In olden times, the castes which were considered high in the Hindu caste hierarchy i.e. Brahmins, Kshatriyas and Vaishyas, were well-educated and financially sound, while the lower castes i.e. Shudras, Dalits and Adivasis, were discriminated by the upper castes and denied education due to their low birth.
Information on castes was included in the census following demands from several ruling coalition leaders including Lalu Prasad Yadav, Sharad Yadav and Mulayam Singh Yadav supported by opposition parties Bharatiya Janata Party, Akali Dal, Shiv Sena and Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam.
The separation resembled Indian discrimination against lower castes, which was sometimes repeated in Christian churches in India.
In southern Tamil Nadu, the Agamudayar are one of the three castes which make up the Mukkulathor community;
AJGAR was a suggested caste alliance of the Ahir, Jat, Gujar and Rajputs castes.
For example, M. A. Sherring in the 1860s had compiled names of about 2,000 sub-castes of Brahmins, in his second volume of his Hindu Tribes and Castes.
He opposed the deliberate inclusion of Kapu caste in Backward Castes by the state government.
Their customs are similar to other neighbouring Hindu peasant castes such as the Ahir, Jats and Gujars.
Among the Jats, Garhwal, Khichar, Punia, Rad, Dotasara, Sunda, Asiagh, Kasania, Sewda are all subcastes.
Castes and Tribes of Southern India is a seven-volume encyclopedia of social groups of Madras Presidency and the princely states of Travancore, Mysore, Coorg and Pudukkottai published by British museologist Edgar Thurston and K. Rangachari in 1909.
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The Survey was intended to record details of the manners, customs and physical features of Indian castes and tribes using in part the anthropometric methods that had first been used in India by Herbert Hope Risley for his own survey of the tribes and castes of Bengal.
While the upper castes engaged outside labour to work in their fields, the Dalits left to places like Tenali and Ponnur in search of work.
Like other Muslim artisan castes, the community no longer practice their traditional occupations.
A side-effect of this was to break the hold of the previously dominant Lingayat and Vokkaliga castes over local politics.
Swami Dayananda's creations, the Arya Samaj, unequivocally condemns practices of different religions and communities that are noted to be prevalent, such as idol worship, animal sacrifice, ancestor worship, pilgrimages, priest craft, offerings made in temples, the castes, child marriages, meat eating and discrimination against women on the grounds that all these lacked original Hinduism.
In that age only the lower caste people, i.e. Mirasis, used to sing as the profession was not considered to be noble or respectable for higher classes/castes.
This is in line with the Manusmrti injunction against teaching to lower castes, whereby if a Brahmin were to teach a Shudra, he would fall into Asamvrita, or hell; conversely, if a Shudra were to hear or utter the Veda, the penalty was that molten lead was poured into his ears and a hot stylus be thrust in his tongue, respectively.
With Horace Arthur Rose, Superintendent of Ethnography in the Punjab in the early twentieth century, he compiled a large work, A Glossary of the Tribes and Castes of the Punjab and North-West Frontier, including material from Denzil Ibbetson's 1881 census.
The Gaderia are divided into Eighty Four sub castes (GOTRAS) i.e. Kokande , Bamhaniya, Chandel, Dhingar, Haranwal, Kachhwaha, Sisodia, Nikhar, Phul Singhiya, Rathore, Sagar, Saraswar and Thambar, Foolsange, tejwal, Bania ,Mohaniya, Kumiya, Hans, Rautela, etc.
The Gavandi live in villages with other Muslim communities such as the Attar, Shilkalgar, Maner and Tamboli, as well as other Hindu castes such as the Maratha.
Goans are a predominantly Hindu population followed by Roman Catholic population and small Muslim community.Hindus in Goa are divided into many different castes and sub-castes, known as Jatis.
First, some authors have shown that the argument that haplodiploid inheritance, characteristic of the Hymenoptera, creates a strong selection pressure towards nonreproductive castes is mathematically flawed.
Population wise Guda Endla village is dominated by Meenas, Meghwal, Chaudhary and Jain castes.
At the time of his father’s death, G.V. Chalam was only eight years old.He was brought up by his paternal uncle, Guduru Ramachandra Rao – a Gandhian and a pioneer social reformer who convened the first Adi Andhra Mahajana Sabha in 1917 for the emancipation of the so-called ‘untouchable’ castes, Malas and Madigas of Andhra Pradesh (now known as Dalits).
In terms of religion, they are fairly orthodox Sunni Muslims, and have customs similar to other neighbouring Muslim peasant castes, such as the Kamboh, Garha, and Muley Jat.
There is a shrine to Brito in Oriyur, where he is a significant figure worshipped by the Kallar, Maravar and AgaMudayar castes who together are often referred to as the Theavers.
The Brihaddharma Purana classified the Kansabaniks among the upper mixed castes in the caste hierarchy.
Although the village is inhabited by people of all castes and devoted themselves to the worship of deities, Mitra and Mansa.
Laroi is a village that is home to many communities and castes such as Hindus, Brahmins, Sikh Jatts, Lubanas, Khatris, Adharmis and others.
The majority of the population in Mechi are Kirantis (Lumbu and Rai) and other ethnic groups like Koche and Meche, and hill castes like Bahun and Chhetris.
Main castes are Toor, Rajpoot, Ganpal, Arain, Kamboh, Bodla, Nigriyal, pahdiyar, qureshi, sheikh, syed, hiraj, siyal, merali, pahod, kathia, chiryana, gil, Khichi, Sargana, sadraich, jutt, baloch etc.
Panjab Castes also confirms, "Dominant tribe of proud position, such as the Janjúa, have retained their pride of lineage and their Rájpút title...and always addressed as Rája." (Denzil Ibbetson, Delhi, 2002, p132, p149, p154).
Many people of all castes and creeds still visit his qannqahs (shrines) in Koppal, Hospet, Bijapur, and Tenahalli.
The first National Commission for Scheduled Castes was constituted on 2004 with Suraj Bhan as the Chairperson.
'Pal' or its variant 'Paul' is also found among some Bengali middle castes like Teli, Kumhar and Sadgop.
Panchthar's majority population is that of Kirantis (Limbu, Rais) and other ethnic groups and hill castes.
He led a movement for housing for dalits in Cumbum in that he did a fast unto death that changes scenario of dalit movement in west Prakasam where feudalistics remnants are still there and also he fought for 200 acres of assignment land distribution for dalits, and backward castes in Magutur village, Ardhaveedu mandal.
Politics in Andhra Pradesh is dominated by major castes like the Reddys, the Kammas and the Kapus.
It has a population of around 6000 people from all castes with Jats in the majority.
Some sub-castes of the jats which reside in this village are Bhakar (now Bhaskar), Dudi, Bijarania, Muhal, and Jakhar.
After Dr. Ambedkar, nobody has taken the cudgels in real earnest......We will form a new party, sit on the opposition benches, and fight for the rights of Schedules Castes.
Besides the Brahmins there were other non-Brahmin castes, such as the Mogaveera, Bunts, Billavas, the artisan castes, Holeyas and Mahars, the hill-tribes (Koragas).
The majority of the population are Kongu Vellalar Gounders, and the rest are Mudaliyar, Dalits and few other castes.
Other Backward Class often erroneously portrayed by the media as "Upper Castes" in the context of clashes with the Dalits