Chapter 5 — Tribes, Nomads and Settled Communities

Tribal societies did not follow the social rules and rituals prescribed by the Brahmanas, and were not divided into numerous unequal classes. Members were united by kinship bonds and jointly controlled land and pastures according to the tribe's own rules. Caste-based societies, by contrast, were hierarchically organised with differences between high and low increasingly prescribed by Brahmanical rules.

The Banjaras were the most important trader-nomads in medieval India. They transported goods — especially grain — using large caravans of bullocks. A tanda was the name for a Banjara caravan. Peter Mundy, an English trader in the early seventeenth century, described meeting a tanda of 14,000 oxen loaded with wheat and rice.

Sultan Alauddin Khalji used the Banjaras to transport grain to city markets. Emperor Jahangir wrote in his memoirs that the Banjaras carried grain on their bullocks from different areas and sold it in towns. They also transported food grain for the Mughal army during military campaigns — a large army could have 100,000 bullocks carrying grain.

The Gonds lived across the present-day states of Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, and Andhra Pradesh. They inhabited a vast forested region called Gondwana, meaning 'country inhabited by Gonds'. The large Gond tribe was further divided into smaller clans, each with its own raja or nayaka.

The kingdom was divided into garhs, each controlled by a particular Gond clan. Each garh was further divided into units of 84 villages called chaurasis. Each chaurasi was subdivided into barhots, which were made up of 12 villages each. The Akbarnama records that Garha Katanga had 70,000 villages.

Rani Durgawati was the wife of Dalpat, the son of Aman Das (Sangram Shah), the Gond raja of Garha Katanga. After Dalpat died early, she ruled capably and the kingdom became even more extensive. In 1565, Mughal forces under Asaf Khan attacked Garha Katanga. She put up strong resistance but was defeated and preferred to die rather than surrender. The Mughals captured a huge booty of precious coins and elephants.

The Ahoms migrated from present-day Myanmar in the thirteenth century. They arrived in the Brahmaputra valley and created a new state by suppressing the older political system of the bhuiyans (landlords).

During the sixteenth century, the Ahoms annexed the kingdom of the Chhutiyas in 1523 and the kingdom of Koch-Hajo in 1581, and subjugated many other tribes, building a large and powerful state.

Paiks were people forced to work for the Ahom state. The Ahom administration took a census of the population and each village had to send a number of paiks by rotation. People from heavily populated areas were sometimes shifted to less populated places to manage this system.

Buranjis were historical chronicles written by the Ahoms. They were first written in the Ahom language and later in Assamese. The Ahom state also encouraged theatre, gave land grants to poets and scholars, and translated important Sanskrit works into the local language.

In 1662, the Mughals under Mir Jumla attacked the Ahom kingdom. Despite brave defence, the Ahoms were defeated. However, direct Mughal control over the region could not last long.

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