DALIT VILLAGES IN INDIA From a Field View

Sociological Bulletin, 1998

Much has been written on the caste system in India. But the system is so complex and dynamic that it continues to engage the attention of social scientists. The present study focuses on certain aspects of the caste system in contemporary rural Bihar, and examines in particular the linkage between caste and occupation as well as the status of the jajmani system today. This paper is based on the data collected from four villages of the Buxar (Bhogpur) district of Bihar during a period of three years from 1991-93 by means of interview schedule and careful observation of every day life practises of the villagers. The four villages selected for this study were: Unwas, Basantpur, Bishrampur and Bharchakia. Though they have many similarities, the villages are also dissimilar in several respects. Two of these villages, Unwas and Basantpur, are very old while the other two, Bishrampur and Bharchakia, are quite new. Just before independence, Basantpur was under the zamindari system whereas Unwas w as under the ryotwari system. The other two villages came up after independence. In Unwas and Basantpur there are many castes while Bishrampur and Bharchakia have fewer castes. The 'upper castes' dominate Basantpur and Unwas while Bishrampur and Bharchakia are economically dominated by the 'backward castes'. While Bishrampur and Bharchakia are almost spatially divided on the basis of caste, Unwas and Basantpur are not so neatly divided. Taken together, however, these four villages provide a representative picture of rural Bihar. For this very reason, data pertaining to all the villages has been put together for purposes of analysis and presentation. A caste in contemporary rural Bihar is an endogamous group, with a set of ritual practises which separates it from other castes. The caste of a person is determined by his/her birth. People belonging to a particular caste claim that the origin of their caste is different from that of other castes. This claim is legitimized on the basis of various origin myths which constitute an important element of caste beliefs. People belonging to different castes create their mternal hierarchies according to their origin myths and beliefs. And by doing so various castes maintain their specific customs and traditions which

Published as part of the book titled- Making Villages Great Places to Live and Work, 2023

Villages remain critical and relevant for orderly, rational and realistic development of any urban areas in general and nation as a whole in particular. Housing large population; producing raw material for the industry to process; providing food, dairy products and vegetables essential for human living; housing large manpower ; offering largest market for consumption and production; having close proximity with nature; housing compact development and numerically being large in numbers, villages remain critical and valuable for eradicating poverty, generating employment, minimizing problems of cities/towns and launching nation on the path of fast trajectory of growth and development. Despite holding distinct advantages on the canvass of national development, still villages find little room in the agenda defined for promoting planned development of human settlements and largely remain marginalized in the options put in place for planned development. There is tendency to forget that villages are settlements, housing human beings and today’s village are going to be towns of tomorrow, so accordingly they need to be rationally planned, developed and managed by equipping with all basic amenities and services essential for human living. Villages need respect, support and attention for empowerment and development

2018

This paper uses data from India’s 2011 population census to analyse population and development morphology of villages in India. The village population and development situation is captured through a composite population and development index. The analysis suggests that the villages in India can be grouped into eight clusters having distinct population and development morphology. The analysis also suggests that the population and development scenario in the village is strongly influenced by the village population structure characterised in terms of gender balance and social class composition of the village population. The analysis also suggests that while demographic transition is linked with the level of literacy in the village, it has no link with level of participation in productive activities at the village level. The paper emphasises the need of a spatial approach to population and development planning and programming with the village as the basic planning and implementation unit.

Using demographic information from the Primary Census Abstracts and , Village Directories for 1991 and 2011, we could trace the changing characteristics of villages and the spatial pattern in such changes.

Review of Agrarian Studies , 2022

This article is an exercise in identifying socioeconomic classes in two villages of Bihar: Katkuian in West Champaran district and Nayanagar in Samastipur district. These villages were surveyed by the Foundation for Agrarian Studies (FAS) under its Project on Agrarian Relations in India (PARI) in 2012. The article briefly reviews the conclusions drawn from other studies of classes in rural Bihar. It finds changes in the means of surplus appropriation and exploitation associated with changes in the nature of the productive forces and production conditions in the villages, along with continuities in old "feudal" hierarchies. Further, it describes the high correlation between land ownership and caste and class status in the study villages.

2014

An overwhelming majority (above two-third) of India’s population particularly those resident in villages have not performed adequately to move up the ladder of human development Indicators. However, many villages in rural India are better developed while others lag behind in terms of development indicators. Infrastructural development of a village or community has a direct bearing on its degree of human development. In the context, the study tries to examine the level of neighbourhood development and their linkages with caste group disparity in rural India using IHDS: 2004-05 data. Based on selected infrastructural indicators such as communication & services, educational and health institutions, level of neighbourhood development is measured taking village as a unit of analysis. Further, employing factor analysis techniques, composite index of neighbourhood development is constructed. Results of the study reveal that 27 percent villages or neighbourhoods are highly developed, 52 per...

Residential segregation on the basis of social origin is a well-known fact of the Indian countryside. This paper is a case study of how the residential segregation of Scheduled Castes (Dalits) in a village is associated with deprivation in access to adequate housing and basic amenities such as domestic electricity, piped drinking water, lavatories, common open spaces, street lighting, and drainage.The case study, based on Saaraspur village, Bijnor district, Uttar Pradesh, shows that Dalit and non-Dalit settlements are not just locationally separate, but are qualitatively different from the rest of the village with respect to living conditions. The two main Dalit Castes in Saaraspur were Chamar and Valmiki, and the two main other castes in the village were Tyagi and Dheemar.