The two together formed a single complex of continental dimension. Many of them claimed that they were Brahmans but this claim was not accepted by most established Brahmans. The Anavil, numbering 30,000 to 40,000 in 1931, were found mainly in south Gujarat. 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. 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. manvar surname caste in gujarat. There was apparently a close relation between a castes internal organization and the size and spatial distribution of its population. I describe here three prominent units of the latter type, namely, Anavil, Leva Kanbi, and Khedawal Brahman. In 1931, their total population was more than 1,700,000, nearly one-fourth of the total population of Gujarat. As could be expected, there were marriages between fairly close kin, resulting in many overlapping relationships, in such an endogamous unit. 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 Kayasthas and Brahma-Kshatriyas, the so- called writer castes, employed mainly in the bureaucracy, and the Vahivancha Barots, genealogists and mythographers, were almost exclusively urban castes. 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. In each of these three divisions the top stratum was clear. This was unlike the situation among the Rajputs who did not make any attempt to form small endogamous units. Traditionally, the Brahman division was supposed to provide the priests for the corresponding divisions. Co-residence of people, belonging to two or more divisions of a lower order within a higher order was, however, a prominent feature of towns and cities rather than of villages. So far we have considered first-order divisions with large and widely spread populations. 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. These linkages played an important role in the traditional social structure as well as in the processes of change in modern India. 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. 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. Reference to weaving and spinning materials is found in the Vedic Literature. 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. These and many other artisans, craftsmen and servants reflected the special life-style of the town. The degree of contravention involved in an inter-divisional marriage, however, depends upon the order (i.e., first-order, second-order, etc.) Second, there used to be intense intra-ekda politics, and tads were formed as a result of some continuing conflict among ekda leaders and over the trial of violation of ekda rules. I have, therefore, considered them a first-order division and not a second-order one among Brahmans (for a fuller discussion of the status of Anavils, see Joshi, 1966; Van der Veen 1972; Shah, 1979). 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 Levas, Anavils and Khedawals provide examples of castes whose internal organization had a strong emphasis on the principle of hierarchy and a weak emphasis on that of division. Systematic study of small caste divisions in villages as well as in towns still awaits the attention of sociologists and anthropologists. The two categories of castes have been deeply conscious of these differences between them and have been talking freely about them. 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. For example, a good number of villages in central Gujarat used to have both Talapada and Pardeshi Kolis and Brahmans belonging to two or three of their many second-order divisions. Leva Kanbis, numbering 400,000 to 500,000 m 1931, were the traditional agricultural caste of central Gujarat. Further, the castes there are unable to take cognizance of each other in terms of hierarchy or of occupation, and it is in this situation that they can be said to exist by virtue of their differences (296) it is the systematic recognition of difference which is most apparent. A new view of the whole, comprising the rural and the urban and the various orders of caste divisions, should be evolved. But this is not enough. 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. This was dramatized in many towns at the mahajan (guild) feasts when all the members of the guild of traders would eat together. PDF Castes and Subcastes List in Gujarat - Matchfinder It used to have a panch (council of leaders) and sometimes also a headman (patel). The associations activities in the field of marriage, such as reform to customs, rituals and ceremonies, and encouragement of inter-divisional marriages, are also seen by the members as a service to the nationas the castes method of creating a casteless modern society. Weavers became beggars, manufacturing collapsed and the last 2000 years of Indian textile industry was knocked down. 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. These divisions have, however, been kept out of the present analysis for reasons which have become well known to students of Hindu society since the 1950s. For example, among the Khadayata Vanias there are all-Khadayata associations as well as associations for the various ekdas and sometimes even for their tads (see Shah, Ragini 1978). All the small towns sections in each of the ekdas resented that, while the large town section accepted brides from small towns, they did not reciprocate. 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. Hence started farming and small scale business in the British Raj to thrive better conditions ahead to maintain their livelihood. 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. Visited Ahmedabad for the weekend to meet a friend but her family had a medical emergency. This meant that he could marry a girl of any subdivision within the Vania division. Not only that, there were also third-order divisions (i.e., ekdas) in one or more second-order divisions, and finally one or more fourth-order divisions (i.e., tads) in one or more third-order divisions. They then spread to towns in the homeland and among all castes. For example, just as there was a Shrimali division among Sonis (goldsmiths). Sometimes castes are described as becoming ethnic groups in modern India, particularly in urban India. Advances in manufacturing technologies flooded markets in India and abroad with cheap, mass-produced fabrics that Indian handlooms could no longer compete with. 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. Their origin myth enshrined in their caste purana also showed them to be originally non-Brahman. It is important to note that the more literate and learned Brahmans lived in towns, more particularly in capital and pilgrim towns, which were, indeed, the centres of higher Hindu culture and civilization. It is possible that there were a few divisions each confined to just one large city and, therefore, not having the horizontal dimension at all. The understanding of changes in caste is not likely to be advanced by clubbing such diverse groups together under the rubric of ethnic group. 4 0 obj
Usually, the affairs of the caste were discussed in large congregations of some fifty to hundred or even more villages from time to time. Which caste is koli patel? Explained by Sharing Culture Before publishing your articles on this site, please read the following pages: 1. 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. Kuntasi, Lothal and Somnath of Gujarat regions in Harrapan civilization were familiar with weaving and the spinning of cotton for as long as four thousand years ago. I hope to show that the integration of the study of caste in urban areas with that of rural areas is essential to a comprehensive understanding of caste and its implications for Indian society and culture. 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 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. Frequently, social divisions were neatly expressed in street names. The arrival of the East India Company, however sounded the death knell for the Indian textile industry. A first-order division could be further divided into two or more second-order divisions. 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 Vanias provide an example of such castes. Koli Patels are recognised as a Other Backward Class caste by Government of Gujarat. Leva Sheri and Kadva Sheri, named after the two major second-order divisions among the Kanbis. They are described by the ruling elite as robbers, dacoits, marauders, predators and the like. 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. There were Brahman and Vania divisions of the same name, the myths about both of them were covered by a single text. The lowest stratum in all the three divisions had to face the problem of scarcity of brides. 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. When Mr. H. Borradaile in A.D. 1827 collected information regarding the customs of Hindus, no less than 207 castes which did not intermarry, were found in the city of Surat alone. Asking different questions and using different methods are necessary. 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. A recent tendency in sociological literature is to consider jatis as castes. 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. Here, usually, what mattered was the first-order division, as for example Brahman, Vania, Rajput, Kanbi, carpenter, barber, leather-worker, and so on. 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. There are other sub-castes like Satpanthis, who are mainly centered in Kutch district and have some social customs akin to Muslims . 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.