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. Although the ekda or tad was the most effective unit for endogamy, each unit of the higher order was also significant for endogamy. There was also another important correlation. Created Date: 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. Unfortunately, such figures are not available for the last fifty years or so. 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. 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. 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. 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. yorba linda football maxpreps; weiteste entfernung gerichtsbezirk; wyoming rockhounding locations google maps; We shall return to the Rajput-Koli relationship when we consider the Kolis in detail. The same problems would arise in the reverse direction if, as many scholars have done, the term caste cluster, caste complex or caste category is used for divisions of a higher order and the term caste or jati is used for divisions of a lower order. The tribal groups in the highland area, such as the Bhils and Naikdas, also did not have any urban component. I have not yet come across an area where Kolis from three or more different areas live together, excepting modern, large towns and cities. There was another kind of ambiguity about the Brahman status or two other divisionsKayatia and Tapodhan. The advance made in recent years is limited and much more needs to be done. Copyright 10. Till the establishment of democratic polity in 1947, hardly any caste association in Gujarat had manifest political functions. 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. 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. 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. 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). It used to have a panch (council of leaders) and sometimes also a headman (patel). Many of these names were also based on place names. But there was also another process. 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. Hindu society is usually described as divided into a number of castes the boundaries of which are maintained by the rule of caste endogamy. 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. r/ahmedabad From Mumbai. 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. This list may not reflect recent changes. [CDATA[ Division and hierarchy have always been stressed as the two basic principles of the caste system. Although the people of one tad would talk about their superiority over those of another tad in an ekda, and the people of one ekda over those of another in a higher-order division, particularly in large towns where two or more tads and ekdas would be found living together, there was no articulate ranking and hypergamy among them. The Rajputs relationship with the Kolis penetrated every second-order division among them, i.e., Talapada, Pardeshi, Chumvalia, Palia, and so on. For example, the Patanwadia population was spread continuously from the Patan area to central Gujarat, and the Talapada population from central Gujarat to Pal. Real Estate Software Dubai > blog > manvar surname caste in gujarat. 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. 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. The existence of flexibility at both the levels was made possible by the flexibility of the category Rajput. The Khadayatas were divided into about 30 ekdas. This list may not reflect recent changes. 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. Frequently, The ekdas or gols were each divided into groups called tads (split). 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. Advances in manufacturing technologies flooded markets in India and abroad with cheap, mass-produced fabrics that Indian handlooms could no longer compete with. For example, there was considerable ambiguity about the status of Anavils. 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. Sometimes castes are described as becoming ethnic groups in modern India, particularly in urban India. 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. The four major woven fabrics produced by these communities are cotton, silk, khadi and linen. 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. 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 method is to remove first the barriers of the divisions of the lowest order and then gradually those of one higher order after another. The significant point, however, is that there were small endogamous units which were not, like ekdas and tads, part of any higher-order division. All this trade encouraged development of trading and commercial towns in the rest of Gujarat, even in the highland area. 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. In 1931, their total population was more than 1,700,000, nearly one-fourth of the total population of Gujarat. Inclusion of a lower-order division in a higher-order one and distinction between various divisions in a certain order was not as unambiguous. 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. 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. 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. 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. The Hindu population of Gujarat was divided first of all into what I have called caste divisions of the first order. 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. I do not, however, have sufficient knowledge of the latter and shall, therefore, confine myself mainly to Rajputs in Gujarat. For example, the Khadayata Brahmans worked as priests at important rituals among Khadayata Vanias. 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. 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. No sooner had the village studies begun that their limitations and the need for studying caste in its horizontal dimension were realized. Nevertheless, a breakdown of the population of Gujarat into major religious, caste and tribal groups according to the census of 1931 is presented in the following table to give a rough idea of the size of at least some castes. The Rajputs, in association with Kolis, Bhils, and such other castes and tribes, provide an extreme example of such castes. The hypergamous tendency was never as sharp, pervasive and regular among the Vania divisions as among the Rajputs, Leva Kanbis, Anavils and Khedawals. The Chumvalias and Patanwadias migrated possibly from the same tract and continued to belong to the same horizontal unit after migration. 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. There would be a wide measure of agreement with him on both these counts. The Rajput links entailed the spread of Rajput culture in each Koli division and provided a certain cultural homogeneity to all the divisions. Systematic study of small caste divisions in villages as well as in towns still awaits the attention of sociologists and anthropologists. [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. Each ekda or gol was composed of a definite number of families living in certain villages and/or towns. I have bits and pieces of information about relations between a considerable numbers of other lower-order divisions in their respective higher-order divisions. Also, the horizontal spread of a caste rarely coincided with the territorial boundaries of a political authority. How many sub-divisions existed in the various divisions of the various orders is a matter of empirical investigation. Similarly, the Vanias were divided into such divisions as Disawal, Kapol, Khadayata, Lad, Modh, Nagar, Nima, Porwad, Shirmali, Vayada, and Zarola. All Brahman divisions did not, however, have a corresponding Vania division. On the other hand, there was an almost simultaneous spurt in village studies. Since after expansion of British textile markets and decline of Indian textile industry Vankars suffered a lot. 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. The degree of contravention is highest if the couple belong to two different first-order divisions. 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. Privacy Policy 8. 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. This was dramatized in many towns at the mahajan (guild) feasts when all the members of the guild of traders would eat together. The Brahmans were divided into such divisions as Audich, Bhargav, Disawal, Khadayata, Khedawal, Mewada, Modh, Nagar, Shrigaud, Shrimali, Valam, Vayada, and Zarola. Nor were ekdas and tads entirely an urban phenomenon. 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). No analytical gains are therefore likely to occur by calling them by any other name. 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. Nor do I claim to know the whole of Gujarat. It seems the highland Bhils (and possibly also other tribes) provided brides to lower Rajputs in Gujarat. Here, usually, what mattered was the first-order division, as for example Brahman, Vania, Rajput, Kanbi, carpenter, barber, leather-worker, and so on. However, it is well known that there were subtle arguments regarding the status of certain royal families being Rajput. But there were also others who did not wield any power. <>/Metadata 3086 0 R/ViewerPreferences 3087 0 R>> As soon as there is any change in . A recent tendency in sociological literature is to consider jatis as castes. Some ekdas did come into existence in almost the same way as did the tads, that is to say, by a process of fission of one ekda into two or more ekdas. They were thus not of the same status as most other second-order divisions among Brahmans. When divisions are found within a jati, the word sub-jati or sub-caste is used. Gujarati migrations to the nearby metropolis of Bombay the first new centre of administration, industry, commerce, education, and western culture, followed the same links. Frequently, the shift from emphasis on co-operation and hierarchy in the caste system to emphasis on division (or difference or separation) is described as shift from whole to parts, from system to elements, from structure to substance. It is important to note that the more literate and learned Brahmans lived in towns, more particularly in capital and pilgrim towns, which were, indeed, the centres of higher Hindu culture and civilization. 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. 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). Most associations continue to retain their non-political character. The decline was further accelerated by the industrial revolution. hu)_EYUT?:fX:vOR,4g4ce{\(wcUO %OW-Knj|qV]_)1?@{^ $:0ZY\fpg7J~Q~pHaMVSP5bLC}6+zwgv;f f^v4[|vug+vO0h t7QNP}EYm+X[x~;O|z5tq ]-39aa{g-u5n:a56&`3y.f-a@a"0v-a@$%`Z]]Iqb56aR0g 30V9EM%K"#|6uN? =O|8alCcs):~AC<5 q|om57/|Sgc}2c#)U~WL}%T]s> z. They were involved in agriculture in one way or another. 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. (surname) Me caste; Mer (community) Meta Qureshi; Mistri caste; Miyana (community) Modh; Motisar (caste) Multani Lohar; Muslim Wagher; Mutwa; N . The degree of contravention involved in an inter-divisional marriage, however, depends upon the order (i.e., first-order, second-order, etc.) 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. We shall return later to a consideration of this problem. 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. The urban centres in both the areas, it is hardly necessary to mention, are nucleated settlements populated by numerous caste and religious groups. 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 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. Usually, the affairs of the caste were discussed in large congregations of some fifty to hundred or even more villages from time to time. This was about 22% of all the recorded Mehta's in USA. 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. Their origin myth enshrined in their caste purana also showed them to be originally non-Brahman. The members of a kings caste were thus found not only in his own kingdom but in other kingdoms as well. 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. 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. In all there were about eighty such divisions. The Vanias provide an example of such castes. There was an emphasis on being different and separate rather than on being higher and lower.