Society in the Outlying Neighborhoods
Hindu Communities of Middle and Low Status
Outside the central areas of the city in neighborhoods such as Begampura, Sagrampura, Navapura, Salabatpura, and Mahidharpura were Hindu communities of artisans and petty traders collectively known in Gujarat as "Ghanchi-Gola."[65] Together with noncaste Hindus—the so-called untouchables—these communities constituted more than 50 percent of the city's population. Included in this category were a number of caste groupings such as the Golas (traditionally rice pounders by profession), the Ghanchis (oil pressers), Khatris (weavers), Darjis (tailors), Suthars (carpenters), and Kanbis (who worked mostly as artisans). Many of these collectivities contained within them several distinct jnati s. Harry Borradaile, a British official who compiled caste rules for the whole of British Gujarat in 1827, reported more than two hundred distinct endogamous units living in Surat. Most of these were groups of middle-and low-caste background who lived in the pura s.[66]
Members of Ghanchi-Gola communities often had a rather ambivalent relationship to the high-status merchants and government servants. Many of their families had established clientage ties with individual Brahman-Vaniya, Parsi, or Daudi Bohra families as dependents who performed services such as washing and stitching cloths, pounding rice, or repairing furniture for their high-caste patrons; as artisans who obtained their raw materials and sources of finance from the merchants to whom they sold their finished goods; or as petty traders who borrowed heavily from Vaniya moneylenders. Such ties often led to the
development of long-standing affective relationships in which patrons provided their clients important services—loans, gifts on special occasions, small jobs during periods of business slump—in return for the labor or interest payments of the client. The Ghanchi-Golas also participated to a certain extent in a common religious life with the upper castes, celebrating the same festivals and worshiping in some of the same temples. But there were also serious tensions in these relationships. High-caste residents tended to regard the Ghanchi-Golas collectively as beyond the pale of respectable society, and they worried about the threat to the local moral order which they believed these communities posed. Members of the lower and middle castes engaged in a variety of non-Brahmanic practices, such as meat eating, alcohol consumption, and widow remarriage, that served implicitly to contest and mock high-caste normative standards. As a whole they acquired a reputation for unsavoriness and unruliness that evoked upper-caste disdain and anxiety.[67]
In contrast to high-caste society, where elaborate social networks developed beyond the ritual unit, Ghanchi-Gola society assumed a somewhat cellular quality. The tight corporate character of its social organization appeared quite clearly in residential patterns. Often members of individual jnati s clustered in small, well-defined localities. The Golas (who today prefer the name of Ranas), composed of three different jnati s, lived in exclusive enclaves in Navapura. Tailors, washermen, basketmakers, and potters all had their own streets where they lived and plied their wares. Khatris and Kanbis also tended to live among their jnati fellows, though often their houses were interspersed with those of people belonging to two or three other castes.[68] In moments of crisis, such as the salt tax riots of 1844 and the license tax riots of 1878, members of the different communities joined together in protest involving violence, suggesting perhaps a latent consciousness of class that was not apparent in everyday social and institutional life.[69]
Small, closely-knit corporate groupings, often the jnati s, served as the most important basis of political organization in the outlying neighborhoods. Almost every collectivity possessed its own panch (caste organization), which often performed both as a regulator of ritual affairs and as a craft guild. The panch occupied a far more vital place here than did the panchayat s of the upper-castes. Its leaders, the patel s, were often hereditary headmen, who set codes of conduct within the group and acted as intermediaries with other groups. Early twentieth-century religious reformers who attempted to propagate vegetarianism and abstinence from alcohol regarded the conversion of the patel s as a first step to the success of their movement.[70] British civil servants, who tended to view the Ghanchi-Gola communities as remote and impene-
trable, relied almost exclusively upon the patel s to maintain social order.[71] Colonial recognition of these headmen strengthened their dominance in middle- and low-caste society as well as the salience of caste to social organization in the outlying localities.
The corporate character of Ghanchi-Gola communities was also reinforced in economic practice. Many of these groups were associated with one or two occupations, or a limited number of them, which might be termed the group's "traditional" occupations. The Ghanchis controlled oil pressing, milk selling, and trade in firewood. Most Kumbhars were engaged in the manufacture and sale of pottery. The Golas were commonly involved in rice pounding. Even in the more complex industries, such as the manufacture of silk and jari, specific communities concentrated on processes involved in the production of a single commodity. The traditional occupation was rarely the exclusive source of employment for all members of the group, but it was quite common for a single community to monopolize a specific trade or craft. This tendency toward group control of certain occupations was not always undermined by economic change. During the early twentieth century, the Golas, who had been displaced by the mechanization of the rice industry, began to move into winding jari. By 1930 they had attained near total control over winding operations, displacing the once-dominant Muslims, in effect establishing a new "traditional" occupation. By building such monopolies, artisans and petty traders could limit competition from outsiders and develop relatively stable and dependable relationships with the few laborers they hired from among the ranks of their caste fellows.[72]
The traditional occupation often assumed a dharmik character for its members, though the sources of Ghanchi-Gola dharma relied less on Sanskritic scriptures than on the oral traditions of individual groups. Many communities had collective myths justifying their control of their craft. The Golas, for instance, claimed to have originally been Rajputs from Mewada who adopted the name gola (menial servant or slave) in order to protect themselves from the fearsome god Parashuram. In hiding, Shiva, their protector, gave them the mortar and pestle of the rice-pounding trade with which to make their livelihoods.[73] Since this myth established a time when the community had had higher ritual status than the present, it implicitly contested high-caste attempts to attribute to the group's members an inborn inferiority.[74] At the same time it attributed a sacred quality to rice pounding.
One responsibility of the community panch was to preserve this dharmik trade for group members. Often the organizations set strong rules preventing the communication of artisan secrets to outsiders and reinforced these with caste sanctions.[75] They also attempted to spread
work among members during times of depression, thus regulating competition and ensuring the survival of as many family firms as possible. The patel s of the panch could go so far as to set wage rates and working hours for artisans and to order which days would be observed as holidays in the traditional occupation. The panch also settled occupational disputes.[76] On occasion the organizations acted as craft unions, pressuring merchants to accept certain payment levels and employment practices.
Ritually the panch and its headmen were involved in enforcing marriage and commensal rules essential to group integrity and solidarity. patel s levied fines against violators of group norms and had the power to ostracize those who engaged in especially offensive behavior.[77] They also raised funds for regular communal feasts, which, among some middle-caste groupings, could surpass the dinners of the Vaniyas in conspicuous expenditure.[78] The patel s often retained control of the caste vessels employed on such occasions and the right to use them.[79] Little collective money was apparently spent on seva to religious shrines. The British legal system, which had codified caste laws for dozens of local jnati s, tended to confirm the authority of the patel s over community funds in the courts.
Headmen of artisan and petty-trading communities did not simply uphold static codes of behavior, but like the Hindu Mahajan, reinterpreted their group's dharma over time. Frequently the sense of community solidarity derived from cultural practices that implicitly denied Brahmanical norms. Nevertheless, attempts to raise status within the social hierarchy by adopting high-caste practices were common in many of these communities. Such "Sanskritizing" efforts inevitably depended upon the support of group leaders. In 1906 headmen among the Khatris and Golas made bandobast (enforcement of moral codes by threat of social sanctions) against the consumption of alcohol.[80] Only four years later a Gola leader organized a meeting to promote temperance, compassion for animal life, and general "improvements of morality" among his community. Those present at the meeting sang bhajan s composed by bhakti saints and listened to the preaching of holy men on abstinence and vegetarianism.[81] Once the patel s abandoned their backing of such ventures, however, the movements tended to fall apart.[82]
The periodic rise and fall of Sanskritization efforts among pettytrading and artisan communities suggest that headmen were continually involved in balancing the specific traditions and preoccupations of their groups against Brahman-Vaniya values. High-caste ideology provided certain ethical standards that middle-caste groups might choose to espouse in attempts to contest their positioning in local society. But even in the midst of such patel s exhibited a concern for
maintaining the distinctiveness of their community, insisting that all members subscribe to new behavioral norms. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, there were few signs of the weakening of group solidarities among middle-caste communities. The jnati s of middle and low status thus continued to retain a cohesiveness absent in the organization of the higher castes.
Muslim Communities of Surat
Surti Hindus constituted less a unified community than a series of subcultural groupings that drew upon a partially shared idiom as they defined their separate identities. The social distance between Brahman-Vaniya and Ghanchi-Gola proved a major barrier to any form of concerted behavior by local Hindus as a whole. At no point during the nineteenth century did various Hindu groups come together in any communally based action. The same could also be said of the local Muslim population. Though only about one-fifth of the city's population, the Muslims of Surat possessed a diversity that rivaled that of Hindus. Muslims, too, belonged to a large number of kin-based communities, most of them demarcated not only from non-Muslim groups but also from each other. Different Muslim communities lived in distinct pockets scattered around the city, usually in the outlying pura s.
One general line of differentiation in local Muslim society was that between "immigrant" Muslims—that is, Sunni Muslims claiming origins in West Asia—and "convert" Muslims, who acknowledged descent from indigenous Hindu communities.[83] The immigrants included the families that had once been associated with the top ranks of the Mughal administration. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Muslims from Turkey, the Red Sea, and Persian Gulf had been among the wealthiest of Surat's traders.[84] With the decline of Asian shipping, some abandoned Surat, while others took up less lucrative professions. Families belonging to the old Mughal nobility, on the other hand, retained much prominence under colonialism. In 1900 some of these families were still known by the titles of their late eighteenth-century ancestors: the Nawab of Surat, the Nawab of Bela, the Kazi (judge), and the Bakshi (army paymaster).[85] These families survived for the most part on land-holdings and pensions granted by the government in exchange for their continued loyalty.
Many of the convert Muslim communities, by contrast—most notably the Patani Bohras, who were Sunni Muslims, and the Daudi Bohras, who were Shia—continued to play important mercantile roles, some among them managing firms with considerable international business. There were also communities of Muslim petty traders, such as butchers
and cart drivers, and groupings of Muslim artisans, such as the Momnas and the Tais, both of whom did weaving. Most of these collectivities recognized indigenous, non-Muslim forebears. Many were as tightly corporate in character as their counterparts among Hindus of middle caste. Some even had their own neighborhoods or streets, where the majority of their members lived.[86]
The leading immigrant families retained a strong collective identity as the former ruling group and attempted to keep alive the memory of their past prominence through preserving at least the illusion of the old sharif culture, a syncretic style of life that had developed out of the interaction between foreign Muslim and indigenous Hindu elites in the Mughal courts during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.[87] The sharif ideal which they sought to emulate stood in stark contrast to the austere traditions of the Brahman-Vaniyas. Members of the old nobility lived in palaces often beyond their means to maintain; they secluded female family members, spent considerable sums on clothing and jewels, patronized Urdu poets, and organized public displays with great military pomp.[88] They also maintained a tradition of patronizing Indian Islamic institutions, such as mosques, dargah s (shrines to Sufi saints), madrasa s (centers for Islamic learning), burial grounds, and festivals. Particularly important for their "symbolic investments" were the shrines of the Edrusi Sayyids, Muslim spiritual leaders who had migrated to Gujarat from West Asia during the sixteenth century and who had maintained a hereditary influence in the region ever since. The Edrus family had a reputation for Islamic scholarship and the ability to perform miracles. Its headmen offered personal and spiritual advice to the families associated with them and were important in mediating local conflicts. Their ties with the old Mughal nobility, occasionally bolstered by marriage, remained close into the twentieth century.[89]
The old Mughal elite did not, however, develop an identity as leaders of the Muslim community until the later nineteenth century. In 1795, after rioting had broken out in the city, the local nawab essentially disclaimed any responsibility for restoring order among his coreligionists, asserting to the Surat chief, "You will be pleased, Sir, to reflect that the excesses of a riotous mob are not to be controlled at pleasure by anyone. In the case of a person committing violation of what they deem sacred, the Mussalmans assemble of themselves and consider themselves as subject to the will or authority of no person."[90] Such a rhetorical position stands in sharp contrast with that of men from the same families a century later, when their status in colonial circles depended upon casting themselves as "natural" leaders able to control their coreligionists. The nawab' s appraisal, however, was certainly a realistic one.
The immigrant elite carried little weight among the majority of Muslims in the city, particularly among those who did not trace their origins to the Islamic territories outside South Asia.
Structurally, many of the nonimmigrant Muslim groupings were not unlike Hindu jnati s; in fact many were caste groupings that had converted to Islam en masse in pre-Mughal times. A few like the Patani Bohras, a convert group which had migrated to Surat from northern Gujarat, had an organization known as a jama't, a functional equivalent of the Hindu panch. The sheth s of this organization, mostly substantial merchants by occupation, sponsored communal feasts on wedding occasions and religious holidays and closely supervised community morality, punishing violators of group norms with fines and social ostracism.[91] They also acted as trustees of the community's charitable property, which included a mosque, some land, several burial places, and a hall for group feasts. The butchers too had a particularly strong organization. On special holidays, it auctioned the right to keep a single shop open and used the funds to finance its own Muslim shrines.[92] Though the leaders of Muslim communities were not as concerned with retaining control over commensality or with enforcing absolute endogamy as their Hindu counterparts, they clearly shared an interest in maintaining the ritual boundaries of their descent-based groupings. Islam no doubt provided much of the repertoire of symbols critical to group identity in all these communities. But in each case, this was a specific form of Islam, often colored by the group's pre-Islamic traditions and by continuing contact with non-Muslims.
The wealthiest and most tightly organized of all Muslim communities in Surat was the Daudi Bohras. The Bohras were descendants of Hindu petty-trading groups who had been converted to Islam by Shia Ismaili preachers after the eleventh century. Their prosperity grew during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries as many built successful businesses through intracommunity networks of trust and shared resources. By the late nineteenth century many had established comfortable livings as shopkeepers dealing in commodities such as hardware, books, spices, sweets, groceries, and hides throughout western India. Some were extremely wealthy dealers in piece goods, with businesses stretching to Thailand, China, Arabia, and South Africa. Very few attained high proficiency in English or moved into the literate professions.[93]
The Bohras were sharply set apart from the other Muslims. Both men and women wore clothing and maintained appearances which distinguished them from all other residents of the city. Almost all lived in a single large neighborhood in Navapura. The most critical marker of the Bohras' ethnicity was their special form of religious practice. They
continued to observe many "Hindu" traditions such as the holding of community feasts and the observance of Divali as the beginning of their accounting year. Their faith was an esoteric doctrine, distinct from the beliefs of other Islamic groupings. A small, clearly defined set of religious specialists alone had access to the scriptures of the community, which were written in a Gujarati laced with Arabic words. At the apex of the religious hierarchy was the da'i, the spiritual head of the community. The da'i was believed to be inspired directly by the Imam-inseclusion, whom the Daudis considered to be living in a place of concealment. Each da'i appointed his successor before death, in theory through revelation from the Imam.[94] Mastery over the scriptures and other ritual qualifications proved more critical than heredity in determining succession, though sons well educated in community tradition often did assume their fathers' places. Since the office of da'i carried with it tremendous authority over the laity, disputes about the legitimacy of succession sometimes led to bitter conflict in which the losing factions, ostracized for their dissent, founded offshoot communities. The British courts usually backed the cause of the established da'i and his followers against these challengers.[95] As a result the authority of the religious hierarchy may have been stronger under colonial rule than ever before.
The powers and social responsibilities of the da'i and the priesthood were indeed considerable. They controlled a vast charitable administration that touched the life of every Daudi. Each member of the community had to pay seven different types of taxes to maintain this establishment; particularly wealthy individuals often made additional personal donations of great value.[96] With these funds the Bohra leaders built and kept up mosques, madrasa s, burial places, and community halls. They also provided social welfare services for the poorer Bohras and the families of previous da'i s.[97] The tight control of the Daudi establishment generally left members little room to develop independent giving patterns; it insisted that all donations be channeled through the collective leadership.
The priesthood also closely regulated the social behavior of group members. Every Daudi tied him- or herself personally to the da'i by taking an oath of allegiance at the age of puberty.[98] The oath articulated the doctrines by which the oathtaker was supposed to live, stressing particularly loyalty to the Imam. Approval of the religious specialists was essential to holding any critical ceremony in the life cycle, particularly marriage. The leadership enforced a rigid endogamy, certainly as strictly as any Hindu community. Those who violated community law were punished with fines or, in extreme cases, with social ostracism as well, much as in the Hindu jnati s.[99]
A few wealthy merchants also exerted considerable authority within the community. Daudi sheth s, however, built up their positions largely through close association with, and patronage of, the religious leadership. It was commonplace for sheth s to hold community banquets to honor the da'i on important ceremonial occasions—for instance, important weddings or his return to Surat from his frequent travels.[100] As among Hindu merchants, sheth s with a history of giving to community charities enhanced not only the social position of their family but also their capacity for raising credit. In a grouping that often managed to contain economic transactions within its collective boundaries, one's reputation within the community assumed great significance.
For the Bohras, Islam provided the vocabulary of motive critical to attaining and maintaining authority. Their Islam, however, was a special product, one that had been given a unique shape by leaders of the community over the centuries. In a sense, the Daudi Bohras exemplified the pattern of boundary maintenance among Muslims of Surat. Muslim groups in the city had forged many distinct subcultures by integrating their own traditions with universalistic Islamic symbols such as the mosque and burial ground. In effect each had its own Islam which group leaders employed more to sustain the separateness of their community than to participate in an international religious brotherhood. Muslims, like Hindus, were a series of communities in which membership was based first and foremost on shared descent.
The Parsis
A final but critically important community in Surat was the Parsis. Though numerically small—Parsis were only 6 percent of the city's total population in 1872—members of the group exerted great influence in urban affairs because of their wealth and, in the nineteenth century, their education. Most lived together in relatively exclusive neighborhoods located in Ranitalav, Nanpura, and Rustampura, outside the core of the city.[101]
Followers of Zoroaster, a religious teacher in sixth century B.C. Persia, the Parsis had migrated to the Indian subcontinent from Persia to escape incorporation into Arab Islamic polities after the seventh century. They apparently lived in western India as agriculturalists for hundreds of years before moving into Gujarati cities to take jobs as artisans and traders during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. During the early eighteenth century a few established large fortunes by working as brokers for the East India Company and its officers.[102] As company activity shifted to Bombay, Parsis were among the first to emigrate to the new port, where they often became successful as compradors of British firms, as independent merchants, and eventually as industrialists.[103] Of
those who remained in Surat, some continued as merchants, petty traders, and artisans. The most successful, however, were those who took up positions in the early British administration and the new professions.[104]
In India the Parsis had always formed an extremely cohesive community, characterized by forms of religious belief drawn from the teachings of Zoroaster, an ethos of philanthropy, and strong communal organizations. Parsi religious behavior may have been highly affected over the centuries by patterns of Hindu worship, yet it retained its distinctive character. To European observers, its most exceptional features were the special place of fire in religious observance (usually mistaken for fire worship) and the practice of leaving the dead in dokhma s—open towers exposed to the elements and to scavenging birds—practices which had no parallel elsewhere on the subcontinent. Early travelers were also impressed with the charitable traditions of the group. John Ovington, who visited the city during the mid-seventeenth century, remarked of the Parsis, "They shew a firm affection to all of their own sentiments in religion, assist the poor, and are very ready to provide for the sustenance and comfort of such as want it. Their universal kindness, either in employing such as are needy and able to work, or bestowing a seasonable bounteous charity to such as are infirm and miserable; leave no man destitute of relief, nor suffer a beggar in all their tribe; and herein so far comply with that excellent rule of Pythagoras, to enjoy a kind of community among friends."[105] Though the ideal was never realized as fully as Ovington supposed, public giving did assume a very prominent place in Parsi culture and in generating community leadership. Forms of giving regarded as particularly auspicious were the building of Atash Beherams, where the Parsis performed their religious rites, and of the dokhma s, both of which were essential to the sustenance of any Parsi grouping.[106] Also important was the patronage of dharmashala s, where poor, elderly, and sick community members could acquire food and other care; wells, where all members of a Parsi neighborhood could obtain water; and dispensaries.[107] Much is unclear about how these early institutions were administered. Though the Parsis of the early eighteenth century had their own panchayat, modeled in part after Hindu panch es, it is not known how extensive the authority of this organization had become.
Under British rule, however, preexisting forms of communal life became increasingly institutionalized. During the late eighteenth century, prominent Parsis in Bombay, eager to eliminate customs that smacked of Hindu influence and to extend control over their community fellows, began to press the East India Company to acknowledge the legitimacy of a formal community leadership. In 1818 the leadership of the
Parsi Panchayat was fixed in the hands of eighteen community members chosen in a public meeting. A few select families quickly moved into positions of special influence in the Panchayat. At first the organization tended to be very active, when the interest of these families was at a peak, followed by great lulls, when their interest flagged. The Panchayat never did develop the importance of Hindu communal institutions in regulating the social conduct of group members and had lost this function altogether by the 1860s. But the organization remained an important focus of community politics since it controlled a large and growing charitable establishment. By sponsoring hospitals, educational institutions, and academic scholarships, the Panchayat and other Parsi institutions won for the group a progressive image among British civil servants, while community identity grew increasingly sharp. Many of the old Parsi families continued to exert authority in the Panchayat into the twentieth century.[108]
Early in the nineteenth century the Bombay Panchayat was responsible for supervising charitable funds in Surat. In 1841, however, the funds had grown so large—especially after Parsis donated huge sums in response to the fire of 1837—that the Bombay organization decided to appoint a local panchayat of nine leading notables from Surat to act as trustees for communal properties. Institutionalization of Surat's Parsi leadership continued in the years that followed. In 1865 the provincial administration established the Parsi Matrimonial Court for Gujarat to advise the judges of district courts in all matters concerning marriage and succession, whose members were chosen by the government on the recommendation of leading Surti Parsis.[109] By the turn of the twentieth century, the Parsi Panchayat had come to control communal properties worth many lakh s, and the number of community organizations in the city had further multiplied. Those who enjoyed influence in Parsi society invariably participated in one or more of these formal institutions. Often the families which had been prominent before the establishment of the Parsi Panchayat were able to preserve and even to enhance their authority by becoming trustees in the new organizations. The Modi, Vakil, Cooper, and Taliyarkhan families enjoyed positions either on the matrimonial court or Panchayat virtually as an hereditary privilege.
One family that attained informal recognition both within the community and among the British as enjoying a sort of headmanship of the Parsi community by the nineteenth century was that of Rustomji Khurshedji Modi. This family claimed the position of davar, or spiritual leader of the Parsis, and traced its descent back to kings of Persia. In the mid-seventeenth century a leading figure in the Modi family had built a dokhma in Surat and had financed a number of other charitable
institutions. His successors continued his philanthropic legacy. In the early 1700s the Modis acted as representatives of the Parsis in negotiations with imperial authorities, a role they continued to enjoy for the next two hundred years. Both the nawab s of the eighteenth century and the British during the nineteenth recognized the status of davar and consulted the Modi on matters affecting his community. By the nineteenth century the family head also served as chair of the meetings which nominated new members of the Panchayat and Parsi Matrimonial Court, using this position to ensure that his own candidates won appointments. During the 1890s, rising figures within the community tried repeatedly to challenge the position of the family but found the way blocked by the Modis' continued prestige as well as by their close ties with British civil servants.[110]
Imperial rule had much to do with the growing formality of Parsi organization. More than any other group, the Parsis had a history of close interaction with the British, a history that antedated colonial rule in the city. A bureaucratic structure to administer Parsi affairs was one product of this interaction. Some Englishmen, observing the great strength of formal institutions devoted to community welfare in the community, came to the conclusion that the Parsis were the most westernized of the Gujarati communities. But the process of institutionalization was not simply an outgrowth of Western norms and organizational structures. Parsi leaderships had developed these institutions not to merge themselves with their rulers, but rather to maintain and enhance their control over community affairs and to preserve a distinct Parsi identity. The hardening of group solidarity in the nineteenth century was as much a product of the continuing Parsi concern with maintaining the well-being of community members as it was of a British drive to regularize administration. The Parsis remained a collectivity where membership was defined by birth and where leaders came from a relatively small number of prestigious families who commanded the deference of lesser families. Indeed, reviewing the historical record, one suspects that the inner, community-oriented domain of Parsi politics expanded in significance with the growing wealth of individual families and the increased resources of communal organizations.