THE ECONOMIC WEEKLY

September 10, 1 9 6 0

The Myth of Self-Sufficiency Of the I n d i a n Village

M N Srinivas and A M Shah
idea of the isolation and selfsufficiency of the I n d i a n village was first propounded by Sir Charles Metcalfe in 1830, and 'since then it has had distinguished supporters, scholars as well as politicians. Sir Henry M a i n e and K a r l M a r x supported the idea, and in recent times, M a h a t m a Gandhi and his followers not only stated that I n d i a n village was t r a d i t i o n a l l y self-sufficient but also wanted a p o l i t i c a l p r o g r a m m e w h i c h would restore to these villages their pristine self-sufficiency. We make no apology for g i v i n g below a lengthy quotation from Sir Charles Metcalfe's w r i t i n g in which he propounds his famous theory of the selfsufficiency and v i t a l i t y of the I n d i a n village: "The village communities are little republics, having nearly everything that they want w i t h i n themselves, and almost independent of any f o r e i g n relations. They seem to last where nothing else lasts. Dynasty after dynasty tumbles d o w n ; revolution succeeds to r e v o l u t i o n ; Hindoo. Pathan. M o g h u l . Mahratta. S i k h , English. are all masters in t u r n , but the village communities remain the same. In times of trouble they a r m and fortify themselves: a hostile a r m y passes through the c o u n t r y : the village communities collect their cattle w i t h i n their walls and let the enemy pass unprovoked. If plunder and devastation he directed against themselves, and the force employed be irresistible, they flee to friendly villages at a distance; but when the storm has passed over, they return and resume their occupations. If a country remain for a series of years the scene of continued pillage and massacre, so that the villages cannot be inhabited, the scattered villagers nevertheless return whenever the power of peaceable possession revives. A generation may pass away, but the succeeding generation w i l l return. The sons w i l l take the places of their fathers; the same site for the village, the same positions for the houses, the same lands, w i l l be reoccupied by the descendants of those who were d r i v e n out when the village was depopulated; and it is not a t r i f l i n g matter that w i l l drive them out, for they w i l l often maintain their post through times of disTHE turbance and convulsion, and acquire strength sufficient to resist pillage and oppression w i t h success".
MAINE, TO MARX

About forty years later. Sir Henry Maine revived the idea of the self sufficiency of the I n d i a n village: "For the most part, the I n d i a n village communities have always submitted without resistance to oppression by monarchs surrounded by mercenary armies . . . . I. have several times spoken of them as organised and self-acting. They, in fact. include a nearly complete establishment of occupations and trades for enabling them to continue their collective life without assistance f r o m any person or body externa) to them"2 K a r l M a r x , from whom one could have expected a departure f r o m the conventional view, also popularised the concept of village self-sufficiency: " U n d e r this form of m u n i c i p a l government, the inhabitants of the country have lived f r o m time immem o r i a l . The boundaries of the village have been but seldom altered, and though the villages themselves have been sometimes i n j u r e d and even desolated by war. famine and disease, the same name, the same limits, the same interests, and even the same families have contributed for ages. The inhabitants gave themselves no trouble about the breaking up and the d i v i s i o n of k i n g d o m s ; while the village remains entire, they care not to what power it is transferred or to what sovereign it devolves: its internal economy remains unchanged."
PART OF WIDER SYSTEM

sociologists have made intensive studies of village communities in different: parts of I n d i a and in some areas they have been lucky enough to come across historical data. The picture that emerges f r o m these data is that while roads, especially intervillage roads, were very poorly developed, while monelization of the rural economy was m i n i m a l , and w h i l e the locally dominant caste could lay down the law on many matters, the village was always a part of a wider economic, p o l i t i c a l and religious system. The appearance of isolation, autonomy and selfsufficiency was only an illusion. In some parts of the country like coastal Kerala. Coorg. highland Gujarat and elsewhere nucleated villages do not exist. The "village' in these areas consists of a number of distinct farms w i t h every owner of a farm or his representative l i v i n g on his f a r m . The dispersed village is not a clear, architectural entity like the nucleated village. There, is no clear boundary between one village and another. The members l i v i n g in it are served by artisan and serv i c i n g castes f r o m several dispersed villages. That is. each artisan caste serves a distinct group of villages, and the village may be represented by a series of partially overlapping circles" The administrative and 'social' villages are not always identical even in areas w i t h nucleated settlements. An administrative village occasionally includes more than one social village while a social v i l l a g e is more rarely d i v i d e d into more than one administrative village.
AGNATES DISPERSED

When an idea is over a hundred years old and is advocated by thinkers as diverse as Maine and M a r x it nearly acquires the status of a dogma. Unti recently, most writers on rural India look for granted the idea of village autonomy and autark y . This has resulted in f a l s i f y i n g the true nature of the I n d i a n village ' c o m m u n i t y , and has provided a basis for revivalists' and Utopians" programme of political action. It is o n l y in the last twenty years or so that trained anthropologists and 1375

A village is a vertical unit coin posed of sections of various castew h i l e a caste is a horizontal unit made up of different sections l i v i n g in several neighbouring villages. The members of a caste l i v i n g in a village are bound by ties of kinship, marriage, economic obligations, and membership of caste panchavat w i t h their caste-fellows in other villages. E ven in south India where cross-cousin and crossmneleniece marriages are preferred, the marriage field for a rural caste ineludes at least twenty to t h i r t y v i l -

September

10, 1960 of b u y i n g and selling at the festival is as strong an attraction as the religious one. There are fairs w h i c h are famous for the sale of cattle, and nowadays, cattle are moved by l o r r y a distance of two or three hundred miles to reach a fair. Such fairs occur all over the country and they reveal the fact that the peasant s social and economic universe is very much wider than his village. PATTERN OF LAND OWNERSHIP The pattern of land-ownership, tenancy and labour frequently cuts across the village. The land w h i c h is included w i t h i n the boundary of an official or administrative village is not always owned by those resident in it. Some of the land is usua l l y owned by people in neighbouri n g villages or towns. D u r i n g the last hundred years or more, there has come into existence a class of absentee landowners, of people who reside in towns but own land in villages. Again, members of a village are c o m m o n l y found to own some land in n e i g h b o u r i n g villages. Even tenants and labourers are occasionally found c u l t i v a t i n g land l y i n g in another village. fn some i r r i g a t e d areas where the density of population is high, it is not unknown for a tenant to cultivate land l y i n g six or seven miles from where he is staying.
EXTERNAL TRADE

THE ECONOMIC WEEKLY canopies, carpets and cotton tape, w h i c h were manufactured mostly by u r b a n artisans but the raw materials; for w h i c h were supplied by v i l l a g ers; secondly; goods such as precious stones w h i c h were manufactured by urban artisans f r o m indigenous minerals; and t h i r d l y , goods such as silk cloth and objects of metal and i v o r y w h i c h were manufactured by urban artisans f r o m i m p o r t e d raw materials."
INTER-REGIONAL TRADE

lages. The field is much bigger in n o r t h I n d i a where relatives are not preferred for marriage. I n addit i o n , there is village exogamy and occasionally, village hypergamy. That is. a man may not m a r r y a g i r l of his own village, and he is not permitted to give his sister or daughter in marriage to the village f r o m w h i c h he has obtained a wife. The marriage circle in the north i n cludes two or three hundred villages. The members of an agnatic clan are often found dispersed in several villages. T h i s is specially true of some" parts of north I n d i a where members of the locally dominant caste residing in several neighbouri n g villages are agnatieally related to each other. Close ties exist between such groups. S i m i l a r l y , dose ties also exist between those members of a caste who live in towns and others who live in villages. This is specially true of the 'twice born castes. The fact that villages are usually multicaste in composition is point ed out as evidence of self-suflieienev of villages. But even big villages, villages w i t h over a thousand people, do not contain all the necessary castes whereas nearly two thirds of India's villages have a strength of less than five hundred each.
WEEKLY MARKETS

The inter-regional trade of the country also included the exchange of a g r i c u l t u r a l and forest produce. Gujarat, for instance, received a considerable quantity of wheat and o p i u m f r o m M a l w a , rice and coconuts from the K o n k a n , sugar f r o m Bengal, and groceries and drugs f r o m the H i m a l a y a n regions. 6 W i t h i n Gujarat itself there was local specialisation in the matter of crops, and there was m u c h exchange of a g r i c u l t u r a l produce between different areas. W h i l e indigo and tobacco were grown in central Gujarat, sugarcane was g r o w n in south Gujarat. The local produce was transported over land as well as water. There was a great deal of trade along the coast of Gujarat. Saurashtra and K u l c h . 7 Finally, even in the same locality villages supplied severaI consumption goods to towns. In brief, most villages in Plains Gujarat sent out some c o m m o d i t y or other to the wider market. They received in return various goods such as salt, spices, groceries, certain kinds of cloth, metals, metab objects, household goods, and ornaments. The dependence of the v i l lager on the outside w o r l d was visible p a r t i c u l a r l y d u r i n g the rites des passage, the periodical festivals and other ritual occasions. The villager purchased the goods he wanted f r o m the village shopkeeper, f r o m the peripatetic trader or artisan, and at fairs and weekly markets. According to available records there was at least one shopkeeper in every village w i t h a population of 500 or more in central Gujarat at the beg i n n i n g of the nineteenth century.'
DEPENDENCE ON TOWNS

There are also single-caste M i lages. Where these villages are of artisans, they sell their goods in nearby towns, or more frequently, in the weekly markets. The latter are an eloquent testimony to the Indian village's lack of self-sufficiency. They also imply a certain amount of monetizalion of the economy which in t u r n means that the village was part of a wider politicoeconomic system. Weekly markets again vary in their range. Some are patronised by people l i v i n g in a few neighbouring villages while others are patronised by people spread over a wide area. Occasionally, there is also a certain amount of specialisation in weekly markets: one market is famous for trade in cattle, another in sheep and p o u l t r y , a t h i r d in woollen blankets, and so on. P i l g r i mages also take the villager beyond the village, and occasionally into a different language area. The periodical festival of a deity attracts devotee.- and others from nearby vil lages, and a bazaar springs up around the temples. The prospect

It is often assumed that trade and commerce d i d not touch villages in I n d i a . This assumption was perhaps true only of villages in the t r i b a l areas. In the non-tribal areas, however, village economy has for a long time been integrated in varyi n g degree w i t h regional, national and even international trade and commerce, in certain regions, such as Gujarat, and the Kerala and Coromandel coasts, there was a h i g h degree of integration of village economy w i t h the economy of the wider world. These coastal areas had m a r i t i m e commerce with overseas countries since at least the beginn i n g of the Christian' era. The exports of Gujarat included, for instance, a g r i c u l t u r a l and forest produce as well as finished goods. In the former category may be mentioned indigo, cotton, wheat, rice, tobacco, edible o i l , ghee, honev, lac. hides, dried ginger and myrobalan. In the latter category there were goods of three k i n d s : firstly, goods such as cotton cloth, yarn, cushions. 1376

The villagers also depended upon towns for certain specialized services. Whenever they wanted to b u i l d a brick-and-mortar structure, whether it was a d w e l l i n g house, a well a hospice (dharmasala). a village meeting house ( chavadi). or a pigeon-tower ( c h a b u t u r i ) . they had

THE ECONOMIC WEEKLY

September 10, 1960 T h e lower-level a u t h o r i t y acknowledged the supremacy of the higher a u t h o r i t y when he paid t r i b u t e , and declared his independence f r o m the latter when he stopped payment. There was a c o n t i n u u m of power relations f r o m the lowest to the highest levels, and changes at each level were followed by changes at the other levels. In 'orthodox' histories changes at the h i g h e r levels are said to be the cause of change at lower levels, but not the other way about,
RAJPUTS AND M U S L I M S

t o call i n brick-layers and limeworkers f r o m nearby towns. T h e y also get their g o l d and silver ornaments made by a town s m i t h . T h o u g h m u d pots and pans were p o p u l a r in the house, the few metal vessels w h i c h were in use, and the immense metal utensils for cooking c o m m u n i t y dinners, were bought and repaired in the town. The florist, the t a i l o r , the washerman, the vahivancha (genealogist) and the grain parcher were all to be f o u n d o n l y in the towns and very large villages. In this connection, it is necessary to stress the importance of regional economic history, a field w h i c h is as i m p o r t a n t as it is neglected. The study of economic history on a regional basis w i l l tell us how the v i l lage was related to the w i d e r econ o m y n a t i o n a l as well as internat i o n a l i n different parts o f I n d i a . F o r instance, the A m e r i c a n C i v i l W a r resulted in the stoppage of the supply of raw cotton to the factories in Lancashire, and this resulted in India's b e c o m i n g an exporter of raw cotton to B r i t a i n . Cotton b r o u g h t prosperity to peasants in Gujarat and in the f o r m e r Central P r o v i n ces, w h i c h in t u r n led to several changes in the social and economic life of the people. Some peasants in the Central Provinces used silver in their ploughs and bullock-carts to tell their friends they had "arrived'.
P O L I T I C A L STRUCTURE

The assumption that the I n d i a n village c o m m u n i t y was not i n f l u enced by, and d i d not in t u r n i n f l u ence, the w i d e r p o l i t i c a l structure, is also facile. T h i s assumption is a result of l o o k i n g only at the top and not at the base of the p o l i t i c a l structure, a result of concentrating on the history of k i n g s and generals and not of the people. At the village or slightly higher level, there was usually the d o m i n a n t caste, the members of w h i c h owned a good deal of the available arable l a n d , and also wielded p o l i t i c a l power in a d d i t i o n . Each such caste had a leader whose position was further strengthened by ties of k i n s h i p and affinity, and by his capacity to confer favours on his clients. Such chieftains stood at the base of the p o l i t i c a l p y r a m i d everywhere i n India. A b o v e them was the Raja or k i n g , the viceroy of an Emperor, and the E m p e r o r himself, in ascendi n g order o f importance.

Before the conquest of Gujarat by the M u s l i m s i n thirteenth century, the Rajputs were a d o m i n a n t caste over the entire region and R a j p u t chieftains were to be found everywhere. 1 0 W h e n the M u s l i m conquerors removed the sovereign k i n g of Gujarat a l l the lower chieftains fought the M u s l i m s . The Persian chronicles, Mirat - i - Sikandari,11 Mirat'i-Ahmadi12 and Ferista1 bear eloquent testimony to the relentless fight put up by the local R a j p u t chieftains (called Girasiyas) and their allies, the K o l i chieftains, for over 400 years. It was o n l y in central Gujarat, in the region around the capital city of A h m e d a b a d , the centre of M u s l i m power, that the Muslims were able to control the Rajputs. Three-fourths of the landed estate of each Rajput was confiscated and turned i n t o khalsa or c r o w n land. T h i s marked the beginn i n g of change in the position of Patidars. the. great peasant caste of central Gujarat, vis-a-vis the Rajputs. The decline in the power and wealth of the Rajputs was marked by the rise to wealth of the Patidars. They exported i n d i g o , cotton and other a g r i c u l t u r a l commodities, and p r o v i d e d raw materials to urban artisans for the manufacture of such articles as cotton textiles. In course of t i m e the Patidars acquired political power also. It is interesting to note that the Patidars were the p r i n c i p a l supporters of the Marathas d u r i n g the latters' campaign in Gujarat. 1 4 A n d g r a d u a l l y the Patidars asserted their r i t u a l superiority to Rajputs. At the present moment, Patidars do not accept water or cooked food f r o m Rajputs.
W I N D S FROM W I T H O U T

g i o n embraced the whole of I n d i a , and at least the more knowledgeable villager had heard of Benaras, the Ganges and the Himalayas. The B r a h m i n priest was the visible representative of a l l - I n d i a or Sanskritic H i n d u i s m . The i n s t i t u t i o n o f Harikatha in w h i c h the priest read and explained a religious story f r o m the Ramayana or Mahabharata or Bhagavata to the villagers enabled the latter to absorb a l l - I n d i a H i n d u i s m . T h i s helped in the gradual Sanskritisation of the lower castes and in m a k i n g villagers everywhere an effective p a r t of a l l - I n d i a Hinduism. T h e I n d i a n v i l l a g e was thus always a part of a w i d e r entity, subject to the winds w h i c h blew f r o m w i t h o u t . The i n c r e d i b l y bad roads, the heavy monsoon, the g r o w i n g of food crops and vegetables, the existence of barter and the p o w e r f u l sense of membership of the village c o m m u n i t y have all given students an i l l u s i o n of self-sufficiency and of isolation. Rut it is only an i l l u s i o n and the reality is quite different. It is, of course, true that villages in different parts of I n d i a were integrated in different degree w i t h the w i d e r p o l i t i c a l , economic, k i n s h i p , religious and ethical structure, and this is an i m p o r t a n t field for comparative research. Further, it is a field in w h i c h sociologists and historians have to cooperate.

N o t e s a n d References
Appendix to the Report from the Select Committee of the House of Commons on the Affairs of the East-India Company, III Revenue, ( L o n d o n , 1833), p 470. Village Communities in the East and West, (London. 1 8 9 0 ) , pp 124-25. Letters on India, ed B P L Bedi and Freda Bedi. (Lahore. 1 0 3 7 ) , pp 6-7, See E r i e M i l l e r . "Caste and T e r r i t o r y in M a l a b a r " , American Anthropologist, 56, ( 1 9 5 4 ) . pp 410-20. W H Schoff. translated and and notated by. The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, (New York. 1912), pp 39-42; Gazetteer of the Bombay Presidency, Vol VI (Bombay. 1880K pp 1879 8 ; Ral K r i s h n a , Commercial Relations between India and England, (London, 1924), pp 12-17; W H M o r e l a n d India at the Death of Akhar, ( L o n don. 1 9 2 0 ) , pp 196-245; id.

We have already mentioned how pilgrimages and festivals took the villager to places beyond his o w n village. A p a r t f r o m this, his reli1377

September 10, 1 9 6 0 From Akbar to Auraflgzeb, ( L o n d o n , 1 9 2 3 ) , p p 52-136. 6 W H Moreland India at the Death of Akbar , p 2 4 4 ; Gazetteer of the Bombay Presidency, V o l V I , p p 187-98. 7 See chapters on " T r a d e and M a n u f a c t u r e " and "Places of Interest" in Gazetteer of the Bombay Presidency, Vol II (Bombay, 1877); Vol III, (Bombay, 1879); Vol IV, (Bombay. 1879); Vol VI, (Bombay, 1880); Vol VII, (Bombay, 1883); Vol VIII, (Bombay. 1884). An import ant source f o r the s t u d y of history o f local trade i n G u j a r a t are account books and commercial correspondence preserved b y merchant f a m i l i e s . 8 For a d e s c r i p t i o n of the records, see A M Shah, " S o c i a l A n t h r o pology a n d the S t u d y of H i s t o rical Societies", The Economic Weekly, Special Number, July 1959, pp 953-62. 9 Seth Leacock and David C Mandelbaum. "A Nineteenth Century Development Project in I n d i a : the Cotton I m p r o v e m e n t Program". Economic Developmerit and Cultural Change, Vol I I I , No 4, (July 1955), p 349; Hiralal Tribhuvandas Parekh, Arvachin Gujaratnun Rekhadarshan. Vol II, (Ahmedabad, 1 9 3 6 ) , p p 68-74. 10 A M Shah, " T h e V a h i v a n c h a Barots of G u j a r a t ; a Caste of Genealogists and Mythographers" in Traditional India: Structure and Change, ed Milton Singer, (Philadelphia, 1959), pp 52-58. 11 Sikandar ibn Muhammad,, translated by Fazlullah Lutfullah F a r i d i , (Bombay, n.d.), p 239. 12 Ali Muhammad K h a n , MiraUAhmadi: Supplement, translated by Syed N a w a b A l i and Charles N o r m a n Sedon, ( B a r o da, 1 9 2 8 ) . p p 193-94. 13 M a h o m e d Kasirn F e r i s h t a History of the Rise of the MaHOmedan Power in India, translate d b y John B r i g g s , V o l I V , (Calcutta and L o n d o n . 1 9 1 0 ) , p 18. 14 Gazetteer of the Bombay Presidency, V o l V I I , p p 1 6 9 - 7 1 , 174, 1 8 7 ; C V Joshi, " T h e A m i n s of Vaso", Indian Historical Records Commission, Proceedings of the Meeting of tlie Silver Jubilee Session, Vol XXV, Part I I . ( D e l h i , 1 9 4 9 ) , p p 17779.

THE ECONOMIC WEEKLY

Sleepers f o r I n d i a n R a i l w a y s
THE i n i t i a l t r i a l s at the Sleeper Plant o f D u r g a p u r Steelworks were successfully c a r r i e d out last week w h e n the sleepers were p r o duced f o r the first t i m e at the p l a n t site. T h i s p l a n t is designed to p r o duce sleepers f o r both b r o a d gauge

a n d m e t r e gauge r a i l w a y s . Sleeper bars are p r o d u c e d in the Continuous B i l l e t and Sleeper B a r M i l l a n d cut t o length i n the Sleeper P l a n t . A f t e r r e h e a t i n g , the bars are shaped a n d p u n c h e d in a 250-ton press. The sleepers are then descaled and cooled.

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