R. Thomas Rosin Arts & Humanities︱ ways to actively thinking out problems stands in contrast to much of the rote memorisation then trained in village schools at the time of his studies.

HOW THE SYSTEM WORKS Thinking through livelihood: Rosin Wread Gail Credit: Photo In this large and complex multi-caste How a peasantry of princely Rājpuţāna became village community in the Aravalli Hillls, Rosin observed livelihoods raising educated and activist rural citizens of , livestock and double crop farming, supporting as well many craftsmen and shepherds who raised but a single rofessor Emeritus R. Thomas Rosin shared among families irrigating, and rainfed crop. Check dams collected R. Thomas Rosin, Professor Emeritus, explores how folk describes the complex system their egalitarian, supportive relations rain run-off from the surrounding hills knowledge and partnerships Pof rainfall harvesting, aquifer with in-laws in neighbouring villages, in numerous impoundments, such among tenant farmers in the recharge, and lift irrigation used on lands proved distinctive to the Marwar and as reservoirs, ponds, and silt-ponds. desert region of Rajasthan, bordering the in Rajasthan, regions. The solidarity and By excavating and carting silts and India supported peasant India. He explores how this demanding mutual trust enforced in their livelihoods manures to improve their irrigated activism and rebellion in system was key to the growth of formal lead to unity in political activism, shifting fields, they kept the beds of reservoirs the decades around Indian education among the peasantry here from social reform of their own traditions and ponds porous to soak and recharge Independence. Demanding during the pre-Independence period. to open rebellion. groundwater. Across generations, they livelihoods involving As activism swept the countryside, a few have reshaped the landscape to capture Rup Singh Mertiya , a bold and consistent ally to the tenant farmer cause, computation and ethno- would rise through formal education While referring to his own research and rain runoff to recharge the aquifers they with his daughter. hydrology prepared them for to positions in the royal administration published accounts, he taps as well tapped through shaft wells. formal education. Gandhi’s to craft the very laws that would guide the historic lore of the Jat community, Satyagraha (non-violent post-independence land reform in previously so central among activist Educated through apprenticeships With educated descendants of peasants resistance) campaigns in British western India. tenants, as presented in their working at these wells, four share- India inspired them as citizens contemporary websites enriching cropping families joined in partnerships. gaining positions of power, in a climate to overturn their domination as Rosin has spent many years over the tale: JatLand.com, 2017. Sustaining trust in sharing equal inputs feudal subjects in the princely multiple visits to a complex 24-caste of labour and outputs of grain required of rural and urban up-risings, the kingdoms of western India village community, stretching from In this collection of writings on careful monitoring of quantities and through radical land reform. 1964, just fifteen years after Indian education in South Asia, Rosin’s computing shares, encouraging a and royal administration acted Independence, until 2004. He chapter alone deals with informal mathematics on a base 4. Pebble to reform the system. conducted comparative research education through on-the-job training monitors tracked each lift of water across the boundaries of the previous and apprenticeships, as traditionally from the wells, orchestrating shifts in of groundwater flows. Such publications of a proposed government water kingdoms known collectively as practiced in the countryside. He the work force. Matching the acreage and maps supported a village-wide scheme, and contributed to policies discovering significant documents skills in monitoring, seeded with the anticipated reserves of petition to improve a levee and flow joining what had been the work of two differences in livelihood. Their large joint measuring, and computing among groundwater to bring a crop to maturity gate collecting rain water, which separate government ministries. families, uniting several generations into share-cropping farmers previously non- depended upon remembering and requires understanding how surface common households, their partnerships literate but numerative. Their inventive learning from estimates made in prior water influences groundwater supplies. Grand livestock fairs brought buyers seasons. Similarly, where to deepen a Together, they changed the direction from British India to purchase their well or dig a new one was a probing bullock and camels, so prized as draft about groundwater flows and pondering animals, while bringing together their relationship to surface collection farmers and shepherds to both trade of rain run-off. Rosin argues their skills and socialise from distant villages. They in management to plan, irrigate, or shared aspirations and news, making expand their crop land. He gives an them well aware of the nationalist example of their mental arithmetic movement under Gandhi and Congress skills when recounting a visit to a Party in British India. goldsmith to buy gold through a tricky calculation of cost in one’s head. Such LAND REFORM FROM RAJPUTANA families though previously not literate TO RAJASTHAN proved numerative, collaborative, and This village was in the Marwāŗ region empirically sensitive preparing their of the Kingdom in the area of descendants for success in formal Rajputana (what would later become education. Rajasthan), which was ruled under Professor Rosin explores how folk knowledge and a feudal system separate from, yet partnerships among tenant farmers in the desert region Local farmers requested Rosin to Social reformer, Mool Chand Sihag, protected by, the , although of Rajasthan, India supported peasant activism and inspired the Jat youth with a thirst for rebellion in the decades around Indian Independence. study and put into writing their education. the nearby town of was under

OSTILL is Franck Camhi/Shutterstock.com Franck is OSTILL understandings about the hydrology direct colonial rule. Hackman/Depositphotos.com

www.researchoutreach.org www.researchoutreach.org The first was Mool Chand Sihag, a social reformer who laid much of the groundwork for the education of Jat Behind the Research tenants. He inspired the Jat youth with a thirst for education, and set up a chain of student hostels that allowed them to Prof R. Thomas Rosin Photo Credit: Gail Wread Rosin Wread Gail Credit: Photo come to the towns to study in solidarity with fellow Jats. E: [email protected] E: [email protected] T: +1 510 524 1764 W: http://rthomasrosin.com/rthomasrosin.com/Welcome.html https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1446-9785 The second, and one of those he so inspired and educated, was Kan Singh References Parihar who trained as a lawyer and Research Objectives would later write the Marwar Land • JatLand.com. 2017. “Mool Chand Siyag” https://www. Thomas Rosin’s anthropological research, spanning more Reform laws. jatland.com/home/Mool_Chand_Siyag. Accessed 12 Feb than 40 years, began and continues in the western desert 2017 [Translated by Dayanand Deswal] and “Baldev Ram and savannah of Rajasthan, India, involving both intensive The third was Buldev Ram Mirdha, who Mirdha” https://www.jatland.com/home/Baldev Ram Mirdha. study of a single village community and regional studies • Kumar, Mayank. 2013. Monsoon Ecologies: Irrigation, of variation in adaptation, social organisation, and polity. entered the Maharaja’s service as a Agriculture, and Settlement Pattern in Rajasthan during the postman, and eventually rose to become Pre-colonial Period. Delhi: Manohar Publications. the police Deputy Inspector General. • Mathur, Sobhag. 1982. Struggle for Responsible Government Detail He was a strict law and order man, but in Marwar. Jodhpur: Sharda Publishing House. had much sympathy for the suffering of • Rosin, R. Thomas. 1978. Peasant Adaptation as Process R. Thomas Rosin, Professor Emeritus, Department of Anthropology, Sonoma State University, Rohnert Park, the common people. He also helped in Land Reform: A Case Study. IN American Studies in the Anthropology of India, ed. Sylvia Vatuk, 460–495. New California educate Sihag’s students and bring them Delhi: Manohar Publications and American Institute of c/o 976 Miller Avenue, Berkeley, CA 94708 Bura Ram Chaudhry, a courageous village into the royal administration, and his activist, sits posed and confident as a Indian Studies. land entitled farmer. power and influence helped dampen- • Rosin, R. Thomas. 1981. Land Reform in Rajasthan. Current Bio down violence between the authorities Anthropology 22 (1): 75–76. R. Thomas Rosin obtained his PhD from the University and reforming elements during these • Rosin, R. Thomas. 1984. Gold Medallions: The Arithmetic of California at Berkeley in Anthropology, with research in India spanning 1962-2004. His book studying land turbulent times. Calculations of a Non-Literate. Anthropology and Education Quarterly Special Anniversary 15 (1): 38–50. reform was followed by articles on cognition, choice and Up-risings and demonstrations in both • Rosin, R. Thomas. 1987. Land Reform and Agrarian Change; action generating patterns in architecture, settlement, WHAT DID THE ACTIVIST ACHIEVE? Study of a Marwar Village from Raj to Swaraj.: Rawat landscape and watershed, adaptation and recycling, the rural and urban sectors of his The non-violent, but coercive civil Publications. entrepreneurial activity, family and household structure. disobedience of satyāgrahā, empowered • Rosin, R. Thomas. 1993. The Tradition of Groundwater He is currently Professor Emeritus, Dept of Anthropology, kingdom convinced him to aspire as a the peasantry to challenge the free Irrigation in Northwestern India. Human Ecology 21 (1): Sonoma State University. 51–86. labour, exorbitant rents, and cesses constitutional monarch to bring his realm • Rosin, R. Thomas. 1994. Locality and Frontier: Securing Funding on their ceremonies. With educated th Livelihood in the Aravalli Zone of Central Rajasthan. IN The American Institute of Indian Studies, Fulbright Research into the 20 century. descendants of peasants gaining Idea of Rajasthan; Explorations in Regional Identity, Vol. II, Fellowship, Smithsonian Foreign Currency Grants positions of power, in a climate of rural eds. Karine Schomer, et al., 30–63. New Delhi: Manohar and While the Maharaja ruled, seventy conference gathering activist farmers, and urban up-risings, the Maharaja and American Institute of Indian Studies. Collaborators percent of the land of his realm were the Maharaja listens. The Maharaja royal administration acted to reform the • Rosin, R. Thomas. 1995. An Ethnographer’s Perspective Sukhdev Sharma, School Master of Gangwa; on the Groundwater Crisis: A Longitudinal Case Study of a Rup Singh Rathore held by various rulings classes of princes, goes further, perhaps influenced by system of land ownership throughout Rajasthani Village. IN Groundwater Management: The Supply lords, land-entitled priests, warriors, and the Jats within his administration and his realm. Dominated Focus of Traditional, NGO and Government moneylenders. Their share-cropping the non-violent resistence of these Efforts, ed. Marcus Moench, 5–37. Ahmedabad: Vikram Personal Response tenants paid ever increasing rents, free widespread, assemblies of peasants. The inspiration and effectiveness of Sarabhai Centre for Development Interaction (VIKSAT). labour, and cesses to gain permission His royal administration drafts the satyagraha in British India to force • Rosin, R. Thomas 2019 Thinking Through Livelihood: How In so uniting Anthropology with History through to perform their ceremonial religious, initial laws to sweep away the feudal inquiry, fact finding, and negotiation a Peasantry of Princely Rajputana Became Educated and long-term research, what are your plans for Activist Rural Citizens of Rajasthan, India. IN The Impact future work? cultural and life-cycle rites and practices. land ownership titles and governance led to the Maharaja replacing his British of Education in South Asia; Perspectives from Sri Lanka to oppressing the countryside. Lord as prime minister of his realm by By joining the archival works of Ramachandra Guha Nepal, ed. Helen E. Ullrich, pp. 219-243. Cham, Switzerland: on Gandhian satyagraha campaigns in British India the brilliant Indian Civil Service officer HOW SOCIAL UP-LIFT BECAME Palgrave Macmillan. with studies focused on Marwar – such as Hira Singh A MOVEMENT FOR REFORM WHAT PERSUADED THE C. S. Venkatachar. Up-risings and • Singh, Dool. 1964. Land Reforms in Rajasthan: A Study of on peasants petitioning their maharaja, Mayank Kumar Meanwhile in the kingdom’s capital TO MAKE REFORMS demonstrations in both the rural and Evasion, Implementation and Socio-Economic Effects of Land on hydrology, Sobhag Mathur on civil resistance – I am Reforms. New Delhi: Research Programmes Committee, Jai Narayan Vyas since 1920s joined EXEMPLARY FOR THE FUTURE urban sectors of his kingdom convinced detailing the links that brought Gandhian satyagraha Planning Commission, . others forming civil societies, each him to aspire as a constitutional monarch strategies into the Rajputana princely states. As some DEMOCRATIC PROVINCE • Singh, Hira. 1998. Colonial Hegemony and Popular th maharajas of Rajputana replaced British lords as prime eventually banned, with leaders exiled OF RAJASTHAN to bring his realm into the 20 century. Resistance: Princes, Peasants, and Paramount Power. ministers of their realm with brilliant Indian Civil Service or imprisoned. They set the urban scene The ruler of Jodhpur mid-1940s was Gandhi through his “experiments in Walnut Creek, CA, London and New Delhi: Alta Mira and officers (such as C. S. Venkatachar), we can show in the for change. During the early 1940s H.H. Maharaja Umaid Singh. The truth” was empirically exploring how Sage Publications. most comprehensive way how an area was transformed Mool Chand Sihag’s Jat Farmer’s Reform changes that came about during to enthuse and dignify his fellows as • Sisson, Richard. 1969. Peasant Movements and Political without the massive tragedies that engulfed the rest of Mobilization: The Jats of Rajasthan. Asian Survey 9: 946–963 Society of Marwar became among the independence, Rosin contends, were citizens, whether urban or rural, to create India at the time of Independence. (December). first civil organisations not suppressed possible thanks to the entrance of three and sustain the institutions that would • Sisson, Richard. 1972. The Congress Party in Rajasthan: by the Jodhpur royal administration. Jats, well-educated descendants of move ever closer to the rule of law, Political Integration and Institution-Building in an Indian State. Appearing at their anniversary share-croppers, into his administration. justice, and human rights. Berkeley: University of California Press.

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