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Vokkaliga

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Manjerabad Landholders

Vokkaliga (also transliterated as Vokkaligar, Vakkaliga, Wakkaliga, Okkaligar, Okkiliyan) is a community, or a group of closely-related castes, from the Indian state of Karnataka. They are also present in the neighbouring state of Tamil Nadu.

Vokkaligas were historically the serf community of Karnataka and indulge in forms agriculture The name "Vokkaliga" is derived from the word Okkalu meaning "tenets". They usually lived in the lands owned by their owners. In Hindu caste system they belong in the Shudra Varna

Most subsects of the Vokkaliga community are designated as Other Backward Class by the Karnataka Government. .

Vokkaligas commonly carry titles such as Gowda, Hegde and Gounder.

Etymology

Vokkaliga

The most popular theory among the etymology of vokkaliga is that they were derived from the word Okkalu meaning tenent .Another theory is that the word Okkalutana in Kannada which means agriculture is also an origin for their name .

Gowda

According to historian Suryanath U. Kamath, the word Gowda derives from Gavunda. The German Indologist Gustav Oppert opined that the root of ‘Gowda’ is a Dravidian word meaning "mountain".

Subgroups

The term Vokkaliga was used to refer to Canarese cultivators. Vokkaliga community has several sub-groups within its fold such as Gangadhikara, Namdhari Vokkaliga, Morasu Vokkaliga, Kunchitiga, Halikkar(Palikkar) Vokkaliga, Reddy Vokkaliga, Gounder, Tulu Gowda. etc. Lingayat converts of the various Vokkaligas are categorised as Lingayats.


Exogamy at the family/clan level is strictly controlled by using the idiom of Mane Devaru (the patron god of the given exogamic clan) which dictates that the followers of same Mane Devaru are siblings and marriage is thus forbidden, allowing marital alliances only with another clan and not within.

Varna Classification

Vokkaligas were part of the Shudra community, however some historians do question the legitimacy of their origin suggesting they may be just another tribal community from South who were sanskritzed during the arrival of Aryans from the north.

Economy

Before the 20th century Vokkaligas were the landed gentry and agricultural caste of Karnataka. Despite the community enjoying the status of chieftains and zamindars, there were also a lot of small landholding farmers. They, along with the Lingayats, owned most of the cultivated land in the state. Therefore they were considered forward castes and dominant-majority communities. In 1961, Karnataka passed a new Land Reforms Act under the then Revenue minister and idealist Kadidal Manjappa (a Vokkaliga). This was followed by another Land Reform Act passed in 1973 by Ex-Chief Minister Devaraj Urs. These acts redistributed land from the Vokkaliga landlords to the landless and land-poor.

See also

References

  1. V.T, Sundaramurthy (2007). "The Genesis, Divisions, Movement and Transformation of Okkaligar Community" (PDF). The Anthropologist. 9 (4): 305–313. doi:10.1080/09720073.2007.11891017. S2CID 74219783.
  2. "TOWARDS UNDERSTANDING THE POLITICAL CULTURE OF SOUTH INDIA".{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  3. "The Indian Journal of Political Science".{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  4. "A social history of India".
  5. "PDF - National OBC list for Karnataka" (PDF).
  6. Joshi, Bharath (17 February 2021). "Now, Vokkaligas gear up to fight for more quota". Deccan Herald. Bengaluru. Retrieved 7 May 2021.:"Not all 115 sub-sects of the Vokkaliga community have been included under OBC. As a result, many sub-sects are deprived of government benefits. All sub-sects must be included under OBC and we must campaign for this,campaign for this," the statement said. The pontiff also said that Vokkaligas in urban areas were in dire straits and they needed more reservation. At present, some 20 sub-sects of Vokkaligas come under Category 3A with a 4 per cent reservation in Karnataka.
  7. D K Kulkarni (1992). "Tenants movements in Uttara Kannada district and the Kagodu Satyagraha". Peasant movements in Karnataka since 1900 their nature and results (PDF). Karnatak University / Shodhganga. p. 80. Retrieved 24 October 2016. Gowdas, literary means a village headman usually from Vokkaliga community in Southern district of Karnataka and Lingayat in Northern part
  8. K. S. Singh (1998). India's Communities. Anthropological Survey of India Oxford University Press. p. 3677. ISBN 978-0-19-563354-2. They are also known as Namdhari Gauda or Nadavaru. Heggade and Gowda are the titles , which they suffix to their names.
  9. Singh, Kumar Suresh (2001). People of India. Vol. 40, part 2. Anthropological Survey of India. p. 640. ISBN 9788185938882.:”The community has titles viz. Gowda , Gowdar , Gounder and Kounder.”
  10. "A Social History of India".
  11. Kannada Nighantu. Kannada Sahitya Parishat, Bangalore. 1970.
  12. Kamath, Suryanath U.; Naik, R.A (1983). Gazetteer of India Government of Karnataka, Karnataka State Gazetteer Part II. Bangalore: Parishree Printers. pp. 243–244.: "Villages had gramakuta or gavunda (gauda), the village headman. He had under him the village militia^ later called as talaras and tolls."
  13. Kumar Suresh Singh; Anthropological Survey of India (2002). People of India. Anthropological Survey of India. p. 408. ISBN 978-81-85938-99-8.
  14. ^ Report of the Second Backward Classes Commission. Vol. 3. Bangalore: Government of Karnataka. 1986. p. 49.:"The main sub-divisions are 'Morasu Vokkaliga', 'Gangadikara Vokkaliga', Kudu Vokkaliga, Kunchitiga, Hallikar(Pallikar) Vokkaliga, Namdhari Vokkaliga, Reddy Vokkaliga, Telugu Vokkaliga, Sarpa Vokkaliga, Uppinakolagada Vokkaliga, Mustiku Vokkaliga, Kapu Vokkaliga, Pakanatha Reddy Vokkaliga, Nadashetty Vokkaliga, Gowdas, Gounder and Vokkaliga Hegde."
  15. ^ Balfour, Edward (1885). The Cyclopaedia of India and of Eastern and Southern Asia. Vol. 2. Graz, Austria: Akademische Druck-u. Verlagsanstalt. p. 261.
  16. ^ Lindsay, Alexander William Crawford (1874). Report on the Mysore General Census of 1871. Vol. 2–10. Mysore: Mysore Government Press. p. 72.
  17. Bhatt, S.C.; Bhargava, Gopal K. (2006). Land and People of Indian States and Union Territories: In 36 Volumes. Karnataka, Volume 13. Delhi: Kalpaz Publications. p. 145. ISBN 81-7835-369-5.
  18. Lindsay, A.W.C (1874). Report on the Coorg General Census of 1871, with Appendices. Kodagu: Mysore Government Press. p. 26.
  19. Report of the Second Backward Classes Commission (PDF). Vol. 3. Bangalore: Government of Karnataka. 1986. p. 49.:"Lingayat converts of the various Vokkaligas are treated separately and kept under Lingayats."
  20. Banerjee, Bhavani (1966). Marriage and kinship of the Gangadikara vokkaligas of Mysore. Deccan College Postgraduate and Research Inst. p. 31. OCLC 833158967.
  21. Nanjundayya, H.V; Iyer, L.K Ananthakrishna (1931). The Mysore Tribes and Castes. Vol. 4. Mysore: The Mysore University. pp. 20–21.
  22. "Social history of South India Vol 49".
  23. Report of the second backward classes commission. Vol. 3. Bangalore: Government of Karnataka. 1986. p. 48.: "Vokkaligas are the landed gentry and the agriculturist caste of Karnataka."
  24. Ikegame, Aya (7 May 2013). Princely India Re-imagined: A Historical Anthropology of Mysore from 1799 to the Present. Routledge. pp. 93–94. ISBN 9781136239090.:”The political advantage of these two dominant castes was not only derived from their numbers. They are numerous, but their combined numbers still only amount to 26 per cent of the state population. It arose from the fact that their caste members have a strong influence in local society, as most of them are landlords and village heads.”
  25. Adiga, Malini (1997). "'GAVUNDAS' IN SOUTHERN KARNATAKA: LANDLORDS AND WARRIORS (AD 600 to 1030)". Proceedings of the Indian History Congress. 58: 139–145. JSTOR 44143897. Retrieved 10 March 2021.
  26. Biswal, S.K.; Kusuma, K.S.; Mohanty, S. (2020). Handbook of Research on Social and Cultural Dynamics in Indian Cinema. Hershey PA, USA: Information Science Reference, an imprint of IGI Global. p. 46. ISBN 9781799835141.:"Though the Vokkaliga community enjoyed the status of Chieftains and landlords as well as Zamindars, a lot of them were small landholding farmers."
  27. P, Radhakrishnan (11 August 1990). "Karnataka Backward Classes". Economic and Political Weekly. 25 (32): 1749–1754. JSTOR 4396609. Retrieved 5 March 2021.
  28. Thimmaiah, G.; Aziz, Abdul (1983). "The Political Economy of Land Reforms in Karnataka, A South Indian State". Asian Survey. 23 (7): 810–829. doi:10.2307/2644290. ISSN 0004-4687. JSTOR 2644290.
  29. Manor, James (February 1980). "Pragmatic Progressives in Regional Politics: The Case of Devaraj Urs". Economic and Political Weekly. 15 (5/7): 202. JSTOR 4368367. Retrieved 9 March 2021.
  30. Frankel, Francine R; Rao, M. S. A (1989), Dominance and state power in modern India : decline of a social order / editors, Francine R. Frankel, M.S.A. Rao, Oxford University Press, pp. 322–361, ISBN 0195620984
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