For example, just as there was a Shrimali division among Sonis (goldsmiths). All associations originated in large towns, are more active in towns than in villages, and are led by prominent members in towns. 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 . Frequently, marriages were arranged in contravention of a particular rule after obtaining the permission of the council of leaders and paying a penalty in advance. 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. Another clearly visible change in caste in Gujarat is the emergence of caste associations. The understanding of changes in caste is not likely to be advanced by clubbing such diverse groups together under the rubric of ethnic group. The Kolis in such an area may not even be concerned about a second-order divisional name and may be known simply as Kolis. window.__mirage2 = {petok:"uGhRfiuY26l2oZgRlfZRFSp4BWPIIt7Gh61sQC1XrRU-3600-0"}; Jun 12, 2022. 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. Gujarati migrations to the nearby metropolis of Bombay the first new centre of administration, industry, commerce, education, and western culture, followed the same links. Census officials-turned-scholars, from Risley to Hutton, wrote many of the earlier general works on caste. While some of the divisions of a lower order might be the result of fission, some others might be a result of fusion. 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. 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. There were similar problems about the status of a number of other divisions. 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. Leva Kanbis, numbering 400,000 to 500,000 m 1931, were the traditional agricultural caste of central Gujarat. At the other end were castes in which the principle of division had free play and the role of the principle of hierarchy was limited. They are divided into two main sub-castes: Leuva Patels and Kadva Patels, who claim to be descendants of Ram's twins Luv and Kush respectively. 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). 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 were also a number of first-order divisions, mainly of artisans, craftsmen and specialized servants, with small populations. The castes of the three categoriesprimarily urban, primarily rural, and rural-cum-urbanformed an intricate network spread over the rural and urban communities in the region. To have a meaningful understanding of the system of caste divisions, there is no alternative but to understand the significance of each order of division and particularly the nature of their boundaries and maintenance mechanisms. But this is not enough. Traditionally, the Brahman division was supposed to provide the priests for the corresponding divisions. That there was room for flexibility and that the rule of caste endogamy could be violated at the highest level among the Rajputs was pointed out earlier. Here, usually, what mattered was the first-order division, as for example Brahman, Vania, Rajput, Kanbi, carpenter, barber, leather-worker, and so on. 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. 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. 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. Most of them were, true to their name, rulers at various levels of the political hierarchy from the kingly level to the level of dominant caste in many villages. Usually, it was a small population. In addition, they carried on overland trade with many towns in central and north India. 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. He stresses repeatedly the primacy of the principle of hierarchy-epitomized in the title of his book. 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 main occupation of Vankars was the weaving of cloth. 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. Although they claimed to be Brahman they were closely associated with agriculture. This tendency reaches its culmination in the world of Dumont. 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. Plagiarism Prevention 4. Weavers became beggars, manufacturing collapsed and the last 2000 years of Indian textile industry was knocked down. 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. The bulk of the population was spread all over the villages as small landholders, tenants and labourers. Although the name of a Brahman or Vania division might be based on a place name, the division was not territorial in nature. Hindu society is usually described as divided into a number of castes the boundaries of which are maintained by the rule of caste endogamy. The two categories of castes have been deeply conscious of these differences between them and have been talking freely about them. professor melissa murray. Whatever the internal organization of a second-order division, the relationship between most of the Brahman second-order divisions was marked by great emphasis on being different and separate than on being higher and lower. Copyright 10. But the hypergamous tendency was so powerful that each such endogamous unit could not be perfectly endogamous even at the height of its integration. Many of them claimed that they were Brahmans but this claim was not accepted by most established Brahmans. Patidars or Patels claim themselves to be descendants of Lord Ram. 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 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). Report a Violation, Caste Stratification: Changing Rural Caste Stratification, Caste in Rural India: Specificities of Caste in Rural Society. The ekdas have not yet lost their identities. 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. There was not only no pyramid type of arrangement among the many ekdas in a second-order Vania divisionthe type of arrangement found in the Rajput, Leva Kanbi, Anavil and Khedawal divisions-but frequently there was no significant sign of hierarchical relation, except boastful talk, between two neighbouring ekdas. 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. 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). Together they provide a slice of Gujarati society from the sea- coast to the bordering highlands. 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. The two together formed a single complex of continental dimension. 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. Data need to be collected over large areas by methods other than those used in village studies, castes need to be compared in the regional setting, and a new general approach, analytical framework, and conceptual apparatus need to be developed. There would be a wide measure of agreement with him on both these counts. For example, all Vania divisions were divided into a number of ekdas or gols. The Hindu and Muslim kingdoms in Gujarat during the medieval period had, of course, their capital towns, at first Patan and then Ahmedabad. There are thus a few excellent studies of castes as horizontal units. Among the first-order divisions with subdivisions going down to the fourth order, there are associations for divisions of all the orders. endobj There was also a third category called Pancha, derived from the word punch (meaning 5) and denoting extremely low Vania. 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. Similarly, although the number of marriages between the second-order divisions in the Vania division, i.e., between Khadayata, Modh, Shrimali, Lad, Vayada, etc., has been increasing, the majority of marriages take place within the respective second-order divisions. 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 Kanbis (now called Patidars) had five divisions: Leva, Kadya, Anjana, Bhakta, and Matia. rogers outage brampton today; levelland, tx obituaries. 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 number of tads in an ekda or go I might be two or more, and each of them might be an endogamous units. Gujarat did not have anything like the non-Brahmin movement of South India and Maharashtra before 1947. There was an emphasis on being different and separate rather than on being higher and lower. In any case, castes are not likely to cease to be castes in the consciousness of people in the foreseeable future. This meant that he could marry a girl of any subdivision within the Vania division. We shall return to this issue later. Many of them became the norm-setting elite for Gujaratis in the homeland. Prohibited Content 3. An important idea behind the activities of caste associations is: service to ones caste is service to the nation. The emphasis on being different and separate rather than on being higher and lower was even more marked in the relationship among the forty or so second-order divisions. In the plains, therefore, every village had one or more towns in its vicinity. This does not, however, help describe caste divisions adequately. 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. Further, during this lengthy process of slow amalgamation those who will marry in defiance of the barriers of sub-caste, will still be imbued with caste mentality (1932: 184). More of them were located in the plains, than in the bordering highlands. 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. The handloom weavers of Gujarat, Maharastra and Bengal produced and exported some of the world's most desirable fabrics. Marco Polo a Venetian merchant on his visit to India in 13th century Gujarat observed that "brocading art of Gujarat weavers is par excellent". 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. The degree of contravention involved in an inter-divisional marriage, however, depends upon the order (i.e., first-order, second-order, etc.) This was because political authorities were hierarchized from little kingdom to empire and the boundaries of political authorities kept changing. Vankar is described as a caste as well as a community. (surname) Me caste; Mer (community) Meta Qureshi; Mistri caste; Miyana (community) Modh; Motisar (caste) Multani Lohar; Muslim Wagher; Mutwa; N . 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. 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). 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. No one knows when and how they came into existence and what they meant socially. 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. While some hypergamous and hierarchical tendency, however weak, did exist between tads within an ekda and between ekdas within a second- order division, it was practically non-existent among the forty or so second-order divisions, such as Modh, Porwad, Shrimali, Khadayata and so on, among the Vanias. Similarly, the Vanias were divided into such divisions as Disawal, Kapol, Khadayata, Lad, Modh, Nagar, Nima, Porwad, Shirmali, Vayada, and Zarola. A large proportion, if not the whole, of the population of many of such divisions lived in towns. There are other sub-castes like Satpanthis, who are mainly centered in Kutch district and have some social customs akin to Muslims . The Levas, Anavils and Khedawals provide examples of castes whose internal organization had a strong emphasis on the principle of hierarchy and a weak emphasis on that of division. 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. This was about 22% of all the recorded Mehta's in USA. For the sake of bravity and simplicity of presentation, I have not provided detailed documentation. 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. I know some ekdas, and tads composed of only 150 to 200 households. I hope to show that the integration of the study of caste in urban areas with that of rural areas is essential to a comprehensive understanding of caste and its implications for Indian society and culture. The main reason was that Anavils did not practise priesthood as a traditional occupation, nor were they involved in traditional Sanskrit learning. 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. 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 latter continued to be the provincial capital during Mughal rule. 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. The lowest stratum in all the three divisions had to face the problem of scarcity of brides. The patterns of change in marriage and in caste associations are two of the many indications of the growing significance of the principle of division (or separation or difference) in caste in urban areas in Gujarat. The population of certain first-order divisions lived mainly in villages. 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. 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. The four major woven fabrics produced by these communities are cotton, silk, khadi and linen. 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. Before publishing your articles on this site, please read the following pages: 1. On the other hand, there was an almost simultaneous spurt in village studies. I have not yet come across an area where Kolis from three or more different areas live together, excepting modern, large towns and cities. For example, among the Khadayata Vanias there are all-Khadayata associations as well as associations for the various ekdas and sometimes even for their tads (see Shah, Ragini 1978). The error is further compounded whenalthough this is less commonthe partial, rural model of traditional caste is compared with the present urban situation, and conclusions are drawn about overall change. [CDATA[ The most Mehta families were found in USA in 1920. manvar surname caste in gujarat. 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. Frequently, the urban population of such a division performed more specialized functions than did the rural one. They adopted Rajput customs and traditions, claimed Rajput status, and gave daughters in marriage to Rajputs in the lower rungs of Rajput hierarchy. It seems the highland Bhils (and possibly also other tribes) provided brides to lower Rajputs in Gujarat. Literally, ekda meant unit, and gol circle, and both signified an endogamous unit. Division and Hierarchy: An Overview of Caste in Gujarat! From the 15th century onwards we find historical references to political activities of Koli chieftains. There was also another important correlation. 100 Most Popular Indian Last Names Or SurnamesWhy Don't Tamil People Have Last Names?-----A . It is not claimed that separation, or even repulsion, may not be present somewhere as an independent factor (1972: 346,n.55b). Indian textiles especially of Gujarat have been praised in several accounts by explorers and historians, from Megasthenes to Herodotus. In all there were about eighty such divisions. There were about three hundred divisions of this order in the region as a whole. The small town sections therefore separated themselves from the respective large town sections and formed a new ekda. Britain's Industrial Revolution was built on the de-industrialisation of India - the destruction of Indian textiles and their replacement by manufacturing in England, using Indian raw materials and exporting the finished products back to India and even the rest of the world. Thus, finding any boundary between Rajputs and Kolis in the horizontal context was impossible, although there were sharp boundaries between the two in the narrow local context. Although caste was found in both village and town, did it possess any special characteristics in the latter? A new view of the whole, comprising the rural and the urban and the various orders of caste divisions, should be evolved. All Brahman divisions did not, however, have a corresponding Vania division. Castes pervaded by divisive tendencies had small populations confined to small areas separated from each other by considerable gaps. 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. They also continued to have marital relations with their own folk. In India Limbachiya is most frequent in: Maharashtra, where 70 percent reside, Gujarat . That the role of the two principles could vary at different levels within a first-order division has also been seen. They wrote about the traditional Indian village, but not about the traditional Indian town. Thus, the result was the spread of the population of a caste division towards its fringes. 2 0 obj They had an internal hierarchy similar to that of the Leva Kanbis, with tax-farmers and big landlords at the top and small landowners at the bottom. The small ekda or tad with its entire population residing in a single town was, of course, not a widespread phenomenon. Hindu society is usually described as divided into a number of castes the boundaries of which are maintained by the rule of caste endogamy. 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.).