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1800-102-2727Many societies such as the tribes in the Indian subcontinent didn't use to follow the social rules and rituals as were prescribed by the Brahmanas and nor were they divided into numerous unequal Class es as was described in Brahmanical scriptures because of which a clash with the more powerful caste-based societies used to occur sometimes. Through this chapter students will learn and study about Tribes, Nomads and Settled Communities from Chapter 7 of the book and the necessary political, social and economic developments that had taken place over the centuries but why even after was the social modification not constant all over due to the rationale that the different sorts of societies had evolved otherwise and perceived differently.
We will learn about the Nomadic pastoralists who were people who had moved over long distances with their animals and lived on milk and other pastoral products for their survival. They even used to exchange wool, ghee, etc., with settled agriculturists for grain, cloth, utensils and other products as a way of trade. We will then move to the Banjaras, which were the most important trader nomads. Their caravan was called tanda, and Sultan Alauddin Khalji (Chapter 3) used the Banjaras to transport grain to the city markets. Even emperor Jahangir wrote in his memoirs that the Banjaras carried grain on their bullocks from different areas and then sold it in towns after reaching their business.
They also used to transport food grain for the Mughal army during military campaigns, and for such a large army there used to be around 100,000 bullocks carrying grain. While contemporary historians and travellers give very scanty information about tribes, the tribal people barely kept written records due to which present-day historians have now started using oral traditions to write tribal histories.
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