Society & communities

Castes, communities and tribes, and how social life changed over time, from scholarly sources.

At a glance

At Amaravati, gifts were made by householders and their families, by nuns and by merchants. Giving was a family act that merchants and ordinary householders could afford.⁶
Kakatiya inscriptions describe society as the eighteen peoples. In Parabrahma Sastry's reading these were groups defined mainly by occupation. Each could organise as a samaya, with its own customs, elders and dues.^8,9
William Methwold, an English merchant at Machilipatnam in the 1620s, counted 44 castes. Brahmins served as accountants, Komatis as merchants, and the Kapus, the most numerous, worked the land.¹⁶
In Hyderabad State in 1901 the Kapus, the cultivators, were about 26 per cent of the population. Next came Malas and Madigas together, at about 14 per cent.¹
Malas and Madigas were kept apart from other castes. Malas were barred from Hindu temples in Godavari. In Anantapur, Madigas lived in separate hamlets and could not use other castes' wells.^2,31
In 1922 the Madras Government replaced the terms Panchama and Pariah with Adi-Andhra. The 1931 Hyderabad census adopted Adi-Hindu and counted the depressed classes at 17 per cent of the population.⁴⁴

Dr Edith Boardman standing in an academic gown and mortarboard. · A. Claude Campbell (ed.) (opens in a new tab) · Public domain

The Telugu country has always been home to many communities. They include cultivators and herders, artisans and traders, labourers and forest peoples.¹² From the medieval period they also include Muslims, and later Christians.³⁴ This page follows how the sources describe them and how their place in society changed.

Two cautions apply throughout. The early evidence is mostly inscriptions recording gifts, so it shows donors and organised bodies far more than the poor. The detailed descriptions come mainly from surveys made by colonial and Nizam’s officials between the 1870s and 1930s. These writers ranked communities, judged their “character”, and sometimes explained caste by theories of race that are no longer accepted.⁵ For example, the 1931 census of Hyderabad traced untouchability to an ancient conquest of dark-skinned peoples by fair-skinned ones.⁵ This page uses such works for what people did and how they organised themselves, and leaves their rankings aside.

Donors at the stupas

The Buddhist inscriptions of the Krishna valley give the first view of local society.⁶ At Amaravati, gifts of pillars, slabs and gateways were made by householders (gahapati) and their wives and grandchildren.⁶ Gifts also came from Buddhist nuns, and from a donor called “the Tamil Kanha” together with his brother and sister.⁶

One inscription records a pavilion given to the monks by a perfume dealer, the son of a merchant.⁶ He gave it “with his father, with his mother, with his wife”, and with his brothers, sons, daughters, daughters-in-law and grandchildren.⁶ Giving was a family act, and merchants and ordinary householders could afford to give.⁶

At Nagarjunakonda in the 3rd century CE, the pattern was different. J. Ph. Vogel found that the Ikshvaku king Chamtamula was praised for performing Vedic sacrifices.⁷ But the Buddhist monuments of the capital were paid for by queens and princesses of the royal house. They were led by the king’s sister Chamtisiri.⁷ The inscriptions also show that the next king married his cousin, Chamtisiri’s daughter.⁷ See the Nagarjunakonda pillar inscriptions and the Ikshvakus.

The eighteen samayas

Inscriptions of the Kakatiya period describe society as a whole by a set phrase, ashtadasa-praja, “the eighteen peoples”.⁸ P. V. Parabrahma Sastry points to a later copper-plate grant that lists them.⁸ They are the four classical varnas (social orders), together with officials, smiths and carpenters, potters, weavers, dyers, oil-pressers, tailors, spinners, pack-carriers, cowherds, hunters, washermen, barbers and others.⁸ He argues that most of these groups appear in Kakatiya inscriptions too, and that they were defined mainly by occupation.⁸

Each group could organise itself as a samaya.⁹ This was a group body with its own customs and elders, and the power to raise dues from its members.⁹ In 1245 the pack-carriers (perika) of Tripurantakam got the tax on their bullocks excused.⁹ In 1228 the weavers of the villages around Hanamkonda, Warangal and Mattewada set up a shrine together.⁹ They threatened members who failed to pay their share with being put out of the samaya.⁹

Sculptors, oil-pressers, temple servants and even village warriors appear as bodies of the same kind.¹⁰ Parabrahma Sastry describes the great merchant guilds as earlier dominated by Jaina traders.¹¹ Now they also counted Reddis, potters, weavers, oil-pressers and cultivators among their members.¹¹

Villages, too, acted through assemblies. In 1292, according to an inscription near Bhuvanagiri, an officer of a local chief had to ask the assemblies of three villages for approval.¹² With joined hands, he asked them to approve a tax on the cultivators for a temple.¹² At Penumili in Guntur district, a village elder rebuked an officer for imposing unjust dues. The dues were then cancelled.¹²

Parabrahma Sastry reads such records as showing that village bodies could check local chiefs.¹² That is his interpretation of a small number of inscriptions.¹² Military service did not belong to one community either. A later chronicle says that each of the 77 bastions of Warangal was held by a Velama commander.¹³ But Parabrahma Sastry notes commanders of other communities, including Reddis, in the inscriptions.¹³

The same author observes that Brahmins were already divided into regional groups such as Velanadu, Venginadu, Telangana and Mulikinadu.¹⁴ A chronicle of Warangal lists some 27 classes of people living in the capital.¹⁴ They range from Brahmins and merchants to weavers of silk and cotton, potters, fishermen, washermen and toddy-tappers.¹⁴ Six centuries later, the Godavari gazetteer recorded Telugu Brahmins under very similar regional names: Velinadu, Veginadu, Telaganya, Kasaleya and Murikinadu.¹⁵

A merchant’s view of Golconda

In the 17th century, most people of the Golconda kingdom were Hindus who spoke Telugu.³ W. H. Moreland edited Dutch and English reports.³ He found no record of conversion to Islam on a large scale.³ He concluded that most Muslims in the kingdom were of foreign origin. They were merchants at the ports, and soldiers and adventurers who had followed the armies.³ For the court and its Telugu officers, see Vijayanagara & Qutb Shahi.

William Methwold was an English merchant at Machilipatnam in the 1620s. He wrote one of the first outside descriptions of Telugu society.¹⁶ He counted 44 “tribes” (castes). Their order, he noted, did not follow wealth.¹⁶ He described them like this:¹⁶

Brahmins served as accountants to the Muslim governors, writing on palm leaves. Hindus and Muslims alike consulted them for a lucky hour.
Komatis were the merchants who gathered cloth from the weavers and sold it at the ports. They also served as money-changers and shopkeepers.
The Kapus were the most numerous group. They worked the land in the villages, served the wealthy in the towns and guarded the forts.
Carpenters, masons, founders, goldsmiths and blacksmiths formed one group that married among themselves. Each other craft formed its own group.
Leather-workers were made to live outside the towns.¹⁶

Methwold wrote as a foreign trader.¹⁶ Some of his language about the poorest groups is openly scornful.¹⁶

Communities in the colonial record

By about 1900, the census gave numbers. In Hyderabad State in 1901, the largest group was the Kapus, the cultivators, at about 26 per cent of the population.¹ Next came Malas and Madigas together, at about 14 per cent.¹ The Imperial Gazetteer described them as playing “a most important part in the village economy”.¹ After them came Gollas (shepherds), Brahmins, Vaisyas (traders), Sales (weavers), Gaundlas (toddy-drawers) and Lambadis or Banjaras.¹

In Godavari district, the six largest communities were the Kapus, Malas, Idigas, Madigas, Kammas and Telugu Brahmins.¹⁷ In Anantapur the Kapus formed nearly a sixth of the Hindus.¹⁸ Next came the Boyas, an old fighting community, and the Madigas.¹⁸

Cultivators. The Godavari gazetteer called the Kapus or Reddis the landowning community.¹⁹ It thought the Velamas, Telagas and Kammas closely related to them. They would often eat together, but did not marry each other.¹⁹

Traders. The Komatis were the trading and money-lending community.²⁰ Their caste goddess, Kanyaka Paramesvari, was said to be a Komati girl of Penugonda. She burned herself rather than marry a king.²⁰ The 102 families who died with her were remembered as the ancestors of the caste’s gotras (lineages).²⁰ In 1907 the fines collected by Komati caste councils were still sent to her temple at Penugonda.²⁰ The Hyderabad survey recorded the same story in Telangana.²¹

Weavers. The Padma Sales were a large and widespread community of Telugu weavers in Hyderabad State.²² They wove cotton saris and dhotis. The women spun the yarn and prepared the warp.²² They ran their affairs through a caste council under a headman.²² By 1920 many could no longer live by the handloom against imported mill cloth. They had turned to farming, labour, trade or masonry.²²

In Anantapur the Devangas, Togatas and Sales were weaving communities.²³ Malas wove the coarse cotton cloth that most villagers wore.²³ See Crafts & textiles.

Carriers. The Banjaras or Lambadis carried grain, salt and cotton on pack-bullocks.²⁴ They lived in camps called tandas, each under a hereditary naik (headman).²⁴ Siraj ul Hassan, writing for the Nizam’s government, called their work as carriers between remote villages and the markets “invaluable”.²⁴ As railways and roads spread, many settled in the Telugu districts as cultivators and cattle-breeders.²⁴ Banjara women were known for their embroidered skirts and bodices.²⁴

Forest peoples. The Koyas lived along the Godavari, from Bastar to the edge of the delta and south to Khammam.²⁵ They spoke their own Dravidian language and grouped their villages under hereditary heads.²⁵ The Godavari gazetteer noted that traders and moneylenders from the plains cheated them “in every conceivable way”.²⁶ It also passed sweeping judgements on their character, which are not repeated here.²⁶

The hill Reddis lived by shifting (podu) cultivation.²⁷ Chenchus came down to Nellore at the Pongal and Sivaratri festivals to sell bamboo rice and bamboo flutes.²⁸ Some served as watchmen in the Nandikanama pass.²⁸ The Gonds lived in villages of bamboo huts in the hills of Adilabad.²⁹

The 1931 census of Hyderabad counted 511,789 people as tribal “Animists”.³⁰ It noted that Chenchus of the Amrabad hills now carried loads for pilgrims to Srisailam, and were taking up Hindu customs.³⁰

Labourers and leather-workers. The Malas were described as the great community of farm labourers. The Madigas were described as tanners and shoemakers.² Both were kept apart from other castes. The Godavari gazetteer records that Malas were not allowed to enter Hindu temples.²

In Anantapur, Madigas lived in separate hamlets.³¹ They could not enter the temples or use the wells of other castes.³¹ When water was short, they had someone of another caste draw it and pour it into their pots.³¹

Ritual ties also linked these communities to others.³² Komatis were said to give betel to a Madiga before their weddings, a custom Komatis denied.³² Some Velamas paid for a Mala couple to be married before a wedding in their own family.³²

Right hand and left hand

Many communities of the south belonged to one of two rival groups, the “right-hand” and “left-hand” castes.³³ Among Telugus, the Malas counted as right-hand and the Madigas as left-hand.³³ Processions were the usual cause of clashes.³³

At Kurnool in 1871, a Madiga rode on horseback through the main bazaar.³³ He wore a red cloth that the police had given him as a reward.³³ This set off a riot.³³ Afterwards, the two groups agreed which streets each would use.³³

J. Cain, a missionary in the Godavari hill country, reported another dispute.³⁴ The right-hand castes there objected to Kamsalas (smiths) being carried in a palanquin at their weddings.³⁴ Divisions of this kind reached into new workplaces.³⁵ At a cotton factory at Adoni, Edgar Thurston found the skilled posts held by Malas. There were three separate wells: for Malas, for Madigas and for the other workers.³⁵

Muslims and Christians

Muslims in the Telugu districts were a minority.³⁶ They were about a tenth of Hyderabad State’s people in 1901, and far fewer in the coastal districts.³⁶ Most spoke Telugu.

In Visakhapatnam (then Vizagapatam) district, the gazetteer found that Muslims of the plains spoke “excellent Telugu”.³⁷ They were on friendly terms with Hindus.³⁷ Hindus made vows at the Muslim shrine (dargah) in Visakhapatnam town and joined in the Muharram observances.³⁷

In Godavari, the Dudekulas were Telugu-speaking Muslims who wore Hindu dress and took Hindu names.³⁸ They worked as musicians and cotton-cleaners.³⁸ In Anantapur, Hindus kept their own Muharram, but a Muslim had to set up the standards for it.³⁹ Hyderabad also drew Muslims from abroad into its service.⁴⁰ The 1901 census counted 4,291 immigrants from Arabia, 1,195 from Persia and 886 from Afghanistan.⁴⁰

Christianity grew mainly in the 19th century. In the Krishna country, some Christian villages went back to the French Jesuit missions of the 18th century.⁴ Christians had arrived at Patibandla after the famine of 1832.⁴ By the 1880s, most of the cultivators there were Catholic.⁴

Protestant missions followed:⁴¹

the Lutherans at Rajahmundry, from 1844
the Canadian Baptists at Kakinada, from 1869
the Church Missionary Society at Dummagudem, where its converts came mainly from the Koyas and Malas⁴¹

In Hyderabad State, the American Baptist Telugu Mission began at Secunderabad in 1875.⁴² The Wesleyans began in 1880, with a hospital at Medak.⁴²

The Imperial Gazetteer of Madras observed that Indian Christians had increased by 99 per cent since 1871.⁴³ It said most converts came from “the lowest classes of society”.⁴³ It added that they were making good use of education.⁴³

Assertion and change in the 20th century

In 1922 the Madras Government replaced the terms Panchama and Pariah in its records. For Telugus it used Adi-Andhra instead.⁴⁴ In Hyderabad, the Adi-Hindu Social Service League asked the Nizam’s government to use the name Adi-Hindu. The 1931 census adopted it.⁴⁴

That census counted the depressed classes at 17 per cent of the population.⁴⁴ It described the denial of common wells and tanks as a widespread hardship.⁴⁴ It also recorded divisions among the communities themselves. It noted the League’s volunteers working against drink among labourers.⁴⁴ The wider reform and political movements of this time are told on Reform, freedom & people’s movements.

The end of the Nizam’s rule changed Hyderabad society quickly. The 1951 census wrote that after the “Police Action” of 1948, life among Muslims was badly disturbed.⁴⁵ Muslims were about 12 per cent of the population.⁴⁵

The census named two causes.⁴⁵ One was revenge by some Hindus for what they had suffered earlier.⁴⁵ The other was reforms. These were the abolition of the jagir estates (estates held by grant), the disbanding of the Hyderabad army, and the opening of government jobs to all communities.⁴⁵ The reforms ended Muslims’ near-monopoly of the army and their large share of official posts.⁴⁵

Imperial Gazetteer of India: Hyderabad State (1909), pp. 23–24 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵
Hemingway, Godavari (1907), pp. 51, 58–60 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³
W. H. Moreland (ed.), Relations of Golconda in the Early Seventeenth Century (1931), p. xv (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵
Gordon Mackenzie, A Manual of the Kistna District (1883), pp. 168, 203 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴
Census of India 1931, Vol. XXIII: H.E.H. the Nizam’s Dominions, Part I: Report (1933), appendix on the depressed classes, p. 41 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩²
James Burgess, The Buddhist Stupas of Amaravati and Jaggayyapeta (1887), pp. 104–105, inscriptions nos. 39–49 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶
J. Ph. Vogel, “Prakrit Inscriptions from a Buddhist Site at Nagarjunikonda”, Epigraphia Indica XX (1933), p. 4 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³
P. V. Parabrahma Sastry, The Kakatiyas of Warangal (1978), p. 180. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴
Parabrahma Sastry, Kakatiyas of Warangal (1978), p. 181. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵
Parabrahma Sastry, Kakatiyas of Warangal (1978), p. 182. ↩
Parabrahma Sastry, Kakatiyas of Warangal (1978), p. 184. ↩ ↩²
Parabrahma Sastry, Kakatiyas of Warangal (1978), pp. 186–187. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵
Parabrahma Sastry, Kakatiyas of Warangal (1978), p. 195. ↩ ↩²
Parabrahma Sastry, Kakatiyas of Warangal (1978), p. 270. ↩ ↩² ↩³
F. R. Hemingway, Madras District Gazetteers: Godavari, Vol. I (1907), pp. 51–52 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩
William Methwold, “Relation”, in Moreland (ed.), Relations of Golconda (1931), pp. 14–19 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶
Hemingway, Godavari (1907), p. 51 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩
W. Francis, Madras District Gazetteers: Anantapur (1905), p. 35 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩²
Hemingway, Godavari (1907), p. 55 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩²
Hemingway, Godavari (1907), p. 54 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴
Syed Siraj ul Hassan, The Castes and Tribes of H.E.H. the Nizam’s Dominions, Vol. I (1920), p. 343 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩
Siraj ul Hassan, Castes and Tribes (1920), pp. 536, 542–543 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴
Francis, Anantapur (1905), pp. 31, 36 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩²
Siraj ul Hassan, Castes and Tribes (1920), preface and pp. 15–16, 26–27 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵
Hemingway, Godavari (1907), pp. 60–61, 65 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩²
Hemingway, Godavari (1907), p. 62 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩²
Hemingway, Godavari (1907), p. 67 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩
John A. C. Boswell, A Manual of the Nellore District (1873), p. 164 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩²
Siraj ul Hassan, Castes and Tribes (1920), p. 216 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩
Census of India 1931, Vol. XXIII, Part I (1933), p. 233 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩²
Francis, Anantapur (1905), p. 35 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³
Hemingway, Godavari (1907), pp. 54–55 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³
Edgar Thurston and K. Rangachari, Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Vol. IV (1909), p. 295, quoting the Manual of the Kurnool District (1886) (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷
Thurston and Rangachari, Castes and Tribes, Vol. III (1909), p. 143 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩²
Thurston and Rangachari, Castes and Tribes, Vol. IV (1909), p. 294 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩²
Imperial Gazetteer: Hyderabad (1909), p. 24 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)); Hemingway, Godavari (1907), p. 38 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩²
W. Francis, Madras District Gazetteers: Vizagapatam, Vol. I (1907), p. 65 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³
Hemingway, Godavari (1907), p. 39 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩²
Francis, Anantapur (1905), pp. 29–30 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩
Census of India, 1951, Vol. IX: Hyderabad, Part I-A: Report (1953), p. 83 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩²
Hemingway, Godavari (1907), pp. 39–42 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩²
Imperial Gazetteer: Hyderabad (1909), p. 25 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩²
Imperial Gazetteer of India: Madras, Vol. I (1908), p. 33 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³
Census of India 1931, Vol. XXIII, Part I (1933), appendix on the depressed classes, p. 41 and following page (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵
Census of India, 1951, Vol. IX, Part I-A (1953), p. 112 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶