Authority and Community in Village India

Abstract

YET ANOTHER STUDY of the Indian village and community development requires some justification. The first purpose of this article is to examine some of the pre-suppositions which have accumulated about Indian village society and its role in national development, against a background of historical evidence. The second purpose is to inquire into the ideal of "village democracy" as the foundation of national reconstruction, and to contrast this ideal with the present-day reality of a development programme almost entirely directed from above by the official and the political boss. Finally, it will be considered how far ideal and reality can be brought into a more harmonious adjustment. During the last ten years the Indian village has been the subject of three main types of investigation. There have been anthropological studies-pure research enterprises-which have deepened our understanding of relationships between different social groups within the village and have explored extra-village ties. There has been work (it may be described as "social engineering") by political scientists and others who have developed theories of community behaviour by means of the application of certain values to actual experience; in this field the name of the American town-planner, Albert Mayer, is preeminent. Finally, there has been the activity of administrators, politicians, and social workers, concerned largely in an ad hoc manner with the practical task of building a new India. These three groups have been almost exclusively concerned in analysing and evaluating the Indian village as it is today. They have almost all begun by accepting a certain model of the village-the village as it has emerged from the ages-as axiomatic. It is agreed that the Indian village throughout the ages has been a corporate body, guided and guarded by a council, the panchayat. There is tacit agreement that the functioning of the panchayat provided a kind of prelude to democracy, even if almost all are careful to qualify their words. Sooner or later Charles Metcalfe's celebrated phrase about the "little republics" comes out, endowed with overtones that would astonish Metcalfe himself. Many go on to suggest that these republics were destroyed by the British; some assert that this was a deliberate policy of extermination.' The conclusion which generally follows