Countries of the World/COUNTRYS.BIN/dp/0167/01677.txt

Text File | 1991-06-25 | 25KB | 399 lines

$Unique_ID{COW01677}
$Pretitle{221}
$Title{India
Chapter 5D.   Village India}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{P. A. Kluck}
$Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army}
$Subject{land
village
caste
factions
villagers
dominant
laborers
even
landowners
family}
$Date{1985}
$Log{}
Country:     India
Book:        India, A Country Study
Author:      P. A. Kluck
Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army
Date:        1985

Chapter 5D.   Village India

     There are more than half a million villages in India and, despite the
massive growth of cities since independence, most Indians (roughly
three-fourths) continue to live in the countryside. The village is the primary
focus of social relations; even for many urban migrants it remains the center
of their loyalties. Although most villages are small-nearly 80 percent had
fewer than 1,000 inhabitants according to the 1981 census-most villagers live
in rural settlements having anywhere from 500 to 5,000 inhabitants. Those
villages within reasonable commuting distance of a city are "peri-urban."
Their inhabitants visit the city for work, business, and amusement. All
villages have been affected in varying degrees by the political-economic
changes of the twentieth century; all relate to the supra-village political
environment. All are touched by the politics of Indian democracy, the
commercialization of agriculture, and the changing patterns of employment
and livelihood.

     Caste is the defining feature of village social relations. The caste
composition of a village determines, to a large degree, the configuration
of rivalries and competition. Where a single caste controls most of the
land and includes the largest landowners, its members can effectively control
the local economy and politics. To have truly decisive dominance, a caste
should not only control a significant portion of the land but also have
reasonably high ritual rank. Some of its leading members should have a Western
education, and ideally it should be part of a larger group that is pivotal in
regional politics. All of these elements are rarely present together;
nonetheless, where landowners are of a single caste and maintain a unified
front, they constitute a potent, nearly invincible force in village affairs.

     The pattern of power and dominance varies according to landholding.
There may be a single family holding sway-a pattern quite common in the
princely states until the recent past. If a single family dominates
landholding, village politics are distinct from those in villages where land
is dispersed among a number of families within the dominant caste. Where
a number of families hold land, rivalry can be intense and the dominant
caste may divide into factions, each with its own following among lower
ranking castes. In any event, land ownership is the key to power in
rural India; it is a sensitive barometer to social relations. Regions where
small peasant proprietors are the rule are distinct from those where,
despite land reforms, large landholdings still dominate. The Punjab, for
example, is a region of small farms; more than 70 percent of all cultivators
are landowners and more than 80 percent of all farms are run by an
owner-operator. It is a pattern of landholding that affords a relative
measure of prosperity. In other regions, such as Bihar, large owners continue
to control much of the land; social relations are nearly feudal despite
decades of remedial legislation.

     Anthropologist Miriam Sharma describes a village in North India under
the hegemony of a single dominant caste. The caste accounted for about
one-quarter of the village's total population but controlled nearly two-thirds
of the land. At the other end of the scale, untouchables-again a little more
than one-quarter of the village's total population-held only 2 percent of
all arable land. To be truly effective, however, a dominant caste should
diversify its sources of income and employment. A scattering of members in the
professions, business, and the civil service is essential to the caste's
continued predominance in the village. The economic advantages of
diversification can hardly be overstated. In the same village, Sharma
estimated the average per capita income of the dominant caste, even without
agricultural production, at more than five times that of the untouchables.

     Factions are an endemic feature of village life; factionalism represents,
according to Sharma, the "traditional and still predominant form of political
activity in rural India." Where land is dispersed among a number of families
within a dominant caste, that caste is typically divided into factions. Each
faction is composed of a core of families of sufficient wealth to play at
village power politics-it is not a poor man's game. Faction leaders must
be wealthy enough to be able to loan bullocks, give emergency loans, and
provide other assistance to their followers. Factions recruit their supporters
from among the members of their jati, family servants, and followers from
lower ranking castes. The individual family cannot succeed in village politics
without allies and retainers; the number of lineage mates is too small to
serve. Factionalism demands ties with non-kin. The tie between leader and
follower is largely instrumental and transactional, and only leaders who
can give real benefits can ensure their minions' loyalty. The intensity of
factionalism varies regionally; it is most bitter in North India. In the
south, women maintain closer ties with their kin, and both sides normally
have in-laws in rival factions who can act as go-betweens.

     Factions cleave closely along lines of kinship; alliances follow family
and lineage lines. Where close relatives, such as brothers or patrilateral
cousins, do quarrel, the cause is most commonly zamin, zar, or zanani
(land, wealth, or women). The division of land previously held in common
is frequently the subject of contention, with the result that the disputants
ally with opposing factions. At the core of a faction stand a few closely
related families and their dependents. Indeed, a faction can be seen as
a federation of lineages, reflecting the agreement of the heads of a few
dominant families.

     Even where factions do not represent a rift between close kin, they
form in competition for scarce resources-land, irrigation water, labor,
and political influence. Dominant castes often manage not only to maintain
their grip on the traditional modes and means of power but also to control
new resources and changing means of conflict resolution. Many villagers argue
that increases in resources, such as government tube-well irrigation water,
merely mean more conflict among factions because there is no consensus about
who has the right to allocate nontraditional means of production.

     Historically, factions contended over land, prestige, women, ritual
displays, and supporters; changing political and economic circumstances
have added to these water, government assistance, educational opportunities,
political office, and access to influential bureaucrats. Conflict is more
pervasive too because, since independence, most villages have not had a
single strong personage comparable to the headman under the British Raj.
At the same time, new wealth has made at least some villagers less dependent
on the good opinion of their fellows. Rich and poor alike in previous
generations were forced to abide (more or less) by customary rules simply
because alternatives outside the village were so circumscribed. New ways of
making a living have meant that at least some villagers are able to
stonewell the negative opinions of their neighbors.

     In the villagers' view, elections and democratic processes have
undermined village unity. Political parties contribute to factionalism,
adding another dimension to local rivalries. Village factionalism can serve
as a microcosm of the subcontinent's history: factions that were initially
based on nothing more than membership in different patrilineages have fought
and continue to fight on opposing side