Class 7 NCERT Solutions History Chapter 5 - Tribes, Nomads and Settled Communities

(a) The new castes emerging with in varnas were called jatis.

(b) Buranjis were historical works written by the Ahoms.

(c) The Akbar Nama mentions that Garha Katanga had 70,000 villages.

(d) As tribal states became bigger and stronger, they gave land grants to poets and scholars.

(a) True

(b) False

(c) False

(d) False

Nomadic pastoralists exchanged items like wool and ghee with settled agriculturalists in exchange for grain, cloth, utensils and other products.

The administration of Ahom was centralised and the society was classified into clans known as ‘khels’. A khel had several villages within its fold. Almost all adult males had to fight in the army during times of war and at other times they would be compelled to work on the construction of dams, irrigation, and other public works. People from heavily populated areas were often ordered to shift to sparsely populated regions. Peasants were allotted land by the village community which even the king could not take away without the community’s consent. Artisans in the Ahom state were actually migrants from neighbouring kingdoms as there were very few castes of craftsmen.

As the economy and the needs of the society grew, individuals with new sets of skills were required. As a result, smaller castes called jatis emerged within the varna based society of India. Also, many tribes and social groups were assimilated with castes and accorded the status of jatis. Gradually, jatis, instead of varnas, became the basis for the organisation of society.

After being organised into a state, many tribes were assimilated with the caste system. This happened with the active support of the Brahmins.  Formerly egalitarian, tribal societies gradually got divided into social classes that were essentially unequal. Subsequently, only the leading tribal families could join the ruling class. On the other hand, a large majority from the tribal societies joined the lowers jatis of the caste society.

The banjaras played an important role in the economy of India. They were essentially trader-nomads who functioned as merchants of different goods. Sometimes, they themselves were employed by bigger merchants to carry out trade on their behalf. They purchased grain and other products from regions where they were cheap, transported them in their caravans called ‘tandas’, and sold them where there was a bigger demand. They also transported food grains for Mughals during military campaigns in distant parts of India.

While the Gonds inhabited the forest region of Gondwana, the Ahoms, who inhabited the Brahmaputra valley, were migrants from Myanmar (13^th century). Whereas the Gonds were completely annexed by the Mughal Empire, the Ahoms fought and reclaimed their independence soon after annexation. The point of similarity between the Gonds and the Ahoms is that both rose from being small tribal communities to powerful tribal states modeled on other centralised kingdoms. Also, both were organised on the basis of a clan system.