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The Parsi Panchayat in Bombay City in the Nineteenth Century*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Christine Dobbin
Christine Dobbin
Affiliation:
Department of Pacific History, Australian National University, Canberra A.C.T.
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Extract

From the Middle Ages each of the great merchant castes and communities of Gujarat possessed its own guild (Mahajan) to regulate trade, and a Panchayat to regulate caste matters. The migration of members of these castes to the British city of Bombay in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries caused considerable disruption in the traditional methods of regulating caste affairs. In the Mofussil control over almost every aspect of mundane life had been exercised by the leading shets of the caste. In Bombay, however, the precedence of certain Mofussil villages and Mofussil families was no longer unequivocally recognized. Western-educated caste members began to demand in all areas of life ‘the inauguration of a new era, showing that opinion had taken the precedence of mere hereditary authority’. Even to those without Western education the proximity of the British law courts gave confidence in an appeal against traditional obedience. The fear of the interference of the courts on behalf of an excommunicated man limited the sanctions available to the caste shets to enforce their authority. All these factors circumscribed the power the caste heads could exercise through their traditional Panchayats, and by the middle of the nineteenth century it seemed that the cohesiveness of many castes and communities was breaking down. But there was another side to the coin. While the bonds of caste discipline and authority were being loosened, awareness of communal identity was being heightened by the competitiveness of urban life. Castes and communities became aware of the need to reorganize themselves in order to present a united front on questions affecting the community, and of the need to put caste funds to the best use to maximize the possibilities of secular achievement for the members of the community.

Type
Articles
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 4 , Issue 2 , March 1970 , pp. 149 - 164
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1970

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