Irawati Karve, India's first woman anthropologist provided the discipline of sociology with eminent works dealing with caste, family and kinship. Much of her work is influenced by Ghurye, as they shared common belief in the importance of family kinship caste and religion as the basis of Indian society. Karve, through her works, has contributed in theorizing caste and kinship in India, by touching upon the significance of past and history. To elaborate, her work - "kinship organisation in India”, becomes apparent and in this essay we will be referring to it.
Irawati Karve in Her work- "kinship organisation in India”
primarily attempts to study Indian life and culture (which includes kinship
too), and for that, as she expounds, understanding of the configuration of the linguistic
regions, the institution of caste and that of family is
important. To facilitate this, Karve uses a comparative analysis to look at the
four cultural zones viz East, West, North, and South, to conclude on the
regional pattern of social behaviour in society.
The first important factor to study Indian culture is linguistic
region, understanding this entails the understanding of language area
- in which several languages belonging to one language family are spoken. Karve
propounds that, India primarily consists of three language areas i.e. (1)
indo-European or Sanskritic language area- which extends from the Himalayas
in the north to the river Godavari in the south; and from Karachi in the west
to Guwahati in the East. (2) Dravidic language area-extending from
the Godavari in the north to the southernmost tip of India (3) Mundari
language area- belonging to Austro-Asiatic family and extending roughly in
areas of North eastern India.
Each of these three language areas is further divided into linguistic
regions in which one language and its dialects are spoken. These regions
are characterized by similarity of cultures and kinship organisations. For
instance, the Maharashtra region belongs to the area of Sanskritic language,
implying its kinship organisation depending to a large extent on Sanskritic
ways. But, since it is engulfed by the Southern Dravidian linguistics area, it
witnesses diffusion of kinship patterns, providing us to conclude that, kinship
depends largely on linguistic region.
Irawati Karve then furthers with the description of caste-
the second important factor study Indian culture. Caste is an endogamous group,
distributed over a definite region, and having a hereditary occupation.
Endogamy and distribution over definite area make cast members related to one
another, either by the ties of blood or by the ties of marriage. Therefore
caste can be defined as an extended kin group. As a caste is characterized by a
particular hereditary occupation, the concept of sub caste within caste
emerges. For instance in Maharashtra, the caste engaged in the work of goldsmith
is termed as Sonar. But with time, with the extension of the family and
breaking of the previous ties, different sub caste within Sonar emerged such
as- Ahir Sonar, lad Sonar etc.
Various castes, following similar occupation are further clubbed
into caste cluster. For example, the word Baniya is used as an umbrella
term to assimilate various castes engaged in commerce, trade and business.
There is ranking among castes in the caste cluster. This system of hierarchy
and ranking bears its roots to the Varna system- consisting of 4 Varna
viz Brahman, Kshatriya, vaishya and shudra. Since mediaeval times a
fifth Varna called panchama was added, which letter was called as
untouchables and schedule castes. Untouchability is a characteristic of the
caste structure from top to bottom. Irawati karve shows that in a village each
caste had a separate habitation area. Untouchability was thus a part of
the caste system and was one factor which made for separateness. Untouchability
and pollution are found in familial situations also- like childbirth,
menstruation and death. It’s therefore, is a feature of the whole of the caste
system and family organisation and is embedded in every ancient idea of
pollution and purity. In every linguistic region the four Varna were generally
distributed in such a way that the shudras form the largest number while the
remaining owners including the untouchables made about 30% of the populations.
The third important factor in Indian life is the family and by
family, is meant the joint family, which exist for the past 3000 years
(approx). Joint family is a group of people who generally live under one roof,
eat food cooked in one kitchen, to hold property in common, participate in
common family worship and are related to one another as some particular type of
kindred. The king group making up a joint family is of two types- (1) the
northern type- where descent is traced from a common male ancestor from the
core of the family and (2) tharwad - where descent is traced from a
common female ancestor.
With the advent of industrialisation, the western concept of nuclear
family became prevalent, but still people living away from their families,
keep their ties with joint family , and it is said that every Indian had a
small family holding in some village. Such families keep on worshipping the
gods of their formal locality or come back time and again to keep certain vows
made to these gods. Also every existing joint family is a piece broken off from
a larger unit, called great House which is often the shelter of the
family gods and therefore all the people of the other houses may have to go
there on certain occasions of common worship.
Therefore the caste and the family form one circle of individual
relationship in which a person play certain roles. In this circle and
individual comes in contact with people of other castes and their rights in
relation to these other castes are defined. And somebody who tries to
deviate from it is ostracized and excommunicated.
Through the above discussion,
Karve explains that the linguistic region the caste and the family are
the three most important aspects of the culture of any group in India
and this applies also to the primitive tribes of India. She then
explains that the caste and the tribe are two concepts which are almost
interchangeable in certain contexts. Caste of today, for instance- the Maratha
of Maharashtra may have been a formal tribal group and a group of tribes for
example the Rajput and the ahirs may function like a caste. The borders
between these two are very vague but people have established the definition
that forest dwellers are generally called the tribal or primitive people.
Iravati karve throws light on the kinship system of Maharashtra,
which is majorly dominated by the caste of Maratha and kunbi, the
warrior caste. Their kinship system is characterized by one type of cross
cousin marriage and on clans organised on a hierarchical principle. Because it
has its own modes of behaviour, including those about marriage and the
immigrant groups which come with their own Gods, speech, and marriage practices
etc, gradually adopt local god’s speech and local customs. Thus, over one
linguistic region uniformities are found which justifies the region being considered
as a cultural region. To illustrate, Karve gives the example of khandesh,
which is the North Western district of Maharashtra with common Northern
boundary with Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh.
Iravati Karve then enlightens about the practice of levirate
among various societies. She studied the society in Gujarat and found
out the bifurcation of views regarding levirate. Among the upper caste people, levirate
was not common whereas opposite could be seen in lower caste people. This led
Karve to conclude that the kinship terminology and joking and avoidance pattern
were common to all, but the junior levirate which one would expect from the two
was not present in one group and present in another. Irawati Karve expounds
that, it shows the relationship of the great tradition and the little
tradition and also clarifies the environmental differences. The great
tradition is well documented in the main literally stream and in times of
culture contact the great tradition is the first to record the effect of the
new impact. (Example of British rule in India)
As Karve states, Not only is this knowledge of the past useful to
gain an insight into the life of the agricultural population but it is also
necessary for proper study of those called primitives. Literature also plays a
significant role in this. Iravati Karve also explains that, to most of the
researcher, this appears as a useless dipping into a vanished past, but past
and history plays an important part in constituting the present.
Irawati Karve study on the kinship organisation in India
revolutionized and simplified future research on the subject. She used linguistic regions and geographical
divisions to study the variations in kinship structures in the country. She is
applauded for being a pioneer of Indian sociology and for providing insights
into to the theorization of the caste and kinship in India.
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