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PROJECT GUIDEBOOK - VILLAGE INDIA

Identification and Enhancement

of India’s Cultural Heritage

An Internal Necessity in the

Management of Development

1999

UNESCO Chair in the Field of Cultural Development

Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, New Delhi

PREFATORY NOTE
INTERVIEW GUIDE

PREFATORY NOTE

Objective
Unit of Study
Selection procedure
Collection of Data
Time frame
Resource persons

Objective

Examining the myth of an autonomous self-sufficient isolable village.
Identifying the trends of technocentric development.
Exploring alternate models of rural development.
Determining the inner potentiality of village life.
Suggesting the use of cultural heritage as a tool for development.
Mapping India's cultural heritage, its cultural zones.
Drawing up a technical document for development planners and researchers.

Unit of study

The Village.
100 villages from all the 25 States and 7 Union Territories. Take only one village in the State/UT with a population of less than 50 lac and more than one in others-depending on eco-cultural pockets and other variables.

Selection procedure

Average size, about 1000-3000 people.
Sufficiently away from mega-cities.
Significant ecological (e.g. hills and forests, riverine tracts, coastal areas); social (e.g. caste, tribe); religious (e.g. Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim, Christian) variations.
Uniqueness in terms of ethnic composition (e.g. tribal village); occupational (e.g. fishing village); cultural peculiarities (e.g. temple village, impact of pilgrimage centres, Muslim/Christian influence, peculiarity of language); association with freedom movement; impact of urbanization; and displaced villages (due to development schemes or natural calamities).

Collection of data

Collect data from persons belonging to the highest caste, a caste in intermediary position and a member of the lowest caste in the village. Data should represent substantial cultivators, ordinary cultivators and landless families.
Collect local names for tools, products and processes (glossary of technical terms used by the villagers).
Collect data on rituals, beliefs and values associated with various aspects of life.
Collect data on traditional expressions (e.g. proverbs, metaphors); specialists' knowledge system (e.g. ethnobotany, ethnomedicine); creation myths, human nature; people's view of city culture, of Gandhi, of daridranarayan God of the poor.
Illustrate your data by maps and sketches of house-types, tools and other elements of material culture.

Time frame

Not more than 2 months.

Resource persons

Contact a good number of informed persons at the State capital and District headquarters.

INTERVIEW GUIDE

Village census
Settlement pattern: old and new
House types : old and new
Domesticated animals and birds
Diet : old and new
Dress and ornament : tradition and innovation
Common means of transport : tradition and innovation
Cropping pattern : tradition and innovation
Agricultural tools : tradition and innovation
Coomon oil Press : tradition and innovation
Common basketry : tradition and innovation
Pottery (earthen) : tradition and innovation
Weaving : tradition and innovation
Carpentry : tradition and innovation
Smithy : tradition and innovation
Fishing and hunting : tradition and innovation
Other forms of creativity : tradition and innovation
Village market
Village sanitation and public health : old and new
Social system : old and new
Economic system : old and new
Political system : old and new
Shrines, deities and festivals : old and new
Religious issues
Moral issues
Modes of transmission of knowledge
Endogenous development
Exogenous development
Human development
Notes and general observation

01. Village census

Household details

Name of the Village : District : State :

Name of head of the family :

1.1. Age

1.2. Sex

1.3. Education

1.4. Occupation

Religion :

Caste :

Total No. of family members :

Age group 0 - 5 years of age

Age Group

0-5 years of age

6-15 years of age

16-64 years of age

65 and above

Education :

Non Literate

Literate

Graduate

Post Graduate

Technical/Professional education

Teaching as a special category

No. of unemployed graduates in the family :

Members staying away from the village :

a) with family

b) without family

Status of a farmer :

Substantial farmer

Small farmer

Landless

Details of domestic animals and birds :

Housing structure / type :

Modern amenities (such as electricity, household equipment and appliances, agricultural aid and implements, transport and communication) :

02. Settlement pattern : old and new

Name of the village; its meaning.

History of the village.

A rough layout of the village allocating settlement areas, water resources (springs, rivers, tanks, wells, handpumps, tubewells [state or private, electric or manual], canals etc.) and management, drainage, agricultural fields, pastures, village jungles (if any), graveyards, cremation place, place for the disposal of dead animals, temple, mosque, church, shrines, panchayat ghar, community house, dormitory , latrine, bathing facilities etc. (Obtain cadastral map from Revenue officials. Also ask a villager to draw up the map of the village as he perceives it.)

03. House types : old and new
a.	People's knowledge and belief associated with the construction of house.
b.	Plan of a dwelling with distribution of huts in the family compound; significant variations (if any) in terms of caste or class.
c.	Details of construction : plan, plinth, wall, roof, number of slopes in the roof, arrangement for ventilation, materials used for construction, sources of the materials - local or outside.
d.	Indigenous architecture and builder.
e.	Cottages : materials used.

04. Domesticated animals and birds
a.	Traditional classification of animals and birds.
b.	Animal world affecting human life and culture : villagers' perception and experience.
c.	Broad ethno-zoological aspects of rural culture.

05. Diet : old and new
a.	Staple food - cereal or otherwise.
b.	Other items of food commonly taken : pulses, vegetables; protein diet - meat, beef, chicken, lamb, goat, etc.; milk and milk products, sweets; spices, salt; oil - animal and vegetable.
c.	Food processing : procurement, preparation, consumption.
d.	Indigenous beliefs associated with nutrition
e.	Course of meals : average, festive and ceremonial occasions, seasonal variation.
f.	Mode of cooking and serving meals; ritual cleanliness with regard to taking food such as bathing, washing hands, putting on special types of dress, offering to gods; food taboos.
g.	Cooking utensils for baking, boiling and frying, etc.; hearth and fuel; food-serving utensils.

06. Dress and ornament : tradition and innovation
a.	For adult men and women, for different major economic classes and castes : ordinary, festive ceremonial, ritual occasions; dress for widows - colour preferences and taboos, social status. (Note whether the dress is prepared in the village or procured from outside.)
b.	Tattooing, cosmetics, rituals associated with body decoration (male/female).

07. Common means of transport : traditions and innovation
a.	Human borne, pack-animals, bullock carts, boats, etc.
b.	Carriage, palanquin used by the bride or bridegroom.

08. Cropping pattern : Tradition and innovation
a.	List of crops grown : cereals, pulses, horticultural products; perennial crops such as betelnut, coconut; oil seeds; medicinal plants.
b.	Traditional cropping pattern, shifting cultivation.
c.	Traditional food crops which have disappeared.
d.	Problems associated with cash crops.
e.	Indigenous knowledge of bio-diversity.

09. Agricultural tools : tradition and innovation
a.	Tool for digging, levelling, sowing, transplanting, weeding, reaping, threshing, husking, storing implements.
b.	Implements made in the village; procured from outside.
c.	The use of modern agricultural tools, and the extent of mechanization.

10. Coomon oil Press : tradition and innovation
a.	Description of the oil press, showing details of parts.
b.	Drawn by men, bullocks - single or double, eyes closed or open.
c.	Caste traditionally involved in oil-extraction.
d.	Ceremonial or ritual way of extracting oil (if any).

11. Common basketry : tradition and innovation
a.	Types, raw material, form, technique, and use.
b.	Basket makers : individual or caste involved in this craft.
c.	Indigenous grass, palm leaves etc. used by women for making utensils.
d.	Environmental degradation affecting the craft.

12. Pottery (earthen) : tradition and innovation
a.	Types; tools commonly used; techniques.
b.	Caste or individual involved in clay work.

13. Weaving : tradition and innovation
a.	Types; tools(looms) commonly used; techniques.
b.	Caste or individual involved in manufacture.

14. Carpentry : tradition and innovation
a.	Types of product and their common use.
b.	Caste or individual involved in wood work.

15. Smithy : tradition and innovation
a.	Types of product and their common use.
b.	Caste of individual involved in brass, copper, iron work.

16. Fishing and hunting : tradition and innovation
a.	Tools and implements used; methods of production.
b.	Caste or individual involved in such activities for subsistence or commercial use.

17. Other forms of creativity : tradition and innovation
a.	Painting, puppetry, martial art, etc.
b.	Caste or individual involved in the art.

18. Village market
a.	Market most commonly visited; occasionally visited; (frequency, mileage).
b.	List of articles available in the market.

19. Village sanitation and public health : old and new
a.	Deposition of ordinary refuse : place and method.
b.	Evacuation and subsequent cleanliness; ablution.
c.	Other observations on general sanitation of the village, hygienic practice.
d.	Public health programme, training; traditional practice of medicine (ayurveda); government dispensary, hospital.

20. Social system : old and new
a.	Marriage rules and practice, generally followed : significant variations.
b.	Family and kinship system (special features : joint family system - familial co-operation : factors responsible for breaking the system).
c.	Caste or tribal system - social alignment, cooperation, and conflict : factors (if any) responsible for breaking the system.
d.	Social classes : factors in social ranking, class nomenclature.
e.	Patterns of behaviour - norms of behaviour within and outside the family, caste, tribe (Note the extent to which untouchability is practised); role of elderly people in all areas of decision making and child rearing.
f.	Self-organizing ability : the village genius - poet, story-teller, genial, artist, priest, healer, birth-attendant, master craftsman, expert in animal husbandry and botany, and such others; village republic in terms of interpersonal relationship; collective work; village initiative in the process of innovation and dissemination of knowledge; crisis behaviour; villagers building their own roads and running their schools : examples

21. Economic system : old and new
a.	Basic modes of production and distribution : agriculture, forestry, fishing etc.
b.	Skills, resources, and specialist production (e.g. khadi etc.).
c.	Exchanging goods locally in the neighbourhood; trade and barter.
d.	The jajmani, puddi or baluta system of payment in kind to artisans.
e.	Money-spinner : market-oriented system (weekly market, annual fair, dependence on and distance from city market).
f.	Interaction with industrial cities; urban source of income : deposits (as on the date of interview) in post office and bank; money orders received (in a year) in the village post office.
g.	Elements of 'businessman culture', conspicuous consumerism.
h.	Economic relations : relations of dependence and mastery, coercion and class exploitation (if any), money-lender and indebtedness.
i.	Meeting primary and major wants by one's own efforts.
j.	Forms of ownership of goods and ideas; inheritance of property.
k.	Transfer of land within and between the caste during the last 50 years : an assessment.
l.	Number of affluent families by generations, and new rich; relationship between wealth and social value.
m.	Crisis management : food scarcity famine, human distress, and weakening of social fabric.

22. Political system : old and new
a.	Caste council - composition; traditional village council.
b.	New village council (gram panchayat), corporate social units and their relationship with larger bodies such as zila parishad, and prakhand samiti.
c.	Inter-village relations; interdining villages; social, and religious contexts of their interaction.
d.	Interaction with capital cities; political parties - individual, social alignment (Name political parties and their agenda).
e.	Method of settling disputes within the family, village : examples.
f.	Law-and-order situation : incidents of theft, dacoity, murder, suicide, sexual offence, drug abuse, transgression of human rights, communal riots, agents of destruction, and habitual litigants : frequency, in each case.
g.	Customary law practised by each ethnic group : changing scenario; examples of conflict.

23. Shrines, deities and festivals : old and new
a.	Village gods : names of deities, description of the emblems (totems); associated beliefs and practices.
b.	Sacred space for ancestral spirit, memorial stone, sacred grove, dargah, mosque, temple, church and their social organization; priests (caste) and shamans - maintained communally or individually; number of old and new shrines.
c.	Articles offered to the deity : animal sacrifice (if any), name of animals sacrificed.
d.	Annual festivals in the village : month by month; within the village or outside; common places of pilgrimage (mileage, frequency).

24. Religious issues
a.	Cults and formation of religious groups - old and new.
b.	Interaction with sacred city : frequency.
c.	Inter-religious configuration and conflict : ways of structuring, organizing and maintaining peace; religious riots (if any); people's response to politicization of religious issues and sentiments.
d.	Religious movements and their impact on village-life (Brief description).
e.	Religious act such as feeding brahmans and poor, observing fast, recitation of scriptures, performance of yajna, receiving ascetics, renouncing this-worldly life (sannyasa) : frequency.
f.	Religious perception of nature : earth and sky.

25. Moral issues
a.	Voluntary poverty as higher value : instances of people adhering to such value of being poor.
b.	Articles valued not for any material reason but purely out of sentiments associated with the memory of a person.
c.	Ceremonial friendship : description; instances; consequent change in relationship between persons and villages.
d.	Social concern for honesty : instances where people refuse to buy stolen articles (Names of honest men and women).
e.	Status of women - their role in economic sphere (control of production), social sphere (marriage and family), religious sphere (worship and ritual). People's response to modern measures of women's empowerment.
f.	Respect for old people, intellectuals, saints, and artists.
g.	Gift-giving and gift-taking : ideology; social consideration of persons taking and not taking gift.
h.	Concept of papa, punya, moksha etc. as commonly held.

26. Modes of transmission of knowledge
a.	Traditional modes of learning : methods of transmission of the various kinds of knowledge (including spiritual knowledge) with special reference to bard, geneologist, healer, and others.
b.	Social status of specialists such as medicineman, astrologer, bard, barber, musician, goldsmith, potter, weaver, cobbler, story-teller, geneologist.
c.	Commonly recognized signs or indicators of hazards, natural calamities etc.
d.	Cosmogonic myths (origin of man and his universe); social myths (such as Lorik, Raja Salhesh, Dina-Bhadri, Allah-Udal, Koilabir) : brief description.
e.	Ritual art, its significance in everyday life : examples of healing through chanting mantras, and the practice of ojhas etc.

27. Endogenous development
a.	Sarvodaya model - bhoodan, gramdan, khadi and gramodyoga scheme : people's response. Note the state of Gandhi Gram, Ambedkar Gram, etc. (if any); Tagorian model of development - palli punargathan.
b.	Application of local knowledge : people's use of nature and traditional technology in agriculture and other subsistence mechanism, health and healing practices.
c.	Contribution by individuals and village-level organizations (caste, community) to all-round development activities : case studies of collective effort.
d.	People's conception of the good life, truth, non-violence, freedom, equality, and peace (in traditional sense) (Note the response of the various social groups on each of these); people's awareness of development alternatives.

28. Exogenous development
a.	Government-sponsored programme of activities such as school, hospital, post office, electricity, mills, metal road, village council, family-planning project, literacy programme, schemes for employment - job-opportunities : Brief description.
b.	Mechanism of state-centric development : government agencies involved in introducing new tools and techniques; people's demand (if any) for change; influence of political system; the extent to which it has transformed people's vision for a new society, improved inter-personal relationships.
c.	Alternative path to development : mechanism of the NGOs and other economic operators (if any).
d.	Communication high way : the use of modern media, including cinema and newspaper.
e.	Villager's conception of the quality of life of the urban industrial societies.
f.	People's evaluation of NGOs work.

29. Human development
a.	Mechanism of disaster management : people safeguarding themselves from famine, food shortage, epidemic disease and new hazards (social, psychological or environmental).
b.	Mechanism of human awakening : transmission of spiritual, moral and cultural values among individuals.
c.	Mechanism of establishing justice between the old and the new : people's response to new political and administrative managements; modern schools and colleges in the village; new health programme; exogenous innovations in agriculture, horticulture, fishing, and other productive techniques.
d.	Mechanism of establishing a 'middle path' - avoidance of both self-mortification and self-indulgence : guiding principles; people's perception of Mahatma Gandhi; his relevance today.

30. Notes and general observation

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