Nasheman Bandookwala, Naresh Chauhan
The cash gift given on
auspicious occasion is called Chandla in Indian society. Chandla
vidhi is a ritual to give and take gifts between host and invitees. This
tradition is widely prevalent in almost all cult in India barring Islam, where
only blessings are welcomed. Gift is a part of celebration or memento and is
voluntarily given, but in few of the tribal community located in Dahod, Gujarat
and surrounding areas the ritual of exchanging chandla popularly called
chalndla vidhi has become a compulsion resulting into tremendous
economic burden. In these communities
now a days some celebrations are purposefully arranged just to collect chandlas.
Some compulsory rules and regulations regarding how much cash amount to be
gifted led families to take debts to gift the decided amounts. Due to immense
societal pressure some of the tribal families are in a vicious debt trap. In
the present study we have surveyed 306 random families belonging to various
areas of Dahod. During our various field visits we surveyed those persons who
gifted chandla or were the part of chandla vidhi. The major
outcomes of this survey are results about their economic status, how much
economic burden that they had to face because of this chandla vidhi and
in the final portion of the survey we asked them their opinion regarding chandla
vidhi whether it should be continued as it is or needs some changes? How to
mitigate this issue of economic burden is not discussed in the paper, however
it is dealt with in detail in the report we will be eventually presenting to
Ministry of Tribal development, Government of Gujarat. This paper deals only
the intensity of the issue.
Chandla vidhi, debt trap, economic burden
VOL.16, ISSUE No.3, September 2024