(cid:1) (cid:2)(cid:3)(cid:4)(cid:5)(cid:6)(cid:7)(cid:8)(cid:6)(cid:9)(cid:10)(cid:5)(cid:4)(cid:7)(cid:3)(cid:11) Nation and Village Images of Rural India in Gandhi, Nehru and Ambedkar Scholars of modern Indian history have often pointed to the continuities in the colonial constructs of Indian society and the nationalist imaginations of India. The village was an important category where such continuity could be easily observed. However, a closer reading of some of the leading ideologues of nationalist movements also points to significant variationsin their views on the substantive realities characterising rural India. Focusing primarily on writings of Gandhi, Nehru and Ambedkar, the paper attempts to show that though the village was a central category in the nationalist imaginations and there was virtual agreement that it represented the core of the traditional social order of India, the attitudes of the three leaders towards village society varied considerably. The paper tries to show that while for Gandhi the village was a site of authenticity, for Nehru it was a site of backwardness and for Ambedkar the village was the site of oppression. SURINDER S JODHKA I society, village has also been an important Since the villages had been autonomous ideological category in the modern Indian republics, the rulers of India were anyway For me, India begins and ends in the villages imagination. The village ‘was not merely always outsiders [Cohn 1989; Inden 1990]! (Gandhi 1979b:45, in a letter to Nehru a place where people lived; it had a design Notwithstanding its historical origins, written on August 23, 1944.). in which were reflected the basic values the idea of village has persisted in the ...the old Indian social structure which has of Indian civilisation’ [Beteille 1980:108]. Indian imagination and has found diverse so powerfully influenced our people...was Though elsewhere also life in the coun- uses. The historians of modern India have based on three concepts: the autonomous tryside has been contrasted with urban/city repeatedly pointed to the continuities village community; caste; and the joint life with the former believed to be having between the orientalist/colonial categories family system [Nehru 1946:244]. a purer form of the native/national culture of knowledge and the nationalist thinking The Hindu village is the working plant of [see, for example Williams 1973], it was [Chakravarty 1989; Breckenridge and van the Hindu social order. One can see there perhaps only in the case of India that the der Veer 1993; Uberoi 1993; Dirks 2001; the Hindu social order in operation in full swing [Ambedkar, in Moon 1989:19]. village came to acquire the status of a Upadhya 2002]. Like many other catego- primary unit representing social formation ries, the idea of village too was accepted T he village has for long been viewed of the entire civilisation. as given, characterising the Indian reali- as a convenient entry point for Villages have indeed existed in the ties. Leaders of the nationalist movement, understanding ‘traditional’ Indian subcontinent for a long time. However, it for example, invoked it in many different society. It has been seen as a signifier of was during the British colonial rule and contexts. Despite disagreements and dif- the authentic native life, a social and cultural through the writings of the colonial admini- ferences in their ideological orientations unit uncorrupted by outside influence. For strators that India was constructed as a land or political agenda, the ‘village’ remained the professional sociologists and social of ‘village republics’. Inden has rightly a core category through which most of anthropologists, village represented India pointed out that though most other civili- them conceptualised or thought of the in microcosm, ‘an invaluable observation sations of the Orient too were primarily ‘traditional’ Indian social life. However, centre’ where one could see and study the agrarian economies, it was only the Indian unlike the colonial administrators, the ‘real’ India, its social organisation and society that was essentialised into a land nationalist leadership did not see village cultural life. By studying a village, the of villages [Inden 1990:30]. The British simply as the constituting ‘basic unit’ of pioneering Indian sociologist M N Srinivas colonial rulers obviously had their own Indian civilisation. For most of them, village claimed, one could generalise about the political reasons for representing India as represented ‘the real’ India, the nation that ‘social processes and problems to be found they did and imputing qualities such as needed to be recovered, liberated and occurring in great parts of India’ [Srinivas autonomy, stagnation and continuity to the transformed. Even when they celebrated 1955:99]. village life in the subcontinent. It helped village life, they did not lose sight of the Apart from its methodological value, it them justify their rule over the subconti- actual state of affairs marked by scarcity being a representative unit of the Indian nent to their people back home in Britain. and ignorance. Economic and Political Weekly August 10, 2002 3343 Apart from having been educated about A good deal of social scientific literature imagination could perhaps also help us the Indian society through the colonial is available on the colonial constructions build a sociology of the Indian nationalist writings on the subcontinent, the middle of the Indian village and the validities of movement. class nationalist leaders were also con- their assumptions regarding the social and Further, available literature on the his- fronted with the village during their struggle economic structures of the rural commu- tory of Indian sociology and social anthro- for freedom, trying to mobilise the ‘com- nities of the subcontinent [see for example pology tends to attach a good deal of mon masses’ of the subcontinent against Cohn 1987; Breman 1987; Breman etal importance to the influence that colonial colonial rule. It was during this interaction 1997; Habib 1995]. Similarly, there have writings and the western theoretical tradi- of the received frameworks acquired also been some studies on the manner in tions have had on the way these disciplines through the colonial education and con- which village was used as a primary are practised in India today. However, it crete realities of life that their ideas about methodological category for understand- would be safe to underline that the nation- rural India were formed. Nehru was not ing the Indian society by sociologists and alist movement for independence, and the only one who set out on a mission to social anthropologists during the 1950s later, the programmes and policies of ‘discover’ and ‘rediscover’ India; others and 1960s [Srinivas 1994; Breman et al planned development introduced by the active in the independence movement also 1997; Jodhka 1998]. Though one can also post-independence Indian state also observed and wrote a great deal about the find a good deal of references on the ways influenced the practice of social science social, economic and cultural life of the in which the nationalist leadership ap- research and teaching in India. Sociology Indian people. proached the Indian village or the ‘agrar- and social anthropology were no excep- However, given the regional and cul- ian question’, there have not been many tion. Some of the founding fathers of Indian tural diversities of the subcontinent, and comparative studies of the internal dis- sociology and social anthropology, for social locations of the individual ideo- agreements and differences within the example, were deeply involved with the logues of the nationalist movement, the nationalist leadership on the subject. nationalist movement.2 Indian social life was viewed differently While much significance is attached to by different leaders. The nationalist free- Gandhi’s ideas of the Indian village, other II dom movement was also a moment when strands of the nationalist movement tend the futures of India were being visualised. to generally get ignored or subsumed within Colonial Context and the Their notions of India’s pasts or its tradi- the Gandhian notion of village. Ambedkar’s Nationalist Imaginations of India tional social order invariably also reflected ideas on village, for example, were very their future visions or the alternative agenda different from those of Gandhi. Similarly, Introduction of modern technology and they had for free India. Village remained though Nehru agreed with Gandhi on many the hitherto unknown structures of gover- a central category in their scheme of things. issues relating to rural India, his writings nance by the British colonial rulers during Even in the constituent assembly, which on the Indian peasantry, on the whole, their rule over much of the south Asian was appointed to frame a constitution for present a very different approach to the subcontinent were extremely important free India, the question of whether the subject. Even Gandhi’s ideas on the Indian factors in transforming the social, cultural village or the individual should be the village are not as simple as they are often and political life of the region. While these primary unit of Indian polity was debated made out to be. structural changes introduced by the co- with much passion. Focusing primarily on writings of these lonial rulers were indeed extremely sig- Apart from influencing state policies for three leading activists and ideologues of nificant factors in integrating India into the development and change in independent the freedom movement, Gandhi, Nehru world capitalist market, it was perhaps the India, these constructs have also become and Ambedkar, I hope to show in this paper nationalist movement for independence part of, what could loosely be called as ‘the that though village was a central category that became the defining moment of the Indian common sense’. For example, in in the nationalist imaginations and there ‘modern’ Indian society, a source of its some of the recent critiques of modern was a virtual agreement on the fact that new identity. living, the idea of the traditional ‘Indian it represented the core of the traditional The nationalist movement for indepen- village community’ is invoked as an alter- social order of India, the attitudes of these dence was much more than just a political native to the alienating urban/city life. leaders towards the village society varied struggle waged against foreign rulers. Not Manyof the nationalist writings on the considerably. They disagreed, both on the only did the national identity of modern village have also become inspirations merits of traditional Indian village life, and India consolidate itself during these forsome of the ‘new’ social movements also on the place it should have in the mobilisations, many of the regional and that have emerged in India during the future India of their visions. community identities were also shaped recentdecades. Perhaps the most impor- The Indian nationalist movement has andsharpened during this period. Along tant in this category have been the writ- mostly been seen as a subject that ought with the rise of these identities, the newly ingsof Gandhi. His critiques of modern to concern the historians, and to a lesser emerged middle classes also spent a science and his idea of an alternative living extent the political scientists. Anthropolo- greatdeal of energy in generating new on the pattern of the traditional Indian gists and sociologists have only rarely knowledges about their cultures and village communities have all along been ventured into it as something of their regions. popular with a good number of environ- interest.1 Since the village has been one While most of the reformers were pre- mentalists, in and outside India, and with of the most popular categories among occupied with localised communities, try- many of the action groups, the non- sociologists and social anthropologists in ing to find ways and means of negotiating governmental voluntary organisations India, a comparative study of the represen- between the traditions they inherited from (theNGOs). tations of rural life in the nationalist their pasts and the ensuing modernity that 3344 Economic and Political Weekly August 10, 2002 they received from the colonial educa- III There are at least three different stages tional system, the politically oriented or ways in which he used the idea of the amongst them had a much broader agenda. Nation and the Village Indian village. In the first, he invoked it The challenge for them was to work out to establish equivalence of the Indian a case where India could be represented Gandhi, Nehru and Ambedkar, the three civilisation with the west. In the second, as a single cultural and political entity, on most important leaders and ideologues of he counterposed the village to the city and the basis of which they could imagine the freedom movement, all, in a sense, presented the village-life as a critique of, nationhood for India. Finding denomina- belonged to the city. Not only did they and an alternative to, the modern western tors and categories through which such a spend most of their lives in cities, much culture and civilisation. In the third phase case could be made was obviously a of their political action was also performed of his engagement, he was concerned with challenging project. To the advantage of in urban centers. Of the three, Ambedkar the actual existing villages of India and these ideologues of the nationalist and was the only one who had a first hand emphasised on the ways and means of regional movements, the colonial rulers experience of village life during his child- reforming them. Though he continued to had already done a considerable amount hood. Though in terms of the class statusof see village as an alternative way of living, of groundwork on this. Apart from writing their families, the three came from comple- he also found many faults with the existing extensively on the religious traditions of tely different strata, they all belonged to lifestyle of the rural people in the Indian the communities in the subcontinent, and mobile families, in the sense that even their countryside. constructing India as an ancient civilisation, parents had been ‘mobile’. Occupationally It was perhaps in 1894 that Gandhi for the colonial administrators had also gath- also, they were engaged in ‘secular’ occu- the first time invoked the idea of the Indian ered a good deal of information on the pations.3 They all went to foreign landsfor village as a political symbol. This was in social structure and economic life of the education or work and came back to India. a petition to the White government, an ‘open Indian people. In the process of gathering Thus, notwithstanding their attitudes or letter’ written to the Members of Legislative this data they also deployed several cate- commitments to rural life, their writings Assembly in Durban to demand voting rights gories that enabled them to make sense of on the subject were mostly reflective, and for the people of Indian origin living in the Indian society and situate it in the not experiential in nature. Yet their views South Africa at par with the ruling English available evolutionary schema that were on village life were not mere observations people. Gandhi argued in his petition: being worked out in the western academy of what was happening on ground. They In spite of the Premier’s opinion to the around the same time [Cohn 1987, 1996; reflect their visions of India’s pasts and contrary...I venture to point out that both Inden 1990]. The ‘caste system’ and the futures. In fact none of them looked at the English and the Indians spring from ‘village communities’ were perhaps the village as a concrete reality with regional a common stock, called the “Indo-Aryan” two most important categories that the variations and historical specificities [Gandhi 1958:149]. colonial ethnography deployed rather having internal dynamics of change. Ir- The idea of village was used to further extensively to make sense of Indian respective of their attitude and the overall corroborate his argument and establish societyand to distinguish it from the west. ideological orientation towards it, village equivalence of the Indians with the ruling Over the years, these two categories came for all of them was a civilisational entity. English community. In another ‘petition to be accepted, almost universally, as the More importantly, they seemed to have to the Natal Assembly’ in the same year concrete social unit in terms of which the assumed that the social structure of the he made reference to Sir Henry Maine’s social structure of traditional India was to village was similar everywhere in the works on the village communities who, be talked about. subcontinent. Much of this colonial knowledge of India …most clearly pointed out that the Indian would have obviously been found to be IV races have been familiar with representa- very useful by the middle class leaders of tive institutions almost from the time the Indian nationalist movement while Gandhi and the Village immemorial….The word panchayat is a trying to visualise India as a unified na- household word throughout the length and tional entity. Many of these ideas about Gandhi has been rightly known as the breadth of India, and it means...a council India would have initially come to them ideologue of the village. He celebrated the of five elected by the class of the people whom the five belong, for the purpose of as plain or obvious ‘facts’ or ‘truths’ about Indian village life as no one else did. He managing and controlling the social affairs their society. However, their involvement also wrote and spoke a great deal on various of the particular caste [ibid:94-95]. with mobilisations of the Indian masses aspects of village life. Though, as men- and in this process their first-hand expo- tioned above, he was not born in a village Apart from his assertion about the tra- sure to the realities of India, would have and did not even have ‘an ancestral vil- ditional Indian village and its core social also been equally important factors in lage’ to identify with, much of his social institution, the caste, as being compatible shaping their understandings of the Indian and political philosophy revolved around with the modern western ideas of democ- society. It would perhaps be safe to say the idea of the village. racy for their having been similarly that it was the combination of the received Gandhi became preoccupied with ‘the organised on the principles of representa- knowledges about India from available Indian village’ right from his days in South tive governance, the text also points to his literature produced mostly by western Africa and remained so until the end of sources of understanding the Indian village. writers, and the nature of their involve- his life. However, his ideas on village, as It was not just to strengthen his argument ment with the people of the subcontinent also his politics, evolved with time and being presented to the White rulers that that eventually shaped their own views of underwent some important changes along Gandhi invoked the writings of a western the Indian village. with his political career. commentator on India. The influence of Economic and Political Weekly August 10, 2002 3345 Sir Henry Maine and that of other western/ imagined, could be achieved only by re- Not only were the big cities symbols of colonial writings on the Indian village is storing the civilisational strength of India alien rule and exploitation, they also had visible all through his career. through revival of its village communities. a morally corrupting influence on the village Perhaps another important point that ‘The uplift of India depended solely on the people. In another piece in Young India emerges out of these letters written to the uplift of the villages’. The growth of big published in 1927, he wrote: White rulers of South Africa is his attitude cities, particularly those established by the Some of the villages are deserted for six towards the native African tribes. Gandhi, British, was no sign of progress. They were or eight months during the year. Villagers for example, makes no reference to the signs of degeneration, ‘the real plague spots go to Bombay, work under unhealthy and exclusion of ‘blacks’ from such rights. The of India’ [Parel 1997:xlii]. In a letter addres- often immoral conditions, then return to Indians deserved the right to vote not sed to Lord Ampthill in 1909, he wrote: their villages during the rainy season because democracy required universal To me the rise of cities like Calcutta and bringing with them corruption, drunken- franchise but because of the nature and Bombay is a matter for sorrow rather than ness and disease [Gandhi 1969:151]. evolution of traditions in different com- congratulation. India has lost in having Apart from the critique of western civili- munities. By invoking the idea of ‘village broken up a part of her village system sation and colonial rule that he attempted republics’ he obviously wished to argue [Gandhi 1963:509]. through counterposing the village and the that the Indians who have had a system He elaborated it further in Young India city, his politics was perhaps also a pointer of representation built into the caste in 1921: to the shift that he brought about in the panchayats were as advanced a community Our cities are not India. India lives in her nationalist movement, from an elite- as the Whites were. seven and a half lakhs of villages, and the bourgeois activity directed at mobilising His more substantive and better-known cities live upon the villages. They do not the newly emerging middle classes to a writings on the village began when he bring their wealth from other countries. popular movement with growing partici- came back to India and got involved with The city people are brokers and commis- pation of the peasantry from India’s hinter- the nationalist freedom struggle. His move sion agents for the big houses of Europe, lands. As Embree rightly points out, he, from South Africa to India changed both America and Japan. The cities have coop- for the first time, gave the masses of India his location and his political concerns. erated with the latter in the bleeding pro- ‘a sense of involvement in the nation’s cess that has gone on for the past two Though in some crucial sense his notion destiny’ [Embree 1989:165]. As is well hundred years [Gandhi 1966:288-89]. of the Indian village remained the same, known, until Gandhi arrived on the scene, the uses he put it to in the second phase He reiterated his views on cities in exactly the nationalist movement had largely were however very different. After he the same tenure some 25 years later, in been an urban phenomenon. ‘For the early returned back to India and engaged him- 1946 at a workers’ meeting, where he said: nationalist generations, independence self with the movement for independence, When the British first established them- meant being free to emulate colonial city his politics underwent a complete change. selves firmly in India their idea was to life’ [Khilnani 1998:125]. Gandhi turned The question of securing voting rights for build cities where all rich people would it upside down. The new nation was not the Indian people and establishing equi- gravitate and help them in exploiting the to be found in the cities but in the villages valence with the Whites was no longer his countryside. These cities were made par- where a large majority of the Indians agenda. He was to assume the leadership tially beautiful; service of all kinds were lived. of movement for independence from the made available to their inhabitants while What exactly was his notion of the Indian British, which required driving the White the millions of villagers were left rotting village and how did he visualise the ac- rulers out of India. in hopeless ignorance and misery [Gandhi tually existing rural India? In order to wage such a struggle, he needed 1982:232]. Village, for Gandhi was not merely a a different set of ideas or an ideology that Perhaps more important for the argu- place where people lived in small settle- would de-legitimise the British rule over ment being developed here is the manner ments working on land. For him, it re- India. Such an ideology required construc- in which he counterposed the city with the flected the essence of Indian civilisation. tion of a difference that would establish village. The Indian village had a design, a way life, the sovereign identity of India and restore The village civilisation and the city which had the potential of becoming an its cultural confidence. The idea of village civilisation are totally different things. One alternative to the city based and technol- came in very handy in this endeavour. depends on machinery and industriali- ogy driven capitalist west. Empirically such He did this by counterposing the Indian sation, the other rests on handicrafts. We villages did exist in the past and one might village with the modern cities that were have given preference to the latter. After still find them in the interiors of India. set up by the British in India. While the all, this industrialisation and large-scale Drawing support for his argument from Sir village-life represented the essence of India, production are only of comparatively re- Henry Maine’s writings, he argued in the development of modern cities in India cent growth. We do not know how far it Harijan in 1939: has contributed to our development and symbolised western domination and colo- ...Indian society was at one time unknow- happiness, but we know this much that it nial rule. Village was the site of authen- ingly constituted on a non-violent basis. has brought in its wake the recent world ticity, the ‘real/pure India’, a place that, The home life, i e, the village, was undis- wars... at least in its design, had not yet been turbed by the periodical visitations from Our country was never so unhappy and corrupted by the western influence. The barbarous hordes. Maine has shown that miserable as it is at present. In the cities city was its opposite, totally western. people may be getting big profits and good India’s villages were a congeries of repub- Though political freedom could be wages, but all that has become possible by lics [Gandhi 1978:4]. achieved by overthrowing the colonial rule, sucking the blood of villagers [Gandhi Similarly, responding to a question from the real swaraj or self-rule, as Gandhi 1977a:369]. a group of foreign visitors he advised them 3346 Economic and Political Weekly August 10, 2002 that if they wanted to ‘see the heart of and generally carry on such reforms from “violenceas a measure to achieve it”. India’, they should ‘ignore big cities’. The within as is possible” [Gandhi 1972:406]. Villageism, on the contrary, could achieve big cities here were but poor editions of The lack of hygiene and sanitation were social welfare without using such mea- their big cities. They ought “to go to the the other things that all villagers needed sures [Gandhi 1980:192]. villages, and those too not close to cities to pay attention to. He was often disap- And perhaps most importantly, a vil- or to railway line, but unspoilt by them”. pointed by the disregard for cleanliness lage-centric society was the most prag- He suggested them to: that he observed in most of the villages matic choice for a country like India because he visited in different parts of the subcon- its ‘crores of people would never be able Go 30 miles from the railway line, and you tinent. He also wrote quite extensively on to live in peace with each other in towns will see that the people show a kind of culture which you miss in the west...you this subject. In one of these typical com- and palaces’. In a letter addressed to Nehru will find culture which is unmistakable but ments, he wrote: in October 1945, he had argued that a far different from that of the west. Then If we approach any village, the first thing society based on the principle of non- you will take away something that may be we encounter is the dunghill and this is violence was possible to achieve only “in worth taking [Gandhi 1976:116-17]. usually placed on raised ground. On en- the simplicity of village life”. However, He was very unhappy with the nature of tering the village, we find little difference by simplicity he did not mean that his changes that the Indian village life had between the approach and what is within ‘dream-village’ would completely exclude gone through during the British colonial the village. Here too there is dirt on the modern science. A certain amount of rule. In his views, these changes had roads...If a traveller who is unfamiliar with science and modern means of communi- impaired the villagers, made them less these parts comes across this state of af- cation could be integrated into such a village creative and more dependent on the out- fairs, he will not be able to differentiate [as in Parel 1977:150-51] side world: between the dunghill and the residential His idea of an alternative India isperhaps parts. As a matter of fact, there is not much …the villager of today is not even half so best spelt-out in one of his pieces pub- of a difference between the two [Gandhi intelligent or resourceful as the villager of lished in Harijan in 1942 where he wrote: 1970:445]. fifty years ago. For, whereas the former is My idea of village swaraj is that it is reduced to a state of miserable dependence In another piece, he praised the Euro- completely republic, independent of its and idleness, the latter used his mind and peans in Africa as being worth imitating neighbours for its own vital wants, and yet body for all he needed and produced them in this regard: interdependent for many others in which at home [Gandhi 1974:409]. There is no gainsaying the fact that our dependence is a necessity. Thus every Gandhi emphasised that freedom from villager betrays a woeful ignorance of even villager’s first concern will be to grow its colonial rule could become meaningful the rudiments of village sanitation. One own food crops and cotton for its only if it was able to grant this autonomy could deplore the race prejudice amongst cloth…Then if there is more land avail- back to the village: the South African Europeans, but their able, it will grow useful money crops, thus attempts to keep their towns healthy and excluding ganja, tobacco, opium and the The cry of ‘back to the village’, some sanitary were heroic and worthy of imita- like…Education will be compulsory upto critics say, is putting back the hands of the tion [Gandhi 1969:76]. the final basic course. As far as possible clock of progress. But is it so? Is it going every activity will be conducted on the back to the village, or rendering back to Though he repeatedly talks about reviv- cooperative basis. There will be no castes it what belongs to it? I am not asking the ing the village, particularly its ‘defunct such as we have today with their graded city-dwellers to go to and live in the villages. handicrafts’ to save the peasant from ills untouchability…The government of the But I am asking them to render unto the of industrialisation and inevitability of village will be conducted by a panchayat villagers what is due to them [ibid:409-10]. moving to the cities [Gandhi 1977b:228], of five persons annually elected by the While he asked for revival of the spirit a closer look at his writings tends to suggests adult villagers, male and female, possess- of traditional village life, he also found that his vision of village was essentially ing minimum prescribed qualifications. many flaws with the actually existing ‘a futuristic one’, representing an alter- …To model such a village may be the work villages, and not all these ills were a native society that was different from the of a lifetime. Any lover of true democracy consequence of the western/urban influ- modern-industrial west. His villages would and village life can take up a village, treat ence. Two things that he commented quite have had similarities with what Sir Henry it as his world and sole work, and he will find good results...[Gandhi 1979a:308-09]. frequently upon were the practice of un- Maine had written in his book about the touchability and a general lack of clean- past village society, but not everything that What would happen to the already ex- liness. Compared to the cities, where people is believed to have existed in the past isting cities? He did not ask for their were “educated and broad-minded to a needed to be there in such a ‘model village’. destruction. The cities, he appealed, should little extent at least”, untouchability was His writings reflect more of a reformist also participate in ‘the village movement’. a more serious problem in the villages, rather than a revivalist urge. His village Those living in cities and those working which were “the centres of orthodoxy”. had to be constructed through a concerted for the movement will “have to develop While he wanted the village society to effort, often by outsiders – the village village mentality and learn the art of living abandon the practice of untouchability, he workers. He wanted to initiate a movement after the manner of villagers”. Though also wanted untouchables to change them- of village ‘re-construction’ which would they need not “starve like the villagers”, selves. He, for example, wanted them to translate his ideal into practice. they must change their old style of life ‘observe common cleanliness’, “refrain Such a village would provide an alter- radically. “While the standard of the vil- from eating meat of dead animals and from native not only to the industrial west, lagers must be raised, the city standard has drink, send their children to schools, re- butalso to socialism. He was averse to to undergo considerable revision” [Gandhi move untouchability among themselves socialism because it required the use of 1975:319-20]. Economic and Political Weekly August 10, 2002 3347 Gandhi was certainly not the only one above, Nehru’s importance also lies in the as well as certain obligations, both of which in the freedom movement who saw village fact that he was the first prime minister were determined and protected by custom- and its social structure as something that of independent India and played a crucial ary law [ibid:246]. needed to be sustained and strengthened. role in shaping its policies and programmes He produced, almost verbatim, what He influenced a large number of others and for development. His comments on how Metcalfe and later Marx had said about the his ideas on the village as an alternative rural India ought to be developed also Indian village communities.4 to the modern/industrial west continue to reflect his notion of Indian village life. Foreign conquests brought war and de- inspire many even today. However, there His ideas on the traditional Indian society struction, revolts and their ruthless sup- were also some in the freedom movement are perhaps best spelt out in his well- pression, and new ruling classes relying who disagreed with him, particularly on known book, Discovery of India (first chiefly on armed force…The self-govern- the subject of the place of village in future published in 1946). Though Nehru’s ap- ing community, however, continued. Its India. Even some of those who worked proach to the understanding of Indian past break up began only under the British rule very closely with him did not completely was historical in nature, he apparently [ibid:246]. share his enthusiasm for the village. Nehru looked at the ‘old’ social structure of Indian Similarly, in relation to village was one of them. society from an evolutionary perspective. panchayats and political spirit of the tra- This is particularly so in his discussion on ditional Indian village, he reinforced the V village and caste. “The autonomousvillage prevailing notion about the village society community, caste and the joint family”,that as having been economically stagnant and Nehru and the Village he identified as the three basic concepts community-oriented but democratically of the “old Indian social structure”, had organised. The traditional social structure After Gandhi, Nehru was perhaps the something in common with traditional emphasised ‘the duties of the individual most important and influential leader of societies in general as the organising prin- and the group’ and not ‘their rights’. the Indian nationalist movement. Apart ciples were the same everywhere: from being an important ideologue of the In all these three it is the group that counts; The aim was social security: stability and Indian National Congress, he also became the individual has a secondary place. There continuance of the group; that is of society. Progress was not the aim, and progress the first prime minister of independent is nothing very unique about all this sepa- India. He was the catalyst of the approach rately, and it is easy to find something therefore had to suffer. Within each group, India chose for its development after it equivalent to any of these three in other whether it was the village community, the countries, especially in medieval times particular caste, or the large joint family, achieved independence from colonial rule. [Nehru 1946:244]. there was a communal life shared together, Though Nehru worked under the leader- a sense of equality, and democratic ship of Gandhi and gave him a good deal He further elaborated his ‘functionalist’ methods[ibid:252]. of respect, his ideas on the nature of India’s notion of an integrated traditional village past and his vision of its future were not society in the following text: However, he also emphasised that such a system of village republics had long the same as those of Gandhi. These dif- ...The functions of each group or caste degenerated into a society that was marked ferences were also reflected in his views were related to functions of the other castes, by various ills. There was a clear shift in on the Indian village. and the idea was that if each group func- Nehru’s discussion on village life as he Unlike Gandhi, Nehru perhaps never tioned successfully within its own frame- identified himself with the village. He was work, then society as a whole worked moved closer to contemporary times. He also quite self-conscious about his urban harmoniously. Over and above this, a strong appears to have become more and more and fairly successful attempt was made to critical of the past structures, particularly and upper middle class upbringing. He create a common national bond which of caste based hierarchies, which, in his admits in his Autobiography (first pub- would hold all these groups together – the scheme of things, should have no place in lished in 1936) that until 1920 or so his sense of a common culture, common tra- modern societies. Unlike Gandhi, Nehru ‘political outlook’ was that of his class, ditions, common heroes and saints, and saw no virtues in reviving the traditional ‘entirely bourgeois’ [Nehru 1980:49]. It common land to the four corners of which social order. His modernist critique of the was only when he started his political people went on pilgrimage. This national village and caste system is best presented career and came in direct contact with the bond was of course very different from common rural masses of India that he present-day nationalism; it was weak in the following passage from Discovery began to think differently. It was “a new politically, but socially and culturally it of India: was strong [ibid:248]. picture of India…, naked, starving, crushed, ...the ultimate weakness and failing of the and utterly miserable” [ibid:52]. Though Nehru did not celebrate the old caste system and the Indian social structure As was the case with Gandhi, Nehru’s ‘village republics’ of India as Gandhi did, were that they degraded a mass of human writings on village too have several dif- the sources of their understanding of India’s beings and gave them no opportunities to ferent strands and could be classified into past seem to be common. Nehru too seems get out of that condition – educationally, two or three categories. First of all, as in to have read the writings of colonial ad- culturally, or economically...In the context Gandhi, the idea of the Indian village ministrators and western scholars on the of society today, the caste system and much that goes with it are wholly incompatible, communities is also quite central to his ‘traditional Indian society’ quite uncriti- reactionary, restrictive, and barriers to notion of traditional India. However, his cally. This is best reflected in hiscomments progress. There can be no equality in status approach to the ‘realities’ of rural classes on the ‘old’ agrarian economy. He writes: and opportunity within its framework, nor as he saw them during his encounters with Originally the agrarian system was based can there be political democracy, and much ‘the actually existing rural India’ was very on a cooperative or collective village. less, economic democracy [Nehru different from Gandhi’s. As mentioned Individuals and families had certain rights 1946:254]. 3348 Economic and Political Weekly August 10, 2002 This shift becomes even more evident his extra income. Weavers, carders and The policies of land reforms introduced as we move to his comments/writings on dyers became unemployed. They were after independence were a direct transla- Indian rural society of the colonial period. forced to fall back on the land for liveli- tion of such thinking. If agriculture was Not only did he become more critical of hood, by cultivating the land or by working to develop, it was necessary that we put as labourers, but there was already enough the traditional social order but he also ‘an end to zamindari and jagirdari systems. pressure on the land. The result was that began to increasingly talk about the exist- We must…eliminate all intermediaries and the majority of the people were compelled ing social and economic structures of the fix a limit for the size of holdings [Nehru to act as farm labourers, and somehow village society in terms of ‘social classes’. 1954:94]. keep alive...And this poverty began from The peasants/kisans and landlords were the time the British came here because they Similarly, Nehru also had very different the two classes that he frequently made started their own trade while destroying views on the place that industry would reference to. ours [Gopal 1972:365]. have in the Indian economy. While Gandhi His writings clearly reflect a modernist Though he attributed the peasants’ misery thought that villages could largely be self- attitude to the village class structure. He, to their exploitation by landlords and the sufficient and rejected the modern cities for example referred to the landlords as a colonial rulers, he shared with western for their being a sign of colonial domina- “physically and intellectually degenerate” writers the popular opinion on the political tion, Nehru saw industrialisation as being class, which had ‘outlived their day’ [Nehru character of Indian peasantry as being inevitable. Industrial development and 1980:52]. On the other end, the peasants politically docile and fatalistic. urbanisation would help in reducing the or “the kisans, in the villages” constituted burden on land and therefore would be Indian peasant has an amazing capacity to the real masses of India [Gopal 1973:82]. good even for those who would be left in bear famine, flood, disease, and continuous The shift perhaps was also a consequence grinding poverty – and when he could the village. Addressing the Associated of his growing first hand encounters with endure it no longer; he would quietly and Chamber of Commerce in Calcutta in the rural masses after the 1920s. He de- almost uncomplainingly lie down in his December 1947, he had said: scribed quite lucidly the prevailing struc- thousands or millions and die. That was ...while we want to help the peasants and ture of agrarian relations while describing his way of escape [Nehru 1980:306]. agriculturalists, industry also is of domi- one such encounter with peasants in the How did he visualise the future of Indian nant importance in India. Agriculture can following passage: rural society? How far did he agree and/ produce wealth but it will produce more I listened to their innumerable tales of or disagree with Gandhi? wealth (if) more people are drawn from sorrow, their crushing and ever-growing Though Nehru and Gandhi seem to agree agriculture and put in industry. In fact, in burden of rent, illegal extraction, eject- on the nature of traditional Indian village order to improve agriculture we must ments from land and mud hut, beatings; society, Nehru’s critique of village life, as improve industry (sic). The two are allied [Gopal 1986:566]. surrounded on all sides by vultures who also of the British rule, are very different preyed on them – zamindar’s agents, from those of Gandhi. Perhaps the most He also differed with Gandhi on the moneylenders, police; toiling all day to critical difference between Gandhi and use of modern technology in agriculture. find that what they produced was not theirs Nehru was their attitude towards the Instead of celebrating the traditionalist and their reward was kicks and curses and question of class and the class structure streak among the cultivators, he criticised a hungry stomach [Nehru 1980:52]. of the Indian agrarian society. While Gandhi them for ‘using outdated methods’, and Nehru also developed his critique of the almost always spoke about the village in for being ‘content with whatever little colonial rule through such accounts of the a populist language, in terms of village as they produced’. In contrast to Gandhi, he existing state of affairs in rural India. What a unit with an underlying assumption about thought that modern technology was he describes in the passage quoted above the unity of its interests, Nehru recognised good for farmers. They could produce was not merely what he observed in a and, in his later writings, foregrounded twice or thrice as much as they did if they particular village. He saw landlordism as theinternal differences in the rural soci- learnt new techniques of farming [Gopal being organically linked to British rule. It ety, the contradictions between landlords 1997:86-90]. was the British rulers who had in the first and the peasantry. Similarly, while Gandhi However, he did share with Gandhi the place implanted the landlord system in advocated the need for reviving the ‘es- need for a revival of handicrafts and cottage India “with disastrous results” [Nehru sential spirit’ of village life, Nehru wanted industry. The modern industry could not 1946:246] and they (the landlords) could to transform the village social and eco- absorb all the surplus population, what- survive in India “only so long as an ex- nomic structure by using modern techno- ever may be its pace of development. ternal power like the British government logy and changing agrarian relations. The “Hundreds of millions will remain who props them up” [ibid:58]. landlords and landlordism, in his scheme would have to be employed chiefly in He also blamed the British for disturbing of things, would have no place in indepen- agriculture”. While development of the the old economic equilibrium of the vil- dent India. industry was necessary if we were to lage. They implanted exploitative agrarian The kisans, on the other hand, were the remain free, “the development of heavy relations and destroyed the local industry, real ‘masses of India’. The colonial rulers industry would not by itself solve the taking away non-agricultural sources of were not the only enemies that the kisans problem of the millions in this country”. employment that were available to the local had. The local landlords were as much a Thus India needed to revive “the village people. Elaborating his argument on India’s problem. Their difficulties ‘in the main and cottage industry in a big way” [Nehru deindustrialisation, he writes: related to such questions as rent, ejectment 1954:84]. The Indian farmer who used to supplement and possession of lands’. ‘Swaraj would Need of reviving the cottage and small- his income by plying the charkha in his be of little avail if it did not solve’ the scale industry was not the only point spare time was also suddenly deprived of problems of the kisans [Gopal 1973:82]. where Nehru spoke the language of Economic and Political Weekly August 10, 2002 3349 Gandhi. He also shared with Gandhi his for Indian independence. However, over settlements too reflected this basic tenet. broad philosophical approach to the vil- the years, he has grown in stature. As Quite like the Hindu civilisation, village lage (also see above his notion of the Eleanor Zelliot has rightly pointed out, he too was divided: traditional Indian village in the beginning is perhaps the only pre-independence leader The Hindu society insists on segregation of this section). Though, economically the who has continued to grow in fame and of the untouchables. The Hindu will not village of future India could not be self- influence throughout the contemporary live in the quarters of the untouchables and sufficient, socially and politically his ideas period [Zelliot 2001]. will not allow the untouchables to live inside Hindu quarters…It is not a case of were pretty much the same as those of The significance of Ambedkar lies in his social separation, a mere stoppage of social Gandhi. The following text is useful evi- social background. Over the years, he has intercourse for a temporary period. It is a dence of this: come to represent the most downtrodden case of territorial segregation and of a The village, which used to be an organic sections of the Indian society, the ‘untouch- cordon sanitaire putting the impure people and vital unit, became progressively a ables’ and the dalits. Though like Gandhi inside the barbed wire into a sort of a cage. derelict area, just a collection of mud huts and Nehru he too was well educated and Every Hindu village has a ghetto. The Hindus and odd individuals. But still the village had spent a good part of his youth in the live in the village and the untouchables live holds together by some invisible link, and west, he identified, almost completely, with in the ghetto [Ambedkar 1948:21-22]. old memories revive. It should be easily the dalit cause. This was reflected in his Thus for Ambedkar, village presented a possible to take advantage of these age- thinking and politics. Like Gandhi and model of the Hindu social organisation, a long traditions and to build up communal Nehru he too wrote a great deal on India.5 microcosm. It was ‘the working plant of and cooperative concerns in the land and in the small industry. The village can no As mentioned above, of the three ideo- the Hindu social order, where one could longer be self-contained economic logues of the freedom movement being see the Hindu social order in operation in unit…but it can very well be a govern- compared here, Ambedkar was the only full swing’. Though he often used the mental and electoral unit, each such unit one who had a first hand experience of expression Indian village, the village, for functioning as a self-governing commu- village-life and that too of looking at it him, did not include the untouchables, nity within the larger political framework from below, as a dalit child. Apart from who lived outside, in the ‘ghetto’. and looking after the essential needs of the having been born in a village, his last The Indian village was not a single unit. village…I feel sure that the village should name, Ambavadekar, as it was initially It was divided into two sets of populations: be treated as a unit. This will give truer and more responsible representation [Nehru registered in school, was also derived from ‘touchables’ and ‘untouchables’. The‘toucha- 1946:534-35]. his ‘native’ village called Ambavade. It bles’ formed, what he called, ‘the major Thus, though Nehru’s approach to in- was only later that a teacher in his school community’ and the untouchables ‘a minor dustry and technology and the place they changed it to Ambedkar, giving him his community’. The ‘touchables’ lived inside ought to have in the future of India were own name [see Keer 1962:14]. the village and the untouchables lived very different from Gandhi, he was not Though his father was a mobile dalit and outside the village in separate quarters. untouched by the influence of Gandhi. was employed in a ‘secular’ occupation, The touchables were economically the More crucially, perhaps, their sources of Ambedkar could not escape the difficul- dominant community and commanded understanding India’s past were mostly ties of his caste and class background during power; the untouchables were a ‘depen- common. They both read the writings of his childhood. The economic hardships dent community’ and a ‘subject race of colonial/western scholars on India rather that his family experienced during his hereditary bondsmen’. The untouchables uncritically. This seems particularly so with childhood are quite starkly reflected in the lived according to the codes laid down for their understandings of the ‘old’ Indian fact that of the 14 children born to his them by the dominant ‘touchable’ major village. The western writers, after all, had mother, only five survived. Though he community. These codes laid guidelines presented the Indian past in good light and grew up to be a barrister with a degree in regarding their habitations; the distance these leaders had learnt much of their law and Doctor of Science from western they ought to maintain from the ‘Hindus’; concepts of history and politics from the universities, he could never forget the the dress they should wear; the houses they western education system. experiences of his childhood and the should live in; the language they should It was left to B R Ambedkar, who hardly humiliations of being a dalit. It is this speak; the names they should keep. They had any stakes in the glorification of tra- experience that was, to a significant extent, could not build houses having tiled roofs; ditional India, to develop a radical critique to shape his political outlook as also his they could not wear silver or gold jewellery of the Indian village. Being a dalit and perspective on the village life. Thus, in [Moon 1979, 1989]. having spent a part of his childhood in a Ambedkar we find, what could be called, Though Ambedkar did refer to the village of Maharashtra, he knew what living a dalitist view of the village. Indianvillage and its casteist social struc- in a village meant for a dalit. He obviously Like most of his contemporaries, ture in his earlier writings, most of his had no attraction for orientalist notions of Ambedkar too spoke about the Indian ideas on the subject were perhaps India that celebrated its past. society and the village life in civilisational crystallised in response to the debates in terms. Despite recognising the obvious the constituent assembly where many VI cultural diversities, the social structure of ‘Hindu members’ of the assembly made the Indian village was, for all of them, the ‘angry speeches’ in “support of the con- Ambedkar and Indian Village same everywhere. However, unlike others, tention that the Indian Constitution should Ambedkar saw the Indian civilisation as recognise the village as its base of the When compared with Gandhi and Nehru, being a Hindu civilisation. More impor- constitutional pyramid of autonomous the influence of B R Ambedkar was rather tantly, he saw dalits as not being a part of administrative units with its own legisla- limited, particularly during the movement this Hindu society. The structure of village ture, executive and judiciary” (1989:19). 3350 Economic and Political Weekly August 10, 2002 In his well known response to those who ating experiences and dependency. There to cite parallel cases to match…It seems wanted village to be treated as the basic was only one source of livelihood open to that the first class-struggle took place unit of Indian civilisation, he had said: them. It was ‘the right to beg food from between the brahmins, kshatriyas and the Hindu farmers of the village. A large vaishyas on the one hand and the shudras I hold that these village republics have on the other [ibid:193]. majority of the untouchables in the village been the ruination of India…What is the village but a sink of localism, a den of were either servants or landless labourers. There is a remarkable continuity in his ignorance, narrow-mindedness and com- As village servants, they depended upon writings on the village. His critique of the munalism? [Moon 994:62]. the Hindus for their maintenance, and had village and caste system resembles quite His concern obviously emanated from to go from door to door every day and closely those anthropological writings that the standpoint of the ‘untouchables’, for collect bread or cooked food from the tried to consciously look at caste from whom recognition of the village as a unit Hindus in return for certain customary below [see, for example, Mencher 1975]. of legal structure of India would have been services rendered by them to the Hindus’ ‘a great calamity’ [Moon 1989:19]. [ibid:24]. Conclusion Though, as mentioned above, Ambedkar In his typically polemical style he con- too was educated in the west, he was cluded: Gandhi, Nehru and Ambedkar were the perhaps much more sceptical of western This is the village republic of which the three most important leaders of the modern and colonial writings on the Indian soci- Hindus are so proud. What is the position India. The three leaders have been impor- ety. While Gandhi and Nehru accepted the of the untouchables in this Republic? They tant not only because they played a critical notion of ‘village community’ as a natural are not merely the last but are also the role in India’s struggle for freedom from fact of Indian civilisation, Ambedkar least…in this Republic there is no place colonial rule, and have become symbols perhaps saw it more in historical terms, as for democracy. There is no room for of India’s independent nationhood. Their equality. There is no room for liberty and having been derived from the colonial/ legacy is also imbibed in the perspectives there is no room for fraternity. The Indian western imaginations of India, specifically they articulated on India, its pasts and its village is a very negation of Republic. The from the writings of Sir Charles Metcalfe. possible futures. Their writings continue republic is an Empire of the Hindus over He also thought that such a notion of to be sources of inspiration for all those the untouchables. It is a kind of colonial- village came to be accepted by the upper ism of the Hindus designed to exploit the engaged in further consolidating Indian caste Hindus and the leaders of the inde- untouchables. The untouchables have no democracy in many different ways. Their pendence movement because it projected rights…They have no rights because they legacies also reflect many of the dilemmas them in a positive light. ‘The average Hindu are outside the village republic and be- being faced by Indian society today. was always in ecstasy whenever he spoke cause they are outside the so-called village The reformist vision of Gandhi, who of the Indian village. He regarded it as an republic, they are outside the Hindu fold wanted to construct a harmonious and self- ideal form of social organisation to which [ibid: 25-26]. contained village, uncorrupted by the he believed there was no parallel anywhere The ‘Hindu domination’ was not con- modern life of the city and western tech- in the world’ [ibid:19]. fined to the village. The local power/social nology continues to find its echoes in The ‘realistic picture’ of village life was structure was reflected at the macro/na- present times. It was only through the very different. For Ambedkar, the govern- tional level as well. reconstruction of the village that India, for ing normative structure of the village was Gandhi, could recover its lost self and From the capital of India down to the no way close to democracy. The village attain true freedom. Though not very village level the whole administration is life was marked by experiences of exclu- rigged by the Hindus. The Hindus are like widespread in the present-day India, his sion, exploitation and untouchability. Not the omnipotent almighty pervading all over appeal remains quite powerful amongst only did the members of upper/dominant the administration in all its branches hav- those looking for alternatives to the con- castes make the untouchables live outside ing its authority in all its nooks and corners flict ridden, polluted and unlivable big the village, in the ghetto, the untouchables [ibid:104]. cities. Apart from his followers on the were also excluded from most of the vil- Indian political scene, his ideas have also Ambedkar also contested the popular lage festivities. ‘When the whole village inspired many of the environmentalist anthropological thesis about the ideologi- community was engaged in celebrating a writings and ideologies in other parts of cal unity of the Hindu society that claims general festivity such as Holi or Dasara, the world. that ideologically the untouchables also the untouchables must perform all menial Nehru’s modernist vision of the village subscribed to ideas of pollution and purity. acts which were preliminary to the main has been the source of much of the official Against the idea of ‘cultural consensus’ observance. These duties had to be per- policies and programmes of rural develop- and ‘reciprocity’ as characteristics of the formed without remuneration’ [ibid: 22] ment initiated by the government of caste system, he draws an analogy between Apart from the experiences of near Indiaafter independence, particularly caste and class and looks at caste exactly complete domination, the untouchables duringthe 1950s and 1960s. Though he in the terms in which Marx had talked were also exploited and oppressed by the shared with Gandhi the notions of tradi- about classes. upper castes. They were not allowed to tional Indian village having been a ‘com- The four varnas were animated by nothing acquire wealth in form of land or cattle; munity’ in the past, for him class divisions, but a spirit of animosity towards one they could not practice agriculture. Even backwardness and ignorance marked the another. There would not be slightest as labourers they could not demand rea- actual existing villages. The question, for exaggeration to say that the social history sonable wages. They must submit to the of the Hindus is not merely of class struggle him was not to revive the old ‘community’ rates fixed or suffer violence [ibid 23]. but class war fought with such bitterness but to develop the village and the agricul- They lived a life that was full of humili- that even the Marxists will find it difficult ture through new technology and abolition Economic and Political Weekly August 10, 2002 3351 of ‘outdated’ structures of agrarian have perhaps voted against the very idea settlements. The village life, they all pro- relations. of village where it was impossible to escape fessed, needed to be changed. They also Having become the first prime minister from one’s caste identity. seemed to agree on the point that it was of India, he had the opportunity of trans- Before I conclude this paper, let me also difficult for the village to produce such a lating his thoughts into practice. The point to the fact that notwithstanding change from within. They all, in different policies and programmes initiated by the their differences on the nature of Indian ways, called for outside agents to inter- government of free India did carry his village, there are many ways in which the vene. Even Gandhi emphasised on the vision. The implementation of land re- three seem to agree. As mentioned in the need of outside volunteers to go to the form, although with limited success, and beginning of the paper, they all spoke village and translate his ideas into reality. various programmes of rural development about the village in civilisational terms. Nehru thought that the peasants were ‘ig- that took modern technology and new seeds The Indian village had a pan-Indian norant’ ‘foolish’ and ‘simple folks’ [Nehru to the cultivators have transformed Indian structure. Irrespective of the differences 1980:61]. They needed to be encouraged agriculture significantly. of region, language or culture, villages and motivated to change their ways of Unlike Gandhi and Nehru, Ambedkar were the same everywhere. Village, per- cultivation and learn modern techniques was a ‘rebel’. He had neither the moral haps, was the only ‘concrete’ denominator in order to grow more food. The initiative authority of Gandhi, nor the institutional of the Indian nationhood. However, I had to come from the state. Ambedkar had power of Nehru. His influence, however, have also tried to show above that despite from the outset no stakes in the village. cannot be underestimated. Over the years, the use of categories like village popularised The future of dalits lay elsewhere, not in he has grown in stature and has emerged by the colonial discourses on India, their the ‘den of ignorance’. (cid:12)(cid:13)(cid:14) as a symbol of a potent dalit identity all- substantive notions of the empirical over India. His writings articulate a ‘sub- reality were shaped by a multitude of Notes altern view’ on the village. When looked factors and the effects of their uses of such at from below, from the standpoint of categories varied significantly. In other [Work for this paper was completed during my those who were made to live outside the words, though orientalist/colonial catego- stay at the Department of Rural Sociology, University of Wisconsin-Madison. I am grateful village and were treated as untouchables, ries provided them with conceptual re- to Gary Green for inviting me to the department the so-called virtues of traditional living sources; these categories could not com- and commenting on an earlier draft of the paper. turn into oppressive structures. The hope pletely limit/determine their politics and Sneha S Komath and Ayeshah Iftikhar also read for the dalits, therefore, did not lie in its world-views. the draft and gave useful comments. Usual revival/reconstruction, or for that matter, Further, though their approaches were disclaimers apply]. even in its development. Though he does very different, they were all unhappy with 1 There have been only a few sociologists, such not suggest it explicitly, Ambedkar would the existing state of affairs in the rural as Desai 1948; Moore 1966; Dhanagare 1982, Special Issue on IIIIInnnnnfffffooooorrrrrmmmmmaaaaatttttiiiiiooooonnnnn TTTTTeeeeeccccchhhhhnnnnnooooolllllooooogggggyyyyy aaaaannnnnddddd DDDDDeeeeevvvvveeeeelllllooooopppppiiiiinnnnnggggg SSSSSoooooccccciiiiieeeeetttttiiiiieeeeesssss CCCCCaaaaallllllllll fffffooooorrrrr PPPPPaaaaapppppeeeeerrrrrsssss EPW calls for papers for a Special Issue on Information Technology and Developing Economies and Societies to be published in February 2003. Significant focus has been placed on the use of Information Technology as a means of development over the last few years. We are looking for research that examines three aspects of this use of IT. First, research into the effects, impact and possible future impact of IT on developing countries. We are not particularly focused on IT as an industry, but rather as a tool used in the economy and society at large. Secondly, we are interested in studies that identify analogous technical introductions that provide insight into projections of how IT will influence these societies. For instance, what have we learnt from the spread of telecommunications? In many places, the use of IT may not be significant enough yet to study. We may, therefore, have to examine other areas to gain insights and project what may happen. Finally, we are interested in studies that examine how the social science disciplines can be useful in guiding interventions focused on employing IT for development. Please submit abstracts of your research by the end of September 2002. Completed papers must reach us by the end of December 2002. 3352 Economic and Political Weekly August 10, 2002