Bureaucracy and Control in India's Great Landed Estates: The Raj Darbhanga of Bihar, 1879 to 1950

1983 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-57 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Henningham

In north India in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries several great landed estates played a crucial part in the consolidation of imperial rule and in the support of the social and economic order. These estates have attracted considerable scholarly attention, but previous research has concentrated primarily on their relations with the colonial administraton and on their general intermediary role in north Indian society. The only study directly concerned with their internal affairs is Dr. P. J. Musgrave's ‘Landlords and Lords of the Land: Estate Management and Social Control in Uttar Pradesh 1860–1920’ (Modern Asian Studies, 6, 3 (1972), pp. 257–75), in which official sources are used as the basis for an account of the internal operations of the great estates in the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh. Hitherto the major obstacle to the examination of the administration of the great estates has been the absence of comprehensive estate records. Fortunately the extensive and well-organized archives of the Raj Darbhanga of Bihar recently have been opened to scholars. In this paper the Raj archives have been drawn upon to provide evidence for an account of the structure and operation of the administration of the Raj Darbhanga during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The paper argues that despite substantial difficulties the Raj Darbhanga effectively pursued its interests by means of a bureaucratic system of management and that therefore Dr Musgrave's conclusions concerning the limited power of the great landed estates need substantial qualification and correction.

2020 ◽  
Vol 97 ◽  
pp. 134-158
Author(s):  
Camille Buat

AbstractStarting in the late 19 th century, workers from north India came to constitute the backbone of the urban and industrial labour force in Calcutta and neighboring mill municipalities. As they settled in and around the colonial metropolis, these Hindustani workers maintained strong connections with their rural homes. One generation after the other, they reproduced this dual settlement over the following decades. This bi-local structure of labour circulation, which linked village and city through the constant coming and going of men and women, progressively broke down from the late 20 th century onwards, following the closure of the large textile, engineering and paper industries which underpinned the economic vitality of the Calcutta region. The article sketches out the history of this socio-spatial configuration over the second half of the 20 th century, through the life histories of two migrant Hindustani workers. Born around 1940, Siraj Prajapati and Mohan Lal both spent the greater part of their working lives in Calcutta's industrial suburbs. Siraj, a potter by caste, was engaged in the artisanal production tea-cups in Howrah. Born into one of the most marginalized sections of north Indian society, Mohan managed to train as a mason, and was employed in the Titagarh Paper Mill through the 1960s and 70s. Both have now settled back in their respective villages of eastern Uttar Pradesh. Teasing out the contradictory ways in which both men frame their life trajectories, the article contributes a micro-perspective to the social history of rural-urban migration in post-colonial north India.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shalinder Sabherwal ◽  
Anand Chinnakaran ◽  
Ishaana Sood ◽  
Gaurav K Garg ◽  
Birendra P Singh ◽  
...  

BACKGROUND Vision Centre (VC) is a significant eyecare service model to strengthen primary eye care services. VCs have been set-up at block level covering a population of 150,000-250,000 in rural areas in North India. Inadequate utilization by rural communities is a major challenge to sustainability of these VCs. This not only reduces the community’s vision improvement potential but also impacts self-sustainability and limits expansion of services in rural areas. Current literature reports lack of awareness regarding eye diseases and the need for care, social stigmas, low priority being given to eye problems, prevailing gender discrimination, cost, and dependence on caregivers as factors preventing utilization of primary eyecare. OBJECTIVE To address this, our organization is planning an awareness cum engagement intervention – door-to-door basic eye check-up and visual acuity screening in VC’s coverage areas, to connect with the community and improve rational utilization of the VCs. METHODS The study is a randomized parallel group experimental study, in which we will select 2 VCs each for intervention arm and control arm, among poor low performing VCs i.e., walk-in of ≤10 patients/day, from our two operational regions (Vrindavan, Mathura District and Mohammadi, Kheri District) of Uttar Pradesh. Intervention will include door to door screening and awareness generation in 8-12 villages surrounding VC, and control VC will follow existing practices of awareness generation through community activities and health talks. Data collected from each VCs for four months of intervention, primary outcome being utilization of VCs would include, number of walk-in patients, spectacle advised and uptake, referral and uptake for cataract and specialty surgery and operational expenses. Secondary outcomes would be uptake of refraction correction and referrals for cataract and other eye conditions. Differences in the number of walk-in patients, referrals, uptake of services and cost involved would be analyzed. RESULTS Participant recruitment in progress. CONCLUSIONS Through this study, we would analyze if of our door-to-door intervention is effective in increasing the number of visits at VC and the thus, the overall sustainability. We would also study the cost-effectiveness of this intervention to recommend it’s scalability. CLINICALTRIAL This protocol has been retrospectively registered as a clinical trial (NCT04800718) on 15th March 2021 at the ClinicalTrials.gov registry. Participant recruitment is still in progress. https://www.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04800718?term=NCT04800718&recrs=ab&draw=2&rank=1


2017 ◽  
Vol 52 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-27 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joel Lee

The social worlds that dalit Muslims in North India daily negotiate are pervaded by contradictions between caste practices and Islamic ethics. Dalit Muslims engaged in manual scavenging and related forms of sanitation labour experience these contradictions acutely in the distinctive spatial and affective conditions of this labour, which I characterise as ‘intimate untouchability’. Grounded in historical and ethnographic research in eastern Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, this article demonstrates how dalit Muslims use narratives mobilising the genealogical and ethical concept of the Halalkhor—a caste label that also denotes ‘one who earns an honest living’—to critique their higher status co-religionists and to engender a more egalitarian Islamic community. The category of the Halalkhor is tracked in the historical record and in its deployment in dalit Muslim oral traditions about the origin of the community and its association with sanitation work.


IJOHMN ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (6) ◽  
pp. 11-19
Author(s):  
RASHMI Ahlawat

Aravind Adiga’s Man Booker Prize winning debut novel The White Tiger is sharp, fascinating, attacks poverty and injustice. The White Tiger is a ground breaking Indian novel. Aravind Adiga speaks of suppression and exploitation of various sections of Indian society. Mainly a story of Balram, a young boy’s journey from  rags to riches, Darkness to Light transforming from a village teashop boy into a Bangalore entrepreneur. This paper deals with poverty and injustice. The paper analyses Balram’s capability to overcome the adversities and cruel realities. The pathetic condition of poor people try to make both ends meet. The novel mirrors the lives of  poor in a realistic mode. The White Tiger is a story about a man’s journey for freedom. The protagonist   Balram in this novel is a victim of injustice, inequality and poverty. He worked hard inspite   of his low caste and overcame the social hindrance and become a successful entrepreneur. Through this novel Adiga portrays realistic and painful image of modern India. The novel exposes the anxieties of the oppressed.


2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 43-50
Author(s):  
Dr.S.Theresammal

Woman establishes the strategicpart in the Indian society. Women in ancient India relished high position in society and their situation was worthy.The country is to study the position of its women. In certainty, the position of women represents the customary of values of any period. The social position of the women of a nation represents the social essence of the era. Though to appeal an assumption about the position of women is a problematic and difficult delinquent. It is consequently, essential to touch this situation in the historical perspective.The paper will help us to imagine the position of women in the historical perspective.


2012 ◽  
Vol 2012 (1) ◽  
pp. 163-192
Author(s):  
Sonja Rinofner-Kreidl

Autonomy is associated with intellectual self-preservation and self-determination. Shame, on the contrary, bears a loss of approval, self-esteem and control. Being afflicted with shame, we suffer from social dependencies that by no means have been freely chosen. Moreover, undergoing various experiences of shame, our power of reflection turns out to be severly limited owing to emotional embarrassment. In both ways, shame seems to be bound to heteronomy. This situation strongly calls for conceptual clarification. For this purpose, we introduce a threestage model of self-determination which comprises i) autonomy as capability of decision-making relating to given sets of choices, ii) self-commitment in terms of setting and harmonizing goals, and iii) self-realization in compliance with some range of persistently approved goals. Accordingly, the presuppositions and distinctive marks of shame-experiences are made explicit. Within this framework, we explore the intricate relation between autonomy and shame by focusing on two questions: on what conditions could conventional behavior be considered as self-determined? How should one characterize the varying roles of actors that are involved in typical cases of shame-experiences? In this connection, we advance the thesis that the social dynamics of shame turns into ambiguous positions relating to motivation, intentional content,and actors’ roles.


1991 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 313-317
Author(s):  
Ziaul Haque

Deveiopment planning in India, as in other developing countries, has generally been aimed at fostering an industrially-oriented policy as the engine of economic growth. This one-sided economic development, which results in capital formation, creation of urban elites, and underprivileged social classes of a modern society, has led to distortions in the social structure as a whole. On the contrary, as a result of this uneven economic development, which is narrowly measured in terms of economic growth and capital formation, the fruits of development have gone to the people according to their economic power and position in the social structure: those occupying higher positions benefiting much more than those occupying the lower ones. Thus, development planning has tended to increase inequalities and has sharpened divisive tendencies. Victor S. D'Souza, an eminent Indian sociologist, utilizing the Indian census data of 1961, 1971, and 1981, examines the problem of structural inequality with particular reference to the Indian Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes - the two most underprivileged sections of the present Indian society which, according to the census of 1981, comprised 15.75 percent and 7.76 percent of India's population respectively. Theoretically, he takes the concept of development in a broad sense as related to the self-fulfIlment of the individual. The transformation of the unjust social structure, the levelling down of glaring economic and social inequalities, and the concern for the development of the underprivileged are for the author the basic elements of a planned development. This is the theoretical perspective of the first chapter, "Development Planning and Social Transformation".


Author(s):  
Himanshu ◽  
Peter Lanjouw ◽  
Nicholas Stern

Development economics is about understanding how and why lives and livelihoods change. This book is about economic development in the village of Palanpur, in Moradabad district, Uttar Pradesh, in north India. It draws on seven decades of detailed data collection by a team of dedicated development economists to describe the evolution of Palanpur’s economy, its society, and its politics. The emerging story of integration of the village economy with the outside world is placed against the backdrop of a rapidly transforming India and, in turn, helps to understand the transformation. The role of, and scope for, public policy in shaping the lives of individuals is examined. The book describes how changes in Palanpur’s economy since the late 1950s were initially driven by the advance of agriculture through land reforms, the expansion of irrigation, and the introduction of ‘green revolution’ technologies. Then, since the mid-1980s, newly emerging off-farm opportunities in nearby towns and outside agriculture became the key drivers of growth and change. These key forces of change have profoundly influenced poverty, income mobility, and inequality in Palanpur. Village institutions such as those governing access to land are shown to have evolved in subtle but clear ways over time, while individual entrepreneurship and initiative is found to play a critical role in driving and responding to the forces of change. And yet, against a backdrop of real economic growth and structural transformation, the book documents how human development outcomes have shown only weak progress and remain stubbornly resistant to change.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Huoyin Zhang ◽  
Shiyunmeng Zhang ◽  
Jiachen Lu ◽  
Yi Lei ◽  
Hong Li

AbstractPrevious studies in humans have shown that brain regions activating social exclusion overlap with those related to attention. However, in the context of social exclusion, how does behavioral monitoring affect individual behavior? In this study, we used the Cyberball game to induce the social exclusion effect in a group of participants. To explore the influence of social exclusion on the attention network, we administered the Attention Network Test (ANT) and compared results for the three subsystems of the attention network (orienting, alerting, and executive control) between exclusion (N = 60) and inclusion (N = 60) groups. Compared with the inclusion group, the exclusion group showed shorter overall response time and better executive control performance, but no significant differences in orienting or alerting. The excluded individuals showed a stronger ability to detect and control conflicts. It appears that social exclusion does not always exert a negative influence on individuals. In future research, attention to network can be used as indicators of social exclusion. This may further reveal how social exclusion affects individuals' psychosomatic mechanisms.


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