions, should be evolved. As regards the rest of Gujarat, I have used various sources: my work on the caste of genealogists and mythographys and on the early 19th century village records; the available ethnographic, historical and other literature; and observations made while living m Gujarat. The urban centres in both the areas, it is hardly necessary to mention, are nucleated settlements populated by numerous caste and religious groups. 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. Although some of them set up shops in villages they rarely became full-fledged members of the village community. He stresses repeatedly the primacy of the principle of hierarchy-epitomized in the title of his book. It was also an extreme example of a division having a highly differentiated internal hierarchy and practising hypergamy as an accepted norm. Patidars or Patels claim themselves to be descendants of Lord Ram. The decline was further accelerated by the industrial revolution. Although the number of inter-ekda marriages has been increasing, even now the majority of marriages take place within an ekda. The handloom weavers of Gujarat, Maharastra and Bengal produced and exported some of the world's most desirable fabrics. 100 Most Popular Indian Last Names Or SurnamesWhy Don't Tamil People Have Last Names?-----A . Castes pervaded by divisive tendencies had small populations confined to small areas separated from each other by considerable gaps. 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 about three hundred divisions of this order in the region as a whole. This was about 22% of all the recorded Mehta's in USA. 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. There was also another kind of feast, called bhandaro, where Brahmans belonging to a lesser number of divisions (say, all the few in a small town) were invited. Most of the second-order divisions were further divided into third-order divisions. This account of the divisions is based on various sources, but mainly on Bombay Gazetteer (1901). 2 0 obj 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. Systematic because castes exist and are like each other in being different (298). Most associations continue to retain their non-political character. More of them were located in the plains, than in the bordering highlands. The primarily urban castes and the urban sections of the rural-cum- urban castes were the first to take advantage of the new opportunities that developed in industry, commerce, administration, the professions and education in urban centres. Thus, the result was the spread of the population of a caste division towards its fringes. On the other hand, there was an almost simultaneous spurt in village studies. There would be a wide measure of agreement with him on both these counts. 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. For example, all Vania divisions were divided into a number of ekdas or gols. In the second-order divisions of the Vanias the small endogamous units functioned more effectively and lasted longer: although the hypergamous tendency did exist particularly between the rural and the urban sections in a unit, it had restricted play. By the beginning of British rule in the early 19th century, a considerable number of these chieftains had succeeded in establishing petty chiefdoms, each composed of one, and occasionally more than one, village, in all parts of Gujarat. Let me illustrate briefly. The Kayasthas and Brahma-Kshatriyas, the so- called writer castes, employed mainly in the bureaucracy, and the Vahivancha Barots, genealogists and mythographers, were almost exclusively urban castes. 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. The existence of ekdas or gols, however, does not mean that the divisiveness of caste ended there or that the ekdas and gols were always the definitive units of endogamy. 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. 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. 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. Usually, it was a small population. Hence started farming and small scale business in the British Raj to thrive better conditions ahead to maintain their livelihood. And how flexibility was normal at the lowest level has just been shown. The hypergamous tendency was never as sharp, pervasive and regular among the Vania divisions as among the Rajputs, Leva Kanbis, Anavils and Khedawals. 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. These and many other artisans, craftsmen and servants reflected the special life-style of the town. Reference to weaving and spinning materials is found in the Vedic Literature. endobj The four major woven fabrics produced by these communities are cotton, silk, khadi and linen. 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. Srinivas has called the unity of the village manifested in these interrelations the vertical unity of the village (1952: 31f. Many of them became the norm-setting elite for Gujaratis in the homeland. www.opendialoguemediations.com. so roamed around clueless. The point is that there was nothing like the endogamous unit but there were only several units of various orders with defined roles in endogamy. 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. For example, there were Khedawal Brahmans but not Khedawal Vanias, and Lad Vanias but no Lad Brahmans. 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. Early industrial labour was also drawn mainly from the urban artisan and servant castes. There was a continuous process of formation and disintegration of such units. They were involved in agriculture in one way or another. The number of tads in an ekda or go I might be two or more, and each of them might be an endogamous units. In the past the dispersal over a wide area of population of an ekda or tad was uncommon; only modern communications have made residential dispersal as well as functional integration possible. There is a patterned widening of the connubial field along an area chalked out historically. endobj These linkages played an important role in the traditional social structure as well as in the processes of change in modern India. For example, there were two ekdas, each with a large section resident in a large town and small sections resident in two or three neighbouring small towns. Our analysis of the internal organization of caste divisions has shown considerable variation in the relative role of the principles of division and hierarchy. 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. The most important example of primarily political caste association is the Gujarat Kshatriya Sabha. The guiding ideas were samaj sudharo (social reform) and samaj seva (social service). What I am trying to point out, however, is that greater emphasis on division (Pococks difference, Dumonts separation. We shall return to the Rajput-Koli relationship when we consider the Kolis in detail. 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. 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. Among the first-order divisions with subdivisions going down to the fourth order, there are associations for divisions of all the orders. 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. 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. Privacy Policy 8. There are thus a few excellent studies of castes as horizontal units. But the hypergamous tendency was so powerful that each such endogamous unit could not be perfectly endogamous even at the height of its integration. Thus, while each second-order Koli division maintained its boundaries vis-a-vis other such divisions, each was linked with the Rajputs. In 1920 there were 2 Mehta families living in New Jersey. 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. One may say that there are now more hypogamous marriages, although another and perhaps a more realistic way of looking at the change would be that a new hierarchy is replacing the traditional one. Many primarily rural castes, such as Kolisthe largest castehave remained predominantly rural even today. There was apparently a close relation between a castes internal organization and the size and spatial distribution of its population. 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. 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. 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. They were found in almost every village in plains Gujarat and in many villages in Saurashtra and Kachchh. : 11-15, 57-75). A comment on the sociology of urban India would, therefore, be in order before we go ahead with the discussion of caste divisions. In the plains, therefore, every village had one or more towns in its vicinity. Sindhollu, Chindollu. professor melissa murray. Their origin myth enshrined in their caste purana also showed them to be originally non-Brahman. Today, there are two kinds of Koli areas. He stated: hereditary specialization together with hierarchical organization sinks into the background in East Africa (293). If the Varna divisions are taken into account, then this would add one more order to the four orders of caste divisions considered above. 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. The ekdas have not yet lost their identities. This category has the following 18 subcategories, out of 18 total. I would suggest that this feature of urban caste, along with the well known general tendency of urban culture to encourage innovation, provided the groundhowever diffuse that ground might have beenfor a favourable response to the anti-hierarchical ideas coming from the West. Frequently, The ekdas or gols were each divided into groups called tads (split). 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.