“Kurmi”的意思、由来-开放百科全书

There are several theories regarding the etymology of the term Kurmi. It may be derived from an Indian tribal language, or may be a Sanskrit compound term krishi karmi, "agriculturalist."^[1] Another theory holds that it was derived from kṛṣmi, meaning "ploughman".^[2]

History

Eighteenth and nineteenth centuries

With the waning of Mughal rule in the early 18th century, the Indian subcontinent's hinterland dwellers, many of whom were armed and nomadic, began to appear more frequently in settled areas and interact with townspeople and agriculturists.^[3] Many new rulers of the 18th century came from such nomadic backgrounds.^[3] The effect of this interaction on India's social organization lasted well into the colonial period. During much of this time, non-elite tillers and pastoralists, such as the Kurmi, were part of a social spectrum that blended only indistinctly into the elite landowning classes at one end, and the menial or ritually polluting classes at the other.^[3]

The Kurmi were famed as market gardeners.^[4] In western and northern Awadh, for example, for much of the eighteenth century, the Muslim gentry offered the Kurmi highly discounted rental rates for clearing the jungle and cultivating it.^[5] Once the land had been brought stably under the plough, however, the land rent was usually raised to 30 to 80 per cent above the going rate.^[5] Although British revenue officials later ascribed the high rent to the prejudice among the elite rural castes against handling the plough, the main reason was the greater productivity of the Kurmi, whose success lay in superior manuring.^[5] According to historian Christopher Bayly,

Cross-cultural influences were felt also.^[6] Hindu tillers worshipped at Muslim shrines in the small towns founded by their Muslim overlords.^[6] The Hindu Kurmis of Chunar and Jaunpur, for instance, took up the Muslim custom of marrying first cousins and of burying their dead.^[6] In some regions, the Kurmis' success as tillers led to land ownership, and to avowals of high status, as noted, for examples, by Francis Buchanan in the early 19th century among the Ayodhya Kurmis of the Awadh.^[7] Earlier, in the late eighteenth century, when Asaf-Ud-Dowlah, the fourth Nawab of Awadh, attempted to grant the kshatriya title of Raja to a group of influential landed Ayodhya Kurmis, he was thwarted by a united opposition of Rajputs, who were themselves (as described by Buchanan), "a group of newcomers to the court, who had been peasant soldiers only a few years before ..."^[7] According to historian William Pinch:

Although the free peasant farm was the mainstay of farming in many parts of north India in the 18th century, in some regions, a combination of climatic, political, and demographic factors led to the increased dependence of peasant cultivators such as the Kurmi.^[9] In the Benares division, which had come under the revenue purview of the British East India Company in 1779, the Chalisa famine of 1783 and the relentless revenue demand from the Company reduced the status of many Kurmi cultivators.^[9] A British revenue agent wrote in 1790, "It unfortunately happened that during the famine aforesaid a great proportion of the Kurmis, Kacchis and Koeris were in this district as well as in others supplanted by Brahmans ... " and bemoaned the loss of agricultural revenue in part due to, "this unfavourable mutation amongst the cultivators ..."^[9]

In the first half of the nineteenth century, economic pressures on the large landowning classes increased noticeably.^[10] The prices of agricultural lands fell at the same time that the East India Company, after acquiring the Ceded and Conquered Provinces (later the North-Western Provinces) in 1805, began to press landowners for more land revenue.^[10] The annexation of Awadh in 1856 created more fear and discontent among the landed elite, and may have contributed to the Indian rebellion of 1857.^[10] Economic pressures also opened marginal areas to intensive agriculture and turned the fortunes of the non-elite peasants, such as the Kurmi, who worked them.^[10] After the rebellion, the landowning classes, defeated but still pressed economically in the new British Raj, attempted to treat their tenants and labourers as people of lowly birth and to demand unpaid labour from them.^[11] According to historical anthropologist Susan Bayly,

The elite landowning classes, such as Rajputs and Bhumihars, now sought to present themselves as flagbearers of the ancient Hindu tradition.^[11] At the same time, there was a proliferation of Brahmanical rituals in the daily life of the elite, a greater stress on pure bloodlines, more stringent conditions placed on matrimonial alliances, and, as noted by some social reformers of the day, an increase among the Rajputs of female infanticide, a practice that had little history among the Kurmi.^[11]

The second half of the nineteenth century also largely overlapped with the coming of age of ethnology—interpreted then as the science of race—in the study of societies the world over.^[12] Although later to be discredited, the methods of this discipline were eagerly absorbed and adopted in British India, as were those of the emerging science of anthropology.^[12] Driven in part by the intellectual ferment of the discipline and in part by the political compulsions in both Britain and India, two dominant views of caste emerged among the administrator-scholars of the day.^[12] According to Susan Bayly:

Seeing caste as a fundamental force in Indian life, Risley, especially, influenced official views as expressed in both the Censuses of British India and the Imperial Gazetteer brought out by Hunter.^[13] Risley is best known for the now discounted attribution of all differences in caste to varying proportions of seven racial types which included "Dravidian," "Aryo-Dravidian," and "Indo-Aryan". The Kurmi fell into two such categories. In the ethnological map of India published in the 1909 Imperial Gazetteer of India and based on the 1901 Census supervised by Risley, the Kurmi of the United Provinces were classified as "Aryo-Dravidian," whereas the Kurmi of the Central Provinces were counted among "Dravidians".^[13] In the 1901 Census of India, the category of varna, the four-fold graded system, was included in the official classification of caste,^[14] the only time this was the case.{{efn|Although influential, Risley's attempt did not achieve the end which he sought: people were unable to determine in which group they should classify themselves, the localised system he adopted could not be transposed onto the national stage, and some groups took advantage of the situation deliberately to seek reclassification and therefore satisfy their aspirations. L. I. and S. H. Rudolph have commented that "Risley's work, as a scientific effort, seemed based on mistaken premises. Varna was not a behavioral concept."^[15]}} In the United Provinces (UP), the Kurmi were classified under "Class VIII: Castes from whom some of the twice-born would take water and pakki (food cooked with ghee),^[16] without question;" whereas, in Bihar, they were listed under: "Class III, Clean Sudra, Subclass (a)."^[17]{{efn|Indian censuses of the British Raj period are not usually considered to be particularly reliable except for overall population figures. Those for some areas of the country could be more reliable than others.^[18]^[19]^[20]^[21]}} According to William Pinch, "Risley's hierarchy (for United Provinces) was far more elaborate than that for Bihar, suggesting that contending claims of social respectability may have been more deeply entrenched in the western half of the Gangetic Plain."^[22]

In the writings of the occupational theorists, the Kurmis and the Jats came to be extolled for their yeoman-like purposefulness, tirelessness, and thrift, all of which, according to writers such as Crooke, Ibbetson, and Blunt had been largely abandoned by the landed elite.^[23] Crooke wrote about the Kurmi in 1897:

Twentieth century

As the economic pressures on the patrician landed groups continued through the remainder of the nineteenth century and into the early twentieth, there were increasing demands for unpaid labour directed at the Kurmi and other non-elite cultivators.^[25] The landed elites' demands were couched in avowals of their ancient rights as "twice-born" landowners and of the Kurmi's alleged lowly, even servile, status, which required them to serve.^[25] At times encouraged by sympathetic British officials and at other times carried by the groundswell of egalitarian sentiment being espoused then by the devotional Vaishnava movements, especially those based on Tulsidas's Ramcharitmanas, the Kurmi largely resisted these demands.^[26] Their resistance, however, did not take the form of denial of caste or of caste-based imposition, but rather of disagreement about where they stood in the caste ranking.^[25] A noteworthy attribute of the resulting Kurmi-kshatriya movement was the leadership provided by educated Kurmis who were now filling the lower and middle levels of government jobs.^[22] According to William Pinch:

The first Kurmi caste association had been formed in 1894 at Lucknow to protest against the police recruitment policy. This was followed by an organisation in Awadh that sought to draw other communities — such as the Patidars, Marathas, Kapus and Naidus — under the umbrella of the Kurmi name. This body then campaigned for Kurmis to classify themselves as Kshatriya in the 1901 census and, in 1910, led to the formation of the All India Kurmi Kshatriya Mahasabha.^[28] Simultaneously, newly constituted farmers' unions, or Kisan Sabhas—composed of cultivators and pastoralists, many of whom were Kurmi, Ahir, and Yadav (Goala), and inspired by Hindu mendicants, such as Baba Ram Chandra and Swami Sahajanand Saraswati—denounced the Brahman and Rajput landlords as ineffective and their morality as false.^[29] In the rural Ganges valley of Bihar and Eastern United Provinces, the Bhakti cults of Rama, the incorruptible Kshatriya god-king of Hindu tradition, and Krishna, the divine cowherd of Gokul, had long been entrenched among the Kurmi and Ahir.^[29] The leaders of the Kisan Sabhas urged their Kurmi and Ahir followers to lay claim to the Kshatriya mantle.^[29] Promoting what was advertised as soldierly manliness, the Kisan Sabhas agitated for the entry of non-elite farmers into the British Indian army during World War I; they formed cow protection societies; they asked their members to wear the sacred thread of the twice-born, and, in contrast to the Kurmis own traditions, to sequester their women in the manner of Rajputs and Brahmins.^[30]

In 1930, the Kurmis of Bihar joined with the Yadav and Koeri agriculturalists to enter local elections. They lost badly but in 1934 the three communities formed the Triveni Sangh political party, which allegedly had a million dues-paying members by 1936. However, the organisation was hobbled by competition from the Congress-backed Backward Class Federation, which was formed around the same time, and by co-option of community leaders by the Congress party. The Triveni Sangh suffered badly in the 1937 elections, although it did win in some areas. The organisation also suffered from caste rivalries, notably the superior organisational ability of the higher castes who opposed it, as well as the inability of the Yadavs to renounce their belief that they were natural leaders and that the Kurmi were somehow inferior. Similar problems beset a later planned caste union, the Raghav Samaj, with the Koeris.^[28]

Again in the 1970s, the India Kurmi Kshatriya Sabha attempted to bring the Koeris under their wing, but disunity troubled this alliance. Kurmi politician Nitish Kumar formed the Samata Party in 1994, forming a backward-upper caste alliance with the conservative Bharatiya Janata Party, which achieved only initial success.^[31] Most of the members of the Samata Party eventually merged with a faction of Janata Dal and came to be known as Janata Dal (United).^[32]

Many private caste-based armies surfaced in Bihar between the 1970s and 1990s, largely influenced by landlord farmers reacting to the growing influence of left extremist groups. Among these was the Bhumi Sena, the membership of which was drawn mainly from youths who had a Kurmi origin.^[33]^[34] Bhumi Sena was much feared in the Patna region and also had influence in the districts of Nalanda, Jehanabad and Gaya.^[35]

Notable people

Community and diaspora

Although the Kurmis tend to marry within their own caste and state, as do the Patidars, there has been rise in inter-state marriages between these communities. Caste-affiliated organisations have sought to bring the Kurmis and Patidars together across state and caste lines for the purpose of marriage, in part to develop business ties but principally because the Patidars of Gujarat, where most reside, have a significant issue with shortage of brides due to long-term practices creating a sex-skew in the population. The reported numbers involved in such marriages appear to be very few but it is a significant break with tradition.^[38]^[39]

Populations of Kurmi origin have also been noted in Trinidad and Tobago, Suriname, Guyana,{{cn|date=January 2019}} Mauritius,^[40] and South Africa.{{cn|date=January 2019}}

See also

References

1. ^{{cite book|author=Jogendra Nath Bhattacharya|title=Hindu castes and sects: an exposition of the origin of the Hindu caste system and the bearing of the sects towards each other and towards other religious systems / Jogendra Nath Bhattacharya|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xlpLAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA270|year=1896|publisher=Thacker, Spink|pages=270–}}
2. ^{{cite book|author=Gustav Salomon Oppert|title=On the original inhabitants of Bharatavarṣa or India|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kDzXAAAAMAAJ|date=February 1978|publisher=Arno Press}}
3. ^¹²{{citation|last=Bayly|first=Susan|title=Caste, Society and Politics in India from the Eighteenth Century to the Modern Age|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HbAjKR_iHogC|year=2001|publisher=Cambridge University Press|page=41|isbn=978-0-521-79842-6}}
4. ^{{cite book|last=Bayly|first=C. A.|authorlink=Christopher Bayly|title=Rulers, Townsmen and Bazaars: North Indian Society in the Age of British Expansion, 1770-1870|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xfo3AAAAIAAJ|year=1988|publisher=CUP Archive|isbn=978-0-521-31054-3|page=478}}
5. ^¹²³{{cite book|last=Bayly|first=C. A.|authorlink=Christopher Bayly|title=Rulers, Townsmen and Bazaars: North Indian Society in the Age of British Expansion, 1770-1870|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xfo3AAAAIAAJ|year=1988|publisher=CUP Archive|isbn=978-0-521-31054-3|page=101}}
6. ^¹²{{cite book|last=Bayly|first=C. A.|authorlink=Christopher Bayly|title=Rulers, Townsmen and Bazaars: North Indian Society in the Age of British Expansion, 1770-1870|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xfo3AAAAIAAJ|year=1988|publisher=CUP Archive|isbn=978-0-521-31054-3|page=49}}
7. ^¹{{cite book|first=William R. |last=Pinch|title=Peasants and monks in British India|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uEP-ceGYsnYC&pg=PA98|year=1996|publisher=University of California Press|isbn=978-0-520-20061-6|page=85}}
8. ^{{cite book|first=William R. |last=Pinch|title=Peasants and monks in British India|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uEP-ceGYsnYC&pg=PA98|year=1996|publisher=University of California Press|isbn=978-0-520-20061-6|pages=86–87}}
9. ^¹²{{cite book|last=Bayly|first=C. A.|authorlink=Christopher Bayly|title=Rulers, Townsmen and Bazaars: North Indian Society in the Age of British Expansion, 1770-1870|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xfo3AAAAIAAJ|year=1988|publisher=CUP Archive|isbn=978-0-521-31054-3|pages=47–48}}
10. ^¹²³{{citation|last=Bayly|first=Susan|title=Caste, Society and Politics in India from the Eighteenth Century to the Modern Age|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HbAjKR_iHogC|year=2001|publisher=Cambridge University Press|pages=200–201|isbn=978-0-521-79842-6}}
11. ^¹²³{{citation|last=Bayly|first=Susan|title=Caste, Society and Politics in India from the Eighteenth Century to the Modern Age|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HbAjKR_iHogC|year=2001|publisher=Cambridge University Press|pages=204–205|isbn=978-0-521-79842-6}}
12. ^¹²³{{citation|last=Bayly|first=Susan|title=Caste, Society and Politics in India from the Eighteenth Century to the Modern Age|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HbAjKR_iHogC|year=2001|publisher=Cambridge University Press|pages=126–127|isbn=978-0-521-79842-6}}
13. ^¹{{citation|last=Bayly|first=Susan|title=Caste, Society and Politics in India from the Eighteenth Century to the Modern Age|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HbAjKR_iHogC|year=2001|publisher=Cambridge University Press|pages=129–132|isbn=978-0-521-79842-6}}
14. ^{{cite book|last1=Rudolph|first1=Lloyd I.|last2=Rudolph|first2=Susanne Hoeber|title=The Modernity of Tradition: Political Development in India|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7guY1ut-0lwC|year=1984|publisher=University of Chicago Press|isbn=978-0-226-73137-7|page=116}}
15. ^{{cite book|last1=Rudolph|first1=Lloyd I.|last2=Rudolph|first2=Susanne Hoeber|title=The Modernity of Tradition: Political Development in India|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7guY1ut-0lwC|year=1984|publisher=University of Chicago Press|isbn=978-0-226-73137-7|page=117}}
16. ^Quote: "The Hindu draws a distinction between kachcha food, which is cooked in water, and pakka food, which is cooked in ghi (clarified butter). This distinction depends on the principle that ghi, like all products of the sacred cow protects from impurity ... and enables the Hindu to be less particular in the case of pakka than of kachcha food, and allows him to relax his restrictions accordingly." In {{cite book|last=Blunt|first=Sir Edward Arthur Henry|title=The caste system of northern India: with special reference to the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wb45AQAAIAAJ|year=1931|publisher=H. Milford, Oxford University Press|page=89}}
17. ^{{cite book|author1=India. Census Commissioner|last2=Risley|first2=Sir Herbert Hope|title=Census of India, 1901: Volume I. India. Ethnographic appendices, being the data upon which the caste chapter of the Report is based|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8MsiAQAAMAAJ|year=1903|publisher=Office of the Supt. of Govt. Printing, India|location=Calcutta|pages=56–57}}
18. ^{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fq1MVCSqu4sC |page=60 |title=The economic development of India |first=Vera Powell |last=Anstey |edition=Reprinted |publisher=Ayer Publishing |year=1977 |origyear=1931 |isbn=978-0-405-09775-1 |quote=... a vast army of enumerators are utilized, many of whom have a very limited understanding of what is required. Hence the Indian census provides at times more food for merriment than is usually connected with statistical compilations.}}{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-2RP04HHopkC |pages=104–116 |title=The census administration under the raj and after |first=Shriram |last=Maheshwari |publisher=Concept Publishing Company |year=1996 |isbn=978-81-7022-585-0}}
19. ^{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=H3fxvuxjJOsC |page=124 |title=Social Sciences: The Indian Scene |first=Yogesh |last=Atal |publisher=Abhinav Publications |year=2003 |isbn=978-81-7017-042-6}}
20. ^{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wBUot0-CIYUC |title=Children of Colonialism: Anglo-Indians in a Postcolonial World |first=Lionel |last=Caplan |publisher=Berg |year=2003 |pages=66–67 |isbn=978-1-85973-632-6}}
21. ^{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3Qy14yBg8Q8C |page=290 |title=Elements Of Demography |last=Sinha |first=E. Zacharia |publisher=Allied Publishers |isbn=978-81-7764-044-1}}
22. ^¹{{cite book|first=William R. |last=Pinch|title=Peasants and monks in British India|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uEP-ceGYsnYC&pg=PA98|year=1996|publisher=University of California Press|isbn=978-0-520-20061-6|page=84}}
23. ^¹{{citation|last=Bayly|first=Susan|title=Caste, Society and Politics in India from the Eighteenth Century to the Modern Age|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HbAjKR_iHogC|year=2001|publisher=Cambridge University Press|page=212|isbn=978-0-521-79842-6}}
24. ^{{cite book|last=Crooke|first=William|title=The tribes and castes of the North-western Provinces and Oudh, Volume III|url=https://archive.org/details/tribesandcastes01croogoog|year=1896|publisher=Office of the superintendent of government printing|pages=353–354}}
25. ^¹²{{citation|last=Bayly|first=Susan|title=Caste, Society and Politics in India from the Eighteenth Century to the Modern Age|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HbAjKR_iHogC|year=2001|publisher=Cambridge University Press|pages=205–206|isbn=978-0-521-79842-6}}
26. ^{{citation|last=Bayly|first=Susan|title=Caste, Society and Politics in India from the Eighteenth Century to the Modern Age|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HbAjKR_iHogC|year=2001|publisher=Cambridge University Press|page=207|isbn=978-0-521-79842-6}}
27. ^{{cite book|first=William R. |last=Pinch|title=Peasants and monks in British India|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uEP-ceGYsnYC&pg=PA98|year=1996|publisher=University of California Press|isbn=978-0-520-20061-6|page=89}}
28. ^¹{{cite book |title=India's silent revolution: the rise of the lower castes in North India |page=197 |first=Christophe |last=Jaffrelot |publisher=C. Hurst & Co. |location=London |year=2003 |isbn=978-1-85065-670-8 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OAkW94DtUMAC}}
29. ^¹²{{citation|last=Bayly|first=Susan|title=Caste, Society and Politics in India from the Eighteenth Century to the Modern Age|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HbAjKR_iHogC|year=2001|publisher=Cambridge University Press|pages=208–209|isbn=978-0-521-79842-6}}
30. ^{{citation|last=Bayly|first=Susan|title=Caste, Society and Politics in India from the Eighteenth Century to the Modern Age|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HbAjKR_iHogC|year=2001|publisher=Cambridge University Press|pages=209–210|isbn=978-0-521-79842-6}}
31. ^{{cite news |first=Akshaya |last=Mukul |url=http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/young-india-votes/news/Mighty-Kurmis-of-Bihar/articleshow/555124.cms |title=Mighty Kurmis of Bihar |work=The Times of India |date=12 March 2004}}
32. ^{{cite web | title=Fernandes to head Janata Dal (United) | url=http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/2003/10/31/stories/2003103104371100.htm | author=Gargi Parsai | date=31 October 2003 | publisher=The Hindu | deadurl=no | archiveurl=https://www.webcitation.org/65xylZw3k?url=http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/2003/10/31/stories/2003103104371100.htm | archivedate=6 March 2012}}
33. ^{{Cite news|url=https://frontline.thehindu.com/static/html/fl1919/19190330.htm|title=End of a terror trail|work=Frontline|date=27 September 2002|first=Kalyan |last=Chaudhuri|accessdate=2018-12-19}}
34. ^{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.co.in/books?id=HbAjKR_iHogC&pg=PA54|title=Caste, Society and Politics in India from the Eighteenth Century to the Modern Age|last=Bayly|first=Susan|authorlink=Susan Bayly|year=2001|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-52179-842-6|page=347}}
35. ^{{Cite news|url=http://archive.indianexpress.com/news/a-lasting-signature-on-bihar-s-most-violent-years/957421/2|title=A lasting signature on Bihar's most violent years |work=Indian Express|accessdate=2018-12-18}}
36. ^https://books.google.com/books?id=p8dixDGhJ3sC&pg=PT392&lpg=PT392&dq=kurmi+guyana&source=bl&ots=bdCRonTtHq&sig=UaT9pLHtQn0ZvxSzEEbtbzAOo6A&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwit8buH4qzcAhVouVkKHfeRB6sQ6AEwBXoECAAQAQ#v=onepage&q=kurmi%20guyana&f=false
37. ^{{Cite news|url=http://archive.indianexpress.com/news/sone-lal-patel-s-wife-new-apna-dal-chief/530860/|title=Sone Lal Patel's wife new Apna Dal chief |work=Indian Express|access-date=2018-12-17}}
38. ^{{Cite news|url=https://indianexpress.com/article/india/with-business-and-marital-ties-patidars-look-to-unite-nationally-4807814/|title=With business and marital ties Patidars look to unite nationally|date=22 August 2017|work=The Indian Express|access-date=2018-12-18}}
39. ^{{Cite news|url=https://indianexpress.com/article/cities/ahmedabad/in-surat-42-women-from-odisha-set-to-tie-the-knot-with-patidars/|title=In Surat, 42 women from Odisha set to tie the knot with Patidars|date=11 October 2015|work=The Indian Express|access-date=2018-12-18}}
40. ^{{cite web|url=https://journals.openedition.org/samaj/3886 |title=The ‘Land of the Vaish’? Caste Structure and Ideology in Mauritius |publisher=Journals.openedition.org |date= |accessdate=2018-10-11}}

Etymology