Samipya 1991 Vol 08 Ank 01 02

Author(s): Pravinchandra C Parikh, Bhartiben Shelat
Publisher: Bholabhai Jeshingbhai Adhyayan Sanshodhan Vidyabhavan

Page 67

states that the famine situation together with the misrule which prevailed at that time had broken the backbone of the subjects.10 This was the background when the folk song was composed. The folk-song telde wa that the Bhid robbers attempted to bribe Kirparam batlidar with Rs. 50.00, for allowing them to sack Sunth. The punderers seem to be offering the bribe, with a feeling a contempt.
This folk-song describes the valour of the Bhils, but ends pensively into their hope that their ruler undergoing his training at the Rajkumar College will, after all, forgive them. This song describes Bhil mon and women in arms. They plunder in the midst of gun fires, but eventually Ive bandits ineluding two women are shot dead on the ground. This leads others to retreat in a lightening flash. But some of them are caught and imprisoned. Now, the Bhils are waiting for the completion of Jorawarsingh's studies. The song cods in this way : "Jprawar Singh is our King. He will return from Rajkot after he completes his studies. We will bow down to him with salutes. After all, he is the King of bills. We are his subjects and he is our King. 0, King, we happen to be your subjects and your servants, please salvage us".
What do the Bhil songs convey ? Do they shed any additional light on the subaltern sensitivities? There is so dearth of the contemporary officiat adcounts dealing with the Bhils. The folk songs are partly a reflective literatune and partly based on what actually happened. How could a historian study and use the folksongs as his data ? There is no easy answer to tlais question.
The study of the Bhil songs has helped me in one respect. It has enabled me to appreciate the differont trends of their cultural lite. This was very different from the life style of high-caste Hindus. The Buils soom to have been individualistie, at the same time they had developed an identity as a group. And they felt it intensely. We find no intermediaries between them and their social order-no brahmins and no Hindu gods to give them a hierarchical status within or outside their fold. Their society is more permissive than the high-caste society. The girl would thus enjoy the extra-marital relations and ask her lover to enter her home. She would buy prnaments from a Vohra merchant and gesticulate in the streets. She might at the same time support the male-folk in their plundering activities. In this latter respect, the Bhils form a sharp contrast to the adivasis of South Gujarat who were meak and submissive. The Bhils with their Mangalio and Ruplo Kataro, Waghji, and Dalu Damor (in arms) appear to be made dignified than the tribals. The Bhil, in spite of his poverty, felt magestic about himself and his social world,
Footnotes 1. For details See Ranjit Guha (ed.), Subaltern Studies, Vol. 1: Writings on South
Asian History and Society (Oxford, 1982); David Hardiman, The Coming of the Devi : Adivasi Assertion in Western India (Oxford, 1987).
Suthalteca as Poets : Folk Songs etf the Bhils of Southern Rajasthani
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