Srinivas has called the unity of the village manifested in these interrelations the vertical unity of the village (1952: 31f. 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. No analytical gains are therefore likely to occur by calling them by any other name. 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). With the exclusion of caste (except scheduled caste) from the census since 1951 (practically since 1941, because the census of that year did not result in much reporting), writings on castes as horizontal units greatly declined. Inclusion of a lower-order division in a higher-order one and distinction between various divisions in a certain order was not as unambiguous. 4 GUJARAT 4273 SHODA . 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. Many second-order divisions were further divided into two or three status categories. While fission did occur, fusion could also occur. In an area of the first kind there are no immigrant Kolis from elsewhere, and therefore, there is no question of their having second-order divisions. It was also an extreme example of a division having a highly differentiated internal hierarchy and practising hypergamy as an accepted norm. Privacy Policy 8. It is not claimed that separation, or even repulsion, may not be present somewhere as an independent factor (1972: 346,n.55b). More common was an ekda or tad having its population residing either in a few neighbouring villages, or in a few neighbouring towns, or in both. The handloom weavers of Gujarat, Maharastra and Bengal produced and exported some of the world's most desirable fabrics. I do not, however, have sufficient knowledge of the latter and shall, therefore, confine myself mainly to Rajputs in Gujarat. 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 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. Caste associations have been formed on the lines of caste divisions. 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. 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. There is a patterned widening of the connubial field along an area chalked out historically. The primarily rural and lower castes were the last to form associations and that too mainly after independence (1947). Within each of these divisions, small endogamous units (ekdas, gols, bandhos) were organized from time to time to get relief from the difficulties inherent in hypergamy. 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. Before publishing your articles on this site, please read the following pages: 1. 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. 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 census operations, in particular, spread as they were over large areas, gave a great impetus to writings on what Srinivas has called the horizontal dimension of caste (1952: 31f;1966: 9,44,92,98-100,114-17). 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. The migrants, many of whom came from heterogeneous urban centres of Gujarat, became part of an even more heterogeneous environment in Bombay. Most associations continue to retain their non-political character. As weaving is an art and forms one of the most important artisan community of India. The chiefly families constituted a tiny proportion of the total population of any second-order division among the Kolis. What may be called the census approach influenced a great deal of scholarly work. In any case, castes are not likely to cease to be castes in the consciousness of people in the foreseeable future. ADVERTISEMENTS: Division and Hierarchy: An Overview of Caste in Gujarat! 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 Khedawals, numbering 15,000 to 20,000 in 1931 were basically priests but many of them were also landowners, government officials, and traders. 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. Kayatias and Tapodhans were considered such low Brahmans that even some non-Brahman castes did not accept food and water from them. The lowest stratum in all the three divisions had to face the problem of scarcity of brides. Frequently, the urban population of such a division performed more specialized functions than did the rural one. The tribal groups in the highland area, such as the Bhils and Naikdas, also did not have any urban component. Usually, the latter were distinguished from one another by prohibition. For example, there was considerable ambiguity about the status of Anavils. And how flexibility was normal at the lowest level has just been shown. Marco Polo a Venetian merchant on his visit to India in 13th century Gujarat observed that "brocading art of Gujarat weavers is par excellent". Jun 12, 2022 . The Rajputs, in association with Kolis, Bhils, and such other castes and tribes, provide an extreme example of such castes. The small town sections therefore separated themselves from the respective large town sections and formed a new ekda. 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 my knowledge is fragmentary, I thought it was worthwhile to put together the bits and pieces for the region as a whole. to which the divisions of the marrying couple belong. So far we have considered first-order divisions with large and widely spread populations. There were similar problems about the status of a number of other divisions. (surname) Me caste; Mer (community) Meta Qureshi; Mistri caste; Miyana (community) Modh; Motisar (caste) Multani Lohar; Muslim Wagher; Mutwa; N . Limitations of the holistic view of caste, based as it is mainly on the study of the village, should be realized in the light of urban experience. 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). 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. Nor were ekdas and tads entirely an urban phenomenon. Also, the horizontal spread of a caste rarely coincided with the territorial boundaries of a political authority. The significant point, however, is that there were small endogamous units which were not, like ekdas and tads, part of any higher-order division. 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. 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 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). 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. 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. I have bits and pieces of information about relations between a considerable numbers of other lower-order divisions in their respective higher-order divisions. <>/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>> First, since the tads were formed relatively recently, it is easier to get information about their formation than about the formation of ekdas. There was apparently a close relation between a castes internal organization and the size and spatial distribution of its population. There was a continuous process of formation and disintegration of such units. Frequently, each such unit had a patron deity, housed in a large shrine, with elaborate arrangements for its ownership. One important first-order division, namely, Rajput, does not seem to have had any second-order division at all. But there were also others who did not wield any power. In the second kind of area, indigenous Kolis live side-by-side with immigrant Kolis from an adjoining area. It seems the highland Bhils (and possibly also other tribes) provided brides to lower Rajputs in Gujarat. 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 hierarchy, however, was very gradual and lacked sharpness. Report a Violation, Caste Stratification: Changing Rural Caste Stratification, Caste in Rural India: Specificities of Caste in Rural Society. The three trading castes of Vania, Lohana and Bhatia were mainly urban. Caste divisions of the first-order can be classified broadly into three categories. That the role of the two principles could vary at different levels within a first-order division has also been seen. The Mehta family name was found in the USA, and the UK between 1891 and 1920. Broach, Cambay and Surat were the largest, but there were also a number of smaller ones. 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. 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. 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. Prohibited Content 3. 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). Content Filtrations 6. 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. r/ahmedabad From Mumbai. Typically, a village consists of the sections of various castes, ranging from those with just one household to those with over u hundred. In India Limbachiya is most frequent in: Maharashtra, where 70 percent reside, Gujarat . 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). The decline was further accelerated by the industrial revolution. Similarly, the Khedawal Brahmans were divided into Baj and Bhitra, the Nagar Brahmans into Grihastha and Bhikshuk, the Anavils into Desai and Bhathela, and the Kanbis into Kanbi and Patidar. For the sake of bravity and simplicity of presentation, I have not provided detailed documentation. As soon as there is any change in . Division and Hierarchy: An Overview of Caste in Gujarat! That the sociological study of urban areas in India has not received as much attention as that of rural areas is well known, and the studies made so far have paid little attention to caste in urban areas. 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. 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. 1 0 obj 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. 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. manvar surname caste in gujarat. Disclaimer 9. This was dramatized in many towns at the mahajan (guild) feasts when all the members of the guild of traders would eat together. Although caste was found in both village and town, did it possess any special characteristics in the latter? 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. Use census records and voter lists to . Koli Patels are recognised as a Other Backward Class caste by Government of Gujarat. The Kanbis (now called Patidars) had five divisions: Leva, Kadya, Anjana, Bhakta, and Matia. History. But this is not enough. 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. Toori. For example, all Vania divisions were divided into a number of ekdas or gols. The highland Bhils seem to have provided brides to lower Rajputs on the other side of the highlands also, i.e., to those in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh (see, for example, Doshi, 1971: 7f., 13-15; Aurora 1972: 16, 32f.). The freedom struggle brought the Indian handloom sector back to the fore, with Mahatma Gandhi spearheading the Swadeshi cause. Many of them became the norm-setting elite for Gujaratis in the homeland. Fortunately, they have now started writing about it (see Rao 1974). Similarly, the Vanias were divided into such divisions as Disawal, Kapol, Khadayata, Lad, Modh, Nagar, Nima, Porwad, Shirmali, Vayada, and Zarola. 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. 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. Until recently, sociologists and anthropologists described Indian society as though it had no urban component in the past. The handloom weavers of Gujarat, Maharastra and Bengal produced and exported some of the world's most desirable fabrics. 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. Their origin myth enshrined in their caste purana also showed them to be originally non-Brahman. Most of the second-order divisions were further divided into third-order divisions. In all there were thirty to forty such divisions. 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. 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. 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 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. professor melissa murray. 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. 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. Till the establishment of democratic polity in 1947, hardly any caste association in Gujarat had manifest political functions. Although they claimed to be Brahman they were closely associated with agriculture. If the marriage took place within the Vania fold but outside the tad or ekda, as the case may be, the punishment varied according to the social distance between the tads or ekdas of the bride and the groom. Some of the other such divisions were Kathi, Dubla, Rabari, Bharwad, Mer (see Trivedi 1961), Vaghri, Machhi, Senwa, Vanzara, and Kharwa. 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. The main point is that we do not completely lose sight of the lowest boundary among these three hypergamous divisions as we do among the Rajputs. 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). Thus, the result was the spread of the population of a caste division towards its fringes. 3 0 obj 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. The Rajputs relationship with the Kolis penetrated every second-order division among them, i.e., Talapada, Pardeshi, Chumvalia, Palia, 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 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. <> Since the beginning of the modern reform movement to encourage inter-caste marriages-most of which are in fact inter-tad or inter-ekda marriagesthe old process of fission into ekdas and tads has come to a halt, and it is, therefore, difficult to understand this process without making a systematic historical enquiry. These and many other artisans, craftsmen and servants reflected the special life-style of the town. They were thus not of the same status as most other second-order divisions among Brahmans. 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 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. 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. But the hypergamous tendency was so powerful that each such endogamous unit could not be perfectly endogamous even at the height of its integration. On the other hand, there was an almost simultaneous spurt in village studies. This does not solve the problem if there are four orders of divisions of the kind found in Gujarat. 2 0 obj 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. This list may not reflect recent changes. 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. There are other sub-castes like Satpanthis, who are mainly centered in Kutch district and have some social customs akin to Muslims . It is argued that the various welfare programmes of each caste association, such as provision of medical facilities, scholarships and jobs for caste members contribute, in however small a way, to the solution of the nations problems. If the first-order divisions are called jatis and castes, the second-order divisions would be called sub-jatis or sub-castes. Village studies, as far as caste is a part of them, have been, there fore, concerned with the interrelations between sections of various castes in the local context. No one knows when and how they came into existence and what they meant socially. 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 . 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. Frequently, The ekdas or gols were each divided into groups called tads (split). ), as contrasted with the horizontal unity of the caste. 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 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. endobj 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. Vankar is described as a caste as well as a community. 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. Among the Kanbis, while there was hypergamy within the Leva division and possibly, similar hypergamy within the Kadva division, there was no hierarchy or hypergamy between the two second-order divisions. The degree of contravention is less if the couple belong, let us say, to two different fourth-order divisions within a third-order division than if they belong to two different third-order divisions within a second-order division, and so on. For example, the Khadayata Brahmans worked as priests at important rituals among Khadayata Vanias. Castes which did not sit together at public feasts, let alone at meals in homes, only 15 or 20 years ago, now freely sit together even at meals in homes. [CDATA[ The advance made in recent years is limited and much more needs to be done. Systematic study of small caste divisions in villages as well as in towns still awaits the attention of sociologists and anthropologists. Nor do I claim to know the whole of Gujarat. According to the Rajputs I know in central Gujarat, the highest stratum among them consisted of the royal families of large and powerful kingdoms in Gujarat and neighbouring Rajasthan, such as those of Bhavnagar, Jamnagar, Kachchh, Porbandar, Bikaner, Idar, Jaipur, Jaisalmer, Jodhpur, Udaipur, and so on.
manvar surname caste in gujarat
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manvar surname caste in gujarat