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Explain the importance of village studies.

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Importance of village studies are summarized below.

1. Field Work is an Antidote to Book View: According to M.N. Srinivas, studies of Indian village communities would be of great significance for planners and administrators. Information provided by a Sociologist is based on his intensive fieldwork experience and no account of book knowledge can ever be a substitute for this.

M.N. Srinivas undertook a study on Rampura village near Mysore, with a view to highlight that the agricultural practices of the Indian peasant can only be understood in the context of his Technology, level of knowledge, legal and social institutions, religion and way of life. He has recorded his experience in Rampura village in his work ‘Remembered Village’.

2. Calculated opposition to change: Over the last hundred years or more, the peasant has been represented as extremely conservative, pigheaded, ignorant and superstitious. But the Sociological studies do not subscribe to this view. McKim Marriot’s study of Kishan Garhi village in Uttar Pradesh reveals that the peasants had accepted new crops, techniques of cultivation, etc., and had opposed only a few changes.

Thus, the headman of Rampura village wanted bull-dozers and electricity, but not a school. Electricity and bull-dozer would get him name and fame, his authority over others becomes stronger, etc. But, a school would make labour scarcer, educated poor people may lose respect they have for the rich and soon.

There are key persons in each village thus, who exploit every change to their benefit. If he then opposes the tool or process, it is not because of stupidity but because of his intelligence. Only a field-study of the village community could shed light on aspects which otherwise go unnoticed.

3. Literary Bias: Literature on caste states that caste is immobile. This is not a fact as through Sanskritization, castes have tried to move up on the local hierarchy. This is also true of the conditions of women. Condition of women prevalent among the upper castes were generalized to include all Hindus. But, the truth is that the women of lower castes are better placed in comparison to women of upper castes.

Observation of Hindu social life has been vitiated by book view and the upper-caste view. Thus, the only solution for this literary bias lies in doing field research. Field-studies suggest something different, from what is found in religious texts. It is clear that the book-view and upper-caste view’ may be biased and need not be a fact always. Only field research can help us to overcome literary bias and accept facts about village communities.

4. Recording for later evaluation: Prof. Yogesh Atal states that “Roots of the present are always to be found in the past and an analysis of the present would guide the future. Hence, a comparison and evaluation of the impact of planned change at a later date necessarily demands that the present be recorded”.

5. Development of Analytical Categories: The study of Indian village community has helped in developing certain analytical categories. Field studies conducted in different parts of the country point to the existence of certain processes of change which have been labeled either locally or on an all India basis.

For instance, analytical models like Sanskritization and Westernisation (M.N. Srinivas), Kulinisation (N. Prasad), DeSanskritization (Majumdar), Universalisation and Parochialisation (McKim Marriot), Great tradition and little tradition (Robert Redfield), etc., have helped in the analysis of transformation that the village communities are undergoing. A. R. Desai’s Rural Sociology in India is an important work in this regard.

6. Village Studies are important for Social Reformation: Prof. Ramakrishna Mukher- jee’s analysis makes it clear that the village has become the centre of all discussions and debates. Plan, Budget, Administrative strategy, etc., all have become rural area oriented. Thus, planners, economists, administrators, sociologists, reformers and others concentrate on village and are busy collecting data on them. Under the impact of planned and non-directed changes, villages are undergoing transformation. Thus, there is the need for the study of village communities in India.

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