In the second-order divisions of the Vanias the small endogamous units functioned more effectively and lasted longer: although the hypergamous tendency did exist particularly between the rural and the urban sections in a unit, it had restricted play. 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. On the other hand, there was an almost simultaneous spurt in village studies. Let us now return to a consideration of the first-order divisions with subdivisions going down to the third or the fourth order. A fundamental difficulty with these paradigms of change, as indicated by the above analysis, is that they are based on a partial conception of the systematic or structural whole in the past partially because it does not cover the urban situation and the complexity of horizontal units. 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. Vankar is described as a caste as well as a community. Once the claim was accepted at either level, hypergamous marriage was possible. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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 hierarchy, however, was very gradual and lacked sharpness. 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. This account of the divisions is based on various sources, but mainly on Bombay Gazetteer (1901). There was another kind of ambiguity about the Brahman status or two other divisionsKayatia and Tapodhan. Of particular importance seems to be the fact that a section of the urban population was more or less isolatedsome may say, alienatedfrom the rural masses from generation to generation. Unfortunately, such figures are not available for the last fifty years or so. 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. Copyright 10. Although my knowledge is fragmentary, I thought it was worthwhile to put together the bits and pieces for the region as a whole. [CDATA[ No sooner had the village studies begun that their limitations and the need for studying caste in its horizontal dimension were realized. Census officials-turned-scholars, from Risley to Hutton, wrote many of the earlier general works on caste. 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. The hypergamous tendency was never as sharp, pervasive and regular among the Vania divisions as among the Rajputs, Leva Kanbis, Anavils and Khedawals. The prohibition of inter-division marriage was much more important than the rules of purity and pollution in the maintenance of boundaries between the lower-order divisions. 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). 3 0 obj I have not yet come across an area where Kolis from three or more different areas live together, excepting modern, large towns and cities. And how flexibility was normal at the lowest level has just been shown. There is enormous literature on these caste divisions from about the middle of the 19th century which includes census reports, gazetteers, castes-and- tribes volumes, ethnographic notes and monographs and scholarly treatises such as those by Baines, Blunt, Ghurye, Hocart, Hutton, Ibbet- son, OMalley, Risley, Senart, and others. 100 Most Common Surnames in India | Probability Comparison Content Filtrations 6. There was also another important correlation. For example, there were Khedawal Brahmans but not Khedawal Vanias, and Lad Vanias but no Lad Brahmans. The chiefly families constituted a tiny proportion of the total population of any second-order division among the Kolis. Toori. 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. An important idea behind the activities of caste associations is: service to ones caste is service to the nation. yorba linda football maxpreps; weiteste entfernung gerichtsbezirk; wyoming rockhounding locations google maps; 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. We had seen earlier that in the first-order division, such as that of the Rajputs, there were no second-order divisions, and no attempt was made to form small endogamous units: hypergamy had free play, as it were. The two considered themselves different and separateof course, within the Kanbi foldwhere they happened to live together in the villages in the merger zone between north and central Gujarat and in towns. Weaving and cloth trading communities of Western India particularly of Gujarat are called Vankar/Wankar/Vaniya. Indeed, a major achievement of Indian sociology during the last thirty years or so has been deeper understanding of caste in the village context in particular and of its hierarchical dimension in general. . For example, among the Vanias the most general rule was that a marriage of a boy could be arranged with any girl who was bhane khapati, i.e., with whom he was permitted to have commensal relations (roti vyavahar). When divisions are found within a jati, the word sub-jati or sub-caste is used. For example, there was considerable ambiguity about the status of Anavils. 4 0 obj 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. The guiding ideas were samaj sudharo (social reform) and samaj seva (social service). I have bits and pieces of information about relations between a considerable numbers of other lower-order divisions in their respective higher-order divisions. 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). manvar surname caste in gujarat. 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. Hindu society is usually described as divided into a number of castes the boundaries of which are maintained by the rule of caste endogamy. That the role of the two principles could vary at different levels within a first-order division has also been seen. In all there were thirty to forty such divisions. 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. Moreover, some leading Anavils did not wish to be bothered about Brahman status, saying that they were just Anavil. There are other sub-castes like Satpanthis, who are mainly centered in Kutch district and have some social customs akin to Muslims . 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 three trading castes of Vania, Lohana and Bhatia were mainly urban. 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. There were also a number of first-order divisions, mainly of artisans, craftsmen and specialized servants, with small populations. Sindhollu, Chindollu. 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. Homo Hierarchicus. Firstly, there were divisions whose population was found almost entirely in towns. There are thus a few excellent studies of castes as horizontal units. For example, just as there was a Shrimali division among Sonis (goldsmiths). This tendency reaches its culmination in the world of Dumont. In central Gujarat, for example, one and the same division, freely arranging marriages within it, was known by several names such as Baraiya, Dharala, Khant, Kotwal, Pagi, Patelia, Talapada, Thakarada, and Thakor. Marco Polo a Venetian merchant on his visit to India in 13th century Gujarat observed that "brocading art of Gujarat weavers is par excellent". He stated: hereditary specialization together with hierarchical organization sinks into the background in East Africa (293). 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. The degree of contravention involved in an inter-divisional marriage, however, depends upon the order (i.e., first-order, second-order, etc.) There is enormous literature on these caste divisions from about the middle of the 19th century which includes census reports, gazetteers, [] A recent tendency in sociological literature is to consider jatis as castes. The sub- the manner in which the ideas of free marriages and castles society are used by both the old and the young in modern India and how a number of new customs and institutions have evolved to cope with these new ideas is a fascinating subject of study. Usually, the affairs of the caste were discussed in large congregations of some fifty to hundred or even more villages from time to time. These coastal towns were involved in trade among themselves, with other towns on the rest of the Indian sea coast, and with many foreign lands. 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 method is to remove first the barriers of the divisions of the lowest order and then gradually those of one higher order after another. Gujarati migrations to the nearby metropolis of Bombay the first new centre of administration, industry, commerce, education, and western culture, followed the same links. The two categories of castes have been deeply conscious of these differences between them and have been talking freely about them. 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 . For example, just as there were Modh Vanias, there were Modh Brahmans, and similarly Khadayata Vanias and Khadayata Brahmans, Shrimali Vanias and Shrimali Brahmans, Nagar Vanias and Nagar Brahmans, and so on. 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. 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. 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. Usually, the latter were distinguished from one another by prohibition. 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.). Their origin myth enshrined in their caste purana also showed them to be originally non-Brahman. In all there were about eighty such divisions. The degree of contravention is highest if the couple belong to two different first-order divisions. 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). 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. Thus, the result was the spread of the population of a caste division towards its fringes. Both were recognized as Brahman but as degraded ones. 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. But this is not enough. 3.8K subscribers in the gujarat community. Many of these names were also based on place names. And even when a Brahman name corresponded with a Vania name, the former did not necessarily work as priests of the latter.The total number of second-divisions in a first-order division differed from one first-order division to another.