ABSTRACT
This was an anthropological fieldwork, carried out in a multi caste village of Udaipur district, called Dhinkli, in Rajasthan. It is situated by the side of NH6 and comes under Bargao tehsil and Pratap Nagar police station. Bhils, Brahmins, Rajputs, Meghwals etc. are the different caste groups found in the village. Bhils are the dominant caste in terms of population but in terms of money, land and power, upper castes are dominant, mainly the Brahmins. The main aim of this study is to know about the political organization of the village. Non-participant observation as a method is used to understand the weekly held political meetings; and semi-structured interviews, case studies and genealogy are used, as tools, to get information. A total of 30 case studies of politically influential people are taken, who are found to be mostly of higher castes. In spite of the fact that there is reservation for women and scheduled tribes in the political field, the ground reality showed that it is limited to pen and paper. Mostly, the women and the lower caste men are illiterate. Women are dominated by men in every aspect. Also the study has shown that there exists differences based on caste, which can be seen in terms of occupation, festivals, rearing of cattle, types of houses as well as settlement pattern. Thus, the study concluded that the Rajasthan village has practice of in-equality based on caste and gender; and political reservation didn’t bring much change, resulting in internal tensions within the village.
