CENSUS. OF INDIA 1981 Part X B SERIES 3 ASSAM SURVEY REPORT ON TOWN BARPETA Draft ,Report By s. K . BORA Investigator Edited By N. BHATTACHARJEE Assistant Director of Census Operations, Assam Supervise_d By J. C. Bhuyan Deputy Director of Census Operations, Assam CONTENTS Pages FOREWORD­ (v) PREFACE­ (vii) MAP Barpeta Town. OX] CHAPTER I, Introduction 1 - 6 CHAPTER II·' History of Growth of the To~n 7 -1& CHAPTER III Amen,ities and Services - History of GrQYVth ao..d the Present Pos,ition 17 • '36 CHAPTER IV Economic Life of the Town ~7··' 70 CHAPTER v- Ethnic and Selected Socio-Demographi~ Characteristi~~ of the Population 71 - '100 CHAPTER VI Migratio_n and Settlement of Famil,ie.s, 101 - 119 CHAPTER VII Neigt)bourhood Pattern 121. - 128 CHAPTER VIII : Family Life in ~he Town 129 -' 1~' CHAPTER IX Housing and Material Culture 149 - 162" CH PATER X Slum-Blighted and, Other Areas of S~b- sta!')d~ro Living Conditions 163 - 164 CHAPTER XI Organi$ation of POVier and Prestige 165 - 175 CHAPTER XII' Leisure and Recreati9n, ,Soci?1 ParticipatioQ, Social. Awa(ene~s, ReliQion and Crima: 176 -' 185 CHAPTER XIII : Unl5age and Continua 187 ~, 207 CHAPTER XIV: Conclusion 209 - 211 APPENDIX 1- : Explanation of CocLes of Natiqnal Classification of Occupation (NCO 1968) used in ,differenL tables in the report 213 ,;_ '-'216 APPENDIX II Tables Bas~d on HousE)hold Schedules (Sample Survey ,Data) 217 -.503 iii FOREWORD. Apartfrom the decennial enumera!l_on of population, the Indian Census is.steeped. in the tradition of undertaking a variety of studies of topical interest. In. fact, thj; publications brought out in connection with the earli§.r censuses c.ontain~d v~ritabl~ mines. of lnformation on racial, cultural, Unguistic and a number of o,her asp~cts. .of life of the people of this country. With the adve[lt of freedom, however, the scope and dimension of these special studi~s had to be restructured in a manner that would provid~ the basic.-feedback.s on the processf3s of development taking place in diff(:Jrel}t spheres of life of the people especially under planned development. Thus, incon,l1ectiPD with the 1991 Census, a ma.§sive programme was launched .. _ interelia to condv.~t socio-economic survey of about 500 vill~gQs select~d from different part_s of the counJry. The main oblec~!ve of this st~9Y was to. knqw the way of life of the peQple Ji\(ing in Indian village_s which accounte.d for 82 per cent of tna total population as per the 1991 Cens~s. There was, however, an impera!ive n~~d to extend the area of the study to urban centres as well, to provige a comple~~ coverage of the pegple living in diverse socio-economic conditions. It. was with thi§ objective in view ancillary stL!dies on tOVl(ns were daunched as part of the sqcial studi~~ programme in connection with the 19]1 Census.!-. The programme of social stuq!~S taken up in conneqtion with the. 19]1 Censu§, was continued :witho.ut any major ch,ange at the 1981 Census as well. A study of traditional rural based handicrafts was, however, added as a. new it~m under th~ social stu~y projects of the 1981 Census. For the conduct of urban study, q4 s,mall and medium towns were selected from diffe~ent parts of the country following t~e, crit,eric;l such as, (a) size, (b) demographic feature,s, (c) functio,nal characteristics (9) specific industry or occupation dominatif}g the economy, (e) locatjon, (f) concentratio~' of different castes and communitl~s, and (g) oth.er social and cultural phenomenal'!. Ilke tem'ple town, heaJ~h resort etc. The research deSign, tools. for data collection and formats for data tabulation t- • .'-,- and report writing required for urban studies were origi.n~lIy formu.lat~d by Dr. B.~ , Roy Burman, th~ th~n Deputy Registrar General, Sqcial Studi~s Division. His s~J~­ ce~S9r, Dr. N.~. N.c.tg tOQk considerable pains to revise all the formats to. make th~rn mare cOJ!lpr~hensi~. pr.. K.P. It~rnrn~an, the "res.ent D~pvtY Registr.ar GeneraL h~aging Social Studies Division, coo(dinates these studjes at different levels a$ well ~ , fill'" a~ re~der~p neces$a~ry guidance to the Dir~ctorates of Census Operat!pns for t~.~jr success~~1 consummatipn, St'lri M.K. J~in, Senior Research Officer wjth the able.. ,,~~sLsJ~ng_e o~ lnvestigato(s Shri .R~K. M~hta and Shri Sudesh Madan did a camrnend.­ apte jO_Q in sc~~inisi~g the reports and communic~ting the comments theregn to the. D~rf3ctorates. I am grateful to. call of them. v The present rep-art is the out-come of a study on. Barpeta town in Barpeta distriq ! of Assam. undertaken by the Directorate of Census Operations, Assam. I am indebt_~d to Shri J.C. Bhuyan, Deputy Director and his colleagues in the Census Directorate for their pair)staking efforts in bringing out this report. New Delhi V.S. VERMA 1st June, 1988 Registrar Genera~ India vi PREFACE More than a century ago Assam. as.i~ exists tod~y with its territory, had on~ eight towns and Barp~~a had the distinctidn of being one among them. At the fir.§! systematic Census of Inqia conduct.~d in the year 1872 Barpeta had returned a popu.­ lation of 10,606 which ranked second only to Guwahati 'with a population of 11,492.. Till mid-1983 this town was the he~d-quarte[J) of the erstwhile Barpeta Sub-divisign of Karnrup distrLct which in it~ entirety had been conv~rted into a full-fledged district by a State Govt. Notification issued in June, 1983 and thus the town now enjoys, the status of a district headquarterf? Though over the decades Barpeta has not significantly developed into ~D ideal. urban centre,it occupies a position of pride in the socia-cultural map of India in general and Assam in particular. It has the unique distinction of having th~ 'Satra' the. monastery established by Shri Shri Madhab De", The disciple of the great philoso-. pher-poet-saint-sociaJ reformer Shri Shri Sankar Dev, at the behest of his mentor which promotes the art and culture associated with Vaishnavism and is regarded as a seat of much dignity and wealth in the country as a whole In this report an attempt has been made to portray the socia-cultural and demQ­ graphl,c profile of the dwellers of the town who despite belonging to different caste" creed and community live together in perfect ~mity and peape. The data have beeD collect~d through a socia-economic survey conducted in the select~d household§ as also by contacting vario1.}s educational, religious and other institutions, trade anc.t commercial establishments, goverf')me.nt and semi-government offices as well as by.J meetin_g quite a few eminent persons in the town. We have al~o made- ~xtensiv.. e 'use of 1971 Census data there be_ing no census in Assam in 1981, at different stage~ of analysis of variqus aspects of socia-demographic features. The field surv~y was undertaken by Sarvashri G.K. Dutta, P. Kalita, B. Saikia. and D! Barman, Statistical Assistants. The compilation and tabulation of various da~a co"e~ted during the survey was done by th~ aforesaid officials as also by Smt. P. Bhattaeharjee and Shri C. N. Ojah, Computers and Smt. K. Das and Shri B. Chutia, Assistant Compilers under the efficient guidance and supervision of Shri S.K. Barua and Shri B:.M. Talukdar, Investigators. Shri S.K. Bora, Investigator drafted the report. Shri T.D. Sinha, Statistical Assist~nt made significant contribution in finalisation 'of. the report. Shri N. Bhattacharjee, Assistant Director (T) did the painstaking job of editing the report,. We are greatly indebted to Dr. ~.P. Ittaman, Deputy Registrar General, Social Studies Division in the Registrar General's office for providing us with most valuable, suggestions in improving the draft after a thread-bare scrutihy of the same. A worcl of thanks must be said of Shri B.P. Jain, Deputy Director of Registrar General's office who took great pain in seeing the report through the press. We are indeed grateful to the residents of Barpeta for the wnole-hearteo cooperation received from them vii in conduct of the survey. We acknowled~ie our debt of Shri Gokul Pathak a maD of great literary talent who provided us with many useful information. The various government and semi-government establishments located in the town al~o deserve' our sincere thanks for providing us with multitude of tlsefwl data. Above all we place on record our deep sense of gratitude to Shri V.S. Verma, Re€listrar General, India for his constant encouragement and tireless guidance in every stage of production of this report. ' Guwahati J.e. BHUYAN. April 25, 1989 Deputy Director of Census Operations Assam viii BARPETA TOWN REFERENCES TOWN BOUNDARY _._-_._. WARD .@Y' .. WARD NlMIER METALLED ROADS RIVER ~ BUILDING 0 HOSPITAL EB TEMPLE :Ii!: f\ ~ NOTE - NOT TO sCALE - SOM£ OF THE DETAILS· ARE APPROXIMATE. ix CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION Location north-eastern region. There are a great number of Satras in Assam but all of them are not equally Im­ Barpeta, one of the 80 towns of Assam, Is portant. Even those regarded to be important are situated at the western part of the northern bank of also completely overshadowed by the famous 'Satra' the district of Kamrup.