LAND AND LABOUR IN A DECCAN VILLAGE STUDY No. 2. BY HAROLD H. MANN.
PREFACE THE study of rural life and of rural conditions by close
inquiry into the circumstances of a single unit, be it village,
parish, or estate, has come to the front prominently in recent
years as a method of social and economic investi gation. And by the
use of this method, if the villages to be studied are well chosen,
a very much more intimate acquaintance with the actual conditions
of life than by any other method can be obtained. And this is
certainly true in the Deccan where the villages are still the
economic and social units in a sense that is far more true than is
the case in most countries, and to an extent which even in India
is, I think, only found in the Peninsula. The villages are perhaps
now tending to be less the relatively isolated units than hitherto,
but they are still so to an extent that gives the knowledge even of
a single village a very special value for the study of the whole
rural conditions of the country. On this account, with the
collaboration of a number of friends and assistants, I undertook
some years ago the study of a single village near Poona, and the
result was published in 1917 under the title of Land and Labour in
a Deccan Village. This purported to give a picture of life and
conditions in a dry Deccan village. By a dry village, I mean one
where irrigation is very limited in amount and where the prosperity
of the village depends almost entirely on the annual monsoon rain.
That study revealed a number of unexpected facts, and the general
conclusions which I drew were certainly of a far more depressing
character than I had expected. Only one serious criticism has,
however, beenmade. It is said that University of Bombay, Economic
Series No. t Oxford University Press, Bombay. IV PREFACE the
village chosen Pimpla Soudagar was not typical and did not
represent the conditions in any large area in the Deccan. It was,
so critics averred, too near Poona, and had too many of its
inhabitants working at non-agri cultural occupations to be in any
sense a type of what would be found further afield. I, at once,
recognised the justice of this criticism. And as a result my
collaborators and myself began to seek for a village which while
otherwise of a similar character would be free from the defects
noted in the former study. This led us to the village which forms
the basis for the present study. Jategaon Budruk, though double the
size of Pimpla Soudagar in point of area has a population not
widely different. The proportion of irrigated area is of the same
order. The class of land is not unlike. But it is twenty-five miles
from Poona from which, till recently, it was separated by an
unbridged road, and it has no local demand for labour for purposes
not found in any rural area. It differs truly in another sense, in
that it is in an area of smaller and more uncertain rainfall, and
as we shall see, this uncertainty is one of the chief features in
the village life. But it certainly is typical of a very large area
in the Deccan, and I do not think that any criticism can be made of
the present study that it does not represent conditions occurring
over extensive areas. The actual local inquiry has been chiefly
made by my colleagues, and, in fact, it is to them and their
careful collection and recording of data that any real value that
the present study may possess is due. Mr. N. V.Kanitkar, B. Sc.,
who shares with me the responsibility of the present publication,
lived for a long time on the spot, and became the friend and
confidant of almost the whole of the people. Mr. D. L.
Sahasrabuddhe, B. Sc...
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