WEALS AND WOES OF CHANDLA VIDHI IN THE NORTHEAST TRIBAL DISTRICTS OF GUJARAT

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.