The Social Structure of a Tanjore Village Kathleen Gough This is the seventh of a series of village studies published in the earlier issues of The Economic Weekly.
WO types of village structure serve the village temple. families, by contrast again, appear T appear to be present in Tan Kumbapettai is a fairly typical to demand rather more paddy and jore district. The most prevalent " Brahman village ". One-and-a- less cash; the average income of an is the mirasi village, where the land half miles square, with a popula Adi Dravida household may be is owned in small amounts by a tion of about 1200, it lies on a bus estimated very roughly at a value number of separate patrilineal route eight miles from a town. of between Rs 40 and Rs 80 per joint-families. This type appa Behind each house in the streets is month. Most Konar families keep rently dates in its essential features a small garden of coconuts and one or two cows, and in addition from the period of the Tamil Chola vegetables, while round the whole milk the cows and do garden work kings, whose power declined with village, for about half a mile, for Brahmans. Their service was the Muslim invasions of the early stretch its double-crop paddy fields, formerly hereditary: the same fami fourteenth century, and ended with watered by the intricate system of lies served Brahman families for the invasion from Vijayanagar in irrigation channels from the Kaveri generations and could not change 1534. The other type, the in am and its tributaries. their allegiance without consent village, dates from the Mahratta just off the main road, in the from their original masters. Today, conquest (1674-1799) when the northeast of the village, lies the individual Konar men, like Adi alien Mahratta kings made grants Brahman street of forty-six houses, Dravidas, sometimes become " at of whole villages to individual ten of which are now empty, their tached " for a period to a parti families of Tamil Brahmans and owners having moved to the towns. cular Brahman landlord through immigrant Mahrattas and to reli The tiled-roofed houses adjoin, indebtedness; they borrow money gious institutions. Here, I attempt and the two long rows face each from the landlord and must then to outline the social organization of other across the narrow road. work only for him until the debt a mirasi village in the northwest of Behind the houses, on each side of is repaid. In the old type of ser the district, and to indicate what the street, the gardens lead down vice, in which families of Konar seem, after four months of observa to irrigation channels bordering the and Adi Dravidas worked by here tion, to be the most important paddy fields. Two temples stand ditary right for Brahman families, trends of change. near the agraharam: that to Siva, the servants were called adirnai Tanjore village people divide the in the northeast, and that to (serfs). This word is now seldom many castes of Hindus into three Vishnu, in the west. Nearby are a heard, A few people, both Konar sub-divisions: —Brahman, non-Brah bathing tank, a shrine to Ganapathi and Adi Dravida, do however still man and Adi Dravida ("original near which the Brahmans recite work from choice for their tradi Dravidians ", sometimes called Hari- daily jabams after performing their tional masters, who distinguish be jans, most of whom were once ablutions, and a second shrine tween hereditary servants and hired serfs of the soil). The structure of built over the tomb of a Brahman labourers, and feel greater respons a mirasi village varies according to sanyasi of the village. The Brah ibility for the former, giving them whether it is a " Brahman" or a mans, with their gardens, temples, gifts at marriages and sending food " non-Brahman village". In the bathing pool and caste-shrines, during sickness. Hereditary ser " Brahman village ", the land is thus occupy the northwest corner vants are paid at least partly in owned by the several families of a of the village. A single non-Brah paddy, which they prefer. An Brahman street {agraharam). Some man house of Kutthadis, a caste ordinary hired labourer may be of this land is leased in small whose men formerly performed paid daily in the same way, or amounts on an annual tenure to religious puppet plays and whose monthly in cash: he is called a landless families of one or more women are dancing girls,, stands pannaiyal (workman). non-Brahrnan streets, usually of the alone on the northwest boundary of Konar are also tenants to Brah " lower" non-Brahman castes of the village. man landlords, usually to the men Ahambadiyas, Padayacchis, Konar, Southwards, across garden and whom they serve. The tenure is Muppanar or Vanniyar. Other paddy land, lie twenty houses, in called kuthakau An annual rent land, retained by the landlords two streets, of the non-Brahman in paddy is fixed according to the (who are called mirasdars), is culti Konar caste. The Konar are cow fertility of the soil, and paid in two vated directly by labourers from an herds by tradition. Their houses instalments, after the two harvests Adi Dravida street situated at some are smaller than the Brahman in February and October. In a distance from the rest of the village. houses, thatched, and set slightly bumper year, the tenant may retain In the " non-Brahman village", apart in their gardens. Today, one-third or even half the crop the land is owned by joint-families the income (derived from all sour after his rent is paid; in a bad of a street of non-Brahmans, ces) of Brahman families living year (like the present one) he may usually of one of the " higher " entirely in the village, varies from lose all or retain just enough for non-Brahman castes of Vellalar or about Rs 80 to about Rs 900 a the next year's seed and cultivation Kallar. Some land may be then month. The average Konar house expenses. The landlord may theo leased to other, "lower caste" hold, by contrast, appears to earn retically demand the whole rent in non-Brahmam, or more frequently one kalam of paddy per adult per paddy or its equivalent in cash at cultivated directly with the aid of month, plus Rs 20 to Rs 60 in the controlled price, whatever the Adi Dravida servants' In these cash' thus bringing the value of the harvest, and a very few do so. villages there is usually only a single total income to between Rs 50 and Most know their tenants' circum Brahman family, of priests who Rs 100 per month. Adi Dravida stances and give small concessions 531 May 24, 1952 THE ECONOMIC WEEKLY in a bad harvest. Always, how Finally, half a mile south across Only they may worship her, and ever, the power of eviction puts the paddy fields, lies a large Adi Dra she has a separate priest and tenant at his landlord's mercy. A vida , street of about eighty houses. annual festival. few fields in Kumbapettai are given These are the Pallas, a caste of Other ritual symbols and institu on varam tenure. The tenant takes adimai (serfs) who were formerly tions emphasize the unity of the a fixed fraction of the crop, usually " owned " by the landlords. Today, caste. Brahmans possess a single one-fifth, and surrenders the rest to they too lease kuthakai lands and cremation ground; Konar now share the owner. Though unprofitable, work in the paddy fields for a theirs with the other incoming non- the tenure is a more certain one daily wage, in some cases for their Brahman castes; and both Pallas for the tenant in a bad year, and traditional masters. Unlike the and Parayas have their separate with the recent succession of poor Konar, they were traditionally burial grounds. Bathing pools, harvests some tenants have come to prohibited from entering the Brah again, are distributed between the prefer it. man street, and none do so today. three major groups of castes. Also in the Konar streets live the Conversely, Brahmans may not Births, marriages, deaths, and propi village servant castes: one family enter the Adi Dravida street; to do tiations of ancestral spirits, asso each of barbers, washermen, car so would, it is believed, bring mis ciated as they are with the inti penters and blacksmiths, and three fortune on its inhabitants, Also in macy of family life, are intra-caste of potters. These all intermarry the south is a small street of Para- events. This is of course in har and interdine only in their own yas, the " lowest " Adi Dravida mony with caste endogamy and castes, and so have links with other caste whose traditional work is to with the fact that (with the excep villages. Formerly, all landlords remove and sell the carcases of tion of the servant castes who and tenants paid them twice dead animals and to watch over marry between villages) each caste annually in paddy: today, they are the cremation grounds at night. street formed until recently a group often paid in cash after each job Parayas, like Pallas, work for day of intermarrying kin. In the Brah of work. wages in the fields, though, unlike man street, caste unity is even more These non-Brahman streets are Pallas, they are not " attached " to apparent than among non-Brah traditional in the village, but two particular families of Brahmans. mans. Houses adjoin, and there other streets of non-Brahmans have Having outlined the caste groups, are even holes in the dividing grown up in the past fifty years. we may see where lie the most walls through which women may They live on the eastern boundary fundamental unities and cleavages pass messages to each other. of the village, on a tract of garden within the village structive. Most Caste unity, and the authoritarian land once granted as inam to a striking in a Tanjore village is the role of the landlords, appears again Mahratta servant of the Rajas. unity of the individual caste group: in village administration. The vil The Mahratta family lost its wealth this was usually, until recently, the lage forms a local revenue unit during British rule and sold the unity of a single street. The mem under a village headman appointed land fifty years ago to rising non- bers of a caste within one village by government. The headman Brahman families from other vil are first united by similarity of must collect the revenue from lages. These now include six occupation, of rights in the land, mirasdars, and has the right to try houses of Nadar, a " low " non- of income, and of ritual beliefs and small civil cases within the village. Brahman caste of toddy-tappers; practices. Formerly, all the Brah He is assisted by a clerk, and com five houses of Kallar paddy mer mans were mirasdars, all the Konar mands the services of two revenue chants; a poor Brahman family who kuthakai tenants, and all the Adi collectors and a peon. Theoreti have set up a "hotel"; and single Dravidas, landless labourers. The cally, these officials may be of any houses of Mahrattas, Padayaeehis non-Brahmans are set off from the caste; actually, of course, the head and Konar from neighbouring vil Brahmans by numerous differences man and clerk are Brahmans and lages who serve Brahmans or out of custom, chief of which are that the three servants, non-Brahmans. side landlords for a monthly wage Brahmans, unlike most non-Brah In addition, the village forms a in cash. Both Kallar and Nadar mans, eschew meat, fish and eggs, panchayat under an elected pancha- lease some land from the Brah and do not perform animal sacri yat board with a president and mans, but families of both also fices in temples. We have already seven members. The board control now own a few acres of their own, mentioned the Brahmanical tem a hind derived from a small por and lease other land from Muslim ples; these, now officially open to tion of the village revenue; their traders of the nearby town who all castes, are still almost exclu chief work is to maintain roads have recently bought land from sively used by Brahmans, though and wells. As might be expected,, emigrating Brahman households. non-Brahmans (but not Adi Dra- all are Brahmans, since Brahmans The Nadars before prohibition tap vidas) occsionally enter the outer own the land of the village. The ped toddy, and still work as court at a festival of the Sanskritic relatively modern institutions of coolies, for a wealthy trader of deities. The Konar have their own village headman and panchayat their own caste some six miles village goddess (grama devata) board have, in fact, been welded away; while the Kallar depend housed in a shrine between the into a much older form of admi mainly for their living on trans Konar streets. Her name means nistration which is still of great porting the landlords' paddy to a " Konar mother of the village"; importance. With the exception rice-mill, three miles away, whence she is outside the Brahmanical of the Brahmans, each caste street the rice is passed on to the district pantheon of deities; and she is annually elects two headman supply office. These two streets of propitiated daily by a non-Brahman (nattanmakkar or talaivar) who newcomers, only partly integrated priest and annually, with sacrifices, are responsible for maintaining in the village economy, will be at a festival peculiar to Konar. order in the street. Any offence .seen to be important when we The Pallas, similarly, have a shrine such as theft, adultery, assault, cr consider trends of change in to the goddess Kaliamman which encroachment on another's land, Kumbapettai. stands at the end of their street. demands the attention of the head-
532 533 May 24, 1952 THE ECONOMIC WEEKLY men, who haul the culprit before despite the ownership of land by deity. This deity is always pri- an assembly of men of the street. patrilineal joint-families, the dwell rnarily a possession of the non- Pallas hold their meetings before ing-group has no such individual Brahmans of the village: in the Kaliamman shrine; Konar, in strength. Kinship ties, instead of Kumbapettai, the goddess is herself the yard of the village goddess being strongly unilineal, as in a Konar woman who died of small- temple. If the offence is slight, Malabar, ramify widely in both pox, and the temple priest is a the headmen may pronounce jus paternal and maternal lines; the non-Brahman. But besides being a tice, themselves administering a fine joint family divides every genera deity of the Konar, propitiated by or a public whipping. In a more tion; and the local group of agna them at their own annual festival, serious dispute, the Brahman land tic kin [koottam—comparable to the goddess commands the alle lords of the culprits must be called the Nayar matrilineal taravad) — giance of both Brahmans and Adi to ratify the headmen's conclusions lacks corporate unity and is bound Dravidas at specific times of the and themselves execute judgment. only by the observance of death year. Her shrine stands on a In particular, any dispute affecting pollution. Houses and ancestral boundary of the village and her the reputation or the general peace land are readily bought and sold. idol is believed to protect the whole of the village requires Brahman The history of land rights in Tan community from crop-failure, infec intervention. In a recent case, a jore villages is relevant to this con tious diseases, female barrenness Palla stole a brass vessel from the trast. For until 1865, the land in and deaths in child-birth. House non-Brahman street of a neighbour mirasi villages was not owned by holds of all castes propitiate her, in ing village. Having caught him, patrilineal joint-families at all, but terms of their particular ritual the owner sent him. bound and held in common by the whole idioms, in cases of insanity, barren escorted by two Pallas of the caste group of mirasdars of the vil ness or disease. By far the chief offended village, back to his own lage, who periodically apportioned event in the village calendar is the landlord for justice. The Brahman shares by mutual consent for the larger, fifteen day festival to the landlord of our Palla called a maintenance of their separate fami goddess celebrated by the whole meeting of the thief's caste fellows lies. In Kumbapettai, this institu village in the summer season. At in the yard of the village goddess tion persists in the " common this festival, the image of the deity temple. There he elicited the lands " and " common money " of is nightly taken in procession facts of the case, exacted a fine of the Brahmans. Their cremation throughout the streets of the village Rs 10, administered a whipping, ground, certain threshing grounds, a and propitiated in every street in and obliged the culprit to drink a stretch of garden land, and the a manner peculiar to the caste. As pot of cowdung mixed with water, fishing rights in their bathing pool in all parts of South India, the " to humble him", as he said. all fall under this category, the village temple festival dramatizes The whole caste group retired, income derived from these common the separateness and also the inter satisfied that justice had been done. possessions being devoted to the dependence between castes and the The Brahmans themselves have no temple funds. In short, the Hindu need for their co-operation. Of headmen, and rely less on arbitra joint-family organization appears recent years, since newcomers of tors to settle their private disputes. to be at its weakest in Tanjore, diverse non-Brahman castes came This is in keeping with their posi and at its strongest, in Malabar, to Kumbapettai, there have been tion of authority in the village and the reverse being true of the unity disputes concerning precedence in with the fact that in general, Brah- of the local caste group. The two the rites. These once settled, the mans admit no superiors and pay areas probably represent the ex rank of a particular family in the less formal respect to their elders tremes of variation within a basic total village structure becomes pub' within the caste. It is difficult to ally common South Indian pattern. liely accepted. say how Brahman disputes are As in all Indian villages, how Other events and festivals unite settled. A few go now to the ever, a unity of the whole village the village as a whole. Chief of urban courts; many drag on tor overrides the separateness of each these are Pongal, the annual festi months, kept in check by the need caste. The basis of this unity is val for the harvest of the second to maintain Brahman unity and the economic interdependence of crop in January, and the day of authority before the lower castes, landlords, tenants, labourers and the first ceremonial ploughing, at until at last the ritual obligations village servants, and its perpetua the start of the Tamil New Year. of kinship force the opponents to tion, in my view, depends on the It is interesting to note that fights co-operate. maintenance of these economic between neighbouring villages often In a Tanjore village, the unity arrangements. In everyday life, take place on one or another of of the. caste street overrides the this unity of the village is hidden these festival days, thus further individuality of the dwelling-group, beneath the separate economic, reinforcing the unity of the village thus contrasting with the situation social and ritual activities of each as a whole. Spectators from neigh in a Malabar village. There, as caste and each dwelling-group; it bouring villages, coming to watch Dr Miller has described, the land is sometimes temporarily rent by the fun after their own celebrations of a whole village may be owned quarrels between individuals or be are over, or if their, own take place by a single landlord family, often tween kin-groups. Periodically, on another day, have several times of the Nambudiri Brahman sub- however, some event, ceremonial or recently fallen foul of Kumaba- caste. Among the Nayar land haphazard, occurs at which the pettai non-Brahmans and Adi Dra holders of the village, each large unity of the village is affirmed. vidas, so that a pitched battle with matrilineal dwelling group stands Such events always relate to the stones and staffs resulted. The abi supreme in its ancestral garden, welfare of the village as a whole lity to mass forces against interfer shut in by walls or hedges and rather than of any single part of ing outsiders is a measure of the with its own cremation ground, it. Concern for the welfare of the unity and self-sufficiency of the vil ancestor shrine, snake-grove, and village is expressed in the institu lage. So, too, is the degree to often, goddess temple. In Tanjore, tion of the grama devata or village which crime and scandal are kept 584 THE ECONOMIC WEEKLY May 24, 1952 within the confines of the village. vidas of adjacent villages. Such maintain their standard of living; Until recently, the police had little quarrels are still common, and cut and this, considering the increase part to play in Kumbapettai, for across, and therefore weaken, the in population and the small size the village was united against out cleavages between castes in the vil of holdings, is indeed usually true. side legal interference. Two mur lage. Even today, indeed, when The bad harvests of the last few ders and three suicides have, in the the system is far from stable and years have of course exacerbated past fifteen years, been disposed of antagonisms between castes have the opposition between landlord and hushed up by village authori deepened, it is possible to find two and tenant. One temporary solu ties, the police being quietly bribed Brahman landlords dragged into tion would seem to lie in fixity of and sent about their business. opposite sides of a quarrel which tenure and the fixing of fairer The stability of the traditional began between their Adi Dravida rents; but there is no doubt that village organization may be seen as servants. So strong, still, are the absentee landlordism and the tend a balancing out of various unities traditional feudal obligations and ency (less in Kumbapettai than in and antagonisms which cut across loyalties between individual fami some other villages) towards the each other. We have mentioned lies of different castes. amassing of large estates by a few the unity and separateness of the Today, however, the village landlord families, must soon be local caste group, and this, no structure presents no longer a nice checked by more drastic remedies. doubt, has always been accompanied balance of unities and antagonisms A stronger blow has been dealt by a certain antagonism between between caste and kinship groups at: the Kumbapettai social system the three major groups of castes— in a self-sufficient little republic. by the influx, in the last fifty years, an antagonism always engendered For obviously, the economic basis of of the two new streets of mixed by differences of wealth, of custom, the system has been fundamentally non-Brahman castes. These, owing and of interests in the economic: upset within the last fifty to seventy no traditional allegiance to the resources. But this antagonism years. It is impossible to enumerate Brahmans, tend to resent their could not, traditionally, break out all the ways in which this has authority and to set up an adminis into a quarrel between two whole happened, but we may mention a tration of their own. In one street, groups of castes. Non-Brahmans few. Most important in Kumba- the Nadar have founded a shrine could not, for example, rise up as pettai is the departure to urban to a local non-Brahman sanyasi, a body and combat their Brahman work of a large number of Brah and recently assemblies of the two landlords. There are several rea man families and individuals. A new streets, and sometimes also of sons for this, the chief being the few of these have sold their lands the Konar, have met to settle their lack of economic corporateness of to middle-class trading families of disputes before this shrine rather each caste group. Konar and Adi the nearby town; the majority leave than before the village goddess Dravidas were employed not as their empty houses locked and temple, and have declined to call whole castes, by all the Brahmans return after each harvest to collect in Brahmans to ratify their judg collectively, but in separate fami their rents, now in cash. Many of ments. The standard of living of lies, by individual families of land these men will return to Kumba the families in these two streets, lords. The system of tenure, and pettai on retirement from a govern partly employed as they are in the landlord's traditionally recog ment post; some, after more than trade and by landlords from out nized power of eviction, keeps the half a lifetime away in the towns side1 the village, tends to be higher separate families of non-Brahmans of South India, have already done than that of other non-Brahmans competing amongst each other for so. One result is that the number and allows them to dictate terms land and for employment. Perhaps of competent young or middle-aged to the local landlords. The Kallar a more important factor was the Brahman men left to manage; the paddy merchant's family, in parti sanction given to the traditional affairs of Kumbapettai is very few, cular, have become powerful non- rights between castes by ritual beliefs while those who do remain tend Brahman leaders: though hand-in- and by moral maxims acceptable to feel inferior and swamped by glove with the landlords in the to the society as a whole. It is their more adventurous kinsmen. sale of black-market rice, this ris these beliefs, together with their Relations between absentee land ing middle-class family refuse to continued economic dependence on lord and tenant are unsatisfactory. observe all the old rules of ritual the Brahmans, which even today Often, the landlord barely knows pollution with their employers; one prevent Adi Dravidas from entering his tenants by name and knows of their sons, together with two the Brahman street and temples, nothing about their circumstances other non-Brahman hoys of incom lest the deity should take ven or the business of cultivation. ing families, attends high school geance on them in the form of Often his only interest in the vil with the Brahman youths. disease or death. lage is to take away money from It is important to notice that As long as the system remained it twice annually; a few landlords the people who oppose the tradi stable, therefore, it seems as though, of Kumbapettai do not know the tional village system are not those in spite of covert antagonism be site and acreage of their lands. who suffer most acutely under it, tween people of different castes, Among both Adi Dravidas and the but those who have partly extri that is between the members of poorer Konar tenants it is begin cated themselves from it through groups of different order in the ning to be said in secret that such some change in their economic cir society, open quarrels demanding owners have no right to their cumstances. It is not, for example, united action on the part of the lands; since, as Brahmans, they no the very poor Konar tenants in group could take place only be longer spend their lives in praying Kumbapettai who support the tween groups of the same order— for the community and administer anti-Brahman Dravida Kazakam for example between branches of ing its affairs, they should no movement, but rather the some the same joint-family, joint-families longer share its income. To this what wealthier and more independ of the same casteTgroup, between the Brahmans reply that without ent " upstarts " of the two new all non-Brahmans or all Adi Dra urban work they can no longer streets, and to a much larger 535 May 24, 1952 THE ECONOMIC WEEKLY extent, the new, independent non- Brahman landlords of neighbouring Orissa Finances villages, who resent the orthodox Brahman's unwillingness to treat' S. Misra them as his ritual equals. Com munist supporters, again, appear to RISSA was formed into a special assistance to Bengal on ac be stronger among landless, high O separate province in 1936, count of her financial difficulties. school-educated youths of any caste a year before the introduction of Assam, Bihar and Orissa received and among Adi Dravidas who had provincial autonomy. The terri small shares as minor jute-growing temporarily left their natal village, tories constituting the province were provinces. Orissa's share amounted tried many jobs and come home to carved out of the provinces of Bihar to about 2 lakhs of rupees in the find the status quo too conservative and Orissa, Madras and the Cen first year of autonomy; but there for them, than among regular tral Provinces. As distant corners after till the end of war, it seldom labourers still attached to their and tail ends of the provinces con reached even one lakh a year. There traditional masters. There is no cerned, these areas had long been was no doubt considerable, increase doubt, moreover, that the tradi neglected and their administrative after the war; but the amount was tional forms of " caste distinction " development starved. The newly so small that it had scarcely any against which official propaganda is created province came into exist significance in Orissa's finance. so much directed will disappear ence as a particularly undeveloped from the village only when the old administrative unit. Bihar and The distribution of 50 per cent of economic arrangements which allow Orissa was the poorest province in the proceeds of income-tax among of high caste authoritarianism have India, where the scale of public the provinces was of outstanding been more thoroughly undermined. expenditure was the lowest. On importance in the Niemeyer Award. In Kumbapettai, the gradual drift account of its poverty, this province The distribution was determined to the cities of an educated aristo was exempted, under the Meston on the basis of residence and popu cracy, the transfer of land to settlement, from making any con lation, and of the provincial share, middle-class trading families of the tribution to the central revenue. 2 per cent was assigned to Orissa towns, and the infiltration of a Of this poor province, the Orissa on this basis. Before the war, the small, autonomous working-class portion was much the poorer and amount distributed was exceedingly group supported by urban forms less developed. It was essential to small and Orissa's share did not of labour, have begun this process, appreciate the position in order to exceed 3 lakhs of rupees. But and it may be expected to continue determine the treatment to be ac owing to the war-time expansion of until the village has lost its tradi corded to Orissa. Given the op income-tax revenue, the provincial tional integration and become little portunity of shaping her own des share rose to 29 crores and Orissa more than a unit of neighbour tiny, Orissa was faced with the received 58 lakhs in the last year hood. enormous task of making up the of the war. leeway. Her poverty and undeve loped economy elicited sympathy Of fundamental importance to from time to time; but she did not Orissa was the annual subvention receive the requisite assistance of 40 lakhs granted to her under necessary for her development. the Award. Niemeyer was impress ed with the crying needs of Orissa. For appreciating the financial It was impossible to ignore the fact, position of Orissa, it is necessary to he remarked, that the existing appraise how she fared with the standard of expenditure in Orissa Nierneyer Award. Sir Otto Nie- was exceedingly low. But in re rneyer was appointed to conduct an commending the subvention he did enquiry with regard to any special not take all the relevant factors into assistance needed by any province consideration. It is indeed un and the time and manner of dis fortunate that when financial settle tributing the provincial share of in ments were made, policies were re come-tax. It had been recognised vised in the light of experience and that at the inauguration of provin circumstances, but the basis of cial autonomy, each of the provinces these settlements was never chang was to be so equipped as to enjoy ed. In 1935, before the creation a reasonable prospect of maintain of the province of Orissa, budgets ing financial equilibrium. It was for Orissa were framed in parts in particularly important to bring to the three provinces of Bihar and an end the chronic state of deficits Orissa, Madras and C.P. and-the into which some of them had deficit was estimated to be 40 lakhs. fallen. The Niemeyer Award was This was clone at a time when the determined on the basis of these central and the provincial govern short period considerations of bal ments were carrying out retrench ancing the budgets more or less on ment and ruling out all schemes of the levels existing at the time. new expenditure. The three pro vinces concerned had no interest in Under the Niemeyer Award, the new province to be created and 62½ per cent of the jute export the financial position was not given duties was assigned to the provinces. proper consideration. Above all, This was intended to provide a the province had yet to come into 536