Then there were a number of urban divisions of specialized artisans, craftsmen and servants, as for example, Sonis (gold and silver smiths), Kansaras (copper and bronze smiths), Salvis (silk weavers), Bhavsars (weavers, dyers and printers), Malis (florists), Kharadis (skilled carpenters and wood carvers), Kachhias (vegetable sellers), Darjis (tailors), Dabgars (makers of drums, saddles and such other goods involving leather), Ghanchis (oil pressers), Golas ferain and spice pounders and domestic servants), Dhobis (washermen), Chudgars (banglemakers), and Tambolis (sellers of area nuts, betel leaves, etc.). The tribal groups in the highland area, such as the Bhils and Naikdas, also did not have any urban component. 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. 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. 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. [CDATA[ Frequently, the urban population of such a division performed more specialized functions than did the rural one. The Kolis in such an area may not even be concerned about a second-order divisional name and may be known simply as Kolis. To whichever of the four orders a caste division belonged, its horizontal spread rarely, if ever, coincided with that of another. There were Brahman and Vania divisions of the same name, the myths about both of them were covered by a single text. 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. There was apparently a close relation between a castes internal organization and the size and spatial distribution of its population. 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). 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. No sooner had the village studies begun that their limitations and the need for studying caste in its horizontal dimension were realized. 92. so roamed around clueless. 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. Besides the myths, the members of a second-order division, belonging to all ekdas, shared certain customs and institutions, including worship of a tutelary deity. Leva Kanbis, numbering 400,000 to 500,000 m 1931, were the traditional agricultural caste of central Gujarat. 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. 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). Among the first-order divisions with subdivisions going down to the fourth order, there are associations for divisions of all the orders. (surname) Me caste; Mer (community) Meta Qureshi; Mistri caste; Miyana (community) Modh; Motisar (caste) Multani Lohar; Muslim Wagher; Mutwa; N . 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. 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. There are other sub-castes like Satpanthis, who are mainly centered in Kutch district and have some social customs akin to Muslims . 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 comment on the sociology of urban India would, therefore, be in order before we go ahead with the discussion of caste divisions. 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. That Rajputs were one of the divisions, if not the only division of the first-order, not having further divisions, has already been mentioned. The main reason was that Anavils did not practise priesthood as a traditional occupation, nor were they involved in traditional Sanskrit learning. The bulk of the population was spread all over the villages as small landholders, tenants and labourers. Frequently, a division among Vanias corresponded to a division among Brahmans. 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. 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. Some ekdas did come into existence in almost the same way as did the tads, that is to say, by a process of fission of one ekda into two or more ekdas. 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. %PDF-1.7 Frequently, social divisions were neatly expressed in street names. To obtain a clear understanding of the second-order divisions with the Koli division, it is necessary first of all to find a way through the maze of their divisional names. A first-order division could be further divided into two or more second-order divisions. The tad thus represented the fourth and last order of caste divisions. <> This category has the following 18 subcategories, out of 18 total. 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. 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. Although caste was found in both village and town, did it possess any special characteristics in the latter? * List of Scheduled Tribes in Gujarat; A. . 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 describe here three prominent units of the latter type, namely, Anavil, Leva Kanbi, and Khedawal Brahman. Traditionally, the Brahman division was supposed to provide the priests for the corresponding divisions. Sometimes a division could even be a self-contained endogamous unit. This does not, however, help describe caste divisions adequately. Moreover, a single division belonging to any one of the orders may have more than one association, and an association may be uni-purpose or multi-purpose. Privacy Policy 8. New Jersey had the highest population of Mehta families in 1920. In each of these three divisions the top stratum was clear. They worked not only as high priests but also as bureaucrats. 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 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. Census officials-turned-scholars, from Risley to Hutton, wrote many of the earlier general works on caste. How many sub-divisions existed in the various divisions of the various orders is a matter of empirical investigation. The boundaries of caste division were fairly clear in the village community. In central Gujarat, at least from about the middle of the 18th century, the population of the wealthy and powerful Patidar section of the Kanbis also lived in townsan extremely interesting development of rich villages into towns, which I will not describe here. A great deal of discussion of the role of the king in the caste system, based mainly on Indological literature, does not take these facts into account and therefore tends to be unrealistic. Early industrial labour was also drawn mainly from the urban artisan and servant castes. Let me illustrate briefly. Tapodhans were priests in Shiva temples. The three trading castes of Vania, Lohana and Bhatia were mainly urban. This was because political authorities were hierarchized from little kingdom to empire and the boundaries of political authorities kept changing. Significantly, a large number of social thinkers and workers who propagated against the hierarchical features of caste came from urban centres. In India Limbachiya is most frequent in: Maharashtra, where 70 percent reside, Gujarat . All Brahman divisions did not, however, have a corresponding Vania division. It has already been mentioned that every first-order division was not divided into second-order divisions, and that every second-order division was not divided into third-order divisions, and so on. At one end there were castes in which the principle of hierarchy had free play and the role of the principle of division was limited. 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. They have been grouped in Vaishya category of Varna system. 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). Systematic because castes exist and are like each other in being different (298). Because of these two major factors, one economic and the other political, Gujarat at the beginning of the 19th century had a large urban population, distributed over a large number of small towns. rogers outage brampton today; levelland, tx obituaries. But there was also another process. 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). In contrast, there were horizontal units, the internal hierarchy and hypergamy of which were restricted to some extent by the formation of small endogamous units and which had discernible boundaries at the lowest level. 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 the people of one tad would talk about their superiority over those of another tad in an ekda, and the people of one ekda over those of another in a higher-order division, particularly in large towns where two or more tads and ekdas would be found living together, there was no articulate ranking and hypergamy among them. Weavers became beggars, manufacturing collapsed and the last 2000 years of Indian textile industry was knocked down. A recent tendency in sociological literature is to consider jatis as castes. Usually, a single Koli division had different local names in different parts of Gujarat, but more about this later.

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