CENSUS OF I lDIA 1961 'TOLU ~i l~ .,_-I MYSOR E ART V ILL ,A G E SUR VEY MON G APHS No. 29 GORUR VILLAGE I Hassan Taluk, Hassan District Editor: K . .S )' LASUBRAJHANY AI\t, - of the Indin.n AdminiRt,rat,ive Servioe, Superintclldent of Icnsus 0lotu,t,iol1s ill l\Iysore - -- 1974 PRINTED IN T~'DIA AT 1'1LE GOYEH.NME~'l' BRA"t~Cll PRESS, nHARWAR " "'if'D 'PUBLl[f;llTDD T!Y THE ) IJ\:\_lGER Olf rtJBT.ICATIONS, DRLBI-6 ,, AP OF MYSORE ARABIAN SEA INDE~ 7 FORE WORD Apart from la.ying the foundations of demography in this suhcont.inent, a. hundred years of the Indian Census has also produced 'ehl.borate a.nd scholarly accounts of the varie~aterl phenomena of Indian life - sometimes wit.h no 8tati:4ics fl.ttadled, but usually with just enoufl,h statistics to give empirical untler - pinning to their ,·'llwlll,ions'. hl a eo'ulliTY, hrgely illitemte, \Yher~ stati~;tical or numerical comprehension of evell ~mch it ~imple thill~ as age ,,'a:> liable to Jw inaccurate, an understanding of the social structure was e""ential. I t was more neC'cs.<;ary to attain a broad understanding of what was happening around one~elf than tt) wrap oneqelf up in '",tatisti{'al ingenuity' or 'mathematical mani­ pulation'. This explains w}n' t he Indian CensUR ea me to be interested in 'many by-pat.hs' and 'nearly every branch of scholarship from fluthropolog:v and sociology to geography and religion'. In t.he la"t few (lecfl,de~ t.he Censu'l has in('rea:'!ingly turne!l it:'! efforts t.o the presentation of village statistics. Thi.s ~uits the temper of the t,ime;;:. as wen as our politic:1.l and economic structure. For even as v.:e have a great deal of centralization on the one h~Hl(l an(1 decentralisation on the other, my colleagues thought it would be a welcome continuation nf the Census tradition to try to inveRt the dry bones of village statistics with fle~h- and-hlood accounts of s<)ciill structure and social ehange. It was accordingly decided to select f\ fe\v village" in every State for "pecial study, where personal observation would be brought to bear on the interpretation of statistics tv find out how much of a village was static and yet changing and how fast the winds of rhan?-c werr blowing and from where. Randomness of selection was, therefol'e, eschewed. There was no intention to build up a picture for the wbole State ill quant.itative terms on the basis of villages selected statisticaily at random. 'rhe Elelection was avowedly purposive: the object being as llluch to find out what was happening and how fast to those villages which had fewer reagon~ to choose change and more t·o remain lodged in the past as to discover hOI, the more 'nol'mal' types uf villages were ('hllngillg. They were to be primarily type 8tudi~3 which, by virtue of their number anri distribution, would also give the reader a 'feel' of what was going on ann. some kind of a map of the country. A brief account of the testR of selection will help to explain. A lUlllll11Um of thirty-five villages was to be chosen with great care to represent adequately !!eogmphicaJ, occupational and even ethnic diversity. Of this minimum of thirt.y-five, the dist.ribution was to be as follows : a· At least eight villages ,yere to be so selecterl that each of them would ('ontain one dominant communit y with one predominating oecupatioll, e· Y" fishermen, forest workers, jham cultivators, pottm's, weavers, salt-makers, quarry ,,{wkers, etc. A village should have a minimum popuifttiol1 of 400, the optimum being between 500 and 7(lO. b. At, least "even villages were to be of numerically prominent Seheduled 1'ribes of the State. Each village could represent a particular tribe. The minimum population shonld be 400. The optimum being between 5(10 and 700. c. The third group of villages 1'1hould each be of filir size, of an old and settled character and contail! varie~flted occup:ltions and he, if possible, multi-ethnie in composition. By fair size was meant it population of 51)0--700 persons Of more· Tlle village should mainly depend on agrieulture and be sufficiently away from the major sources of modern comlllunication such as the district administrative headquarters and businpss centres· It should be roughly a day's journey from -the above placeR. The vi11ap;es were to be selected with an eye to variation in terms of size, proximity to city :mJ other means of modern commnnication, nearness to hills, jungles. and major river1'1· Thus there was to be a regional distribution throughout the State of this category of villagf's, If, however, a particular district con­ tpined significant f'cologieal variationR within its area, more than one village in the district might be selected to study the special adjustments to them. It is a unique feature of tbse village slll'Veys that they rapidly outgrew their original terms of reference, a!; my colleagues warmed up to their work. This proved for them an absorbinf!: voyage of discovery and their infectious enthusiasm compelled me to enlarge the inquiry's scope again and again. It Wl;)S jllst as well c>lutiou'lly to reel one's way about at first and then .... enture further afield. and although it accounts to some extent for a cel-tai~ uneveIme&8 in the quality and coverage of the monographs, it :oerved to compensate the 'Purely honorary and extramural rigours of the task. For, the Survey, along with it,.; many anllillaries like the survey of fairs and festi,als, ()f small [\nd rural industry ann othprs, was an 'extln', o\-er an·l abOY8 the crushing load of the I9Gl Census· It might be of interest to recount briefly the stage hy wl1ich the Survey enlarged its scope. At the first Census Conference in September 1 ~;)9 the Survey set itself the task of what might he called a record in sitn of 1l1.aterial traitB, like 8ett\elllent patternB of the village; house t~ypes; diet; dress.; ornaments allil foot-wear; furniture ttnrl storing vessels; eommon meanR of transport of goods and passengers domestication of animals and. birrlfl>: markets attenllwl: worship of dejti~s, festiv~ls and fairs. 'rhel'e were to be reeord.inf!f', of cOU]"!"P, of cultural and f'ocial traits and occupational mobility. This was followe(l l.lp in }Iarcb 191)0 by two "'Pecimell "chertules, one for each household, the other for the village as a whole, w111e11. apart from spelling out the mocle of inquiry suggel'lted in the Septemror 1959 conference, introdllcecl groups of question;; aimed at sensing changes in attitude and behaviour in imell field, as marril1;_>p, inheritance. moveable and immoveable property, industry, indebtedness, educatioll; comnulllitv life and col1edive activity, social ni.sabilities forums of appeal over disputes, village leurlerRhip ;tn,l organiRation of {·.ulturallife· It was now plainl\" the intention to provide l\dequatl' ~tntiRtical support tn empiricftl 'f(>e1' to approach qualitative cl1ange through statistical quantities- It llad been difficult. to qive thought to the importance, of 'just enough statistics to give empirical underpinning to eonclusion', at a t.ime when my eolleagues were straining t.hemselves to the utmost for the success of the main CensuR operations, but once the Census ('onnt ihelf was left behind in March, 1961, a series of threc regional s!'minars in 'Trivandrum (May 19(H), Darjeeling and Srinagar (June 19(1) restorerl their attention to this field and the importance of tracing social change through a numhel' of well-devised stati"ticul tables was once again recognised. This itself presupposed a fl'cs~l survev of yillage;:; alread." clone; but it y;as worth the trouble III vie\y of the possiiJilities that a clo"e analysis of statist.ics offered and also because the 'consanguinity· schedule rcmained to be canvaRsed. By November. l~)fil, however, Inore was ex­ pected of these surveys than ever before. There was di:-lsatisfaetion on the one hand with too many general "tatement" and a growill:,! ,le:=;ire on the otller t.o (1raw conclusionI'! from statistics, t.o regard Rocial and ecorOlflic dab ;u int.errelaterl IJl'ocesses, and finally to examine t.he social and economic processes set in motion through lanil. reforms and other laws, legislative and administrative measures, technological anrl cultural change. Finally, a study camp was organised in the last week of December, 1961 'when the whole field wa" carefully gone through over again and a programme worked out closely knitting the various ainHl of the Survey together. The Social Studies Section of the Census Commission rendered assistance to State Superintendents by ,,-ay of serutillY and technical comment on the frame of Suryey and 'Presentation of resnlts. This gradual unfolding of the aims of the Survey prevented my colleagues from adopting as many villages as they ~had originally intended to. But I believe that what may have been lost in quantity has been more than made up for in quality. This is, perha.ps, for the first time that such a survey has been conducted ill nny country, and that purely as a labour of loy('. It has succeeded in attaining what it set out, to achieve.; to construct a map of village India's Social structure. One hopes that the volumes of thi" ::;Lll;vey will help to retain for the India Census its title to 'the most fl'p.itful single source of illfu! matiun about the country'.