Gujarat (along with Bombay) has perhaps the largest number of caste associations and they are also more active and wealthy compared to those in other regions. Our analysis of the internal organization of caste divisions has shown considerable variation in the relative role of the principles of division and hierarchy. It was also an extreme example of a division having a highly differentiated internal hierarchy and practising hypergamy as an accepted norm. Once the claim was accepted at either level, hypergamous marriage was possible. Jun 12, 2022. This meant that he could marry a girl of any subdivision within the Vania division. The hierarchy, however, was very gradual and lacked sharpness. Most of the second-order divisions were further divided into third-order divisions. Vankar is described as a caste as well as a community. 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. Gujarat- A state in India. 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. 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. 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. Advances in manufacturing technologies flooded markets in India and abroad with cheap, mass-produced fabrics that Indian handlooms could no longer compete with. This does not, however, help describe caste divisions adequately. For example, among the Vanias the most general rule was that a marriage of a boy could be arranged with any girl who was bhane khapati, i.e., with whom he was permitted to have commensal relations (roti vyavahar). Frequently, The ekdas or gols were each divided into groups called tads (split). In the meanwhile, it is important to note that there does not seem to have been any attempt to form small endogamous units (ekdas, gols) at any level among the Rajputs unlike attempts made as we shall see, among some other hypergamous castes in Gujarat. The Rajputs in Radhvanaj, the village I have studied in central Gujarat, had no great difficulty in establishing their claim to being Rajputs: they owned substantial amounts of land under a traditional Rajput tenure, dominated village politics and possessed certain other traditional Rajput symbols. 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. Many primarily rural castes, such as Kolisthe largest castehave remained predominantly rural even today. In particular, the implications of the co-existence of lower-order divisions within a higher- order division in the same town or city should be worked out. 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. 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). www.opendialoguemediations.com. endobj 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. There are other sub-castes like Satpanthis, who are mainly centered in Kutch district and have some social customs akin to Muslims . Nor do I claim to know the whole of Gujarat. 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. 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. Simultaneously, there is gradual decline in the strength of the principle of hierarchy, particularly of ritual hierarchy expressed in purity and pollution. A new view of the whole, comprising the rural and the urban and the various orders of caste divisions, should be evolved. 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. Caste divisions of the first-order can be classified broadly into three categories. Dowry not only continues to be a symbol of status in the new hierarchy but is gradually replacing bride price wherever it existed, and dowry amounts are now reaching astronomical heights. This was unlike the situation among the Rajputs who did not make any attempt to form small endogamous units. To illustrate, among the Khadayata or Modh Vanias, an increasing number of marriages take place between two or more tads within an ekda. 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. Almost all the myths about the latter are enshrined in the puranas (for an analysis of a few of them, see Das 1968 and 1977). They worked not only as high priests but also as bureaucrats. For example, among Vanias in a large town like Ahmedabad many of the thirty or forty second-order divisions (such as Khadayata, Modh, Porwad, Shrimali, and so on) were represented. I have done field work in two contiguous parts of Gujarat: central Gujarat (Kheda district and parts of Ahmedabad and Baroda districts) and eastern Gujarat (Panchmahals district). 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. 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. * List of Scheduled Tribes in Gujarat; A. . Usually, a single Koli division had different local names in different parts of Gujarat, but more about this later. Literally, ekda meant unit, and gol circle, and both signified an endogamous unit. The existence of flexibility at both the levels was made possible by the flexibility of the category Rajput. A block printed and resist-dyed fabric, whose origin is from Gujarat was found in the tombs of Fostat, Egypt. An important idea behind the activities of caste associations is: service to ones caste is service to the nation. 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. Frequently, social divisions were neatly expressed in street names. This surname is most commonly held in India, where it is held by 2,496 people, or 1 in 307,318. Many of them became the norm-setting elite for Gujaratis in the homeland. The freedom struggle brought the Indian handloom sector back to the fore, with Mahatma Gandhi spearheading the Swadeshi cause. The handloom weavers of Gujarat, Maharastra and Bengal produced and exported some of the world's most desirable fabrics. 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. Toori. All associations originated in large towns, are more active in towns than in villages, and are led by prominent members in towns. This account of the divisions is based on various sources, but mainly on Bombay Gazetteer (1901). 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. Early industrial labour was also drawn mainly from the urban artisan and servant castes. State Id State Name Castecode Caste Subcaste 4 GUJARAT 4001 AHIR SORATHA 4 GUJARAT 4002 AHIR 4 GUJARAT 4003 ANSARI 4 GUJARAT 4004 ANVIL BRAHMIN 4 GUJARAT 4005 ATIT BAYAJI BAKSHI PANCH 4 GUJARAT 4006 BAJANIYA 4 GUJARAT 4007 BAJIR . The Mehta family name was found in the USA, and the UK between 1891 and 1920. 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. Many of them claimed that they were Brahmans but this claim was not accepted by most established Brahmans. It seems the highland Bhils (and possibly also other tribes) provided brides to lower Rajputs in Gujarat. This stratum among the Kanbis coped with the problem mainly by practising remarriage of widows and divorced women. 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 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. There was also another important correlation. I am not suggesting that the principle of hierarchy was insignificant in the inter- or intra-caste relations in urban centres. The Rajput links entailed the spread of Rajput culture in each Koli division and provided a certain cultural homogeneity to all the divisions. Even the archaeological surveys and studies have indicated that the people of Dholavira, Surkotada. 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. The purpose is not to condemn village studies, as is caste in a better perspective after deriving insights from village studies. The small endogamous units, on the other hand, did not practise either. In other words, it did not involve a big jump from one place to another distant place. In 1920 there were 2 Mehta families living in New Jersey. Kolis were the largest first-order division in Gujarat. 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. Leva Kanbis, numbering 400,000 to 500,000 m 1931, were the traditional agricultural caste of central Gujarat. They were involved in agriculture in one way or another. When Mr. H. Borradaile in A.D. 1827 collected information regarding the customs of Hindus, no less than 207 castes which did not intermarry, were found in the city of Surat alone. 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. They adopted Rajput customs and traditions, claimed Rajput status, and gave daughters in marriage to Rajputs in the lower rungs of Rajput hierarchy. First, since the tads were formed relatively recently, it is easier to get information about their formation than about the formation of ekdas. Gujarati migrations to the nearby metropolis of Bombay the first new centre of administration, industry, commerce, education, and western culture, followed the same links. 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. 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. 91. 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. 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 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. I have not yet come across an area where Kolis from three or more different areas live together, excepting modern, large towns and cities. The division had an elaborate internal hierarchy, with wealthy and powerful landlords and tax-farmers at the top and small landholders, tenants and labourers at the bottom. Usually, the affairs of the caste were discussed in large congregations of some fifty to hundred or even more villages from time to time. 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. 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. When the rural population began to be drawn towards the new opportunities, the first to take advantage of them were the rural sections of the rural-cum-urban castes. It reflects, on the one hand, the political aspirations of Kolis guided by the importance of their numerical strength in electoral politics and on the other hand, the Rajputs attempt to regain power after the loss of their princely states and estates. After the commercial revolution of the 16th and 17th centuries, Gujarat had a large number of tradition towns on its long sea-coast. Homo Hierarchicus. Vankar is described as a caste as well as a community. 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 each of these three divisions the top stratum was clear. 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. 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. Some of the other such divisions were Kathi, Dubla, Rabari, Bharwad, Mer (see Trivedi 1961), Vaghri, Machhi, Senwa, Vanzara, and Kharwa. The population of certain first-order divisions lived mainly in villages. As weaving is an art and forms one of the most important artisan community of India. 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. Caste associations have been formed on the lines of caste divisions. The most important of them was the Koli division, which was, the largest division and mainly included small landholders, tenants and labourers. I have bits and pieces of information about relations between a considerable numbers of other lower-order divisions in their respective higher-order divisions. The Kolis seem to have had only two divisions in every part of Gujarat: for example, Talapada (indigenous) and Pardeshi (foreign) in central Gujarat and Palia and Baria in eastern Gujarat (significantly, one considered indigenous and the other outsider). 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. 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. The members of a kings caste were thus found not only in his own kingdom but in other kingdoms as well. Disclaimer 9. There was another kind of ambiguity about the Brahman status or two other divisionsKayatia and Tapodhan. The Vanias provide an example of such castes. It used to have a panch (council of leaders) and sometimes also a headman (patel). The small ekda or tad with its entire population residing in a single town was, of course, not a widespread phenomenon. The understanding of changes in caste is not likely to be advanced by clubbing such diverse groups together under the rubric of ethnic group. For example, all Vania divisions were divided into a number of ekdas or gols. 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.