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VILLAGE
SCENES
The village is the
lynch-pin of the state's economy. An assorted, shapeless cluster of mud huts,
roofed with thatch or khaprail (earthen tiles) with hardly any sanitation,
drainage or lighting arrangements and only narrow footpaths leading to the
outside world constitute a typical Uttar Pradesh village.
Times has had little effect on the shape or architecture of the
Uttar Pradesh village. Near cities, signs of prosperity increase. Houses
belonging to the prosperous farmers was plastered with cement and reinforced
brick-work roofs or arched doors and windows.
Land
is the status symbol in the village while the landowners generally are from the
higher castes, it is their position as land owners which gives them status and
power rather than their caste affiliation. Dire poverty and pressure on land impelled the
lower caste people of eastern
districts of Uttar Pradesh towards the end of the nineteenth century to migrate
to distant lands and forced people into deviations from
the traditional norms.
Since Independence, the concept of welfare state, Zamindari abolition, the latest result of science and technology
has benefited the village. Some well-placed educated
city-dwellers have taken to the land. All this has changed the traditional
concept of village as a self-sufficient unit where the requisite complement of
occupational caste workers was always available to meet the needs of the
villagers from birth to death. In a survey in the mid-Gangetic valley it was
found that no single caste occurred in all the villages surveyed. Chamars, Ahirs,
Brahmins, Nai, Lohars, Telis, Dhobis, Kurmis, Kumhars and Baniyas were found in
the villages.
The Nai
(barber) is a journeyman who goes from door to door and village
to village and can minister to the wants of more than one village. Dhobis
are scarce because they cater primarily to the upper castes. Baniyas are as
sparely scattered as the Dhobis because a
single Baniya can finance operations within a radius of 10 to 20 miles or more. It is not only the lower castes that have abandoned their
jajmani (Its a system where services are returned in goods or reciprocal
services) obligations. The Brahmins have also done so. They formerly
used to officiate at marriages and other ceremonies at the homes of their
jajmans and received the traditional offerings in money and goods. The
village Brahmins have given up some of their traditional functions. They
regard as demeaning the practice of accepting food and charity or settling
marriages, cooking food at wedding and officiating as
priests. Some of the Brahmins have taken to cultivation and other
occupations, such as tailoring and shop-keeping. The exploitative situations
exists in other areas where the jajmani system still prevails.
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