Bunts in History and Culture

Bunts in History and Culture

B. Surendra Rao

Rashtrakavi Govind Pai Samshodhana Kendra

M.G.M. College, Udupi 576102

World Bunts’ Foundation Trust ®

S.R.S. Home, Mangalore – 575 003

About the Book

Bunts in History and Culture is an attempt to situate a prominent community of Dakshina Kannada in the historical and socio-cultural contexts of the region and the country. It seeks to reconstruct the history of Bunts from the hazy early centuries to the dynamic present, by locating the agencies of change and community’s response to change. The book explores the images of the community in historical sources and in many impressive material survivals, its adhesive kinship patterns and patented cultural idioms, and also presents some snap-shots of its portrayals in the living folklore of Tulunadu. It tries to evaluate the impact of migratory compulsions, changing land-relations and laws of inheritance on the community, as also of colonial modernity and strong nationalist impulse to which it was generously exposed. The picture of the Bunt community as the one which is fondly attached to its inheritance and yet willing to move forward in the world of change should epitomise the creative resolution of a dilemma that modern India is facing today. The book also makes a critical review of some of the fond but unfounded theories regarding the community or the region it has left its indelible stamp on.

About the author

Dr. B. Surendra Rao (born 1948) is a retired Professor of History, Mangalore University, where he had taught between 1982 and 2008. He had earlier taught at Vivekananda College, Puttur. He has served as the Sectional President (Modern Indian History) of the Indian History Congress at Kolkata (2001). His works, edited or authored, include, Coorg Invented (1998), The Retrieved Acre: The Nature and Culture in the World of the Tuluva (2003), Ithihasa mattu Samaja (2005) and History as Historiography (2010).

CONTENTS


Chapter I Introduction (1)

Chapter II Groping For a Beginning (17)

Chapter III Bunts in Medieval Tulunadu (35)

Chapter IV Contours of the Guttu Universe (67)

Chapter V Folk Constructions of the Community (115)

Chapter VI Web of Kinship and Cultural Idioms (143)

Chapter VII Modernity and Response (183)

Chapter VIII Wafting Breeze of National Movement (231)

Chapter IX Navigating the Waves of Change (277)

Chapter X Expansive Shores (320)

Glossary (330)

Select Bibliography (333)

Index (341)