International Journal of Research ISSN NO:2236-6124 1

A SOCIO-ECONOMIC PROFILE OF NAYA- A VILLAGE OF PAINTERS AND THEIR PROBLEMS AND PROSPECT OF LIVELIHOOD PATTERN

1) Ayan Kumar Maity 2) Chandralekha Bandyopadhyay

(Asst.Teacher) Bansberia Municipal High School M.A. In Geography

Department of Geography The University of Burdwan

M.A in Geography (Gold Medalist) Burdwan 713104, West

M.Phil (Geography)

UGC Net qualified; B.Ed

Abstract

Naya is a village of scroll painters commonly known as patuas.This art has been practiced since thousand years ago. They are poor and marginal class. This papers attempt to discuss in detailed about Patachitra, their socio economic life geographical environment economic condition cultural identity and problem faced by them in their livelihood pattern with cultural change or erosion.

Key Words

Patachitra, Patuas, Culture, Crafts men, Natural color

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Introduction

The term “art” denotes a creative expression of artists. Folk-art is a branch of art rooted in tradition that comes from community and culture, developed in folk -groups and folk-societies. The ‘Patachitra’ is a traditional cloth based scroll painting. The word ‘Patachitra’ can be divided into two sub-words- such as ‘Pata’ means ‘cloth’ in Sanskrit and ‘chitra’ means ‘image’. The Patachitra is made by Patuas with the help of natural colors. Patuas sing songs displaying the Patachitra known as ‘Pater Gaan’.

Traditionally, the paintings were on mythological stories. The epic scrolls are religions. The paint on stories based on Manasamangal, Ramayana, Krishna and his love for Radha, on Satyapir or Jesus Christ. Many other topics life of tribal people, marriage of fish and stories of wild animals also expressed in their painted frames. Today, Patuas paint scrolls on contemporary social issues ranging from violence against woman of climate change Patachitra was originally an art form of the Santali community.

The scrolls are of mainly three types –

a) Jarano (rolles) b) Chankosh (Square or rectangular) c) Kalighat (Style of Patuas residing near Kalighat temple of )

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 Jarano (rolles)

Jarano pot means rolling pots. This pot is mainly used by the patua for sings the poter gaan which creates a deep influence on the folk people.

Jarano Pat

 Chankosh (Square or rectangular)

This is mainly used for decoration of house for interior design.

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 Kalighat (Style of Patuas residing near Kalighat temple of Kolkata)

This pat is mainly placed in the city of Kolkata for the temple of kali.This patuas started making musk of hindu God and Goddess and later they started making Pat.‘Sara’ pats made of clay used to worship Goddess Kali.

Types of Pat Culture Kalighat Pat 10%

Chaukosh Pat 25%

Jorano Pat 65%

The raw materials used to make a piece of traditional Patachitra paintings are – papers, clothes, adhesive and natural color extracted from fruits, flowers, vegetables, leaves and mud. The artist extract red color from saffron, blue from Aparajita, white from kusummati, green from runner beans or

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brown from Teak leaves ,Gum from wood apple is extracted in coconut sheen and mixed with natural colors and kept in the bright sunlight to darken.

The processes involve for formation of Patachitra are –

a) Outlines of the paintings are directly drawn on paper with paint and brush. b) The line drawings are filled in with colors. c) A layer of recycled soft fabric is pasted on the reverse side of the paper to make the scroll stronger. d) The paintings are dried naturally.

Processes involve for

formation of Patachitra

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Pata Chitra

Location

The most important Patuas settlement is Naya. It is a village of singing painters who practice the art of Patachitra painting. The

geographical location of the study area is 22.16 N and 87.36 E .This is under Pingla P.S, Paschim Medinipur District, and . The total geographical area of village is 341.78 sq hectors. Naya has a total population of 3960.There are about 962 houses in Naya. Kharagpur (45km) is nearest town from Naya. Male and female population is 2026 and 1934 persons.

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Literature review WELCOME TO NAYA

VILLAGE

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1) Das P.K. and Mondal AK. (2012) – The main findings are usefulness of natural dye and conscious of actual need of conservation of indigenous knowledge through natural dye yielding plants. 2) Bajpai L.M. (2012) – The main results are transformation which occurred within representation of the old tradition in modern new media and the issues involved there in. 3) Mondal K. (2015) – The main issues are effect of governmental action and how these artists have forced into the post colonial era especially in the situation of commercialized cash economy in a globalised area. 4) Dutta B.D. (2016) – It deals with methods, raw materials, and processes of Patchitra. It focuses on the transformation of the art from performative to demonstrative. 5) Mukherjee S, Mukherjee M (2016) – They explores the potential of handicraft as a promotional tools for West Bengal Tourism. 6) Mondal K. (2017) – The main findings are economic development of Patna community of Naya with reference to self help groups. 7) Mondal k. (2017) – The main results are to analyse the social customs, rituals and festivals of Patuas of the distinct of Paschim Medinipur. 8) Banik S and Kundu U (2018) – The main analysis are details of Patachitra and problems of their livelihood pattern. 9) Biswas K and Chakraborty P (2018) – The main results are possibilities of Tourism in the context of women empowerment in backward village.

Others – Sengupta S, The Patas and Patuas of Bengal, Indian Publication, Calcutta, 1973, Bhattacharjee B, Cultural oscillation (A study on Patua culture), Naya Prakash, Kolkata 1980, Dutta G Patua Sangeet, Calcutta University 1939.

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Research Question

From the literature review, the main gap is socio economic profit of Painters village. All of the studies are related to Patachitra – evolution, history, process, theme, cultural erosion and modernization. But the household survey with reference to socio economic profile from geographical view point is the main question.

Objectives

The main objectives are as follows –

 To find out the social economic condition of the Naya village.  To examine the geographical environment and their impact on economy of village.  To identify the internal characteristics of Folk Art and also its impact upon their livelihood pattern.  To access the problems of their livelihood patterns with reference to their main occupation and present dimension.

Hypothesis

All of the objectives are related to Null hypothesis or no relationship pattern.

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Methodology and collection

Household survey or primary survey is the main working methodology. Almost 71 household are independently survey with questionnaire schedules. Secondary source are collected from different journal, books, office etc.Random sampling as well as GPS survey are the main Design for collection of data from the field area.

Data Collection

Findings and

Discussion

Total no. of household of the region is 75. 40% House type is pakka and the remaining 60% is kachha.

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DIFFERENT HOUSE TYPE

60 40

Pucca Kachha

Male population of the study area is Male and female 230and female population is 110 from the population primary survey.Sex ratio of the village is 478 female populations per thousand male. So this reflects imbalance sex ratio of the 32% study area. So therefore it reflects the male Male Female dominated society. 68%

95% population of the village is Muslim and the remaining 5% is Hindu Therefore most of the people of this village are significantly Muslim community.

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Muslim and Hindu population

95

5

Muslim Hindhu

Source: Primary Data

Considering caste patter from the primary survey it reflects that 75% Patuas are OBC, 90% GENERAL caste and 6% ST caste. It is very interesting Muslim community people are involved in Hindu religion fact like Manasamongal, Devi durga, Radha Krishna, Ramayana and Mahabharata, Gita etc.

Chitrakar by caste

General 15% SC 10%

OBC 75%

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95% people of the village are involved in painting both male and female population of the family.Childrens of Occupational structure

the family are also 1% 3%1% engaged in painting with academic

study.1.5% people of Painting the village are Jwellary Furniture engaged in jewelry, Agriculture shop and 2.5% are also engaged in 95% furniture making. They are mainly migrated from this village to other.1% people are insignificantly engaged in agricultural. So therefore they are mainly patuas.So the main problems are if their work are not properly sale family income are depressed and it reflect their socio

economic life.

Average monthly income of a patua family is rupees 5000/- (approx) and annual income is rupees 2 lakhs/- (approx).The collective annual turnover for the Seven financial years are charted below –

YEAR 2012-13 2013-14 2014-15 2015-16 2016-17 2017-18 2018-19

ANNUAL 1CRORE 1.18CRORE 1.3CRORE 1.5CRORE 1.6CRORE 1.8CRORE 2CRORE TURNOVER

Report of Patachitra of WB, Montu Chitrakar, Secretary, Chitrataru

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Distribution of average monthly and annual income 250000 200000 200000

150000

100000

50000 5000 0 1 2

Source: Primary Data

Their cultural activities are now influenced by mass media like TV channel(Zee bangle SA RE GA MA PA, Star jalsa) – 35%.It is very much popular in Calcutta book fair, handicraft fair, local fair – 20%, this Patachitra dispersed different art college, workshop of different university – 20% and also other mass media like cinema, theater, drama etc 10%.

Influence of mass media of their cultural advertisement OTHERS 10% ART COLLAGE TV 20% 35%

FAIR YOU TUBE 20% 15%

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Different creative Patachitra produced by patua are exported within India like Delhi, Kolkata, Bombay, Ahmadabad, Coimbatore, Bangalore etc and outside of India like Japan , Germany , France, London and Newyork.So it is significant that their Patachitra has gradually famous within India and outside India.

Exported area of Pat chitra

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Their geographical environment is mainly rural. All colors are prepared from local and natural sources the surroundings trees they are leaves, root, bark , fruits and flower were used to prepare colors along with mud clay soil ash from earthen pots and soot from charcoal as well. The bluish made from ground seeds of the wood – apple tree and water. So the painters are used all of the raw material from the local surroundings mainly their rural periphery and generation history.

Patachitra can be divided into different categories like Indian religious Maithologies , local folk tales, tradition of local communities, stories of Hindu and Muslim saint Historical incident social and cultural incident like flood, famine, global warming, climatic change, deforestation, water crisis, AIDS and HIV.This socio economic interesting fact are contemporary issues in geographical environment at the present time.

Several problems of their social economic life are also identified regarding their Folk Art like financial, social, cultural erosion etc.

Problems

1. The financial position of the patua is very weak Hence they had to depend on the local money render for the financial equipments. 2. The Government had started a financial aid of rupees thousand per month to Patuas but this help is not consistent according to their opinion from survey. 3. Most of the Patuas level of literacy are primary level so it is very difficult to manage inventory, Govt. scheme etc.They don’t have any knowledge on the computer.

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4. Patuas does not have any organized marketing process due to poor financial condition. 5. Per formative art are gradually reduced so they were force to divert and diversify into other areas for survival. 6. Patuas of the village is a poor and marginal community in the context of Indian society & their social status remain unchanged. They live of the outside of the Hindu hamlet. Though their religion is Islam, they are not allowed to use the mosques of the Muslim in most of the cases. So they are gradually isolated and declasses from their society. 7. Rapid commercialization of folk painting of Naya with use of chemical colors at the hand of unskilled artisans may destroy their indigenous painting process. 8. Present day Traditional scroll painting appears are demoralized. 9. Modernization gradually changes their basic culture so therefore cultural erosion has been changed their socio-economic life.

Conclusion

Considering their socio economic profile it can be concluded that socio economic condition of the villages is not stable. Their life style and their creative occupational craft work is a unique example of cultural assimilation. Patuas mostly work on the traditional and unorganized sector. Proper attention by the Government, upliftment of educational status mainly female population, modernization of technological breakthrough, Economic diversification workshop, research, festivals permanent job facilities are main issues and challenges for their development of society with reference to indigenous folk art.

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Bibliography

1. McCutchion, David J. and Bhowmik, Suhrid K., Patuas and Patua Art in Bengal, Calcutta, 1999. 2. Sengupta, Sankar (ed), The Patas and Patuas of Bengal, Calcutta, 1973. 3. Bhowmick, Atul Chandra, ‘The Indigenous Art form of the Patuas of West Bengal’ in Midya, Dipak Kumar (ed.), Indigenous People in India, Delhi, 2012. 4. Dutta, Gurusaday, Folk Arts and Crafts of Bengal: The Collected Papers, Seagull, Calcutta, 1990. 5. Parekh, Bhikhu, ‘Defining India’s Identity’, India International Centre Quarterly, 33 (2006): 1-15 6. Jefferson, Pilar, ‘The Art of Survival: Bengali Pats, Patuas and the Evolution of Folk Art in India’ SIT Digital Collections, SIT Graduate Institute/ SIT Study Abroad:1-2. 7. Korom, Frank J., ‘Civil Ritual, NGOs, and Rural Mobilization in Medinipur District, West Bengal’, Asian Ethnology, Volume 70, Number 2- 2011. 8. Chatterjee, Suvapriya, Crossing the Threshold: Women Patuas of Bengal in Transition, Chitralekha International Magazine on Art and Design, (ISSN 2231-4822) Vol.3, No.1, 2013. Available at www.chitralekha.com/v3/n1/03_Women_Patuas_of_Bengal.pdf 9. Ansari, Shah Nawaz, ‘Socio-economic Aspect of Artisans in India in 20th Century’, International Journal of Humanities and Religion, www.humanitiesjournal.info Online ISSN: 2319-5630, February, 2014. 10. Ganguly, Kalyan Kumar, Designs in Traditional Arts of Bengal, 1963.

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11. Ghosh, Binoy, Traditional Art & Crafts of West Bengal, 1981. 12. Mode, Heinz & Chandra, Subodh, Indian Folk Art, 1985. 13. Ghosh, Binoy, Paschimbanger Sanskriti, Vol.-I, II & III, Prakash Bhawan, Kolkata, 2008. 14. Dey, Sankar Prasad, Swadeshpremi Gurusaday, Vol.-I&II, Farma KLM Pvt. Ltd., Calcutta, 1983. 15. Datt, R. & Sundharam K.P.M., Indian Economy, New Delhi, 1986. 16. Brochure: Craft Hubs of West Bengal, Department of Micro & Small Scale Enterprises & Textiles, Government of West Bengal.

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