Social Change in Rural India
AR DESAI has identified four trends for this rural transformation (i) The transformation of an agrarian society from a traditional subsistence based society to a market based profit oriented society with the use of modern urban technology from a scattered, loosely developed agricultural system to the national Attempt to integrate into the economy as a whole. If we take a holistic view of the whole situation, we will find that rural India is an important
It is going through a period of transformation and fermentation. Its technological base, economic structures, social institutional structure which has been based on caste system and joint family, its political organization and ideological orientation and value system are undergoing qualitative transformation. The factors which do not help in bringing change in rural social life
The most important role has been played by the ‘State’ in them. Some such important factors can be calculated on the following basis:
Attempts to cripple or eradicate certain sections of the agricultural society, and the emergence of various societies and institutions influenced by and closely related to urban influences in agricultural societies, changed the land tenure system, land reforms and rural development. Program Rural – Urban continuum The effect of urbanization and technological change, the effect of market economy, the effect of mass media, the social consequences of the Green Revolution and land reforms are so important aspects of these changes that they should be studied separately. In the study of social change in rural India, while on the one hand the lamps of prosperity are visible, on the other side there is widespread poverty and the pauperization of small farmers and agricultural laborers.
Along with these, the changing economic and political equations of the newly emerging peasant classes are also visible, which have important socio-economic-political implications. Even an ordinary person can appreciate the important role of the state in the developmental transformation of rural India.
The most important step taken by the state is ‘adult suffrage’. This single factor created a wave of change and made rural India socially and politically influential. Other steps taken by the government include steps to improve the economic system, land reforms, innovative seeds, important irrigation projects, availability of chemical fertilizers, regularization of personal money lending system, providing institutional finance, development of blocks, cooperative institutions. The formation of, the steps taken for the development of small and cottage industries, Panchayati Raj etc. are also important. Apart from this, by taking steps to spread education, special schemes for scheduled castes, tribes and other backward castes, special empowerment for the exploited sections of the society, especially women, the state brought a wave of change in the rural India social system.
Impact of Education and Mass Media The medium of education and mass communication brought important changes in the social system of rural India and took it forward on the path of modernization. Education has an important role in bringing changes in the social and economic system. This led to the development of an educated class which was very keen on social and cultural change. This one change broke the bonds of traditional society and included it in the race of modernization. Due to education, awareness of their rights increased among the poor and weaker sections of the society. Radio, TV among the most uneducated rural society. And films have played an important role as tools of change and empowerment and have created a medium of information and education even without books.
In the atmosphere of widespread illiteracy, folk songs, folk dances, puppets, etc., continued to be used as the medium of education and information, but after the advent of technological changes, many new ideas for exchange and dissemination of information, communication, entertainment ideas. The medium appeared. Radio reaches almost 99% of rural India and TV reaches almost 99% of rural India. Has reached almost 60% of the population. Both are reaching people in regional languages as well. Most of the rural areas are central places where people sit together and listen to radio and TV. got from
exchange information and debate. Here there is a detailed discussion on everything from seeds, fertilizers, pesticides and agricultural produce to new technology and living conditions. Modernity is reaching remote villages through these mediums. Especially TV For the use of advanced technology in school education and farming, it is proving to be a special help. While the way of development has been opened by the use of these modern resources, fanaticism and other disorders are also taking birth from irreligious beliefs and mythology. Changes are visible in all the clothes, language, style, living habits, social values. Movie theaters, videos etc. on the go are now visible in most of the villages. Today it can be imagined that in reality how small and big technological changes have given birth to social revolution in the new era.
Green Revolution and its Social Consequences
The important parameters of the country’s progress set after independence, on that scale, the major agricultural revolution or the Green Revolution itself, when the country itself was starved of hunger and food shortage in 1984, in the drought affected areas of sub-Saharan Africa. It was a proud moment for India when it was announced to send one lakh tonnes of food grains for the purpose of providing relief. The whole world appreciated it with admiration.
It was also important because a short time ago the position of India was more or less to spread its hand in the field of food production. All this was possible due to the positive thinking and policies of the government, from the working farmers of the country, from the agricultural scientists working day and night to lead the country in the path of development, from the workers and laborers engaged in development and most importantly from this determination-power of the country. Which created the strength to get the country from a food-deficient importer country to a rich food-producing exporting country.
Although achieving this goal is important
But at the same time the objective of making the country at par with developed countries in the consumption of food, fat, sugar, vegetables and other food items was also in front. The Green Revolution ushered in a new era in agricultural relations. While on the one hand, production increased on large agricultural holdings, on the other hand, economic inequality also increased between smallholder farmers, agricultural laborers and large farmers. In many areas of the country there was an increase in the number of ‘peasant proletariat’. The Bhumihans began to organize and in response to this the Bhumihan Bars also organized themselves. Due to this, the migration of landless farmers and laborers to land rich and high productivity areas also started on a large scale. Migration of agricultural laborers from Bihar and Eastern Uttar Pradesh etc. to Punjab and Haryana can be placed under this category.
As a result of the Green Revolution, some new sovereign castes came into existence on a very large scale. This happened especially in the middle-level ‘backward castes’. With improved agriculture, they now came up a lot due to their prosperity in the local caste system.
Sociologists and social anthropologists believe that the socially backward castes benefited more from land reforms in the changing environment as a result of the Green Revolution.
The traditional landless, scheduled castes could not take much benefit from this, these backward castes were more intelligent and strong farmers, so when it came time to increase the yield with the use of land reforms and scientific technology, they took full advantage of this opportunity. They were already numerically powerful, lacking only the status equal to that of the upper castes in the social system, which they were gradually improving through sanskritisation.
Jats of Punjab, Haryana and Western Uttar Pradesh, Ahirs, Kurmis and Gujjars of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh, Marathas of Maharashtra, Patels and Patidars of Gujarat, Kammas and Reddys of Andhra Pradesh, Lingayats and Vokkalingas of Karnataka and some other farmers Castes are an example of this category. These castes going towards grading were completely successful in taking advantage of the Green Revolution.
Through cash crops and commercial farming, not only did these groups acquire movable and immovable property in rural areas, but they also made substantial gains in terms of property in the surrounding urban areas. Green Revolution played an important role in the changing social environment in different parts of the country. Another important aspect of the Green Revolution has also been that due to scientific agricultural technology and other resources, the power centers were transferred to the new generation instead of the old generation.
Under the Green Revolution, new techno-economic exchanges, institutional finance, use of advanced seeds and plants, little English knowledge, a modern thinking, etc., were many such reasons which pushed the old generation back a bit. Due to this, new thinking of the new generation and better and stronger participation in decision making and process came to the fore. Due to the Green Revolution, new market forces emerged for the sale of cash crops, due to which the old jajmani system was greatly affected.
The relations between the traditional jajman and the working class changed greatly. Those who had land were now more interested in paying cash to work on the land than in sharing the produce of the land. As a result, instead of giving traditional food grains in the Green Revolution, the practice of giving wages increased. Now caste relations were no longer traditional.
Land Reforms and its Social Consequences
‘Land Reform’ refers to the redistribution of ‘surplus land’. Decided on the ceiling on cultivable holdings for small farmers and landless
was taken in view of the workers. From a broader perspective, land reform meant not only the redistribution of land but also the development of institutions related to land reform and farming. Under this, loan cooperatives for tenancy farming, education related to farming, marketing and advisory services were also included. by Gunnar Mirjal
In his book ‘Asian Drama’ it is stated: ” ….Land reform is a planned and institutional reorganization between the individual and the land. No reorganization of land ownership and tenancy can be successful unless it is planned for Policy should not be made.” Looking at land reform in social and economic context, there is also a need for mechanization in it. Since the Congress government after independence was committed to bring about structural changes in the field of agriculture, therefore Pt. A committee was formed under the chairmanship of Jawaharlal Nehru, whose recommendations were implemented in the reform programs in the field of agriculture. Some of the main recommendations were as follows: (1) All the middlemen between the state and the cultivator should be removed. By removing all the brokers and middlemen, there should be a concept of cooperative in their place, which has no interest of its own in the middle. (2) Land should be developed as a source of employment. The landowners who are not cultivating the land should have the right to cultivate it through cooperative, with the condition that if they want to cultivate themselves, then they or their heirs will get the right of cultivation on the land. (3) The maximum size of the caste should be fixed. Acquisition of land beyond this maximum limit through village cooperatives
It should be done. (4) Small holdings should be increased, as well as their further shortening (division) should be stopped. When the planned programs were carried out according to the suggestions of the Planning Commission, many suggestions were given by the commission to different states. These are as follows: 1. Improvement in land tenure 2. Land ceiling 3: Elimination of middlemen 4. Consolidation of holdings 5. Maintaining systematic records of land. In his important study related to land reform, P. C . Joshi said that instead of the interest of the agricultural farmers, land reform programs are often working for the interests of large pressure groups.
As a result of land reforms, such groups in the villages are as follows:
1 Big landowners: Above all, the interests of those landlords who have grouped the land under their home farm or ‘individual farming’. evicted tenants from their lands. This has happened in different ways in different states.
Rich peasants with tenants with whom they live really big and they are also financially prosperous. They have further strengthened their position under the new land laws. This category has benefited the most due to the improvement in tenancy rules.
Inferior tenants. This is the group of most affected farmers with small holdings. Despite land reforms, there has been no significant difference in their condition. There is no difference in their position in the right of tenancy on the land and in the profit on it. The difference is that earlier he was directly concerned with the zamindar. Now from the state.
Voluntary tenants at will, tenants at will, and agricultural laborers At the bottom of this category, voluntary tenants are agricultural laborers who share in agricultural produce who have no right to the land, while the land is actually cultivated only where the population density is What’s more, they work on their own small holdings as well as on the lands of others but without any benefit or security.
Yogendra Singh, after studying land reforms and Panchayati Raj programs in some areas of eastern Uttar Pradesh, put some aspects of the current rural power-equation as follows:
(1) Upper castes (such as Thakurs, Brahmins, Bhumihars), former landlords and the class of moneylenders still have power. Somewhere this authority is straightforward and clear and somewhere hidden.
2) The struggle for power has started organizing the lower castes and groups as well. At the caste level, now these groups are also becoming participants in power.
(3) The village political system is still completely affected by the economic constraints and prosperity of different caste groups. The power balance of the power equation seems to be in favor of the group which is financially strong in the village.
K.L. Sharma (1980) has presented two directions of social mobility in his study of 6 villages of Rajasthan. Not only the agricultural laborers but also some old landlords have come down in class status. The newly emerged rich farming class is now emerging as a bourgeois class in place of the old landlords.
Kotovsky (1964) has also drawn attention to the increasing proletarianization among the village peasants. This is also evident from a study conducted between 1961-81. The share of farmers declined from 52.3% to 41.5% while that of agricultural laborers increased from 17.2% to 25.2%. New dominance due to green revolution and land reforms
Emergence of New Dominant Castes
In order to understand the process of social change in the Indian agricultural society, it is necessary to understand about the dominant castes of land owners in rural India. Despite rapid industrialization, land ownership is still the basis of wealth, prestige and political power.
Srinivas first mentioned the concept of dominant caste in the article ‘Dominant Caste of Rampura’ published in 1959 issue of American Enologist, this out-of-the-box dissertation presented a new insight about the process of changes taking place in Indian society. Of . Since then many sociologists and social anthropologists have taken up the task of studying the various aspects of sovereignty in rural India.
Srinivas has told that in order to be sovereign, it is necessary to have the following hair in any caste:
- He should have considerable amount of cultivable land in his possession. 2. The number of people of that caste should be quite large. 3. He should get some high and prestige among the local castes. • Land ownership has traditionally been confined to a small number of castes. These landowner castes and landless agricultural laborers and other professional artisan castes have been with them. Even after five decades of land reforms, one third of the Scheduled Castes are landless and the other castes have small landholdings. Apart from this, the ‘Green Revolution’ also raised the importance of cultivable land. As a result of which the attention of some traditional trading castes towards land ownership was also attracted and they started buying land to become more and more land owners. Apart from all these things, it is also true that any caste having only ownership of land, members
Being more in number or prestige does not make it sovereign. For that it is also necessary to have some new elements like western education, appointments of people of that caste in local administration and political ‘powa’ etc. This is the reason that some castes which were previously sovereign no longer remain so, adult suffrage and democratic decentralization of power (Panchayati Raj) also pushed some middle class and lower castes forward. The system of reservation in the state and central legislatures also raised the status of scheduled castes and scheduled tribes. The spread of education among the people of these oppressed classes also brought about some changes in the criteria of attainment of sovereignty.
Due to the vast expansion of communication and transport, the dominance of the village level is not enough to make a caste sovereign. Rather, it is more important to have regional sovereignty to be sovereign. This social situation can also be understood in another way. A particular caste may dominate its village in terms of number of members, economic status and political influence, but if it is surrounded by hostile and angry castes from all sides in the villages, then the village level dominance of that caste has no effect on prosperity. There won’t be much effect. Therefore, dominance over a larger area is more effective. It is also an important point that the ideal of Sanskritization for the lower castes is not always Brahmin only. In many areas, other castes also become its basis. For example, if a region is dominated by Kshatriyas, then the ideal of culturalization there is the Kshatriya caste. The same applies in the case of Brahmins and Vaishyas also. This sovereignty is so pervasive that where Kshatriyas dominate, Brahmins along with other castes are looked down upon and are often treated with degrading treatment. For example, in eastern Uttar Pradesh, where Thakurs dominate, Thakur zamindars may employ any Brahmin other than their Kulguru as a servant to cook food. Similarly, in the villages of Punjab, Jat landlords often treat Brahmins as their servants. The caste which is dominant, keeps a little distance with the other castes of its village or area. That caste considers itself the protector and watchdog of the local culture there; Norms of conduct are also set by him for others, for violating which strictness is also taken. All the values and beliefs of that particular region are imprinted on that sovereign caste. Since the lower castes try to rise up in the local caste hierarchy through the process of sanskritisation and acquire other characteristics of dominance and can become sovereign caste in future, therefore, viewed from this aspect, sanskritisation is seen as an attack on the concept of sovereign caste. can go . Perhaps that is why even today in many areas the efforts of the dominant castes to culturalize the relatively lower castes are not seen in a good light. In this ‘social tug of war’, the dominant castes continue to adopt new politics in which the basis of dominance remains out of reach of the lower castes. The lower castes also constantly try to strengthen their position by taking advantage of the new opportunities in the Indian society. An example here might give you the gist of this discussion. The upper castes have always avoided many occupations contaminated with ritualistic point of view, such as leather work, brewing and selling, etc. After independence, many facilities provided to the Scheduled Castes, especially with the nationalization of big banks, ‘Social Banking’
Taking advantage of many government and non-government schemes, many relatively lower castes adopted this profession on a large scale and in a very short time accumulated a lot of money and property, which also increased their political power. The example of the Jatav community of Agra can be given here, which American anthropologist Owen Lynch has also done a great study in his book ‘The Politics of Untouchability’ (1969). It is another thing that the occupations corrupted by the ritualistic approach are no longer out of reach of many upper castes and due to the forces of social liberalism and market market in the last 4-5 decades (which are largely due to westernization). ) Upper castes have also intensified economic competition by engaging in such professions. As it has been said earlier that the incentives given in the field of education and reservation in jobs have also strengthened the socio-economic political position of many lower castes more than before and thus new grounds of sovereignty are being created. The Prabhu caste plays an important role in settlement and settlement of disputes by the traditional village or caste committee. The influential members of the Prabhu caste not only resolve the disputes that arise between the members of different castes, but often the people of one caste themselves also look to them to settle their inter-caste disputes by meeting them. S.C. Dube and Peter Gardner have raised some serious objections to the basic concept of sovereignty. Throwing light on the favorable side of the above situation, S.C.
Bay remarks that talking about sovereignty would be meaningful only if the power is transmitted to the whole group and it is implemented in the interest of the whole group or at least in the interest of a significant section of the group. . But when it is said about the sovereign caste that there is inequality of glory, prestige and power among different people in the so-called sovereign caste and the person of the sovereign caste exploits the weak people of his caste like the non-sovereign people, So perhaps it would be inappropriate to call him ‘Lord caste’. Therefore, before establishing supremacy in a caste on the basis specified by Srinivas, we must adopt the formula of unity and working in harmony in the interest of the caste. The fact that the lords who have attained powerful status belong to a specific caste is not enough to target that caste as a sovereign race. Apart from this, the tendency to unite all in relation to intra-caste unity and power is essential to be established as a sovereign race. Where these conditions exist, a caste can become a sovereign race. In their absence, the framework of community power can only be better understood in terms of GOD persons, GOD’s parties and their advocates. Srinivas in his reply states that although Duche Prabhu accepts the existence of people and Prabhu parties, yet this
Those belonging to the Lord race are hesitant to go through the entire curvature and accept the existence of the Lord. The fundamental point of Srinivas here is that both the Prabhulog and the Prabhu group place their sovereignty in the fact that they are part of the same race. One thing can be seen here that even if all the leaders of Prabhu Dal are not correct, then most of the leaders are from Prabhu caste. Except in those areas where two rival castes are face to face and each of them is trying to establish its dominance, all so called sovereign people come from the sovereign race itself. The sovereignty of the sovereign is not limited to the local level. As already mentioned in this discussion, the dominance of a caste at the village level is not of great importance. Sovereignty will be considered complete only when it pervades the entire region. If this happens, then even one or two families in the village that belong to the lord caste, they are known as influential at the local level because they have a mutual contract of a certain functioning under the lord relationship. In such situations other people in that village are also familiar with the said contract or methodology and thus the cases in such village are also disposed of accordingly. Ghanshyam Shah alludes to the formation of caste committees, while talking about keeping an organized front in favor of the sovereign caste in spite of the possibilities of diversity of vested interests. Within the caste structure, an important renewed model was developed by the sovereign group of the ethnic group to establish harmony among people of different economic strata. In this way, this GOD also protects the interests of its class and also maintains its leadership. The history of caste committees goes back to the late nineteenth century, although their numbers increased after independence. The Sardar Kurmi Kshatriya Sabhas of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, the Nadar Mahajan Sangam of Tamil Nadu and the Gujarat Kshatriya Sabhas of Gujarat are examples of some of the powerful caste committees. These caste committees projected the economic interests of sovereign groups as caste interests. These committees generally adopt two types of methodology or strategies to win the support of the relatively poor level of the concerned castes. Firstly, the leaders of these committees draw people’s attention to caste principles based on the concept of purity (purity) and pollution. Caste members are encouraged to maintain or improve their caste status. Stories presenting the past in glorified form were created, the caste members were kept in the guise by weaving a web of rhetorical words such as “economic backwardness”, “economic development” etc. Secondly, for the mutual organization of homogeneous members, caste committees have on occasion passed resolutions against the government alleging exploitation of caste. When one thinks about caste theoretically or empirically, one finds that Srinivas never claimed that the concept of sovereign caste fully explained the concept of power in rural India. The unity of the ethnic group in general, and the unity of the sovereign race in particular, is not immutable or static, but rather elastic and dynamic in the broader contexts. This unity can be specifically targeted in the form of opposition to other castes. As day by day emphasis is being laid on popularizing public welfare schemes and economic reform schemes through democratic institutions and their implementation by ensuring the participation of majority of the people in them, the importance of lord castes is increasing day by day. The reason for this is that these castes have the ability and ability to control these institutions. economic and political resources
In the frightening competition to control, all the members of the Lord castes do not personally get the power directly, but collectively they definitely get the “power”, and also implement and use it. Thus the political process and economic development both at the microscopic and the secondary micro (meso) levels seem to be clearly bearing the seal of the sovereign caste concerned. The bureaucracy-bureaucracy related to development and law and order, the influence of the local lordship on the bureaucracy can be seen as a ground reality in day to day life.