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. In effect, the Vania population in a large town like Ahmedabad could have a considerable number of small endogamous units of the third or the fourth order, each with its entire population living and marrying within the town itself. 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). There was a continuous process of formation and disintegration of such units. 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. The existence of flexibility at both the levels was made possible by the flexibility of the category Rajput. Reference to weaving and spinning materials is found in the Vedic Literature. 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 Rajputs, in association with Kolis, Bhils, and such other castes and tribes, provide an extreme example of such castes. The urban centres in both the areas, it is hardly necessary to mention, are nucleated settlements populated by numerous caste and religious groups. History. We shall return to this issue later. Third, although two or more new endogamous units came into existence and marriage between them was forbidden thereafter, a number of pre-existing kinship and affinal relationships continued to be operative between them. Most inter-divisional marriages take place between boys and girls belonging to the lowest order in the structure of divisions. A few examples are: Brahman (priest), Vania (trader), Rajput (warrior and ruler), Kanbi (peasant), Koli (peasant), Kathi (peasant), Soni goldsmith), Suthar (carpenter), Valand (barber), Chamar (leatherworker), Dhed (weaver) and Bhangi (scavenger). Sometimes a division could even be a self-contained endogamous unit. 3.8K subscribers in the gujarat community. Asking different questions and using different methods are necessary. By the beginning of British rule in the early 19th century, a considerable number of these chieftains had succeeded in establishing petty chiefdoms, each composed of one, and occasionally more than one, village, in all parts of Gujarat. The Kolis in such an area may not even be concerned about a second-order divisional name and may be known simply as Kolis. Thus, at one end, there were first-order divisions, each of which was sub-divided up to the fourth-order, and at the other end there were first-order divisions which were not further divided at all. //. 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. 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. It is a coalescence of Kolis and Rajputs on the modern political plane based on the foundation of the traditional social and cultural symbiosis under the rubric of Kshatriya. (Frequently, such models are constructed a priori rather than based on historical evidence, but that is another story). 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. I do not, however, have sufficient knowledge of the latter and shall, therefore, confine myself mainly to Rajputs in Gujarat. Firstly, there were divisions whose population was found almost entirely in towns. 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. The two former ekdas continued to exist with diminished strength. For example, the Khadayata Brahmans worked as priests at important rituals among Khadayata Vanias. 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. 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). For example, the Patanwadia population was spread continuously from the Patan area to central Gujarat, and the Talapada population from central Gujarat to Pal. 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. Together they provide a slice of Gujarati society from the sea- coast to the bordering highlands. The degree of contravention involved in an inter-divisional marriage, however, depends upon the order (i.e., first-order, second-order, etc.) The co-residence of people belonging to two or more divisions of a lower order within a division of a higher order has been a prominent feature of caste in towns and cities. Usually, a single Koli division had different local names in different parts of Gujarat, but more about this later. 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. That Rajputs were one of the divisions, if not the only division of the first-order, not having further divisions, has already been mentioned. 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. 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 two categories of castes have been deeply conscious of these differences between them and have been talking freely about them. <> 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.). 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. 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. Castes pervaded by divisive tendencies had small populations confined to small areas separated from each other by considerable gaps. 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. The most Mehta families were found in USA in 1920. As for the size of other castes, I shall make mainly relative statements. Systematic because castes exist and are like each other in being different (298). There was considerable elaboration in urban areas of what Ghurye long ago called the community aspect of caste (1932: 179) and frequently, this led to juxtaposition rather than hierarchy between caste divisions of the same order. As soon as there is any change in . Jun 12, 2022 . 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. In each of these three divisions the top stratum was clear. Caste Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster Systematic study of small caste divisions in villages as well as in towns still awaits the attention of sociologists and anthropologists. There was also another important correlation. 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. 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. The Mehta family name was found in the USA, and the UK between 1891 and 1920. These marriage links do not seem to have allowed, among the Kolis, formation of well organized, small, endogamous units (ekadas, gols) as were found among some other castes. Sometimes castes are described as becoming ethnic groups in modern India, particularly in urban India. (surname) Me caste; Mer (community) Meta Qureshi; Mistri caste; Miyana (community) Modh; Motisar (caste) Multani Lohar; Muslim Wagher; Mutwa; N . ), as contrasted with the horizontal unity of the caste. The chiefly families constituted a tiny proportion of the total population of any second-order division among the Kolis. This does not solve the problem if there are four orders of divisions of the kind found in Gujarat. Division and Hierarchy: An Overview of Caste in Gujarat gujarati surnames castes www.opendialoguemediations.com. The members of a kings caste were thus found not only in his own kingdom but in other kingdoms as well. 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. 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.
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