Rural Society & Development in India (Sociology M.A. Past Paper PDF)

Contents Unit & TOPICS Page No. Lesson No. Unit - I 1. Origin and Scope of Rural Sociology 1-17 2. Conceptualizing Peasants 18-28 3. Genesis of Peasant Studies...

Contents Unit & TOPICS Page No. Lesson No. Unit - I 1. Origin and Scope of Rural Sociology 1-17 2. Conceptualizing Peasants 18-28 3. Genesis of Peasant Studies 29-42 4. Theoretical and Methodological issues on village studies in India. 43-56 Unit - II 5. Basic Characterstics of Agrarian Society 57-113 6. Agrarian Movements in India : Moplah Uprising 114-123 7. Tebhaga 124-134 8. Telangana 135-146 9. Naxalbari 147-161 10. New farmers Movement : BKU & Shetkari 162-181 Unit - III 11. Concepts, Indicators and Paradigm of Rural Development 182-193  Contents Unit & TOPICS Page No. Lesson No. 12. Strategies, Planning & Implementation of Rural Development 194-198 13. Understanding Social Inclusion in Rural Development 199-206 Unit - IV 14 Community Development Programme 207-220 15 Land Reforms Initiatives 221-232 16 Panchayati Raj Institutions 233-253 17 Cooperatives & Self Help Groups 254-271 18 National Rural Employment Guarantee Act Experiment 272-287 19 Economic liberalization and Social transformation 288-300 Syllabus of Sociology M.A. IVth Semester for the examination to held in the year May 2020, 2021, 2022(NON- CBCS) Course No. : SOC-C-403 Tital : Rural Society & Development in India Credits : 6 Maximum Marks : 100 Duration of examination 2½ hrs. a ) Semester examination ( External ) : 80 b) Semester assessment ( Internal ) : 20 OBJECTIVE : To develop greater understanding of the rural society and the interaction of rural people. Attempt will be made to understand the rural development issues and the various developmental programmes prevalent in Indian society. UNIT - I Understanding Rural Sociology : Origin and Scope of Rural Sociology ; Conceptualizing Peasants and Genesis of Peasant Studies; Theoretical and Methodological issues on Village Studies in India. UNIT - II Dynamics of Agrarian Social Structure : Characteristic of Agrarian Society - Caste, class & Power Structure; Agrarian Movements in India - Moplah, Tebhaga, Telangana, Naxalbari Movements, New Farmers Movements-BKU & Shetkari. UNIT - III Rural Development Issues : Concept, Indicators and Paradigm of Rural Development; Strategies, Planning & Implementations of Rural Development (based on Katar Singh); Understanding Social Inclusion in Rural Development. UNIT - IV Rural Development Programmes : Community Development Programme: Land Reform initiatives; Panchayati Raj Institutions ; Cooperatives & Self-Help Groups (SHG’s); National Rural Employment Guarantee Act Experiment ;Economic Liberalization & Social Transformation. Note For Paper Setting : The question paper will consist of three section A.B.C. viz. Section A will consist of eight long answer type question, two from each unit with internal choice. Each question will be of 12 marks. The candidates will be required to answer four questions. one from each unit. Total weightage will be of 12x4 = 48 marks Section B will consist of Eight short answer type question-two from each unit with internal choice. Each question will be of 6 marks. The candidate will be required to answer four questions, one from each unit. Total weightage will be of 6x4=24 marks. Section C will consist of eight object type question of one mark each. The candidate will have to answer all the eight question. Total weightage will be of 1x8=8 marks Prescribed Readings: 1. Alahawat, S.R. 2008 Economic Reforms and Social Transformation, Rawat Publication. 2. Barik B.C 2000. Resource management & Contous of Development, Rawal Pulication. 3. Bouton.M.M 1985 Agrarian Radicalism in South India; Princeton University Press. 4. Brass , T, (ed) 1995, New Farmers Movement in India , US Francass Publication 5. Bremann , Jan , Peter Kloos & other, 1997, The village in Asia Revisited , Delhi OUP. 6. Chauhan , B.R 2003, ‘Village Community’ ( 409-457) in Veena Das (ed.) The Oxford Indian Companion to Sociology and social Anthropology New Delhi Oxford University Press 7 Chitambar , J.D 1993 Introductory Rural Sociology New Age International 8. Desai, A.R. 1969 Rural Sociology in India , Popular Prakashan , Bombay. 10. Dhanagare , D.N 1983, Peasant Movement in India New Delhi : OUP 11. Diwakar, D.M 2000 Emerging Agrarian Relations in India, Manak Publication 12. Doshi. S.L.& P.C Jain 1999 Rural Sociology Rawat Publication 13. Habib Irfan 1999. The Agrarian system of Mughal India , Oxford University Press 14. Jayal, N.G (eds) 2006 Local Goverence in india, Oxford Publication 15. Joshi , P.C. 1976 Land Reforms in India : Trends and Perspectives Bombay ; Allied Publisher Ltd. 16 Krishan Murthy J: 2000 Rural development Challenges and opportunities , Rawat Publication. 17 Lea. A.M & D.P Chaudhari (ed) 1983 Rural Development and the Methusen & Co Ltd London 18 Madan, Vandana 2002 The village in India , Oxford University Press , New Delhi. 19 Marriott Mckim 2017 Village Indian Studies in the little Community Rawat Jaipur 20 Mathur P.C.2007 Rurality and Modernity in Democratic India Jaipur Aalekh Publication 21 Prem Chander , S.K (eds) 2009 Finding Pathways Social Inclusion in Rural Development , N.R International. U.K 22 Rao. B.S Vasudeva Kanth G. Rajani 2007 Rural Development and Empowerment of weaker section Practices Promotion & programmes, The Associated Publishers 23. Roy, Debhal K, 2004 Peasant Movements in Post-Colonial India Dynamics of Mobilization and identity New Delhi : Sage Publication 24 Satyanarayana G 2007 Voluntary Effort and Rural Development, Rawat Jaipur. 25 Saxena Ashish and Shivrama Rao 2005 ‘Efficacy of Multimedia Technology in Indigenous Knowledge Management Convention Journal of Lucknow Management Association (IIM Lucknow) Vol 1 No 1, pp 248-258 26 Saxena Ashish 2007 ‘Rethinking Indian Villages A Sociological appraisal in E Bulletin International Siociological Association.No 8 November 27. Shah, A.M 2007. The Grassroot of Democracy U.K Permanent Black Publication 28 Shanin T. (ed) 1971 Peasant and Peasant Socities, Harmondsworth : Penguin Publication 29 Sharma K.L. 1997 Rural Society in India: Jaipur Rawat Publication 30 Singh Katar 1986 Rural Development Principles, Policies and management, New Delhi : Saga Publications. 31 Sunderam S.I 1997 Rural Development : Delhi Himalayan Publishing House. 32. Surjeet H.S 1992 Land Reforms in India Promises and Performance, Delhi: National Book Center  Directorate of Distance Education UNIVERSITY OF JAMMU JAMMU STUDY MATERIAL For M.A. SOCIOLOGY SEMESTER - IVth Course Title : Rural Society & Development in India Unit : I-IV Course No. : SOC-C-403 Lesson No. 1-19 Course Co-ordinator : Teacher Incharge : Prof. Abha Chauhan Dr. Neha Vij HOD Deptt. of Sociology PG. Sociology, University of Jammu University of Jammu http:/www.distanceeducationju.in Printed & Published on behalf of the Directorate of Distance Education, Univessity of Jammu by the Director, DDE, University of Jammu, Jammu.  RURAL SOCIETY & DEVELOPMENT IN INDIA Course Contributors : n Prof. J.R. Panda n Prof. B.K. Nagla n Prof. Abha Chauhan n Prof. Madhu Nagla n Prof. Ashish Saxena n Dr. Nisha Sharma n Dr. Neharica Subhash © Directorate of Distance Education, University of Jammu, Jammu 2019 All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced in any form, by mimeograph or any other means, without permission in writing from the DDE, University of Jammu. The script writer shall be responsible for the lesson / script submitted to the DDE and any plagiarism shall be his/her entire responsibility. Printed by : Printech / 2019/1000 550 Semester-IV Lesson No. 1 ORIGIN AND SCOPE OF RURAL SOCIOLOGY Unit-I STRUCTURE 1.1 Introduction (Rural Sociology) 1.2 Origin and development of Rural Sociology : US and India 1.3 Nature and Scope of Rural Sociology 1.4 Subject Matter of Rural Sociology 1.5 Conclusion 1.0 OBJECTIVES : The main focus of the chapter is to conceptualize Rural Sociology. to understand the scope of Rural Sociology to equip with its nature and subject matter. 1.1 RURAL SOCIOLOGY ( INTRODUCTION) Rural sociology is a field of sociology associated with the study of social life in non- metropolitian areas. It is the scientific study of social arrangements and behaviour amongst people distanced from points of concentrated population or economic activity. Rural sociology is the scientific study of rural society. It involves a systematic study of rural society, its institutions, activities, interactions and social change. It not only deals with the social relationships of man in a rural environment but also takes urban surroundings into consideration for a comparative study. Rural sociology is a holistic study of rural social setting. It provides us with valuable knowledge about the rural social phenomena and social phenomena and social problems which helps us in understanding rural society and 1 making prescriptions for its all round progress and prosperity. Rural sociology became prominent during the late industrial revolution in France, Ireland, Prussia, Scandinavia, and the US. It has been observed that as urban incomes and quality of life rose, a social gap appeared between urban and rural dwellers. It can be said that whichever advanced societies we see today, whether United States or French, they all originate from the village society. The general process is that rural society turns into a town society, then shifts to city, mega city and the metropolitian communnity. However, the systematic origin of rural sociology dates back to 19th century. According to A.R. Desai rural sociology should be make a systematic, scientific and comprehensive study of the rural social organization of its structure, function and objective tendencies of developlment and on the basis of such a study to discover the laws of its development. Generally, when the feudal society took to capitalism, it gave rist to the systematic study of rural sociology emphasizing the impact of industrialistion and capitalism on rural economy and the subsequent need for studying rural society. 1.2 ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF RURAL SOCIOLOGY: US AND INDIA Rural sociology is a new branch of sociology wih studies being carried out from 19th century. The period of 1890-1920 in America saw the rural societies facing many socio- economic problems which attracted the attention of the intelligentsia thus establishing study of rural society as an academic discipline. The appointment of Country life Commission by Theodore Roosevelt was an important landmark in the history of rural sociology. It has been argued that the Second World War caused heavy destruction and damage to human society which needed immediate reconstruction. As a result rural sociology got an impetus in USA. The main concern of rural sociology came to be the understanding and diagnosing of the social and economic problems of farmers. More emphasis was placed on issues such as the internal structures of community life and the changing composition of rural populations than on their relationshis with land or the social aspects of agricultural production.The prominent scholars engaged in rural sociology during this period were- Sir Henry Maine, Etton, Stemann, Baden Powell, Slater and Pallock etc. It was since about the middle of the nineteenth century that more systematic observations on the history of the origin and transformation of rural society have been 2 advanced the impact of the capitalist industrial civilization upon the rural economy and social structure, in various parts of the world, forced the attention of scholars to the study of the trends of rural scial development. Research in the subject of the origin and the nature of village communities which were undergoing transformation was launched. Olufsen, Maurer, Maine, Hexthausen, Gierke, Elton. Stemann, Innes, Coulanges, Nasse, Laveleye, Baden Powell, Ashley, Pollock, Maitland, Lewinski, Seebohm, Gomme, Guiraud, Jubainville, Slater, Vinogradoff, Meitzon and others are some of the outstanding scholars who have thrown light on rural society from various angles. Subsequently eminent scholars professors and others interested in the phenomena of the rural life have published in various countries enormous material dealing with its various aspects. As an organized Discipline in the U.S.A. However, rural socioloty as an organized discipline consciously developed, is of very recent origin. Due to historical reasons it has originated in the U.S.A. and slowly tends to draw attention elsewhere as its importance is being realised. During what is called “Exploiter period” of American society (1890-1920), a period when the American rural society witnessed allround decay, a considerable literature, describing and analysing the problems arising out of its growing crisis, came into existence. This literature, however, did not explore, locate, and formulate the fundamental laws governing the development of rural society. It created the prerequisites for the birth of the science of rural society but did not still create that science. However, the beginnings of rural sociology may be traced to those “streams” of publications. The first valuable work on the subject was the Report on the Countrylife Commission appointed by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1907. A number of Doctorate theses based on the study of the rural community comprised further significant literature dealing with problems of rural life and providing, revealing information thereon. Finally a group of rural church and school studies made by individuals interested in an investigation of maladjustments in rural life constituted the third “stream” of publications. This literature served as the basis for creating the science of rural sociology in the U.S.A. The Countrylife Commission, under the chairmanship fo dean Bailey, the eminent scholar of rural problems, circulated 5,00,000 questionnaires to farmers and leaders of rural life 3 and received nearly 1,00,000 replies. The Commission, on the basis of this investigation, published a report in which they attempt to analyse and diagnose the defects and deformities of rural society. “This report actually provided what might be called a charter for Rural Sociology”. “An American Town,” “Quaker Hill” and “A Hoosier Village”, of which James Michel Williams, Warren H. Wilson and Newell L. Sims were respectively authors, represented further studies of the American rural community. These studies were based on statistical and historical data and field-interview techniques and were submitted as research documents at the Columbia University between 1906 and 1912. Dr. Warren Wilson, along with others interested in the process of rural life, carried on a number of rural church studies. These studies, together with some rural school studies and “The Social Anatomy of an Agricultural Community” by Dr. C.J. Galpin based on an investigation into rural life made by him at the Agricultural Experiment Station of the University of Wisconsin in 1915, comprised additional literature germane to rural sociology until 1916. “Rural Sociology” by Prof. John M. Gillettee published in 1916 servedd as the first college text book on the subject. Subsequently, a number of writers devoted themselves to the study of rural life and published valuable works which also enriched the literature on the subject. The publication of “A Systematic Source Book in Rural Sociology” in 1930 recognised as an “Epoch-making” work contributed decisively to accelerate the advance of rural sociology. Later on, other intellectuals also focussed their attention on the subject and helped its further development. Sorokin, Zimmerman, Galpin, Taylor, Kolb, Brunner, Sims, Dwight Sanderson, Landis, Redfield and Smith are some of the outstanding social thinkers in the U.S.A. whose intellectual labour resulted in a phenomenal advance of the new science of rural sociology. The founding of the journal “Rural Sociology”in 1935 (at present a monthly) and the establishment of “Rural Sciological Society of America” in 1937 were further landmarks in the history of its growth. In the U.S.A., rural sociology, through a new science and still in a state of immaturity, is commanding wider and wider interest among social thinkers to-day. More than eight hundred professors and research workers are engaged in developing that science in that 4 country. In other countries also, increasing attention is being paid to study and systematise this branch of study. The various studies organized by the League of Nations and embodied in a number of monographs, together with the recent studies made by such organizations as UNO, UNESCO, FAO and others, have also contributed to the rapid advance of rural sociology. Such is the history of the genesis and growth of rural sociology, the youngest amongst all sciences. It has started taking roots and is slowly but securely spreading itself in various parts of the world including India which needs it the most in view of its very large rural population with innumerable complex problems. In India, the beginning of the study of rural society goes back to Sir Henry S.Maine. Maine brought out, among others, two significant books, viz., Ancient Law (1861) and Ancient Society (1877). Maine, though wrote about Indian villages and designated it as a republic, he had his own bias which was Euro-centric in its cognition and value terms. Dumount has criticised Maine for his European bias in analysing Indian rural society. Dumont observes: “Sir Henry Maine hardly ever looked at the Indian village in itself, but only as a counter part to Tutonic, Slavonic or other institutions. India was to him little more than the historical repository of veritable phenomena of ancient usage and ancient juridical thought.” Actually, the British administrators-turned ethnographers and anthropologists considered the village community as an autonomous sociological isolate. This is, particularly, reflected in the writings of Charles Metcalfe and other British administrators in India besides Henry Maine. Despite some of these weaknesses the fact remains that Maine made a beginning of a systematic study of rural life. It is he who for the first time theorised that kinship was the mainstay of India’s rural society. However, the systematic growth of rural sociology started in India after the promulgation of Constitution of India and the implementation of Community Development Programmes. It was argued that when the British anthropologists consolidated their colonial empire in South Africa and India, why social anthropology could not be helpful in nation-building in the wake of development programmes. This gave rise to a number of rural studies. 5  Even, during the days of British East India Company, there were efforts made by sociologists and social anthropologists to find out the patterns of land tenure, customary laws and the functioning of peasants and artisans. For instance, Ramakrishna Mukherjee (1957) informed by scruitinising the source material on the nature of the village community from British Administrative Report of the Punjab (1852) and Marx’s commentary on the Indian village community that there were discussions on the village communities. Also, during the British period, researches or enquiries were made on the affairs of rural life. The recurrent famines in India provoked several studies. The report of the Royal Commission on Agriculture became a monumental work dealing with the problems faced by the countryside. A number of economists had begun studying village communities. Slater started the idea of economic survey of villagers as part of the activities of the University of Madras in 1916. These villages were resurveyed in 1936 and 1961. All this is good but when did rural sociology emerge in its modern form? The ICSSR- - an apex body of social scientists that carried out a survey of researches done in India for a period of 10 years, the first report taking into consideration the preceding 10 years, came out in 1970. In the first volume entitled A Survey of Research in Sociology and Social Anthropology ( Vol.I) , the sub- discipline of rural sociology is discussed under the chapter ‘Rural Studies’. The following report for the period 1969-1979 also analyses the development that took place in rural sociology under the heading ‘Rural Studies’. The question is Why does trend report not mention the chapter titled as ‘Rural Sociology’ instead of ‘Rural Studies’ There is some ambiguity. It appears that sociologists suffer from the obsession of including rural sociology as a part of sociology. What is rural sociology is for sociologists only rural studies. The fact of the matter is that the rural studies included in both the volumes fall within the domain of rural sociology. This omission on the part of ICSSR has made the status of rural sociology quite vulnerable. Rural sociology, in its own right and merit, occupies a qualified status. It has its subject matter, its scientific nature and above all methods and tools. By its nature it is interdisciplinary and draws freely from the sister disciplines of economics, political science, sociology and social anthropology A.R.Desai has readily done a pioneering work in the field of Rural Sociology by editing Rural Sociology in India. The edited work was first published in 1969 and by now has gone into more than half a dozen editions. 6  A.R.Desai before defining rural sociology and delineating its scope rightly raises certain questions: Is rural sociology a distinct science or is it merely an application of the general principles of sociology? Should rural sociology restrict its scope merely to the life processes of rural society or should it also include as an integral part a study of rural and urban social life, comparative as well as in their mutual interconnection and interaction and further, include as its central concept, what Zimmerman describes as, “the mechanism and effects or urbanisation and ruralisation upon a population”? Desai interrogates further: Should rural sociology only provide scientific knowledge about rural societies and laws governing it development or should it also serve as a guide and suggest practical programmes of reform or reconstruction of that society in the economic, social and cultural fields? Many more questions could be raised about the definitions and status of rural sociology in social sciences. Controversies are enough. Sociologists and social anthropologists have defined rural sociology in various ways. For instance, J. B, Chitambar defines rural sociology as below: What are the phenomena rural sociology studies?.. They are the phenomena resulting from rural man’s reciprocal interaction with other rural people- behavior relationships not within the individual but between individuals. Rural sociological phenomena are not individuals but the interactions and interrelationships between individuals. The arguments put forward by Chitambar is that the interactions and interrelationship in the urban and rural segments are not the same as both segments differ in their physical, social and cultural environments. It is this environmental differentiation which distinguishes rural sociology from urban sociology. P.C.Deb has discussed the theme and subject matter of rural sociology. His definition runs as below: It can be stated that rural sociology is that branch of sociology which studies relationships of human beings living in villages of rural areas. In other words, rural sociology studies rural society. Just as in any other society, in rural society, specific kinds of social relationships are in existence. Major social institutions exist both in urban 7 and rural society but they are always identical. Because of the noticeable difference in the nature of villages social institutions from those of urban areas, and because a majority of the population in developing countries lives in rural areas, rural sociology is gradually being given the status of an independent discipline. Some of the foreign sociologists have also defined rural sociology. For instance, Chapin F. Stuart defines it as....a study of rural population, rural social organisation and the rural social process operating in rural society. According to Senderson: Rural sociology is the sociology of life in the rural environment. Perhaps the definition of rural sociology given by A.R.Desai is more closer to Indian situation. He observes: Rural sociology or the science of the laws of development of rural society in general has come into being only in recent times. The basic task of rural sociology is to discover the laws of development to rural society..... The prime objective of the rural sociology is to make scientific, systematic and comprehensive study of the rural social organisation, of its structure, function, and objective tendencies of development and on the basis of such studies to discover the laws of its development. The catalogue of definitions of rural sociology could be enchanced. There are variations in the definitions. But, not with standing the variations, it is argued by all the scholars that rural sociology is in no case an arm-chair discipline. By studying the rural life scientifically, rural sociologists should construct theoretical formulations which can be successfully applied for improving the life-style of the rural society are not appropriate for the betterment of rural life, rural sociology has no right to exist. It is because of this shared understanding that rural sociology is basically a social science for the development of rural society. Some of the points shared by most of the rural sociologists, economists and social anthropologists are as under: 1. Social life all over the world is divided into two division: (i) rural division, and (ii) urban division. Though, there is interaction between the two division, each division has its identifiable traits. 2. It is further agreed that the social life in rural division is condition by the rural 8  environment- physical ,social and cultural. Rural life has a historicity, composition and interaction. This specificity and individuality makes the rural division highly distinct. 3. All the scholars share the view the prime objective of rural sociology should be to make a scientific, systematic and comprehensive study of the rural social organisation of its structure, functions and objective tendencies of development and on the basis of such a study to discover the law of its development. 4. It is agreed that in the developing parts of the world, such as Latin America, Africa and Asia, a new significance of rural sociology has emerge. All the developing countries are engaged in the task of nation-building. Such an objective invariably includes the development of the people at the grass root who are closer to the soil. Some basic characteristics features of Rural Sociology are : 1. Rural Sociology is multi-dimensional : Rural Sociology is not uni-demensional but it is multi-dimensional as it has orientation to sociology and social anthropology. It has different traditions in US, Europe and Asia. Rural Sociology in Asia is more sociology and social anthropology than rural sociology. It draws subject matter, scientific nature and methodology from both sociology and social anthropology. 2. Rural Sociology is inter disciplinary : Rural sociology is interdisciplinary in its design and functioning. It draws freely from the sister disciplines of economics, political science, sociology and social anthropology. 3. It studies interactions and interaction systems: Rural sociology deals with the study of interations and interaction systems. When this perspective is applied to the analysis of rural society it becomes rural sociology. 4. It studies small places: Rural sociology is the study of small places, such as villages and tribal habitations. The 9  empirical abstractions made out of the little or small places help to construct theoretical constructions: The studies made by Levi-strauss, Malinowski, Radcliffe- -Brown, Boas and Bourdieu elaborately show that theories of repute have come out of the studies of grassroot people--people living in highlands, forests and small villages. 1.3 NATURE AND SCOPE OF RURAL SOCIOLOGY Rural sociology is the sister discipline of sociology or, in other words, sociology is the big brother of rural sociology. In our country rural sociology is treated as a part of sociology, quite like, social demography, urbanisation, industrialisation or sociology of social stratification. The trend report sponsored by the Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR) indicate that for the social sciences sociology, social anthropology and rural sociology stand at par. As a matter of fact, the social scientists in country have agreed to put sociology as a part only of the broader domain of sociology and social anthropology. Thus viewed, the nature of rural sociology, in fact, is the nature of sociology. Nature of Rural Sociology Sociology is considered as a social science. Though, there are debates on the nature of sociology in international social science. By and large, sociology is a science. There are scholars like C.Wright Mills, Peter Berger and others who consider sociology as an ‘imagination’- only as an art. The debate is not new. It starts from the period when social science parted their company with philosophy. In its earlier period, sociology was considered as positivistic science. At a later stage, it was realised that sociology could not be like any natural science because of its subject matter. Without entering into the debatable nature of sociology it could be observed that the nature of sociology is scientific. Pierre Bourdieu, in one of his discourses, observes that: Sociology seems to me to have all the properties that define as science..... All sociologists worthy of the name agree on a common heritage of concepts, methods and verification procedures. What characterises a science is that it has certain concepts, methods and verifications. Sociology as certain theoretical formulations, it has logic of enquiry and above all it is subjected to verification. Despite this common agreement on the scientific nature of sociology 10 it must be agreed that sociology is a diversified discipline. It is because of this nature that it is being divided into different realms. It studies different aspects of human society, such as demography, education, family, caste, tribe, village and a number of other segments of a society. Essentially, however, despite having a large number of ‘specialities’ it continues to remain a social science. Some of the reasons advanced for sociology begin a science are as under: 1. Empiricism Biology or physics had laboratory for precise experiments, measurement and verification. To some extent, the empirical method, i.e., fieldwork in sociology provides opportunity for experimentation, observation and verification. The research material available in the body of sociology clearly shows that many of its theoretical formulations have emerged out of the data generated from field work. 2. Accumulated Facts Science grows on the data accumulated from the field. Robert Merton very rightly observes that a sociologist stands on the shoulders of other sociologists. Whatever Talcott Parsons or for that matter, Marx, Durkheim or Weber did, was carried forward by the next generations. 3. Objectivity The another characteristic of science is its objectivity. It means the willingness and ability to see things as they really are-to study facts in a given field of investigation as they exist without personal bias, prejudices or feelings as to their desirability or undesirability. Personal values and desires are not involved in a scientific endeavour. The objective nature of science is difficult to be applied in social sciences. The status of researcher in empirical investigation has been debatable in sociology and social anthropology right from the 18th century. Pareto argued that when subjectivity and objectivity coincide it becomes objectivity. Max Weber, however, did not agree to this hypothesis. He said that in any activity the role of actor is decisive. He gave due place to subjectivity. In one of his recent works Bourdieu has taken up the issue of subjectivity and objectivity. Bourdieu takes up issues of epistemology and 11 methodology for wider scrutiny. He says that subjectivity is important so that individual has his own consciousness but beyond that there is an objective social reality also. He observes: There is, therefore, more to social life than the subjective consciousness of the actors who move within it and produce it. There is, if you like, an objective social reality beyond the immediate interactional sphere and the self-conscious awareness of individuals. What goes on in sociology about objectivity is that there should be a healthy negotiation between the subjective consciousness and the objective reality. The social scientist, therefore, in his research endeavour, should make a fine combination of his subjectivity, objective reality and the prevailing ideology. 4. Precision and Accuracy Science is also characterised by accurate and precise observations. “When scientific observations are made it is extremely important that these describe situations or persons as they actually do exist at the time of observation- this is accuracy.” 5. Methodology Science must have a valid methodology. It should be valid in sense that other scientists could also employ the same method and reach to their findings. Such a rigorous methodology can yield dependable theoretical constructs. 6. Reciprocity in Theory and Empirical Research Theory in science is constructed out of the experiments made in the laboratory. But approach to laboratory is through the media of theoretical constructs and hypotheses. Generally, in scientific research, we move from theory to empiricism or from empiricism to theory. In any case there is both-way interaction between theory and empirical research. There is a healthy interaction in the domain of science between laboratory investigation and theoretical formulation. C. Wright Mills very emphatically observed that theory without data is empty, but data without theory are blind. Almost all the social anthropologists including the rural 12 sociologists have done hard fieldwork, Malinowski, Radcliffe-Brown and others have done tremendous fieldwork before constructing their theories. Rural sociology precisely is a specialised field of sociology and social anthropology. Its nature is scientific as it borrows heavily from these social sciences. Those who have conducted rural studies in the fieldwork. Malinowski, Radcliffe-Brown and others have done tremendous field work before constructing their theories. Rural sociology precisely is a specialised field of sociology and social anthropology. Its nature is scientific as it borrows heavily from the social sciences. Those who have conducted rural studies in the field of caste, family, agrarian relations and land reforms have undergone field work in the villages. Whatever theoretical constructs which we have in the field of rural sociology have grown out of the intensive fieldwork done by social scientists. Add Scope of Rural Sociology As in the case of every young science, especially of a young social science, a great controversay has taken place over the question of the definition and scope of rural sociology among scholars engaged in the endeavour to develop it. Is rural sociology a distinct science or is it merely an application of the general principles of sociology (or the science of society as a whole) to the sphere of rural phenomena? Should rural sociology restrict its scope merely to the life processes of rural society or should it also include as an integral part, a study of rural and urban social life. Further, should rural sociology only provide scientific knowledge about rural society and laws governing its development or should it also serve as a guide and suggest practical programmes of reform or re-construction of that society in the economic, social or cultural fields? In short, should rural sociology merely give an objective authentic composite picture of the changing rural life in all its multifold and multiform aspects or also function as an ideological instrument to remould it according to a social purpose and a practical plan? These are some of the principal problems over which extensive controversy is at present raging among sociologists. Such a disagreement among social scientists is not a characteristic peculiar to the field of rural sociology. Even regarding sociology in general, 13 neither a clear, universally accepted definition nor a unanimous view of the scope of its study have as yet emerged among sociologists. The sub-domains of the single concretely whole domain of social life are so intermingled, interacting and even overlapping, that it is difficult to isolate one of them, study it and evolve a distinct science disclosing the laws of its structure and its evolution. Hence it is that disputes take place among social thinkers regarding the method and approach to be adopted to evolve a social science. In spite of wide divergence of views among rural sociologists regarding the definition, scope, and objective of rural sociology and also about the emphasis to be laid on this or that factor of the rural society as the point of departure of its study, there also exists a number of basic agreements among them. All of them hold the view that social life in rural setting exhibits characteristics and tendencies which are peculiar to it, which constitute its specificness and which, therefore, sharply distinguish it from social life in urban setting. All of them unanimously declare that the prime objective or rural sociology should be to make a scientific, systematic and comprehensive study of the rural social organization, of its structure, functions and objective tendencies of development, and on the basis of such a study, to discover the law of its development. Since every science, social or natural, has for its aim the discovery of the hitherto hidden law of development of a domain of nature or society, the basic task of rural sociology, they unanimously declare, is to discover the law of development of rural society. 1.4 SUBJECT MATTER OF RURAL SOCIOLOGY The subject matter of rural sociology has never been static. In the earlier days of its development, during 18th and 19th centuries, it studied the society of aboriginals and primitive people. The colonial countries of south and central Africa along with India were the target countries for the study or primitive people. The British Raj along with its anthropologists approached these countries for discovering new markets and spreading Christianity. The British administrators turned to the study of primitive people. In our country we have administrators-turned sociologist and Anthoropologists who studied the primitive people and the indigenous institutions of village, caste and culture. The initial subject matter of study for social anthropology and in this 14 respect rural sociology was the life of village people and the forest dwellers. In fact, rural sociology remained restricted to the small places of the type of villages or clusters of neighborhood. Henry Mainie, the British administrator, was perhaps the first person to study an Indian village. He characteristed an Indian village as republic in itself. Theoretically, such a kind of portrait of village life can be criticised vehemently. Yogendra Singh (1986) provides a critique to such an understanding of village life because here Maine’s emphasis was “on showing how each of th these social entities (villages) affirmed the principles of segmentation and autonom rather then being parts of an organic whole”. Despite the criticism made on the republic character of village India, the fact remains that each village is self-suffi ient and independent. At a later stage, Ghandhiji also observed that our village were self-reliant and had their local rule. Thus, the subject matter of rural sociology during the colonial period in India remained confined to the study of hill and forest people-the tribals, the village and a few of the traditional institutions such as family and caste which were pervasive in the small places. Soon after independence there was a sudden shift and emphasis in the subject matter of rural sociology. It was unhistorical for India to prepare a constitutional agenda for the development of villages. The Constitution also laid emphasis on the development of Panchayati Raj. It was in the year 1950 that the Constitution of India was promulgated. And then came in 1952 the five year plans and subsequently the community development and extension programmes. Now, in the real sense, the idiom of our development became the development of village. The government policy, thus implemented, created the need for the study of village life. With this context historically created in village development, there came a flood of village studies by the middle of 1950 to the end of 1960. The subject matter of rural sociology, thus, consisted of the study of tribal people, caste and village communities. M.N.Srinivas (1955), in his edited work, India’s Villages makes the point that in the context of development planning it was necessary to provide a portrait to the layman about the social life lived by village people. The subject matter of rural sociology, according to Srinivas, consisted to the unity of village, caste and other village institutions. The contributors to this work argued that the Indian village 15 had a traditional unity. The village who lived in a restricted area at some distance from other similar groups, with extremely poor roads between them, a majority of them were engaged in agricultural activities. They closely depended upon each other-economically and otherwise. They shared a vast body of common experience and this fostered what is called as the unity of the village. It was the dominant caste in the village which supported and maintained the total village system. However, the development programme and the forces of technology, industrialization, urbanisation, market, and a host of other factors brought about tremendous change in the community. This provided a new set of subject matter to the body of rural sociology. Land reforms, land ceiling, land tenure, and above all agrarian relations constituted new issues for intensive study. The process of democratisation, along with the emphasis on Panchayati Raj, created a new awakening among the people. Agricultural capitalism, as is manifest in green revolution, provided a new stratification pattern to the fest in green revolution, provided a new stratification pattern to the village society. The village peasantry witnessed widening social differentiation in the form of big or kulak farmers, small farmers, marginal farmers and landless laborers. The peasant struggles became more than frequent. There emerged rural leadership and rural conflicts. All these areas constituted a new discourse on subject matter of rural sociology. 1.5 CONCLUSION Beyond the new subject matter, rural sociology has begun to study the role of village people at the state and national level politics. There is a distinct village lobby working in national politics. The village politics is yet another theme forming part of rural sociology. To conclude this section subject matter of rural sociology, one could put down the following themes as the substantial areas for the study of rural sociology: 1. Rural sociology consists of the study of tribal, forest and village people. It provides a discourse on the study of the social life of these people. 2. Rural sociology is concerned with the problems and structure related to land and agriculture. In other words, it dwells heavily on themes related to agrarian 16  relations. 3. Village development programmes have been new additions to the subject matter of rural sociology. The objective of these programmes, on one hand, is to improve the life-standard of the people and, on the other hand, make them participants in the task of nation-building. 4. Rural sociology also studies the stratification pattern which has emerged from the working of developmental programmes. 5. It also analyses the impact of technology on the rural life. 6. And finally, the subject matter of rural sociology also includes environmental decay and erosion of ecology. 1.6 CHECK YOURSELF Q1 Define Rural Sociology and its origin? Q2 Define Rural Sociology and give its nature and scope? Reference : Desai, A.R. (1961); Rural Sociology in India Popular Prakashan, Bombay. Doshi, S.L. & Jain, P.C. (2006); Rural Sociology, Rawat Publications, Jaipur. Srinivas, M.N. (ed.) (1995), India’s villages, Asia Publishing House, New Delhi. ***** 17 Semester-IV Lesson No. 2 CONCEPTUALIZING PEASANTS Unit-I Structure 2.0 Objectives 2.1 Introduction 2.2 Definition of Peasants 2.3 Concept of Peasant Society 2.4 Understanding peasant society in Indian Context 2.5 Conclusion 1.6 References 2.0 : OBJECTIVES The main thrust of the unit is to make you understand – The meaning and definition of Peasants. – Holistic understanding of Peasant Society. – Differentiation among Indian Peasantry. – Political manifestation of Peasantry. 2.1 : INTRODUCTION Society is a collectivity of different categories of people. The collectivity are identified on the basis of their economic background, environment in which they are living, on the basis of their specific origin and others. Thus collectivity is marked by specific traits which the groups of people normally shares. 18  We know that the broad division of society is rural or urban society. The rural in a broader terms includes folk peoples like tribes and peasants whereas urban society is marked by elite peoples. Here our basic concern is the peasants so let us focus upon these categories of people especially in terms of there specific culture, customs and traditions. Firstly, let us understand the definition of peasants. 2.2 : DEFINITION OF PEASANTS The first systematic attempt to define the concept of peasant came from Kroeber (1948). To him “Peasant constitute part societies with part cultures.” They are definitely rural-yet live in relation to market towns. When he wrote these lines, Kroeber was thinking primarily of European peasantry. With some exceptions, almost all anthropologists subscribe to Kroeber’s part societies-part cultures definition of peasants, but differ a little bit. Firth (1950) finds that the term peasant has primarily an economic referent and said that the primary means of livelihood of peasant is cultivation of the soil. He also included other small scale producers, such as fishermen and craftsmen as peasants and pointed out that “they are of the same social class as the agriculturists and often members of the same families. He also identified the emphasis on agriculture and whether the self–sufficiency among peasants is implicit or explicit in many writings and argued stressing occupation and cultural content obscures the really important diagnostic criteria. Redfield (1953) felt that the word ‘peasant’ points to a human type... it required the city to bring it into existence. There were no peasants before the first cities. The larger society of which peasants are a part is urban society. He also speaks of Great and Little Traditions to distinguish the cultures of the elite and peasants. He further said that peasants are considered to have at least common characteristic following agriculture as a livelihood and way of life not as a business. Those who use land as capital commodity are not peasants but farmers. Redfield also mentioned peasants; small producers for their own consumption. Foster (1953) described the peasant society as a half society, a part of a larger social unit, which is vertically and horizontally structured. Among the anthropologists, Foster for the first time recognized the horizontal and vertical 19 division of peasant society. To him, peasants are primarily agriculturists and the criteria to study them must be structural and relational rather than remaining occupational. Raymond Firth (1951) defines peasantry as a system of small producers, with a simple technology and equipment, often relying primarily for their subsistence on what they themselves produce. Faller (1961) viewed them as a society in which the primary constituents units are Semi-autonomous local communities with Semi-autonomous cultures. The Semi-autonomous sphere may be broken down further into economic, political and cultural dimensions. Chayanov (1966) understood peasants by focusing on the pure family farm. He claims that the family is equipped with means of production, uses its labour power to cultivate the soil and receive a certain amount of goods, as the result of a year’s work. Karl Marx (1850) talks of the peasantry as the small holding of peasants that form a vast mass, whose members live in a similar condition without entering into manifold relations with one another. Their mode of production isolates them from one another, instead of bringing them into mutual intercourse. According to him, “Peasantry is a class, i.e., a social entity based on a community of economic interests, shaped by conflict with other classes, expressed in typical pattern of cognition and political consciousness and capable of united political action on a national level.” Finally, Teodar Shanin (1966) defines them as – those consisting of small agricultural producers who with the help of simple equipment and labour of their families produce mainly for their own consumption and fulfil obligations of the holders of political and economic power. Although his understanding is more closer to Chayanov, except that Chayanov’s peasant do not have surplus stock, but Shanin’s peasants have some surplus quantum, to fulfil their obligations to the holders of economic and political power. 2.3 : CONCEPT OF PEASANT SOCIETY : The above definitions by various social scientists emphasizes the various 20 dimensions of understanding peasants. Few definitions talks on the cultural dimension, some on the economic dimension and some on the political manifestation of the peasantry. Though rural sociology as a discipline emerged in the United States but they focused more on sociology of farming as an occupation rather than on peasants as a social entity. The systematic study of peasantry originated in Central and Eastern Europe. The growth of interest in peasant societies has coincided with new developments in anthropology. However, the existence of peasantry as a realistic concept can be claimed for both empirical and conceptual reasons. In the framework of thought which accepts both the brief of sociology as ‘a generalizing science’ and the existence of peasantry as a specific, worldwide type of social structure, we can discern four major conceptual traditions which have influenced academics. They are (i) The Marxist class theory :– The Marxist tradition of class analysis has approached peasantry in terms of power relationships, i.e. as the suppressed and exploited producers of pre–capitalist society (Marx and Engles 1950). Contemporary peasantry appears as a leftover of an earlier social formation, its characteristics reinforced by remaining at the bottom of the social power structure. (ii) The ‘specific economy’ typology :– It has viewed peasant social structure as being determined by a specifics type of economy, the crux of which lies in the way a family farm operates. This approach was first made explicit by Vasil Chakov (1881) and fully developed by Chayanov (1925). (iii) The ethnographic cultural tradition :– It stems from European ethnography and from traditional western anthropology. It tends to approach peasants as the representatives of an earlier national tradition, preserved as a ‘cultural lag’ by the inertia typical of peasant societies. (iv) Durkheimian tradition :– This tradition, originating from Durkheim, has followed a complex path. The basic dualism accepted by Durkheim and his generation. (Tonnies, Maine etc.) divides societies into the ‘traditional and 21  ‘modern’ or ‘organic’, based upon a division of labour and necessary interaction of the units. Kroeber later placed peasant societies in an intermediate position as ‘part societies with part cultures’— partly open segments in a town-centered society (Kroeber, 1948). Shanin (1971) delimits peasant societies by establishing a general type with four basic facets. To him, the general type of peasantry would include — (a) The peasant family farm as the basic unit of multidimensional social organization :– The family provides the labour on the farm and the farm provides for the consumption needs of the family and the payment of its duties to the holder of political and economic power. The economic action is closely interwoven with family relations, and the motive of profit maximization in money terms seldom appears in its explicit form. The self–perpetuating family farm operates as the major unit of peasant property, socialization, sociability and welfare, with the individual property, socialization, sociability and welfare, with the individual tending to submit to a formalized family—role behaviour. (b) Land husbandry as the main means of livelihood directly providing the major part of the consumption needs :– Traditional farming includes a specific combination of tasks on a relatively low level of specialization and family–based vocational training. (c) Specific traditional culture related to the way of life of small communities:– Specific cultural features of peasants marked by traditional and conformist attitudes, i.e. the justification of individual action in terms of past experience and the will of the community. (d) The underdog position, the domination of peasantry by outsiders :– Peasant’s as a rule, have been kept at arms length from the social sources of power. Their political subjection interlinks with cultural subordinations and with their economic exploitation through tax, rent, interest. With the above frameworks in mind, let us try to understand the peasantry as overviewed historically and in academic discussions. To be specific, the peasantry 22 has been traditionally treated as homogenous category with respect to class. The discussion on the peasantry as a class started during the last century with its characteristics and political potentialities among the Marxian and non–Marxian social scientists. Thus one set of scholars considered the peasantry as a homogenous category with respect to its structure and stratification. Another group of scholars questioned the prevailing misconception in terms of stratification with respect to certain criteria, differentiating the various classes of peasantry. Let us now look into the works of social scientist falling in the different categories. The first systematic attempt to define the concept of peasant came from Kroeber (1948) who treated them as a homogenous class category and said “Peasant constitute part societies with part culture”. Apart from him, social anthropologists like Redfield (1953), Foster (1953) and others subscribed to the notion that the peasantry forms a class in terms of homogeneity of their class interest. An advance over his conception came from Chayanov, an economist who analysed it in detail. Chayanov (1966) contributed a theory of peasant behaviour at the level of the individual family farm. He traced the natural history of the family and stressed the demographic differentiation in contrast to the Marxist concept of class differentiation of the peasantry. More closer to Chayanov, Theodar Shanin (1966) takes a more or less similar stand on the peasant family farm. The glaring difference between the concepts of Chayanov and Shanin is that Chayanov’s peasants do not have surplus stock, but Shanin’s peasants have some surplus quantum, to fulfil their obligations to the holders of economic and political power. Later, Marx (1850) talks of the peasantry as the small holding peasants that form a vast mass, whose members live in similar condition without entering into manifold relations with one another. Their mode of production isolates them from one another instead of bringing them into mutual intercourse. Since, the small holding peasants lack inter–communication and on identity, they are described by Marx as a sack of potatoes in a sack form – an idiotic class since they are unable to represent themselves, and represent barbarism in the midst of civilization. Thus the contribution of various scholars on the concept of the “peasantry as a class” highlighted the homogenous class characteristics of the peasantry. The anthropologists in general had the European peasant in mind, when they expressed 23 their views and Chayanov and Marx took the Russian and French peasantry respectively when they talked of peasantry as a class. They never tried to differentiate the classes within the peasantry. The first systematic attempt to differentiate the classes within peasantry came from Lenin, who recognized the heterogenous class characteristic of peasantry. Lenin (1920) talks of six different agrarian classes in terms of ownership of the means of production and labour exploitation. Those are agricultural proletariat, semi–proletariat, small peasantry, middle peasantry and big land owners. Mao (1933) differentiated the peasantry in terms of ownership by means of production and exploitation in the form of wage labour, usury rent and market forces. He talks of five different agrarian class— the landlord, the rich peasant, the middle peasant, the poor peasant and the workers. Barrington Moore (1966), tried to look at the class of peasantry in terms of superordination and subordination. Similarly Eric Wolf (1955) tried to concretise the ingredients necessary to identify the class of peasantry in a clear manner. According to him, the peasants are a subordinate, ruled exploited class and their surplus is being appropriated through rent, usury and market forces. In his book ‘Types of Latin American Peasantry’ (1955) he says that land is a critical variable for understanding the peasantry. Later in another book entitled ‘Peasants (1966)’ he remarked. “Peasants are rural cultivators, whose surpluses are transferred to a dominant group of rulers.” Here, he introduced the concept of exploitation to differentiate peasantry. Later, he defined ‘peasants’ in his book entitled ‘Peasant wars in the Twentieth Century (1971) as a population that are essentially involved in cultivation and make autonomous decisions regarding the process of cultivation. A break through in the conception of peasantry came from Landsberger (1974) when he tried to look at it in terms of socio–economic and political dimensions. He remarked that there is a landed upper class which is recognized legally and the classes below it are subordinate socially, economically and politically. According to him, the class of peasantry is a subordinate one and occupies a lower position in all the three dimensions. The above discussion revealed the economic class characteristics of peasant 24 and does not speak about its transformation into a political class. But Lenin’s and Mao’s analysis of class served as the basis for the analysis of the political potentialities of various classes of peasantry. Their analysis serve as powerful tools to differentiate the agrarian classes and to identify the class of peasantry as a whole. So as long as the class of peasantry remained confined to their economic interests, it will remain a class in itself. Increasing awareness of their plight leads them to acquire political characteristic in order to register their protest against the exploiting superordinating ruling class. In view of that the economic (class in itself) class gets transformed into a political class and obtains the characteristic of a (class for itself.) Regarding the political dimension of class, the peasantry, in history has many times acted politically as class–like social entity. It had assumed great importance especially during the early and later part of the current century. The revolutionary potentialities of the peasantry had been revealed in the following revolutions : Mexican revolution of 1910, The Russian revolution of 1905 and 1917, the Chinese revolution from 1921 onwards, Cuban revolution of 1958, Algerian revolution of 1954 etc. Several Scholars Frantz Fanon, Lenin (1920), Mao (1927) Hamza Alavi (1965), Eric Wolf (1971) had recognized the revolutionary potentialities of the class of peasantry. Thus the analysis of peasantry as a political class reveals the revolutionary potentialities and relative militancy of the classes within the peasantry. In other words, the class in itself, the economic class, transform to the class for itself when it become aware of their class consciousness. 2.4 : UNDERSTANDING PEASANT SOCIETY IN INDIAN CONTEXT :– Indian peasantry as elsewhere is not a homogenous category. There are different types of peasants and the criteria taken for the heterogeneity of peasantry are also varied. Using Indian vernacular terms, Daniel Thorner (1956) analyzed the argarian classes in India. He has exhaustively studied the nature of Indian agriculture and used the following three criteria to differentiate the agrarian classes :– (i) Income obtained from the soil (ii) Nature of rights over land (iii) Extent of field work performed. On the basis of these criteria, he identified the existence of three 25 principal categories of agrarian classes in India, they are Malik, Kisans and Mazdoors. Thorner says, the Malik derived income primarily from property rights on soil. They can be absentee landowners and rich landowners. Similarly Kisans are working peasants with property rights on the land but their actual right are inferior to those of Maliks. There categories are small land owners and substantial tenants. Finally, the Mazdoors are earning their livelihood primarily from working on others plot. It includes–poor peasant, sharecroppers and landless labourers. Thus Thorner’s three major categories defined are based on the relation of production or means of production and in a sense represent a strictly Marxian model of agrarian classes. Usha Patnaik (1976) suggested the criterion termed as labour ‘exploitation (‘E’ crieterion) and also the magnitude of land and has classified the Indian peasantry into five principal categories– Categories Magnitude of Land Poor 1.60 acres or less Middle Between 1.61 and 9.80 acres Lower Middle Between 1.61 and 4.60 acres Upper Middle Between 4.60 and 9.80 acres Rich Capitalist and Landlords 9.81 acres and above Dalip S. Swamy (1986) in his work on “Differentiation of Peasantry” in India talks of the characteristic features of four classes of peasantry, i.e., the landlords, poor peasants, small peasants and the well-to-do peasants, in terms of the means of production such as land, machinery, cattles etc. Shiva Kumar (1978) differentiated the classes of peasantry in terms of two criteria i.e., ownership or non-ownership of means of production. He took the land as the critical variable to differentiate the classes of peasantry. He discussed the five classes of peasantry. The big peasants (own 10 acres of land and cultivate with the help of hired labour); The medium peasants (those who rely on hired labour or cultivation on about 5-10 acres of land); the petty peasants (owning land 26 between 2-5 acres and rely on household labour for cultivation); The landless peasants; and the landlords (who own land but do not cultivate). Ashok Rudra (1988) discusses agrarian classes in terms of class contradiction and relations of production. He divided class into— Big landowners and agricultural labourers. K.L. Sharma (1997) classified agrarian class on the basis of resources like utilization of loans, repayment capacity, tenancy, ownership of asset and credit from bank. Thus he find 5 types of peasant group—owner cultivator; largely owner- cultivator; largely tenant-cultivator; tenant-cultivator and total poor peasant. Apart from the economic dimension of analyzing peasantry, the Indian situation of peasantry is also marked by its political manifestation. It is visible historically even during British Period. The tribal peasants like Kole (1831); Santhal (1885); Birsa Munda (1895) during the 19th century rose in revolt against their prime exploiters i.e., the Britishers. Similarly in the later phase, under the leadership of Gandhi, the prominent peasant movements were Champaran (1971); Kheda (1918) and Bardoli (1928). Apart from these basic movements, the religio- political dimension was highlighted in Moplah rebellion (1921), class characteristic was found in Tebhaga Movement (1946-47), Telangana revolt (1946-51), The Naxalbari movement and others. 2.5 : CONCLUSION In this unit we tried to understand cultural, economic and political referrendum of peasants. In general peasants were understood as a category of people using simple equipments and using their own family labour for cultivation. They are the people who are conservative, subordinated and attached to land. Further the peasant society was analyzed on the Mauxian and non-Marxian lines. Criteria’s like right over land, land use, exploitation, ownership of means of production etc. were considered for showing hetrogenity among peasantry. 2.6 : REFERENCE Shanin, Ted (1971); Peasants and Peasant Societies; Penguin books, Harmondsworth. 27  Gurusamy, S (1995); Development Socology— A Reader, Sterling Publisher Delhi. Desai, A. R. (1961); Rural Sociology in India, Popular Prakashan, Bombay. Wolf; E. R (1966) Peasants, Prentice Hall, Engleword. Redfield, R. (1956); Peasant Society and Culture Univesity of Chicago. Ask Yourself Q Give meaning and definition of Peasants. Q Explain the concept of peasant society. ***** 28 Semester-IV Lesson No. 3 GENESIS OF PEASANTRY STUDIES Unit-I Structure 3.0 Objectives 3.1 Introduction 3.2 Peasantology’s History 3.3 Agenda’s and Achievements of Peasant Studies in 1970 3.4 Trends of development of Peasantry : The Historical Context 3.5 Conclusion 3.6 Further Readings 3.0 : OBJECTIVES The major objectives of the unit is to— – Trace the genesis of peasantry. – Have Cross-cultural understanding peasantry. – Locate Major issues of peasant studies. – Study Dynamics of peasant society. 3.1 : INTRODUCTION As we know that the civilizational project of the world is not uniform so the formation of categories of society also varies in time and place. Even the prioritization and conceptualization of the terms in social science is also different. Thus one has to trace the genesis of peasantry historically and also to analyse the various studies conducted in this direction. 29  Even in the rapidly expanding world, the character, livelihood and fate of massive majorities in the world’s poorest and potentially most explosive areas have come to be seen as one of the most crucial issues. To be precise, even rural sociology in United States have also not focussed much on the peasantry. The systematic study of peasantry originated in Central and Eastern Europe because in those societies a rapidly ‘Westernizing’ intelligentia was faced by a large peasantry. The issue of the peasantry became closely entangled with, and impelled forward by, the ideologies of modernization and by the rediscovery of the national self by people suppressed by the Russian, Austrian, German and Turkish Empires. Subsequently, political leaders, social scientists and scores of amateur ethnographers turned their attention to the peasants (Shanin 1971). 3.2 : PEASANTOLOGY’S HISTORY The genesis of peasantry has to be evolved by digging the history and civilization of different societies. One has to interpret its genesis by training the significance of peasant studies in the different era. As given by Shanin (1971, 4), in the pre-industrial world the literate attitude of peasants combined hostility with silence. It seems that they had also to be dehumanized in the consciousness of those who ruled, administered and wrote. Even Medieval writings are full of kings and wars, of philosophy and poetry, of laws and astrology. They are mostly silent about peasants. Regarding the connotation of peasants, the Declinatio Rustica of the 13th century defined the six interpretations of the word peasant as—villain, rustic, devil, robber, brigand and looter and in the plural—wretches, beggars, liars, rogues, trash and infidels. In 18th century, English a peasant meant a brute and an illiterate. While the verb ‘to peasant’ was used to mean to subjugate and to enslave. Modernity and capitalism came to Europe with the triple revolution of industrialization, of citizenship within a nation-state, and of the spread of a secular, Mathematical bound science. In its most fundamental self-image this was a world without peasants. Peasants were treated as an anarchonism and therefore as an irrelevance. However, the way the peasants were approached in scholarly endeavour differed deeply, at least in the three global regions. They are 30  Ist global region : The popular and scholarly consciousness of the industrial West was dominated by the historiography cum- typology dividing the social world into ‘modern’ and ‘ backward’. On such an intellectual map the actual peasant disappeared even more effectively than in the olden days under “the remainders of the past”. When at the turn of the century rural sociology emerged as a subdiscipline, it focussed on farming as an occupation, diregarding peasants as social entity. IInd global region : The polar opposite of the west were the colonies and ‘orient’. There life seems to be trickled more slowly, the hand of the state to have been heavier than modern science. The fact that very often 9/10th of the population was peasant mattered little to the local literate. IIIrd global region : It was the Eastern and Central Europe, where studies of peasantry as such blossomed at the turn of the century. In those countries a highly sophisticated ‘intelligentsia’, politically committed to nationalism, faced massive peasantries. Policies and Ideologies turned attention to the peasant majorities as the major object, the possible carrier or the main bottle-neck of the necessary advance. By the eve of the First World War and later, the intellectual’s political attempts to look at and to activate peasantries were being increasingly matched by the peasants own efforts to establish viable political movements in defence of their own interest in Poland, Rumania, Bulgaria, Russia etc. East European in much of its rural experience produced some inspired writing about peasants and the rural scene like Marx, Weber, Sombert, Kantsky, Buchner and David. It was Denmark which became for a time the prime sample of an autonomous and successful rural cooperative movement and of self-generated innovations by peasant smallholders. The world war followed by rapid decolonization changed the global map and its power balance. The growing gap of wealth and power, came eventually to be theorized by new images and models which were well represented by the simultaneity of appearance of Myrdal’s concept of ‘Comulation of advancement and backwardness and Paul Baran’s the political economy of backwardness. The developing societies became synonymous with dependence. Social scientists, politicians and planners were made to turn their attention from the purely economic 31 indices to the particularities of the social structure of the ‘developing societies’. A majority there were peasants. Further the Right and Left, scholars, politicians and revolutionaries were turning their attention towards peasant and peasant societies. A virtual explosion of peasant studies in the late 1960’s was much part of a new political situation as a major conceptual refocusing which reached its symbolic peak in the 1968. With this background, a new theoretical armoury was rapidly set up consisting of some of the old and partly forgotten text by Znaniecki, Marx, Lenin, Sorokin, Kroeber and others. The works of Chayanov (Theory of Peasant Economy 1966) and Marx (Grundrisse, 1964) were highlighted. A number of integrative works by Wolf, Shanin and Galeski established basic parameter of contemporary peasant studies. Defining peasants became a matter of major significance and in offering study in the field. The continuous debate of three decades and a variety of applications within social planning made the field of peasant studies gather extensive evidence and grow in sophistication. It resulted into revivatism of old orthodoxies which made peasant disappear and treated them as a new key to all things, unrelated to broader society. 3.3 : AGENDA’S AND ACHIEVEMENTS OF PEASANT STUDIES IN 1970’S The initial agenda of the peasant studies of the late 1960’s and 1970’s addressed four major puzzles, the very recognition of which was dependent on both the re- emergence of peasantry in the public eye and the way in which the concept and the field of studies were being constructed. The issues emerged were (i) The issue of peasantry non-disappearance. (ii) The issue of particularities of peasant response to market economies and to agricultural state policies. (iii) The issue of peasantry’s evident power to bend the policies of the state and the dictates of the market. (iv) The issues of social reproduction and functioning of peasanthood as a particular system within which many contemporary human live. 32  Thus extensive work on peasant family forms a social and economic entities was central to the 1960’s / 1970’s agendas of peasant studies. The flexible use of family labour explained much of the explicable in peasantry’s survival and its competitive capacities in relation to larger and better equipped production units. Increasing attention was given to family strategies of combination in the use of family labour, especially to the peasant-workers phenomenon. Even cases of the ‘peasantization’ of African tribal economies were also considered. Particularities of peasant market and marketing networks vis-a-vis impersonal market relations were looked at a new. So was the political economy of rural patronage. Ecological and social particularities of agricultural husbandry compared to manufacturing, and of peasant characteristic choices compared to those made by farmers with high capital investment, were also increasingly recognized. The drawing of attention to the removal of ‘obstacles to progress’ gave the initial inducement and impetus to contemporary studies of peasant culture. From descriptive studies of ‘folk culture’, interest has moved to policy advice concerning resistances to development and to matters of political mobilization. The scholars shaped new analytical concepts such as the, ‘peasant view of a bad life.’ Sympathetic response to the peasant culture of survival and resistance found its own language when J.Scott spoke of the ‘moral economy of the peasant’. Further, Mao’s victory in China and its aftermath underlay an extensive effort aiming to grasp the particularities of peasant’s revolutionary wars in the 20th century. Leaving this apart the outsider-insider relations of peasants were studied also in their broader sense, i.e., that of policies by governments and international bodies towards peasantries. These studies closely followed the turns and twists of ideological fashion : The Land Reform advocated as the solution to rural poverty in the 1960’s, the Communal Development Programmes, the Green Revolution hopes of technological end to all problems. Further advances of peasant studies in the 1980s linked to the broadening of their focus and the expanding impact of the insights gained. Peasants were being put increasingly in the context of broader analysis of social structure, national and international. Much of the 1980s work advocated the topics established in the 1970s. 33 Peasant households, i.e., family-based units of production and management, remained the major focus of peasant studies. Further, the place of women in peasant economies was explored a new. Parallely, the ‘embedment’ of peasants in the larger structures of power and exchange was ever assumed by those who studied contemporary peasantry. The economic impact of the state increasingly became focus attention through the recognition of the exceptional significance of state institutions and personnel in the rural areas where peasantry plays a major role. The better understanding of flexibility of responses, combinations of ‘economic’ and ‘non-economic’, multiple system and resistance to external pressures reflected also in new studies of localities in which peasant dwell. A conceptual gap has also been filled between the analysis of the peasantries of the Third World and the phenomena of the highly capitalized family farmers of the ‘First’ world and the collectivized ruralities of the ‘second’ one. Contemporary peasant studies have offered not only a yardstick of otherness but also the up- to-date process of defining and studying peasants as a sociological concept. The focus of peasant studies will most likely to expand, reflecting the increasing interdependence within the global society as well as the internal logic of an analytical paradigm. 3.4 : TRENDS OF DEVELOPMENT OF PEASANTRY : THE HISTORICAL CONTEXT The peasantry manifests itself not only as a distinctive social groups, but as a dominant pattern of social life which defines a stage in the development of human society. According to Fei, in describing the Chinese society peasantry is a way of living. The ‘societies of small producers’ show distinctive cultural patterns the features of which persist at least partly among the peasantry of industrializing societies. It is analyzed that ‘small producers’ society falls historically in the intermediate period between tribal-nomadic and industrializing societies. 34  The peasant backbone in the ‘small producers society’ dissolves under the influence of the rise of a market and term centred money economy and consequent industrialization. An analysis of the appearance and development of an economic surplus and of capital formation is needed to understand this process. The producing and trading town introduces social patterns alien to the old world of small producers. In it, impersonal, warfare-like, profit centred market relations underlie human relations. Accumulation of anonymons capital determines economic growth. The pursuit of profit, efficiency and individual achievement provides the care of the social value system. The development of the peasant sector of a town centred society can be understood through three parallel patterns of spontaneous development for the countryside. They are - (i) Competition from large-scale, capital-intensive, mechanized agriculture gradually destroys the small farms. Agriculture, fully taken over by industrial methods of production and becomes ‘merely a branch of industry (Lenin,5th edn. Vol. 6) (ii) A town centred society makes for the development of the peasants into a professional stratum of farmers. The poorer villagers are increasingly sucked in from the countryside by the expanding urban areas. This pattern-transformation of the peasantry into a cohesive, increasingly narrow and professionalize occupation group of farmers can be clearly seen in most part of North-Western Europe. Although becoming even more tied to industrial society, farming still retains some of its peculiar elements. (iii) The third pattern of development appears mainly in the so-called underdeveloped societies and is characterized by cumulative pauperization of the peasantry. A population explosion, developing market relations and the industrial competition with traditional peasant handicrafts break up the cyclical equilibrium of society. A relatively slow industrialization is able neither to drain the countryside of its excess labour nor to provide sufficient capital accumulation. The potential surplus is swept away by growing consumption needs. 35  (iv) As distinct from the three spontaneous trends of development, the increasing strength of the modern state and the wish of the revolutionary elites to tackle the problem of development within the framework of socialist, collectivistic thinking made for the appearance of state organized collectivization of agriculture. 3.5 : CONCLUSION By going through the above discussions we have got the following framework regarding the genesis of peasantry—concept of peasantry has to be analyzed through cross-cultural analysis of global history. We find that the pre- industrial world did not recognized the peasantry in a healthy way, whereas in the industrial era, the industrial west were considering them to be backward, whereas the colonial countries were not in a position to recognize peasantry because 9/ 10th of population belongs to that category. However, it was the European nation which was emphasizing on the relevance of peasant studies. Further, the agendas of peasant studies in 1960’s and 1970’s were—the peasantry disappearance, response of peasants to market economies and also the power of peasant to bend the state policies. 3.6 : FURTHER READINGS Shanin, T. 1990; Defining Peasants, Basil Blackwell, U.K. Shanin, T. 1971; Peasants and Peasant Societies, Penguin Books Harmondsworth. Wolft E, 1966, Peasants, Prentice Hall, Englewood. Ask Yourself Q Define the main agenda’s and achievements of Peasant studies. Q Historically explain trends of development of peasantry. ----- 36 Semester-IV Lesson No. 3 PEASANTS AS A SOCIAL ENTITY Unit-I Structure 3.3.0 Objectives 3.3.1 Introduction 3.3.2 Assumptions and Meaning of Peasantry 3.3.3 Peasant Society : A Sociological Analysis 3.3.4 Peasantry as a Process 3.3.5 Conclusion 3.3.6 Further Readings 3.3.0 : OBJECTIVES The main thrust of the unit is to make you understand : – Various assumptions about peasantry. – Sociological interpretation of peasantry. – Dynamic aspect of peasantry. 3.3.1 : INTRODUCTION In the previous units we analyzed the different interpretations of peasantry. Here we will focus especially on the social attributes of peasants and peasant society. As we know that the conceptualization of peasant has been done in different time and space, so it is very difficult to know the exact analysis. In this situation, the 37 only thing to be done is to have a generalization about the concept and to delimit the boundaries of analysis. Keeping the constraints in mind, let us have a projection about the Peasants as a social entity. To Shanin, the existence of peasantry as a real and not purely semantic concept can be claimed for both empirical and conceptual reasons. Firstly, it is sufficient to read concurrently a sequence of peasant studies originating in different countries and to deduce something generic about it. However, we should not forget that a sociological generalization does not imply a claim of homogeneity, or an attempt at uniformity. In Max Weber’s words : “The Science of Sociology seeks to formulate type, concepts and generalized uniformities of empirical process. But before going to the exact task, let us try to understand the meanings attached to peasantry in general. 3.3.2 : ASSUMPTIONS AND MEANINGS ABOUT PEASANTRY AS A SOCIAL PHENOMENON To Shanin, there are three fundamental ways to approach contemporary peasantry as a social phenomenon. Firstly, to assume that we do not encounter in it a distinguishable set of related characteristics, which can be analytically treated as a type of social structure. It would therefore, be a notion of no conceptual significance, just a word, possibly a linguistic reminder of a historical past. Consequently there could also be no place for a theory concerning peasant’s particularities. Secondly, to assume that peasants differ consistently from non-peasant in ways which are socially significant, but that this diversity can and should be fully explicated within the existing body of general theory, by extending its application. Thirdly, one can assume that peasant distinctiveness exists, as well as that conceptual particularity must follow from it i.e. the most effective way to analyze peasants is to establish and use to that purpose discrete theoretical structures. This would mean consideration of peasant economies with the help of a peasant economics as a distinct section of the discipline of Economics and a similar procedure for some other dimensions of social structure and action. 38  One can present the suggested three fundamental categories of approach graphically as shown in the table below : Categories of Analysis of Contemporary Peasantry Characteristic Approach 1 Approach 2 Approach 3 Distinctiveness of No (–) Yes (+) Yes (+) Peasants Theoretical No (–) No (–) Yes (+) Distinctiveness of Peasanthood If we analyze the different works, they can be placed in different approaches. For example Lenin’s work on ‘The Development of Capitalism in Russia (1899) and Mc Namara’s attempt of using peasants can be placed in approach 1. Kantsky’s “The Agrarian question (1899) and Schultz’s analysis, though intermediary in between approach 1 and 2, but for analytical understanding can be placed in Approach 2. Finally, the “Theory of Peasant Economy” by Chayanov can fall in category 3. 3.3.3 : PEASANT SOCIETY : A SOCIOLOGICAL ANALYSIS T. Shanin has tried to delimit peasant societies by establishing a general type with four basic facets. These facets may be sufficient for an analysis of specific aspects of peasant social life. The general type proposed by Shanin would include— 1. The peasant family farm as the basic unit of multi-dimensional social organization. The family, and nearly only the family, provides the labour on the farm. The farm, and nearly only the farm, provides for the consumption needs of the family and the payment of its duties to the holder of political and economic power. Family membership is based on total participation in the life of the family-farm. The division of labour is family based and ascribed. The self-perpetuating family farm operates as the major unit of peasant property, status, socialization, sociability and 39  welfare, with the individual tending to submit to formalized family-role behaviour. Here the head of the family organizes production as the patriarchal manager of family property rather than as owner. 2. Land husbandry as the main means of livelihood directly providing the major part of the consumption needs. Traditional farming includes a specific combination of tasks on a relatively low level of specialization. 3. Specific traditional culture related to the way of life of small communities. To use Redfield’s expression, the peasants form a psycho-physiological race i.e. they display a specific cognitive paradigm. 4. The ‘underdog’ position; the domination of peasantry by outsiders. Peasants, as a rule, have been kept at arm’s length from the social sources of power. Political organization, educational superiority, and mastery of the means of suppression and communication give to powerful outsiders an almost unchallenged hold over the village communities. Political subjection interlinks with economic exploitation and cultural subordination. The social structure of peasantry is reflected in a number of a characteristics specific to its political life. ‘Vertical Segments’ are most important in the political sociology of such societies and the outsider/insider division in such segments may prove politically much more meaningful than national socio-economic stratification. According to E. Wolf (1966), the critical significance of the above conditions in which peasantry (usually under the influence of specific external catalyst groups) unites, or is united, into a political force which sweeps the countryside, shaking societies and regimes. 3.3.4 : PEASANTRY AS A PROCESS A sociologist has to explore the general pattern of change giving the dynamicity of peasant society. Comprehensive discussion of the dynamics of peasant societies would have to include non-structural changes. In such processes quantitative changes and changes in personnel leave the basic pattern of social interaction and interdependence essentially intact. For example, the cycle of nature and family life form an important part of peasant social existence, and seem to be reflected in patterns of social mobility in 40 which changes in the position of family units involved do not lead to change in the character of the social structure and may even support its stability. The attention of analysts was understandably focused on structural change. Such changes in peasantry usually have been determined by the impact of non- peasant sections of society, a situation which can be explained both by the character of the peasant social structure and by the very fact of peasant domination by powerful outsiders. The spread of industrilization, urbanization, market economy and mass media, etc. play their role in the gradual disintegration of its members into new and nationwide network of social interaction. Delineation and classification of the major factors of structural changes based on the four-facet typology suggested above, can be explained as— (i) Spread of market relations : The spread of market relations, the advent of a money economy and new technology, gradually transforming the peasant family farm into an enterprise of a capitalist nature. Increase in exchange, introduction of planning of farm production in generalized terms of money and profit, and the growing importance of capital formation in agriculture lead to the integration of farms into an all-embracing national capitalist economy and to the ‘individualization’ of their members. Introduction to specific ‘cash crop’ or ‘wage labour’ is an important stage in such development. The spread of market relations may lead to proletarianization of peasantry and growth of agricultural estates. At times, however, the major processes of concentration and accumulation of capital taking place in terms seem to influence agriculture through marketing goods and capital. (ii) Division of labour : Some division of labour has existed in every peasant community and was generally made rigid by tradition, reaching its climax and sanctification in the Indian Caste. The rapid increase in division of labour interrelated with the spread of a market economy, has lead to rapid development in professional specialization in the villages. Peasantry as a specific social class and a way of life develops into farming as an occupation. (iii) Acculturation : The acculturation process starts with the process disintegration 41  of traditional and specific peasant cultures under the impact of mass communication. The mass-media, the national educational system, military service and the temporary migration of labour, all exercise powerful influence by spreading new cultural patterns into the countryside. Improvement in means of communication and increasing geographical mobility facilitate and gradually establish a town-village continuum. (iv) Radical Political Change : With the advent of political change by non-peasant power holders and occassionally by a successful peasant revolution may lead to some basic changes in the structure of peasant society. Two major instance of such changes are agricultural reform and collectivization. Thus there is little doubt that the major pattern of change in the contemporary world lead it away from encompassing typical peasant social structure. Yet to discard peasantry as a Social group and a Specific social structure remains manifestly wrong. Even in our ‘dynamic’ times we live not in the future but in a present rooted in the past, and that is where our future is shaped. 3.3.5 : CONCLUSION In this unit we see, how the peasantry was visualized historically as a social entity. Initially it start