Land And Labor In A Deccan Village - Study No. 2 (1921) (Paperback)

LAND AND LABOUR IN A DECCAN VILLAGE STUDY No. 2. BY HAROLD H. MANN. PREFACE THE study of rural life and of rural conditions by close inquiry into the circumstances of a single unit, be it village, parish, or estate, has come to the front prominently in recent years as a method of social and economic investi gation. And by the use of this method, if the villages to be studied are well chosen, a very much more intimate acquaintance with the actual conditions of life than by any other method can be obtained. And this is certainly true in the Deccan where the villages are still the economic and social units in a sense that is far more true than is the case in most countries, and to an extent which even in India is, I think, only found in the Peninsula. The villages are perhaps now tending to be less the relatively isolated units than hitherto, but they are still so to an extent that gives the knowledge even of a single village a very special value for the study of the whole rural conditions of the country. On this account, with the collaboration of a number of friends and assistants, I undertook some years ago the study of a single village near Poona, and the result was published in 1917 under the title of Land and Labour in a Deccan Village. This purported to give a picture of life and conditions in a dry Deccan village. By a dry village, I mean one where irrigation is very limited in amount and where the prosperity of the village depends almost entirely on the annual monsoon rain. That study revealed a number of unexpected facts, and the general conclusions which I drew were certainly of a far more depressing character than I had expected. Only one serious criticism has, however, beenmade. It is said that University of Bombay, Economic Series No. t Oxford University Press, Bombay. IV PREFACE the village chosen Pimpla Soudagar was not typical and did not represent the conditions in any large area in the Deccan. It was, so critics averred, too near Poona, and had too many of its inhabitants working at non-agri cultural occupations to be in any sense a type of what would be found further afield. I, at once, recognised the justice of this criticism. And as a result my collaborators and myself began to seek for a village which while otherwise of a similar character would be free from the defects noted in the former study. This led us to the village which forms the basis for the present study. Jategaon Budruk, though double the size of Pimpla Soudagar in point of area has a population not widely different. The proportion of irrigated area is of the same order. The class of land is not unlike. But it is twenty-five miles from Poona from which, till recently, it was separated by an unbridged road, and it has no local demand for labour for purposes not found in any rural area. It differs truly in another sense, in that it is in an area of smaller and more uncertain rainfall, and as we shall see, this uncertainty is one of the chief features in the village life. But it certainly is typical of a very large area in the Deccan, and I do not think that any criticism can be made of the present study that it does not represent conditions occurring over extensive areas. The actual local inquiry has been chiefly made by my colleagues, and, in fact, it is to them and their careful collection and recording of data that any real value that the present study may possess is due. Mr. N. V.Kanitkar, B. Sc., who shares with me the responsibility of the present publication, lived for a long time on the spot, and became the friend and confidant of almost the whole of the people. Mr. D. L. Sahasrabuddhe, B. Sc...