The Village Community

Caste and the rural milieu:

• A large number of people who worked as menials or agricultural workers were among those who tilled the land (majdur)
• Certain caste groups were allocated to menial labour since they made up a substantial portion of the village population, had the fewest resources, and were restricted by their caste system
• Menials such as halalkhoran (scavengers) were housed outside the village in Muslim communities, while the mallahzadas (sons of boatmen) in Bihar were treated similarly to slaves
• At the lowest levels of society, there existed a direct link between caste, poverty, and social position
• Due to the profitability of livestock and horticulture, castes like the Ahirs, Gujars, and Malis climbed up the social ladder

Panchayats and headmen:

• The village panchayat, led by a Muqaddam or Mandal, was an assembly of elders, influential persons in the community who had inherited rights to their property
• According to sources, the village elders selected the headman, who was then validated by the zamindar
• Individual contributions provided the cash for the panchayat
  • These funds were utilised to cover the expenditures of entertaining tax collectors
  • Expenses for activities that benefit the community, such as dealing with natural disasters
  • For the construction of a bund or the excavation of a canal
• The Panchayat was responsible for maintaining caste borders among the various populations
• They had the power to collect fines and impose penalties, such as banishment from the community
• In the village, each caste or jati had its own jati panchayat
  • These panchayats had a great deal of power
  • Civil conflicts between members of various castes were arbitrated by jati panchayats in Rajasthan
  • They decided whether marriages were done according to the norms in contested land claims
  • The state respected the judgments of jati panchayats
  • Petitioners in Rajasthan and Maharashtra had complained to the panchayat about excessive taxation or demands for unpaid labour (begar) imposed by the state’s “upper” castes or authorities

Village artisans:

• According to Marathi archives, craftsmen make up a significant portion of the villages’ population, accounting for up to 25% of all households
• In village society, the line between artisans and peasants was blurry at times, as many groups did both tasks
• Village craftsmen supplied specialised skills in exchange for compensation from villagers in the form of a share of the harvest or an allotment of land, maybe cultivable wastes
• Such lands became the artists’ miras or watan – their hereditary possession – in Maharashtra
• Artisans and peasants agreed to a mutually agreed-upon method of remuneration, usually in the form of commodities in exchange for services
• For example, in Bengal, zamindars paid blacksmiths, carpenters, and even goldsmiths “a little daily stipend and diet money” for their labour. The jajmani system was later coined to describe this

A “little republic”:

• In the nineteenth century, British administrators viewed the village as a “small republic” made up of fraternal partners who pooled their resources and labour
• Individual asset ownership existed, as were inequities based on caste and gender
• A small handful of powerful people ran the community, exploited the weaker portions, and possessed the power to administer justice
• Through trading between villages and towns, a currency nexus had formed
• Revenue was collected in cash in the Mughal heartland, and artisans, as well as producers of silk, cotton, and indigo, sought payment for items for export markets

Women in Agrarian Society:

• In the fields, both men and women collaborated. Women sewed, weeded, threshed, and winnowed the crop, while men tilled and ploughed
• Biases about the biological functions of women persisted
• In western India, menstruating women were not permitted to handle the plough or the potter’s wheel, or to access betel-leaf-growing fields in Bengal
• Female labour is used for artisanal jobs such as spinning yarn, sifting and kneading clay for ceramics, and needlework
• Women’s mortality rates were high due to hunger, many pregnancies, and death following childbirth, resulting in a scarcity of wives
  • As a result, social customs separate from those of upper classes emerged among peasant and artisan communities
  • Bride-price was paid to the bride’s family instead of dowry in rural areas
  • For divorced and bereaved women, remarriage was legal
• Women’s appeals to the local panchayat in Rajasthan, Gujarat, and Maharashtra are recorded in “Documents from Western India”
  • Wives opposed their husbands’ infidelity or the male head of the household’s neglect of the wife and children
  • While male adultery was not always penalised, when it came to ensuring that the family was adequately provided for, the state and “higher” caste groups intervened
  • When women petitioned the panchayat, their names were omitted from the record; instead, the petitioner was referred to as the male head of the household’s mother, sister, or wife
• Women had the privilege to inherit property among the landed nobility; in Bengal, for example, women zamindars were known

Conclusion

A village community is a collection of people who live in a specific geographical region and are united by a sense of community, shared lifestyles, and different forms of intense social contact.

The word ‘village’ refers to a small region with a tiny population that practises agriculture as a way of life as well as a profession.