Abstract
Before the partitioning of India in 1947, the Kori, a Koli caste who
migrated from Gujarat at the turn of the century, were accorded low
status by Sind's Muslims and Hindus alike. Their occupation as land-less
labourers and their semi-nomadic lifestyle reinforced their designation as
"Scheduled Caste". When the higher caste Hindus fled Sind after Partition,
the situation changed. The majority of Kori remained behind. Their
aspirations to higher status benefitted from the departure of the higher
caste Hindus, allowing them to engineer their rise on the ladder of caste
at the expense of the other Scheduled Caste Hindu groups. The reality of
absolute Muslim dominance has prevented this from having any real impact
upon the Koris' relative political and economic position, however. They
remain a powerless minority group, high caste in theory but not in
practice, for their Hindu ideals are not shared by the Muslim majority.
This situation of the Kori has obviously had some impact upon their
perceptions of reality. While they see themselves as Hindu, they are aware
of the scorn of their dominant landlords and neighbours whom they, in
turn, despise for being Muslims. It is interesting that, in this social climate,
many Kori beliefs and practices have altered over the years to take up a
course parallel to those of the Muslims. While the outsider might see this
as an attempt to gain respectability, this is something the Kori have to
deny, for to acknowledge it would be to acknowledge the inferiority of
Hinduism to Islam.
This thesis is a study of the beliefs and certainties expressed by a
minority group in a society dominated by a majority which does not share
its total ethos. It is also an attempt to come to terms with the
problems posed for the ethnographer, whose task it is to distinguish
between what, to those studied, might be belief, fact, or opinion, and what,
if related to the situation in which they arose, might merely be expressions
of collective justification.
