NOT FOR PUBLICATION

INSTITUTE OF CURRENT WORLD AFFAIRS

GS-21India: The V 1 lage-III

25A Nizamuddin WestNew De lhi

14 May 1965

Mr, Richard H, NoExecutive D1 rectorInstitute of Crrent World Affairs366 adison _venueNew York New York

Dear

Bajran and he more affluent members of Karimganj villagecontrary o the lower castes have both economic power and a politicalvoice, Being the dominant individuals in the village their favor andthat of oher members of he dominant caste is sought by politicianswho want votes, The ffongress for example seldom goes beyond a fewspeeches and vague promises in wooing the lower castes and he lowereconomic srata of village society, Its alliances are with the power-ful who are expected to delivermost of the villages votes atelection time, To his end theC’ongres’s in a state where itconstitutes the government(every state now except Kerala)will manipulate the bureucracygiving licenses permits favorscommon patronage and evenstrongarm protection to itscore of supporters among hedominant of a village, I havebeen told by politicians andpolitical observers that thisis a standard patterrb that theffongress derives., its powerlargely from a rampantly cor-rupts, spoils system, How farthis operates in Karimganj Icould not find ou especiallysince there was so much elseto learn, Bt of Bajran’sthree sons one Raj Bahaduris the Pradhan or presidentof the village panchayat orove rning counc i 1--anelective office--and anotherDevidayal is the operatorof the’.ecently installed

Raj Bahadur the Pradhanat the office on acharpoy in he familycourtyard,

Bahenji s granddaughter ool-lecting dung in the familycourtyard. Many girls andwomen wear nose rings andpins for decoration.

tubewell, which irrigates about700 acres in the village.Bahenji, according to frso iserdid a good deal of astute poli-ticking o bring this job intothe family so ingratiating her-self with the wife of the engi-neer o vould male ]e ])poin-.men !at the .ife supportedBahenji’s son and also nanaedto have a clerk in her husband,soffice ho had been bribed tosuport another candidate sent,away until after the appointmenthad been madm. though it wouldbe idle to expect that the twosonm,, will not be under pressurefrom favor-seekers and from theffngress., they may functionhonestly and effectively. Inany case Bajran and the otherdominant Bahmin families willmaintain their fortunate pomition.(Kll is not rosy, however forthe factional strife so frequenin villages exists in Karimganj,making it difficult for the Pradhanto get roads improved and so on.3illage government, in India possesses lile of the powerton meeting gorernment in lewEngland and therefore can beeasily stalled by dissenaiona

Bajran and the other wealthier farmers hae a relativelycomfortable economic position. Their harvests provide them enough oet and a sizeable surplus to sell. Several farmers told me that thewere eating bettr (more) than in times pas. Their diet: is also morevaried, both in relation to what they used to eat and to what the pooreat today. Najrans family eats the staple chappaties plus one ofseveral varieties of lentils at nearly every meal. Once a day they eavegetables. Bkjran eats onions (very nutritious but Bahenji doesn’tlike them rs. iser says). Some Urahmins will eat neither onions norgarlic for religious., reasons--they are considered aphrodisiacs, I thik;something many Indians dont want or dont need. The family eats no mea.and no egs(because they are also considered non-vegetarian) and hereis, very little milk available. They eat little fruit. .When challen.._dabout this by Mrs. Wiser Najran he! several roundless excnses andended up by sayin that they were simple people and simple food sufice[.The basic ’lacks in this kind of diet according tO Mrs. Wiser, arelitamin , alcium, and to some extent easily absorbable protein. Shecited the icase of a man whose teeth looked beautiful but wiggled in hsgums. len and children who o into the fields, hve a slightly betterdiet than women, who stay close .to home, for they sometimes eat rawcarrots, field peas, and one kind of lentils, as well as certain kinds

of leaves. Both men and children also chew sugar cane hich is rich inVitamin C. Eating habits are changing though. increasing number ofpeasants grow tomatoes as a cash crop and to eat--although there is atendency to take the cash and let the diet suffer. CUltivation of fr;i,

trees is also increasing. nd in one ton the bus passed hrough I sawpeople buying and eating newly washed raw carrots from shining orangemounds on push carts. The result of poor diet according to doctors Ivemet seems primarily to be a very low resistance to disease wounds healslowly and so on. a superficial level however Indian peasantshave an amazing amount of stamina despite their meagre fare.

W01 SPINNIN6

There is noweaver in thevi 11age now andthe raw co%tonthread wi 11 betaken to tainpurifor eaving: int.orugs

Rings not bells on hertoes, plus her ankle%s--the feet of a spinningwoman

Changes in the dietary andother habits of peasants appear tohave something to do Tith the questionof food supply and prices a mattercentral to the viability of theIndian economy. Some farmers as Ihave said are eating better thanthey used to. One many for exampletold rs. ,iser and me that ten orfifteen years ago there Tas verylittle Theat flour in his chappatiesbut not they are largely made of ata.Pesumably this is true on a Tide

scale and the poorer the peasant usedto eat the more of his increased pro-duction he probably consumes noT.Thus some of That may be recorded instatistics as an increase in produc-tion never reaches the market. Thisemphasize the effect, of the mostbasic fact about India: the count0rycannot ye feed itself Then one maneats more another eats less. Tradi-tionally in India the grain markeat harvest-irne has been glutted.the peasant has sold much of his drop

for cash to pay taxes (Thich fall due after the harvest) to pay rent- tthe landlord to pay for Teddings and to reimburse the moneylender. HTould then often have to buy grain in the market to feed himself beforethe net crop came in often going in debt to do so. In some measurethis pattern may be nearly inevitable but I Tas told both by villagersin Karimganj and by agricultural experts in ligarh that the disparitybetTeen harvest-time prices in the spring and market prices of grain inthe fall and rinter during the ast fT years has been so great thatpeasants no longer dare do this. year ago Theat sold at about- eight-eenor tTenty rupees for eighty pounds (a maund a common unit like ourhundred-Teight) but last fall and inter he price Tent to for6y-fiverupees and more. For this reason peasants appear to be conveing lessgrain into cash after the harvest and instead are soring it to feed them-seves. Storage space is a big problem for small peasants but I haveheard that they are sometimes digging underground pits in their housesand that they rent storage space from a grainmerchant paying him a per-centage of the amoun stored. This practice does not loer the totalproduction of rain yet i must affect the apearance of the rain situa-t.ion and it may push up prices. So much for the small peasant,.

ealthy farmers like Bajran Tho cannily pleads poverty withthe ardor of a Scot are in a much different position. They raise enoughgrain to eat, Tell and have a goodly amount to sell. They often have stor-age space and they have enough capital so that they have to sell only apar of the crop to pay the traditional spring season expenses. The resthey can save until prices begin to rise; they doubtless see no reasonhy they should sell at tenty and let the grain merchant make a profi-

of twenty-fiv.e. This is one as-pec of the problem of hoardingthat so exercised the governmentlast f:all. (-I donWt think theword hoarding w applies to apeasant who stores grain to en-sure his own survival.) Theother form is hoarding for specu-lation by grain me rchants. The reno doubt has been a great deal ofthis9 but the government hasnever really substantiated itsclaims against the grain mer-chants. And I have heard manyauthenticated ww reports that thegovernment only proceeded againstthose speculators who didntt makeadequate contributions toCongress Pary funds. InKarimganj one of the threetahajans with a shop on themain road reportedly speculatedin grain. /k justifiable al-though perhaps rudimentary con-clusion would seem to be that un-til the gap between spring sell-ing prices and autumn buyinprices cant.be lessened the peas-ant will only bring his grain tomarket when it suits him if atall. Families who know to theounce how much grain they ea aday will take no chances.

A grain storage jar in oneof the Teeli houses. Be-side it are mill-stonesfor making aria. The whistreaks on the edge of thestone are teeth that havebeen filed into it.

Changes such as these are only a few of the many that are takinplace in Bajrans household in Karimganj and in the villages of India.Two changes are fundamental to the others. The first is irrigation-..Karimganj now has a tubewell. About sixty feet deep its electric motorpumps 27000 gallons an hour enough to assure the village wheat cropby giving it three irrigations during the winter months and to permitthe production of new cash crops like D.evidayals melons. ore important,still irrigation means that chemical fertilizers can be used. Bajranand other landomers in Karimganj use it and to them superphosphate isnow as much a part of their language as Ramlila. Because of irrigation:Bajran has raised his yield from three to four maunds of wheat per bigaand9 according to agriculturalists in Aligarh should easily be able toraise it to six or higher. The average yield in U.F. is three maundsper biga. Also only through irrigation and drainage can the saltywasteland of :Norh India be reclaimed for farming; in U.P. its, is esti-

mated there ,are three and a half million such acres. T:o the eye or inits implications here s nothing lovelier than the swift rivulet froma tubewell running through the fields or than a major irrigation canalcurving greenly across a dry plain.

The unemployed oil presserand his buffalo.

Along with ferti-lizer and new crops come im-proved seeds and insecticides./hll increase the yield. -Andwith a basic food sup!lysecured new ventures can bestared. .,en Bajran was ayouth he wanted to take thefamilyWs extra milk and cyclethe seven miles to Mainpuri tosell it. His father said nobecause milk-selling was doneby the Ahirs a much lowercaste. Now Dvidayal wants toraise chickens and sell theeggs (and maybe eat a few whenno one is loking) and it isBajranWs turn to say no becausethe sweeper caste usualIy raiseschickens. Yet Devidayal is de-termined. He says that as soonas he gets some cashy he ts go-ing to go ahead and haechickens anyway. He probablywi 11 and anothe r breakthroughwi 11 have been made. Devidayalby the wayy is nearly my age

and his subservience to his father illustrates the traditional type ofauthority in the Hindu joint family. There are other new things inKarimganj such as the seed store and the cooperative bank--both tosome extent manipulated by the upuer crust in the villagey althoughagricultural credit willy it is hopedy be increasingly exended topoorer farmers. lany changes in Karimganj are subtlery brought aboutby the increasing ebility of people to get out of the village an o ideasto come in.

The arrival of new ideas and the increased opportunity topursue them is producing the :-second fundamental change in Karimganjand other villages:, the dilttton of traditional values and thebreaching of the solid wall of fatalism and resignation that has forso long held villagers prisoner. A weakening of traditional valuesis always dangerous. The resulting insecurity and unease bring ill-effects as well as progress. Btt the doing aay with fatalism andapathy is a prerequisite to any progress at all. This is not,

happening rapidly. The holes in the wall arenlt big and villagersaren’t rushing out of them; yet they ar going The trial of modernagricultural techniquesy among many other thingsy shows thisy forvillagers are now helping hemselves and do not just sit like ducksin the shlooting gallery Of fate. The impetus for change must Ithink continue to come from the top from government. il-lagerswill respondy but they seem not to have initiative. On the otherhandy Mrs. Wiser and others sensitive to the ways of villagers

believe that the governmen must first help bring &bout changes that tlvillagers themselves want. Iere is where the government falls down.It often supports projects that gain neither the peasants interest northeir support. And much more important I am told governmen ser-vants: especially at the lower level consider villagers more tradi-tional and apathetic than they really are. They don1 give them allthe help they wan. There is another reason for this: governmentservants are often more interested in their own status and securitythan in doing their job well. In one man ts phrase they are not

ttservice-orientedt they have their ovm apathy, and it may be moredangerous to the future of the country than the peasants’.

T Ttr ELL

Foreign observers, in India end o live on a pendulum swing-ing from hope o dismay and anger. I would be foolish o be oo opti-mistic,, in Karimganj or oo pessimistic in D.elhi although I confess heendencyo 11 one can do is wai--in which I guess heres hope--being careful as he saying goes here no o cook rice in he imaginaion

Yours sincerely ,.

ranville S. lusin

A par of Karimganj seen across he ank.

Received in New York May 20, 1965.