Sociology field trip

Agrarian societies and social thinkers

Omkaram kommu

0800335

IIT Gandhi nagar

India is the place where first major civilization happened 6000 years ago at Harappa and
Mohenjo-Daro. Even though it was urban civilization its main source of income was from
agriculture. Agriculture had been playing important rule right from the first civilization still
today. Right from early civilization kings and rulers gave very importance to agriculture.
Technology used by our ancient engineers is seen in the monuments like Cauvery dam (by
chola kings, right now Tamil nadu), Tungabhadra dam (by Vijayanagara kings, right now
Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh.) and it also shows how our ancestors were dependent on
agriculture. Kingdoms with great facilities for agriculture had splendid life and they excelled
in all fields. Water dams play significant role in agriculture field. With the surplus grains,
crops and vegetables that were abundant in Cauvery region, Cholas conquered entire south
India and they extended their kingdom to present day Malaysia and Sri Lanka. We see every
day in the papers that many neighbouring states fighting over share of water from rivers.
Even in contemporary modernised India we don’t find a single policy maker who doesn’t
talk about agriculture. Many multipurpose dams (like Nagarjun sagar,) are built in the
current India to enhance the growth of agriculture sector. Many government schemes and
subsidies are given to farmers in India for the welfare of them. India’s booming economy is
nothing without agriculture because more than 70% of people are getting their livelihood
from agriculture. Above explanation shows the importance of agrarian society on a
civilization and how we are dependent on it.

“Agrarian society is one that is dependent on agriculture as its primary prime means for
support and sustenance”. Agriculture was first established in India on the banks of rivers.
Technology plays very important role in the agriculture field.

Technology:
Coming to Indian agrarian society, they use plough to cultivate land. Land cultivation is done
with the help of animals and many nutrients are added to land to have more production.
Many irrigation facilities are created to have water flow system. With the help of technology
many water facilities are built and other unused land also used for cultivation. There are
many science and technology disciplines on agriculture to know what types of lands are
useful for different types of crops. Now days they are using tractors which reduce time and
human efforts in the agriculture. With the help of pumps and motors they are bringing
water from distant places. To get efficient use of water many types of equipment like
sprinklers and drip irrigation methods are used.
Enhanced use of technology reduces man power and leisure time is used for other activities.
Land plays pivotal role in agriculture; it creates two classes land lords (those who own land)
labour (those who work in the fields of land lords). In the early 70’s and 80’s a single person
used to have lot of lands and many people are without lands. Such systems reduce the
output of crops and also create lot of poverty. Because of above system naxalites movement
started in India. Even though, Indian government made rules and regulations on maximum
limit of land. With the loopholes in the judicial system, still major percentage of land is
under land lords only with proxy names.

Even though India was pioneer in agriculture it couldn’t satisfy its needs in 50’s and 60’s .Lot
of drought happened and output of agriculture was insufficient to feed growing population.
To have more agriculture output, Green revolution was started which gave guaranty to self
dependent Indian society. New methods and breeds are innovated and fertilizers were used
to enhance agriculture sector. Because of many northern states and some southern states
are benefitted. Even though output is high through green revolution investment cost is
really high. Recently it is found that extensive use of fertilizers kills the soil nutrients and in
the long time land will not be useful for types of crops.

White revolution was started in the early 70’s and it made India a big brother in milk
production. Lot of new mixed breeds are created to feed India’s growing population. But
now a day’s there is lot of resistance to such type of breeds. BT Brinjal is facing lot of
resistance to grow in Indian fields by Indians. Many schemes are initiated by governments
and some of them are accepted. Even though agriculture play’s prominent role in Indian
economy many farmers are poor and below middle class. Many farmers committed suicides
in the states like Punjab, Andhra Pradesh, and Maharashtra due to debts that were taken to
invest in agriculture. They don’t get good price in the market which eventually lead to
honour of family and committing suicide. Due to green revolution except farmers everyone
else is benefitted India. Because of high investments it needs. More than 80% of Indian
youth finds agriculture as a unattractive one. There is very less infrastructure to store the
vegetables and foods. Indian farmers don’t get good price and thanks to corruption of
Indian bureaucratic system and politics they don’t get any support from government.
Recently government decision to start SEZ (special economy zone) made many farmers
without land and hope. Many cultivating lands are taken from farmers by the unethical use
of police and goons. Very companies started production units in the SEZ’s and many SEZ’s
are idle now. In the drought and floods time they don’t get much support from governments
because of corruption that is very common thing accepted by us . Indian agriculture system is
not organised one.

Coming to chandna village they use plough and tractors to cultivate land. With the help of pumps
they are bringing water from nearby river to their fields. They are benefitted from green revolution
as milk revolution that happened in India. Village is self sufficient. But the main problem is many
people are not interested in agriculture and investment cost is high. Labour cost is also high. In rainy
season Vatrak river floods fields.

Religion:

In the ancient days Indian agrarian societies were following Hinduism, Buddhism and
Jainism only. After the infusion of Moghals they became mix of Muslims also. Among them
Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism were born in India .Hinduism is an ancient religion date back
to 3000 years ago and it is very complex. It divides the people based on their profession into
castes. Even though Hinduism is rich in spiritual and philosophical matters it was criticised
because of caste system .India is facing difficulties even today because of caste based
system. Indian constitution made reservations to scheduled casts and scheduled tribes .This
is causing angry to upper caste people and other religions also started movements to get
reservations for economically backward people. Andhra Pradesh and West Bengal provide
reservations to economically backward Muslim people. Great Indian sociologist talked about
this caste system and he explained about how caste effects in India in his books Religion and
Society among the Coorgs of South India (1952), Caste in Modern India (1962). Even in India caste
represents the economical status of people.

Marriage process in Indian societies;

The Hindu community has been giving great importance for marriage since time
immemorial. There are different forms of marriage -
Brahma Vivaha is where a father marries his daughter to a learned man of good moral
character.
Asura Vivaha is marriage by paying bride price.
Rakshasa Vivaha is by capture or abduction without obtaining the consent of a girl or her
parents.
Gandharva Vivaha is based on mutual love.
Prajapatya Vivaha is where no ceremony is performed but the groom is honoured.
Arsh Vivaha is where the groom gives a pair of cattle or bull to the bride's father before the
marriage.
Daiva Vivaha is where the girl is given in marriage to a priest instead of dakshina or a gift.

All those above mentioned are old systems and now a day’s bride has to give dowry to
bridegroom in many parts of southern India. In northern India people marry a person who
doesn’t have any blood relation. But in south India it is different.

In the Muslim community marriage is universal for it discourages celibacy.

Muslims call their marriage Nikah .Marriage is regarded not as a religious sacrament but as a
secular bond. The bridegroom makes a proposal to the bride just before the wedding
ceremony in the presence of two witnesses and a maulavi or kazi. The proposal is called ijab
and its acceptance is called qubul.It is necessary that both the proposal and its acceptance
must take place at the same meeting to make it a sahi Nikah.It is a matter of tradition
among the Muslims to have marriage among equals. Though there is no legal prohibition to
contract marriage with a person of low status, such marriages are looked down upon. The
run-away marriages called kifa when the girls run away with boys and marry them on their
own choice are not recognized.

Marrying idolaters and slaves is also not approved. There is also provision of preferential
system in mate selection. The parallel cousins and cross cousins are allowed to get married.
Marriage that is held contrary to the Islamic rules is called batil or invalid marriage.Meher or
dower is a practice associated with Muslim marriage. It is a sum of money or other property
which a wife is entitled to get from her husband in consideration of the marriage.Muta is a
special type of marriage for pleasure which is for a specified period only.Iddat is the period
of seclusion for three menstrual periods for a woman after the death /divorce by her
husband to ascertain whether she is pregnant or not. Only after this period she can remarry.
Muslim marriage can be dissolved in the following ways: Divorce as per the Muslim law but
without the intervention of the court: They are of two types-Kula where divorce is initiated
at the instance of the wife and Mubarat where initiative may come either from the wife or
from the husband.Talaq represents one of the ways according to which a Muslim husband
can give divorce to his wife as per the Muslim law by repeating the dismissal formula thrice.
The talaq may be affected either orally by making some pronouncements or in writing by
presenting talaqnama. Divorce as recognized by Shariah Act 1937 provides for three forms
of divorce: Illa, Zihar and Lian. There is also provision of divorce as per the Dissolution of Muslim
Marriage Act 1939.
People in Chandna village follow the same systems explained above. Sometimes love
marriages by eloping also happened in this village.

Governing systems:

In ancient India kings were policy makers but the scene changed gradually from time to
time. Now Indian agrarian societies follow election of candidates through voting. But many
times rigging and burning of ballot boxes happened. Indian politics are mostly caste and
religious based politics. This is main threat to mutual understanding of different castes and
religions. Often Indian governing systems are famous for corruption and bribe. Bureaucrats
take bribe for their services. Actually speaking Illiteracy is not burden to India the main
burden is corrupted Bureaucrats. “In India people admire a rich person but they don’t care
about by what means he became rich” these are words told by ongoing ACB director of
Andhra Pradesh. Indians openly accept corruption and bribe. When the marriage of a
government officer takes place people talk about how much he earns through bribes. In
India more than anyone ministers and industrialists are famous for corruption and they have
strong political back up. Recent corruptions include satyam information technologies scam,
2G scam, adarsh housing society scam. Rajiv Gandhi once India’s prime minister openly
admitted that only 25 % of funds reaches ground level and the remaining money goes to
pockets of corrupted Bureaucrats and politicians.

Chandna village is also having above mentioned problems at relatively low level. Many
people admitted that rigging was done before and the elections are based on caste and
religion.

As comte said there is evolution in the village life of chandna. Once people were working
based on their castes and now this followed. Young generation is not giving importance to
religious things (babry mosque verdict is an example).many inter caste marriages are
happening. Untoucheability simply disappeared in this village. Sathi shagaman was
disappeared long ago. Dowry system is not much followed. There is harmony between
Hindus and Muslims.