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 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. Although my knowledge is fragmentary, I thought it was worthwhile to put together the bits and pieces for the region as a whole. 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. 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. The unit might possess some other corporate characteristics also. 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. Many of them claimed that they were Brahmans but this claim was not accepted by most established Brahmans. However, it is well known that there were subtle arguments regarding the status of certain royal families being Rajput. 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 arrival of the East India Company, however sounded the death knell for the Indian textile industry. The chiefly families constituted a tiny proportion of the total population of any second-order division among the Kolis. Copyright 10. Such a description not only overlooks the diversity and complexity of caste divisions and the rural-urban Link- ages in them but also leads to placing them in the same category as Muslims, Christians, Parsis, Jains, Buddhists, and so on. 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. In the second-order divisions of the Leva Kanbis, the Anavils and the Khedawals, while the hypergamous tendency was strong, attempts were continually made to form small endogamous units: although the strength of the hypergamous tendency did not allow these units to function effectively, they nevertheless checked its free play to some extent. Frequently, each such unit had a patron deity, housed in a large shrine, with elaborate arrangements for its ownership. 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. How many sub-divisions existed in the various divisions of the various orders is a matter of empirical investigation. Nowadays, in urban areas in particular, very few people think of making separate seating arrangements for members of different castes at wedding and such other feasts. 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 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). For example, if they belonged to two different second-order divisions, such as Shrimali and Modh, the punishment would be greater than if they belonged to two different ekdas within the Shrimali or the Modh division. The complex was provided a certain coherence and integrityin the pre- industrial time of slow communicationby a number of oral and literate traditions cultivated by cultural specialists such as priests, bards, genealogists and mythographers (see in this connection Shah and Shroff 1958). Sometimes castes are described as becoming ethnic groups in modern India, particularly in urban India. There were similar problems about the status of a number of other divisions. The bulk of the population was spread all over the villages as small landholders, tenants and labourers. The ekdas have not yet lost their identities. 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; However, on the basis of the meagre information I have, I am able to make a few points. <>/ExtGState<>/ProcSet[/PDF/Text/ImageB/ImageC/ImageI] >>/Annots[ 9 0 R] /MediaBox[ 0 0 612 792] /Contents 4 0 R/Group<>/Tabs/S/StructParents 0>> 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. For the sake of bravity and simplicity of presentation, I have not provided detailed documentation. endobj I do not, however, have sufficient knowledge of the latter and shall, therefore, confine myself mainly to Rajputs in Gujarat. window.__mirage2 = {petok:"uGhRfiuY26l2oZgRlfZRFSp4BWPIIt7Gh61sQC1XrRU-3600-0"}; The most important of them was the Koli division, which was, the largest division and mainly included small landholders, tenants and labourers. I know some ekdas, and tads composed of only 150 to 200 households. Nor were ekdas and tads entirely an urban phenomenon. A new view of the whole, comprising the rural and the urban and the various orders of caste divisions, should be evolved. Frequently, social divisions were neatly expressed in street names. In the second kind of area, indigenous Kolis live side-by-side with immigrant Kolis from an adjoining area. 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. 4 GUJARAT 4273 SHODA . 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. For example, there was considerable ambiguity about the status of Anavils. Since Vankars were involved in production and business they were known as Nana Mahajans or small merchants. Castes having continuous internal hierarchy and lacking effective small endogamous units, such as Rajputs, Leva Kanbis, Anavils and Khedawals, do not have active associations for lower-order divisions. 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. 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 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. Although some of them set up shops in villages they rarely became full-fledged members of the village community. 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. There is enormous literature on these caste divisions from about the middle of the 19th century which includes census reports, gazetteers, castes-and- tribes volumes, ethnographic notes and monographs and scholarly treatises such as those by Baines, Blunt, Ghurye, Hocart, Hutton, Ibbet- son, OMalley, Risley, Senart, and others. 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. The number of tads in an ekda or go I might be two or more, and each of them might be an endogamous units. 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). A few examples are: Brahman (priest), Vania (trader), Rajput (warrior and ruler), Kanbi (peasant), Koli (peasant), Kathi (peasant), Soni goldsmith), Suthar (carpenter), Valand (barber), Chamar (leatherworker), Dhed (weaver) and Bhangi (scavenger). 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. The freedom struggle brought the Indian handloom sector back to the fore, with Mahatma Gandhi spearheading the Swadeshi cause. //]]>. Fortunately, they have now started writing about it (see Rao 1974). From the 15th century onwards we find historical references to political activities of Koli chieftains. Plagiarism Prevention 4. 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). 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. While fission did occur, fusion could also occur. That Rajputs were one of the divisions, if not the only division of the first-order, not having further divisions, has already been mentioned. 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. Kayatias and Tapodhans were considered such low Brahmans that even some non-Brahman castes did not accept food and water from them. The Chumvalias and Patanwadias migrated possibly from the same tract and continued to belong to the same horizontal unit after migration. There were also a number of first-order divisions, mainly of artisans, craftsmen and specialized servants, with small populations. 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". <> The fact that Mahatma Gandhi came from a small third-order division in the Modh Vania division in a town in Saurashtra does not seem to be an accident. The degree of contravention involved in an inter-divisional marriage, however, depends upon the order (i.e., first-order, second-order, etc.) 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). Simultaneously, there is gradual decline in the strength of the principle of hierarchy, particularly of ritual hierarchy expressed in purity and pollution. The existence of flexibility at both the levels was made possible by the flexibility of the category Rajput. The following 157 pages are in this category, out of 157 total. Use census records and voter lists to . I do not propose to review the literature on caste here; my aim is to point out the direction towards which a few facts from Gujarat lead us. There are thus a few excellent studies of castes as horizontal units. An important idea behind the activities of caste associations is: service to ones caste is service to the nation. 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 Brahmans were divided into such divisions as Audich, Bhargav, Disawal, Khadayata, Khedawal, Mewada, Modh, Nagar, Shrigaud, Shrimali, Valam, Vayada, and Zarola. 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.). Systematic because castes exist and are like each other in being different (298). www.opendialoguemediations.com. To whichever of the four orders a caste division belonged, its horizontal spread rarely, if ever, coincided with that of another. 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). 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. Vankar is described as a caste as well as a community. The Mehta family name was found in the USA, and the UK between 1891 and 1920. 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. The population of certain first-order divisions lived mainly in villages. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. Many of them became the norm-setting elite for Gujaratis in the homeland. Also, the horizontal spread of a caste rarely coincided with the territorial boundaries of a political authority. 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. A recent tendency in sociological literature is to consider jatis as castes. But there was also another process. 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 point is that there was nothing like the endogamous unit but there were only several units of various orders with defined roles in endogamy. 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. The tribal groups in the highland area, such as the Bhils and Naikdas, also did not have any urban component.
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