During the Medieval period, as was the traditional villages, the state did not interfere much in the village affairs except revenue collection and the village affairs were left to the village panchayat.
The panchayat was an assembly of elder, usually dominant caste men. Though the village consisted of multilicity of castes but lower castes were seldom repres nted in the village panchayat assembly. The decisis of the panchayats were binding on the members.
The panchayat was headed by a headman known as muqaddam or mandal who was chosen through the conset sus of the village elders, and this choice had to be ratified by the zamindar. The chief funcion of the headman was to supervise the preparation of village accounts and he was assisted by the patwari of the panchayat.
The panchayat derived its funds from contributions made by individuals to a common financial pool. Experses for community welfare activities such as tiding over natural calamities such as flood, digging canal ete were also met from these fund. One important function of the panchayat was to ensun: that caste boundarics among the various comm unities inhabiting the village were Eg Icastern India all marriages were overseen by the mandal. Panchayats also resorted to fines and punishments such as expulsion from the community in case any member defied the laws established by the panchayat. Such a meas ure was intended as a deterrent to violation of caste norms In addition to the village panchayat each caste in the village had its own jati panchayat. These panchayats wielded considerable power in rural society.
Example+In-Rajnsthan jati panehayats-arbieeatedeivil- disputes such as land disputes, marriage norms, ritual precedence of the castes etc, between members of different castes.
