Copyright 10. * List of Scheduled Tribes in Gujarat; A. . These and many other artisans, craftsmen and servants reflected the special life-style of the town. But the hypergamous tendency was so powerful that each such endogamous unit could not be perfectly endogamous even at the height of its integration. This tendency reaches its culmination in the world of Dumont. Gujarat did not have anything like the non-Brahmin movement of South India and Maharashtra before 1947. 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 no other nation has something as basic as one's clothing or an act as simple as spinning cotton become so intertwined with a national movement. Content Guidelines 2. 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. The four major woven fabrics produced by these communities are cotton, silk, khadi and linen. There would be a wide measure of agreement with him on both these counts. Which caste is Vaya surname? : r/gujarat - reddit.com They also continued to have marital relations with their own folk. More of them were located in the plains, than in the bordering highlands. The number of tads in an ekda or go I might be two or more, and each of them might be an endogamous units. 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. 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). The bulk of the population was spread all over the villages as small landholders, tenants and labourers. 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. 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; 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. A comment on the sociology of urban India would, therefore, be in order before we go ahead with the discussion of caste divisions. 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). 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. 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. 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). 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). 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. 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. In other words, it did not involve a big jump from one place to another distant place. 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. 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. In fact, inter-tad marriages have increased so much that the tads have more or less lost their identity and such marriages are no longer considered as violating the rule of tad endogamy. In the plains, therefore, every village had one or more towns in its vicinity. % Let me illustrate briefly. Any one small caste may look insignificant in itself but all small castes put together become a large social block and a significant social phenomenon. 92. 1 0 obj 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. The most important example of primarily political caste association is the Gujarat Kshatriya Sabha. Category:Social groups of Gujarat - Wikipedia The highest stratum among the Leva Kanbi tried to maintain its position by practising polygyny and female infanticide, among other customs and institutions, as did the highest stratum among the Rajput. The following 157 pages are in this category, out of 157 total. Each ekda or gol was composed of a definite number of families living in certain villages and/or towns. The most Mehta families were found in USA in 1920. It used to have a panch (council of leaders) and sometimes also a headman (patel). Apparently this upper boundary of the division was sharp and clear, especially when we remember that many of these royal families practised polygyny and female infanticide until middle of the 19th century (see Plunkett 1973; Viswa Nath 1969, 1976). In recent years, however, there has been a tendency to emphasize hierarchy as the primary principle encompassing the principle of division. All of this information supports the point emerging from the above analysis, that frequently there was relatively little concern for ritual status between the second-order divisions within a first- order division than there was between the first-order divisions. The Rajputs, in association with Kolis, Bhils, and such other castes and tribes, provide an extreme example of such castes. The handloom weavers of Gujarat, Maharastra and Bengal produced and exported some of the world's most desirable fabrics. 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 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. I have not yet come across an area where Kolis from three or more different areas live together, excepting modern, large towns and cities. manvar surname caste in gujarat. 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). 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. 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. 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. Since Rajput as a caste occurred all over northern, central and western India (literally, it means rulers son, ruling son), the discussion of Rajputs in Gujarat will inevitably draw us into their relationship with Rajputs in other regions. <>/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>> Indian textiles especially of Gujarat have been praised in several accounts by explorers and historians, from Megasthenes to Herodotus. caste: [noun] one of the hereditary social classes in Hinduism that restrict the occupation of their members and their association with the members of other castes. Although the ekda or tad was the most effective unit for endogamy, each unit of the higher order was also significant for endogamy. This surname is most commonly held in India, where it is held by 2,496 people, or 1 in 307,318. New Jersey had the highest population of Mehta families in 1920. Although they claimed to be Brahman they were closely associated with agriculture. I do not, however, have sufficient knowledge of the latter and shall, therefore, confine myself mainly to Rajputs in Gujarat. Patidars or Patels claim themselves to be descendants of Lord Ram. Although some of them set up shops in villages they rarely became full-fledged members of the village community. For example, just as there was a Shrimali division among Sonis (goldsmiths). Also, the horizontal spread of a caste rarely coincided with the territorial boundaries of a political authority. 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. <> Simultaneously, there is gradual decline in the strength of the principle of hierarchy, particularly of ritual hierarchy expressed in purity and pollution. 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). 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. Vankar is described as a caste as well as a community. The two together formed a single complex of continental dimension. 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. 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. 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. Toori. The arrival of the East India Company, however sounded the death knell for the Indian textile industry. Both were recognized as Brahman but as degraded ones. The latter continued to be the provincial capital during Mughal rule. 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. I know some ekdas, and tads composed of only 150 to 200 households. The Hindu population of Gujarat was divided first of all into what I have called caste divisions of the first order. 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. <> This reflects the high degree of divisiveness in castes in Gujarat. 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. 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 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. Far from it, I am only suggesting that its role had certain limitations and that the principle of division was also an important and competing principle. 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. Systematic study of small caste divisions in villages as well as in towns still awaits the attention of sociologists and anthropologists. Frequently, The ekdas or gols were each divided into groups called tads (split). Division and Hierarchy: An Overview of Caste in Gujarat ), as contrasted with the horizontal unity of the caste. Thus, the result was the spread of the population of a caste division towards its fringes. 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. 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. A recent tendency in sociological literature is to consider jatis as castes. I am dealing here only with certain typical situations. 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. Many of them became the norm-setting elite for Gujaratis in the homeland. 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. In each of these three divisions the top stratum was clear. 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.).