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Indian Village as a Unit of Study IIAuthor(s): Satya Prakash SharmaSource: Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 4, No. 34 (August 23, 1969), pp. 1381-1383, 1385-1387Published by: Economic and Political WeeklyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40739950 .Accessed: 17/03/2011 06:44
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work and do not feel it necessary omove to other States. Employment p-portunities or scientific ersons re, onthe other hand, widely dispersed. able7 gives the percentages f outflow ndinflow of general as well as technicalpersons together with other variables.
General nter-State ovement f peo-ple is more or less related o the indexof per capita income: people have mig-rated out from he States where ndiceof pT apita income re below the all-India average, with the only exceptionof Gujarat where both per capita in-come and outflow f general people arehigher. People from this State havemigrated n large numbers to nearbyMaharashtra which has comparativelyhigher er capita income. States whichhave a net attraction or general peo-ple of other States have per capita
income bove all-India verage,with heexception of two States, viz, MP andMysore.
Low per capita income s not, how-ever, the only factor n movement f
scientific nd technical persons. Assam,MP, Bihar, Orissa and Rajasthan havlow per capita income but they haveattracted cientific nd technical ersonsfrom other States. Besides,general mi-grants move mostly o the neighbouringStates with the same or higher percapita income.Distance is not a majorhindrance o the movement f scientificand technical ersons. hey have movedto the States where they have foundopportunities or better employment.
The South zone constituted byAndhra, Madras, Mysore and Keralahas the highest ercentage, 7 per cent,of technical personnel enumeration 5per cent) although only one-fourth fthe total population resides in thiszone (Table 8). This difference s foundin all the Southern States, exceptAndhra. Kerala's contribution s the
highest both in the zone andin
theentire country fter Delhi.The West zone comprising Maha-
rashtra nd Gujarat has 14 per cent oftotal population, and 16 per cent of
total income, but about one-fifth ftechnical persons were born in th>szone. Its absorption ratio of technicalpersons is the highest compared withits population share.
The North one consisting f MadhyaPradesh, Punjab, Jammu nd Kashmir,Rajasthan and UP is the largest zonein respect of population 35 per cent)and share of income 31 per cent), butonly one in every five cientific ersonswas born and enumerated n this zone.UP, the largest State in the country,having 18 per cent of the total popula-tion had only 11 per cent of technicalpersons born and its absorption apa-city was even lower.
In spite of West Bengal's advancedposition, the East zone as a wholewhich also comprisesAssam,Bihar andOrissa lags behind the other zones.
One-fourthof the total
populationsharing one-fifth f income resides nthis zone but only about one-sixth fthe total technical persons were bornand enumerated here.
Indian Village as a Unit of Study IISatya Prakash Sharma
Recent debate between Louis Dumont and David Pocock (the editors of Contributions o IndianSociology)on the one hand, and F G Bailey, on the other, which ppeared in Nos I, ///, nd V of Con-
tributions o Indian Sociology,has brought orthome
interestingheoretical nd
methodological questionsdealing with the study of Indian society. The main questions arising out of this debate are: (i) whetheror not a village n India has a i(sociologicalreality*', ii) can such a villagebe satisfactorily omprehendedand conceived s a whole n itself, nd (Hi)can understanding f one such villagecontribute o understand-ing of the universe f Indian civilisation?
There also arise some related issues (which ncidentally ave also been discussed n "Closed Sys-tems and Open Minds: The Limits of Naivety n Social Anthropology") primarily methodological n na-ture. These issues involve questions such as, how much knowledge of the old Sanskritic iterature ndthe traditional ndian civilisation Dumont and Pocock call it "Indology") is needed by an anthropologistto study n Indian village; can one study village without any such knowledge, or must he possess allthis knowledge o be able to comprehend illagesociety? t is obvious that these atter uestions re closelyrelated o the former hree uestions.
[The first part of this article appeared last week.]
IllHOW then are we to proceed instudying n Indian village? It has longbeen realised that the traditional n-thropological pproach of studying ri-mitive, solated tribal ocieties may notbe applied to the study of a peasantvillage. As Gluckman and Eggan(1965:xviii)have pointed out, ". . .in the kinds of societies traditionallystudied by social anthropologists, oli-tical, economic, religious and socialsystems re ... often not differentiat-ed." When we are dealingwith a tribal
region, we can comprehend it bymeans of a single system f relation-ships and regard it as a single struc-ture. This single structure s an abs-tract of all the different inds of acti-vities. A single coherent et of valuescovers all the relevant fields of acti-vity. All activities ritual, political,kinship - have the same boundarysince, n a sense, they are one specia-lised activity. We can use a singleconceptual ramework nd make a syn-chronie nd structural tudy.
But it is by no means the same pic-
ture when we come to deal with rela-tionshipswhich pass between ne multi-caste village and another. To quoteBailey (1962:259):
"... if we consider the differentforms f activity, he ties which inkBisipara economicallywith the out-side world, do not coincide withritual or political ties passing out-side the village in the same neat waythat they do for a tribal village.Foreach activity a partially differentuniverse f people is involved. Therelationships re not multiple butspecialised and single-interest; hereis a low degree of summation of
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roles. Finally we cannot fit ny singlestructure ver this larger field andpretend that it has an explanatoryvalue."The more the villagers re involved
with the world outside, the less com-prehensive nd therefore he less satis-
factory will become a structural xpla-nation, n terms f coherence nd equi-librium, f village life. Indian villagesociety s not a static, 'closed', andchangeless ociety; t is a dynamic o-ciety.We may not comprehend hecom-plex nature of relationships n the vil-lage within a single structural model.We need a new approach which embo-dies a distinct ody of techniques ndconcepts. Any anthropologist, whostudies village in India, finds hat tis a part of a much wider society ndculture, nd that the whole has influ-enced the part, and vice versa. Thevillagers, ven when most of them areilliterate, participate n the literarytradition of the larger society. AsSrinivas 1957:v)has pointed out:
"... the field-anthropologist asfound hat n studying he microcosmhe is also studying the macrocosmand that some knowledge f the lat-ter is essential in order to under-stand the former. That his worksheds new light on the macrocosm snot only a valuable by-product f hisresearch, ut it also opens up newavenues for social anthropologyitself."
New AvenuesWhat are these new avenues? How
do we conceptualise the situation ncontext f an Indian village? We haveshown so far that a village has a"sociologicalreality", hat it is and itis not an isolable unit for study de-pending upon the problem one is ex-ploring, hat a village is a part of thelarger ociety nd culture, nd that thewhole has influenced he part, and viceverm. Then how do we go about instudying he village and how can itsstudy help us in understanding helarger ociety nd culture?
Steward and Manners (1953:123),faced with the problem of characteris-ing contemporary uerto Rico, reportthat they find the traditional holisticapproach to community tudy inade-quate. Steward 1951) presents n ap-proach to sort out the observationsinto "levels of socio-cultural ntegra-tion". This approach is applied to thePuerto Rico situation by Steward andManners nd they study the effects f"factors which have originated utside,yet strongly ffected he way of lifewithin ach community nd which have
helped to create the socio-cultural if-ferences found within nd among thecommunities" (1953:124). But theIndian situation presents difficulty ndistinguishing here the three generalcategories of "levels" begin and endsocially and culturally, nd in dividingoff the "horizontal segments" withinthe culture.
Hanssen (1953)presents nother wayin which a collection of "activityfields" inking parts of town and vil-lage society the fields verlapping achother n varied ways) may be mappedout. Hanssen's technique of mappingmight robably depict the structure ndsome of the systematic spects of theposition of an Indian village in rela-tion to the outside world, but the re-sults of the mapping would be verycomplex and would involve immense
problems of interpretation. Moreoverthe delineation of activity fields s atechnique rather than a conception fthe whole.
Building on the concept of the folk-urban continuum, Betty Starr (1954)presents nother approach in which apeasant village is viewed as a step ina series of "levels of communal rela-tions" ike those that ntervene etweenlittle communities nd great cities ofWestern ype in modem Mexico. Butthe concept of levels of communal re-lations does not fit into the Indiansituation because it contrasts withmuch that is most characteristic f apeasant village in India. A series ofinclosing, nucleated greater communi-ties is not evident n India. Here socialrelations of each different ind spreadout in widely different atterns.
Primary Civilisational Type andProcess
Marriott 1955), in his study of thevillage of Kishan Garhi in Uttar Pra-desh, where he discusses his very pro-blem, finds the concept of a primarycivilisational ype and process conceptof Redfield nd Singer 1954,based onIndie urban materials) s the most use-ful model for conceptualising he re-lations of Kishan Garhi with its uni-verse. A primary or "indigenous"civilisation s defined y Marriott ibid:181) as "one which grows out of itsown folk culture by an orthogeneticprocess - by a straight ine of indi-genous development". he "great tra-dition" which s characteristically eve-loped by such a primary ivilisation sa carrying-forward f cultural mate-rials, norms, nd values that were al-
ready ontained n local little raditions.Aj indigenous great tradition emainsin constant communication with itsown little traditions hrough sacredliterature, class of literati, sacredgeography, nd the rites and ceremo-nies associatedwith each of these. Oneeffect f the development f an indi-genous great tradition s to universa-lise the cultural consciousness ofpersons within t as they becomeawareof a greater phere of common ulture.
InteractionMarriott tells us that in dealing
with ndia we are on the middlegroundand cannot understand he total culturewithout the knowledge of the localcommunities any more than we cancomprehend the local communitieswithout eference o the larger ultural
outline. According to him, the twoquestions - whether small commu-nity can be comprehended s a wholein itself nd whether ts study an con-tribute o the understanding f thelarger ulture of which t is a part -are inversely related, and he claimsthat f the answer to one is "Yes" theanswer to the other must ogically be"No". One might argue that this ishardly he case if villages can be con-sidered egmentary1 nits of the cultureand if comparative tudies are under-taken.
Marriott examines thereligious
ifeof Kishan Garhi in historical depth.He offers ata to show that the largersociety and the small community avebeen interacting or a long time andthat each has influenced he other. Tolittle and great community orrespondlittle and great tradition. Marriottasks: "What elements of ritual andbelief represent ontributions rom vil-lage life upward to the formation fIndia's great Sanskritic tradition?What elements re local modificationsof that great tradition ommunicateddownward o it?" To the wo spects f
the double process of this interactionbetween little and great traditionsMarriott gives names: "universalisa-tion" and "parochialisation".Marriott'sanalysis is very illuminating ut onemay argue that there is somethingmore to be considered n studyingmod-ern India than the great or old tradi-tion and the small or local tradition;there s also the "new tradition". AsOpler (1955:153) has argued:
"Marriott's conceptualisation eaveno room . . . for elements hat arenot aboriginal or local on the onehand or classical ndian on the other,
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but which come from without 01which are invented by carriers ofthe culture. he manner n which thevillage will absorb and respond tothese new ideas which weep in fromthe West and the East or which arebeing generated n India today isperhaps even more important thanthe manner n which it copes withSanskritic ites."Opleis criticism is valid, but
Marriott's tudy, evertheless, as greatmerit. hrough him we are being help-ed to a viewpoint, set of concepts,and a way of working hat will allowanthropologists o study village n itsgeneric historic rocesses f interactionwith the civilisation of which it is apart.
But the study of the interplay ofgreat and little traditions, r thai ofthe advent f the "new tradition" with-in a village does not help much inour understanding of the greaterIndian culture. t may be true that "Tostudy Joncsville s to study America'*,but it is not true that "To studyKishan Garhi, or Bisipara, s to studyIndia." To do this we may not limitourselves to the village as an isolate.We may, however, o it to som.; ex-tent in two different ays which wshall discuss now.
First, we may do it by taking awider unit for study. Such studies arewhat Bailey (1962:262)calls "regionalstudies" or what have been called 'vil-lage-outward" type of studies byMayer 1962:267).Studies of this typeinclude, mong others, hose of Gough(1952b), Miller (1952; 1954), Mayer(I960), Gould (I960; 1961),Cohn andMarriott 1958),and Rowe (1960).The"village-outward**ypeof study onsistsof studying he population of a singlevillage in its intra-villagc nd inter-village activities, nd in then trying oabstract he structure f those activi-ties reaching outside the village. Thistype of study ries o maintain he hol-istic and microcosmic approach; butit is the central problem, not the vil-
lage, to which the material s related.Such studies, lthough they do takeaccount of the complex ociety utside,treat the outside elements s accidentsor intrusions, nd do not fit hem ntotheir structural xplanations. Berreman(1960; 1963:295ff) as pointed out therelevance f a hierarchy f areally de-fined regional groups or identificationsto the Himalayan villagers he studied,beginning ith the village, cluster fvillages nd extending o the centralHimalayan region, the entire Himala-yan region, north India, and finallyIndia. These entities were Based on
cultural imilarities nd on self definedidentity, hich in turn were based oncommunication mong those who com-prise the entities.
Second ApproachIn the second
approach,the outside
influences hould be discussedas partsof a wider system, ather han as ex-ternal factors mpinging n the village.In such studies the outside events an-not be treated simply as intrusions.These outside events may themselveshave some sociological implications;they may be a part of systems utsidethe village and one has to take ac-count of these external ystems. Thevillage, however, may remain the bestvantage point from which to surveythese systems, nd from which to ana-lyse the way in which the change is
taking place. The best examples of thistype of studies come from Bailey(I960; 1963) in Orissa and Epstein(1962) in Mysore State. Such studiesfrequently equire an anthropologistto study henomena which traditionallybelong to other disciplines. hus in hisstudy of politics and social change inOrissa, Bailey appears not only as asocial anthropologist, ut also as ahistorian and as a political scientist.Similarly pstein, n her study of eco-nomic development nd social changein Mysore, where she discusses (heimpact of irrigation n the economicand social organisation f two villages(only one of these receiving irriga-tion) within a regional economy, hashad to collect a great deal of ditawhich would normally e done by aneconomist rather than an anthropolo-gist she is both). This is the directionin which Indian social anthropologyis gradually moving today.
IVHow much knowledge of the old
Sanskritic iterature nd the traditionalIndian civilisation s needed by an an-
thropologist o study an Indian vil-lage? Can one study a village withoutany such knowledge, r must he pos-sess all this knowledge o be able tocomprehend he village society?
Evans-Pritchard 1951) tells us thatthe anthropologist n India ought tohave a knowledge of Sanskrit itera-ture. "If one has any regard for scho-larship one cannot be a student . .of Indian peasant communities ithouthaving some knowledge both of theliterature of their language and oiSanskrit, he classical language of theitritual and religious tradition" (1951:
15).For Dumont and Pocock "the firstcondition for a sound development lSociologyof India is found n the es-tablishment f the proper relation bs-tween it and classical Indology'(1957:7). They tell us that "by puttingourselves n the school of Indology,welearn in the first lace never to forgetthat ndia is one" and that "the veryexistence, nd the influence, f the tra-ditional higher, Sanskritic, ivilisationdemonstrates without question theunity f India" [ibid: 9). Dumont ndPocock believe that "a Sociology ofIndia lies at the point of confluence fSociology nd Indology* bid: 7). Red-field 1956) has argued that "the littletradition" of village culture and "thegreat tradition" of the wider cultureare mutual determinants f one another.Similarly Marriott 1955) teils us that
a village in India cannot be "satisfac-torily omprehended nd conceived asa whole in itself**,nd that the villageon the one hand, and the greater ul-ture and greater ociety on the other,are mutual determinants f one an-other.
Bailey disagrees with all theseauthors. He poses not the general pro-blem, but the specific uestion:
". . . no one would deny that there ssome connection between, for in-stance, the Siva who appears in sac-red texts and the Siva who is wor-shipped in Bisipara. Does it then
follow that I must know what thisconnection is, and trace its everylink, before can appreciate he sig-nificance f the Bisipara temple inthe dispute between he clean castesand the Bisipara Pans? Must I knowwhat s written n the Sanskritic extsabout untouchability efore I canunderstand why the clean castes ofthe two villages took such a seriousview of the assults? (1964: 60-61)"
If one sees this question n relation oa specific roblem, nd not in terms fthe general quest for scholarship studyof Indology), Bailey's answer s justi-fied. He says that detailed acquain-tance with, nd scholarship n, Sanskritand the sacred texts nd literature, aynot be relevant o a specific ocial-an-thropological nalysis. Bailey agreesthat it is most helpful to know thebackground n Hindu culture f the pol-luting effects of untouchables, thesituation f Brahmins, he sinfulness fhandling dead cattle and hides, theavoidance of alcohol, the merit ofvegetarian food. He is also willing oaccept that "the nuances of social re-lationships only become apparent toone familiar with the culture n whichthose relationships are expressed",
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(ibid: 61) and that "the better one isable to absorb Hindu values andHindu culture, the more penetratingis likely to be one's insight nto social relationships" ibid).
So far we fully agree with Bailey.But we do
not completely greewith
him when he suggests hat the Hinduconcepts of untouchability nd Hinduvalues about the cow and about vege-tarianism are pieces of knowledgewhich ould be learnt by the anthropo-logist n the village itself. We also donot quite agree with Devons andGluckman when they contend that"knowledge f South American nd Eu-ropean villages might be more usefulfor the analysis f Indian villages, hanis knowledge f Sanskrit" 1964: 195)and that "if an anthropologist weresuddenly anded in an Indian village(as Evans-Pritchard was among theNuer of the Sudan in 1932), and hehad no previous knowledge f Hindu-ism, he could learn as much of thecultural tradition as would be re-levant for his analysis of the villagesocial system ibid: 194). To studyNuer society and to study an Indianvillage are not quite the same thing.That there s a connection etween heSiva who appears in sacred texts andthe Siva who is worshipped n Bisi-para, that the villagers ll over Indiaseek the first ossible opportunity ovisit the traditional acred
shrines ndgreat religious centres, nd that thereare striking imilarities between thereligious values and norms of thepeoples n the villagesand of those inthe cities are the facts which tell usthat a village in India is very mucha part of the wider society and thatwe cannot know all about the tradi-tional values of the villagers withoutknowing something bout the greaterHindu tradition.
We are not arguing hat the Hinduculture as represented n the sacredtexts and in Sanskrit iterature s theculture of the village; we are simplysuggesting that there are significantsimilarities etween the two and thata knowledge f the former would putthe anthropologist n an advantageousposition in comprehending he latter.This does not mean that for studyingan Indian village an anthropologisthas to be an Indologist, nor that heshould possess all the knowledge ofSanskrit literature and sacred texts;how much of this knowledge s neces-sary depends once again upon the pro-blem one is seeking o investigate. n
his discussion of the two disputes inBisipara and Baderi, Bailey is not con-cerned with the problem of ex-ploring culture traits in a village byrelating them, either genetically orthrough morphological similarity, totraits described in the sacred litera-ture or found in the great religiouscentres. For him this is a culturalproblem which does not need to beanswered n the process of abstractinga system f social behaviour and ex-plaining the disputes. He can atTordto be naive about this problem andtherefore he does not need muchknowledge of Sanskrit literature orsacred texts. But Marriott 1955), inhis discussion of festivals nd deitiesin Kishan Garhi cannot afford o benaive about this problem; for himthis is the central problem, nd there-
fore he certainly eeds a good deal ofthe knowledge f sacred texts wherebyhe may understand he essence of thegreat tradition.
Recently Dube (1961: 122) has suggested that "in our study f Indian vil-lage communities .. it may be use-ful to consider the contextual lassi-cal and local traditions, s well asthe regional (culture a ea), Western(ideological-technological), nd em-ergent national (nativistic-reinterpreta-tional adaptive) traditions". His sug-gestion s valid, particularly f one ismaking a "village-outward" ype orregional tudy. Starting rom singbvillage as a unit of study, nd by tak-ing account of all these traditions, newould be in a better position to un-derstand he larger Tndian society ndculture.
NotesI The term "segmentary" has been
used here in its common laymansense or meaning, nd not in thespecialised sense in which it hasbeen used by the Africanista odescribe the segmentary ocietiesand States.
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Postscript
While writing his final draft of thepaper I have come across two veryinteresting papers, namely MiltonSinger's Text and Context n the Studyof Religion nd SocialChange n India(ms, 17 pp, no date; paper handed outin the Seminar on Indian Culture at
the University f Chicago), and DavidG Mandelbaum^ "Family, Jati Vil-lage" fin "Structure nd Change inIndian Society", 1968, Milton Singerand Bernard S Cohn, (eds), pp 29-50,Viking Fund Publications n Anthropo-
logyNo 47].
Althoughhave made
no reference o these articles n mypaper, the similarity etweenmy viewsand those of Singer and Mandelbaumis quite apparent. My main thesisthat the question of the village as aunit of study is the function f theproblem one is seeking to explore -is shared by Mandelbaum. And myviews on the interplay f the little ndgreat traditions ome quite close tothose expressedby Singer n his paper.
Sociologyof
Science in Developing CountriesThe Indian ExperienceA Sequel
Ashok ParthasarathiIN my paper of the above title,(August 2, 1969,p 1277)I have begunwith ihe proposition hat the imme-diate thrust f the Science of Sciencein India should be sociologicalandpsychological, he focus of study being
the scientist himself, oth as an indi-vidual and as a member of a socialgroup. The problem of "scientificsocialisation" n particular was stressedas of crucial importance. It has thusbeen consistently f tacitly mplied hat,it is on an understanding nd solutionof these and related problems hat anyhope o generating n indigenous, elf-sustaining, and socio-economicallyrelevant scientific and technologicalcapability depends.
An emphasis of this kind might onthe face of it appear odd consideringthe historical experience f what are
toda.y he advanced societies. In thesesocieties social scientific nvestigationof science and technology has largelyfollowed the TechnologicalRevolution,and the accelerating nteraction etweenscience nd society has been the primemover in the currently ncreasing e-mand for political, conomic nd socio-logical studies of science and techno-logy. Further, uch studies have inturn been directed towards maximis-ing the absorption of science and itsderivatives nto society.
This particular mode of evolution ofthe interaction etween he natural nd
social sciences n the developed coun-tries was, however, o accident. It wasessentially consequence of the factthat the rate of growth f science andtechnology as not so rapid then as itis today, and also of the fact that
Europe in particular, but the US aswell, went through the IndustrialRevolution and the TechnologicalRevolution sequentially rather thansimultaneously. Iji contrast, a deve-loping country ike India has today toexperience both these revolutions inaddition to many others) imultaneous-ly. As a result of this sequential x-posure, the societies f Europe and theUS had already developed the basicstructural, unctional nd value charac-teristics of industrial, rban societies,before technology began to interactwith their ocial fabrics. In this way,the 'second wave' of scientific now-ledge, and science-based ndustry hatit spawned, could be absorbed andintegrated nto the society nd the cul-ture without roducing xcessive sycho-logical and sociological disorient tionsand dislocations with their attendanteconomic and political problems.
In contrast, eveloping ocieties ikeIndia, which are predominantly gri-cultural societies, in which even themanufacturing ndustrial base has notbeen laid and in which (for reasonsgiven earlier) the intellectual andsocial roots of the scientific radition
are very loose if not non-existent, e-quire sociological and psychologicalstudy and initiation f social changebased on its findings o precede thelarge-scale practice of science andtechnology o as to prepare the "soil"
for their rapid and wholesome bsorp-tion.The plausibility, f not the validity,
of this approach has been borne outby the experience of Indian scientificresearch ver the past 15 years. Whatthis experience as demonstrated s thegross inaccuracy of the tacit assump-tion of the policy planners, trategists,and administrators f science,both inIndia and abroad, ^about the role ofscience in a developing ociety. Thatrole was seen by them as that of theprime mover of social change andintellectual ejuvenation n underdeve-loped countries. It was also believedthat the archaic social structure oftraditional and transitional societies,would just fold up under the impactof modern cienceand technology, ndthat the very pursuit f science n thes-esocieties would inexorably nd inevi-tably ead them towards modernity ndprogress. While it is difficult o gene-ralise about such a variegated ollec-tion of societies s are lumped underthe heading "developing ocieties'', nIndia the situation s and has been forsome time unmistakable. Here thevalue-system nd culture f science have
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