Joshi 1981

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Fieldwork experience:
Relived and reconsidered.
The Agrarian society of Uttar
Pradesh
a
P.C. Joshi
a
Professor of Institutional Economics and
Director, Institute of Economic Growth ,
University of Delhi ,
Published online: 05 Feb 2008.
To cite this article: P.C. Joshi (1981) Fieldwork experience: Relived and
reconsidered. The Agrarian society of Uttar Pradesh , The Journal of Peasant
Studies, 8:4, 455-484
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03066158108438147
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Fieldwork Experience: Relived and
Reconsidered. The Agrarian Society of
Uttar Pradesh*
P.C. Joshi**
Fieldwork is currently regarded as basic to the anthropologist's method of

studying rural communities. Though I studied social anthropology as a
student, my interest in fieldwork in U.P. villages in the early 1950s came
from different sources -from the tradition of fieldwork-based rural studies
initiated by R.K. Mukerjee in my university and from my contact with the
writings of Mao Tse-Tung in the course of my brief involvement in
revolutionary politics. What gave special significance to my fieldwork was
my theoretical interest in exploring the relevance of the concept of class as a
tool for understanding the dynamics of predominantly agrarian, ex-
colonial countries. Fieldwork helped me to gain an insight into the
peculiarities of the agrarian structure in an ex-colonial country which
showed rural-urban antagonism more sharply than internal class
polarisation. It is through fieldwork that I became aware of the role played
by ecological and geographicalfactors in determining thepeculiarities of the
agrarian structure in each region. Field experience also made me aware of
the conflicting pulls of class conflict and community solidarity operating
simultaneously in Indian villages. The inadequacy of fieldwork as a method
was also revealed to me sharply inthe course of fieldwork itself. When I tried
to explore how the evolution of the agrarian structure in a region was shaped
not merely by the natural factors specific to a region but the political-
economicforces operatingfrom outside the region, I found I had reached the
limits of field work. In the absence of a broaderperspective of a macro theory
of social change, fieldwork yielded only a bewildering mass of facts and
information but no meaningful insights.
Taking knowledge in its totality, any kind of knowledge is

inseparable from direct experience.
Mao Tse-Tung [1954]
Respect for fieldwork was not common among social scientists twenty-five years
ago when I had to choose a problem for my Ph.D. dissertation in economics at
* Revised version of paper published in M.N. Srinivas et al, The Field Worker and the Field, New Delhi:
Oxford University Press, 1979, pp. 74-9.
** Professor of Institutional Economics and Director, Institute ofEconomic Growth, University of Delhi.
456 The Journal of Peasant Studies
Lucknow University.1 It was believed that first class students chose theoretical
work and second class students the easier pathofresearch involving fieldwork. If
I opted for fieldwork even though it had a low valuation among academics, it was
because of my link with politics where fieldwork was rated high.
On the question of fieldwork there were sharp differences of opinion among
my three eminent teachers, D.P. Mukerji (fondly called D.P.), Radhakamal
Mukerjee (hereinafter called R.K.), and D.N. Majumdar. 'The fieldworker
receives from fieldwork what he himself puts into it. There is no observation if the
observer has no theory or point of view to guide him in his investigation.'2These
observations were made by D.P. when in 1952 I sought his guidance for
fieldwork in U.P.villages.Hewasemphaticthatmostfieldworkinlndiaresulted
in 'assembling of mere facts' [D.P. Mukerji, 1958:94] and not in understanding
and insights. He gave primacy to theoretical cultivation and to the study of
classics rather than to fieldwork. In his opinion, if a researchstudent did not form
the habit of studying classics and of drawing upon them for theoretical
clarification, he would be woolly in his thinking all his life. R.K. expressed
contrary views on this issue. He felt that scholars in India had a tendency to avoid
fieldwork in the name of theoretical work. Left to themselves they preferred
armchair philosophizing to down-to-earth fact finding. In his view, if a student
did not acquire the habit of fieldwork in his formative period, he would not
acquire it later. Without fieldwork experience, a scholar's feet were never planted
firmly on the ground.3
These two points of view seemed irreconcilable to me and confused me. I felt
torn between forces pulling in opposite directions, and I had many sleepless
nights. But now, two-and-a-half decades later, I regard it as my good fortune4
that I was exposed to both the points of view. I realize now more fully that if fact-
finding without theory had no direction, theory without fact-finding has no
solidity.5 The two are therefore complementary and not mutually exclusive. If
fieldwork, as R.K. said, gives one a direct feel of the complexity of man's life and
his problems, then theoretical cultivation, as D.P. said, helps in identifying
patterns and regularities in this complexity. Both are an essential part of the
equipment of a scientific worker.
In this paper I have tried to present some of my experiences in thestudy of the
agrarian society of Uttar Pradesh (U.P.). While dealing mainly with my
fieldwork experience, I have also tried to indicate the interplay of theory and
fieldwork in my study. If I had no theoretical background my fieldwork would
have been far less exciting and productive. My theoretical approach favoured a
'class' approach to thepeasantry. Butfieldworkservedas a powerful corrective of
the gaps in this approach. It impressed upon me the hiatus between what I learnt
from class theory and what I found from direct observation. Field experience
showed how difficult it was to view pre-industrial agrarian society as a class
society and the peasantry as a class in the classical sense.
In these pre-industrial societies there was neither a clear class differentiation
between those owning and those deprived from the ownership of the means of
production; nor was there a clearly formed, crystallized or articulated class
consciousness i.e. consciousness of belonging to a deprived class in sharp
Fieldwork Experience: Relived and Reconsidered 457
antagonism to the dominant class. The peasantry belonged, fully neither to the
category of 'haves' nor to the 'have nots'. Moreover, peasant categories of
thought were not class categories but of patrons and clients, Raja and Praja, and
upper castes and lower castes. This economic differentiation between
landowning and landless peasants was often interpreted in terms of caste rather
than in terms of class categories.6
The field-view also helped me to distinguish between two sub-types of
agrarian economies within a single pre-capitalist type, the first relating to
Eastern and Central Uttar Pradesh and the second relating to Western Uttar
Pradesh. The parasitic landlordism of the first type of agrarian economies witha
'subject peasantry' stood in sharp contrast to the second type of agrarian
economies with a more dynamic peasantry. Here was, therefore, a sharp contrast
between the landlord-dominated agrarian economies of Eastern and Central
U.P. and of the peasant-dominated agrarian economies of Western U.P.
Corresponding to the two sub-types of agrarian economies were the two sub-
types of culture and ideology. The field-view thus enabled me to demarcate the
peasant values and ideology from the feudal values and ideology. The former
encompassed respect for manual labour, industriousness, thrift and frugality,
economic rationality and curtailment of ritualism. The latter in contrast
encompassed aversion to manual labour and industry, leisure preference,
conspicuous consumption, excessive ritualism, traditionalism6' and indifference
to economic enterprise. The field experience also helped me to demarcate two
types of peasant values and ideology, one overshadowed by feudal values as in
Eastern and Central Uttar Pradesh and the other retaining its autonomy and
resilience as in Western Uttar Pradesh. The distinction between predominance
of feudal values and ideology in Eastern U.P. and of peasant values and ideology
in Western U.P. corresponded with the predominance of upper castes of
Brahmins, Rajputs, Kayasthas and Banias in Eastern U.P. and of peasant castes
of Jats, Gujars and Ahirs in Western U.P.
These insights led me to reformulate my theoretical positions regarding the
institutional and ideological requirements of economic development.
Peasantism, it seemed to me, was an autonomous and resilient economic and
cultural force within a semi-feudal economy and culture which could serve as a
source of economic rationalism; it could serve as the social base of peasant-
capitalistic transformation specially in Western Uttar Pradesh. In Eastern and
Central Uttar Pradesh, however, traditional landlordism was undergoing an
inner transformation under the impact of the money and the market economy
and the forces released by the nation-state. The responsiveness of asection of the
traditional landed gentry to modern economic stimuli was throwing up a new
class aptly characterised by Weber in relation to Prussia. This class became for
Weber 'the symbol of an amalgamation between a landed aristocracy corrupted
by money-making and a capitalistic middle class corrupted by aristocratic
pretensions' [R. Bendix, 1960: 63]. In Eastern and Central U.P. I found
indications of formation of a new 'landlord-capitalist' class representing a
peculiar mixture of aristocratic traditions and commercial spirit both in the
realm of economy and culture. The field view thus helped me to identify not one
but more than one pattern of rural dynamics.7
It should be noted that the field view not only subsumed what I observed
myself but what I learnt from the people. Thus the people themselves helped me
to see culture and ideology in a new light—not just apassive reflection of material
reality but as an active social force enlarging or restricting the scope of human
initiative. This insight involved such a sharp break from my one-sided view of the
primary role of economic factors and subordinate role of ideological factors that I
must comment on it briefly.

The contact between the fieldworker and the field is a contact between two
types of cultures whose categories of understanding are not identical and who do
not share a common framework of values or a common world view. The
investigator observes the many-sided activities and processes of rural life, and
the meaning which he attaches to each of them in terms of his values differs from
that which different segments of the rural population attach to them in terms of
their values. For instance, the extortion of rent and forced labour which he may
regard as an index of feudal exploitation may have a different meaning for
landlords and tenants under the sway of the ideology of patronage. Land may be
viewed by landowners more as a source of social status and power than as an
economic resource and a source of profit. What the fieldworker considers
'conspicuous consumption' may be viewed as a necessity for maintaining or
enhancing status by groups indulging in it.
It involves much mental strain for the investigator, who is an outsider, to
suspend his meaning system for the time being and to understand the people's
meaning system. His difficulties are enhanced if among the rural people
themselves a consciousness of the conflict of values has begun to emerge and the
unifying values (e.g., the concept of patronage) sustaining the old social
framework have started breaking down. Problems arise in presenting the
insider's view of the system when the view of one set of actors, the dominant and
articulate group, has to be juxtaposed with that of the other set of actors, the
subordinate and inarticulate group. Viewing the social system from the outside
in terms of categories of social science, and simultaneously from inside in terms of
the categories of the dominant and subordinate groups — this is the dual
challenge involved in fieldwork. Success in this task is judged by the extent to
which the fieldworker is led by this process towards revising his own categories of
understanding. It is also to be judged by the extent to which he becomes aware of
the element of false consciousness8 in the inside view of the people whom he has
come to know through fieldwork.
Generalising from personal experience I would delineate four main phases of
the process of fieldwork, representing four turning points in my quest for
knowledge.
Phase I: at the outset I tried to evolve a philosophical and theoretical basis for
my fieldwork through a general study of relevant literature. This also helped in a
broad formulation of my problem of inquiry.
Phase II: this marked the beginning of my fieldwork. In retrospect I feel it was
characterized by an attempt on my part to put the facts, as perceived in the field
situation, in the ready-made conceptual and analytical boxes derived from my
study of social theory. In this phase my mind tended to ignore inconvenient facts
if they were not in accord with received theory, and to seek the confirmation of
received theory rather than its refutation.
Phase III: here the complexity ofsocial reality revealed through fieldwork had
such an overpowering impact on my mind that my unquestioning allegiance to
my concepts broke down, and uncertainty took the place of certitude. In the
whole course of my investigation this was the most agonizing phase. The growing
appreciation of the bewildering complexity ofsocial reality and realization of the

inadequacy of uncritically received theoretical categories to take account of this
complexity made me sceptical and pessimistic about the usefulness of any
theoretical construction. I was overwhelmed by impressions from my field
experience, and immersed in a mass of concrete data. I could not see the wood for
the trees. This was a phase of surrender to empiricism and was the opposite of
Phase 11 in which I was under the influence of a doctrinaire tendency (when I was
then treating concepts as sacred and as substitutes for rather than as aids to
painstaking investigation).
Phase IV: this began when, immersed in the mass of concrete data, I felt the
necessity of tools which would help me in distinguishing essential from non-
essential facts. In this way I was led towards reformulating my theoretical
concepts in the light of the data provided by my inquiry. I was now able to use
fact-finding as a s timulus to theoretical reconstruction and the latter as a stimulus
to deeper fact-finding. This phase eliminated the dichotomy between theoretical
abstraction and concretization and harmonized the two processes. It represented
for me the peak of excitement of research. It pulled me out of Phase III which
represented the trough of despair. This phase, which represented a process of
reconstruction of my field experience, did not end with the completion of my
research monograph. I now feel that reconstructing field experience is perhaps a
life-long affair.
My fieldwork during 1952-53 was the most intensive done by me during the
past two-and-a-half decades. Even though I was later associated with field
investigations at the Agricultural Economics Research Centre of Delhi
University, they meant neither complete involvement nor a long stay in a village.
In the course of this intensive fieldwork at the start of my academic life, I
acquired a great variety of impressions and experiences which made a profound
impression on me. I have been conscious of only a fraction of this experience at
any point of time. In later years, as my theoretical perspective has widened and
deepened, I have been able to draw upon this field experience in different ways at
different points of time and to reconstruct it in response to new theoretical
formulations and refinements. Fieldwork experience even once in one's life is
thus an ever-renewing process. The researcher himself is amazed to note in later
years how his mind retains a wide variety of impressions and reactions which can
be put to creative use in understanding and interpreting diverse kinds ofsocial
processes.
My interest in fieldwork in rural areas arose directly out of my interest in the
land problem. I recall the passion with which I plunged into fieldwork in U.P.
villages in the early fifties without any financial assistance from any organization
and with total reliance on the generosity and hospitality of village folk. This
passion emanated from my conviction that my understanding of the 'land
problem' would remain superficial if it was based only on book-learning and on
secondhand data, and that a deeper understanding was not possible without
studying village people by living among them.
The source of my inspiration for agrarian study was as much political as
academic. Two powerful currents moulded my mental outlook as a young
student. The first was my brief but intense involvement in the communist
movement as a student activist in the early years of Independence. The second

was my training in economics in the Department of Economics and Sociology at
Lucknow University, the hard core of which was the conception of an integration
of economics with sociology and anthropology. As already mentioned, it brought
me in close touch with three eminent teachers in the University, namely, R.K.,
D.P., and D.M. Majumdar. The work of each represented a life-long struggle to
evolve a unique pattern of specialization and integration of knowledge.
Before I got involved in politics, my family and the cultural atmosphere of
Almora, my home town, had inculcated in me a love of learning and a strong
compassion for the weak and downtrodden in society. Communist politics in the
early fifties attracted me as it combined an intellectual orientation with a pass ion
for the cause of the underdog: it was therefore both intellectually challenging and
morally appealing. The life of a communist at that time seemed closest to the
concept of a good life that I had imbibed from my tradition — a life devoted to
learning not for its own sake but as a form of service to society. The communist
movement, with its commitment to integrate theory with practice, offered many
from the intelligentsia like me the promise of synthesizing in their personal lives
the quest for knowledge with social action.
The specific idea of an agrarian study based on fieldwork was also the gift of my
association with the communist movement. The study of the agrarian problem
acquired for me such great significance at this point not only because of the
general influence of communist thought and practice but also because of the
setback the Indian communist movement had received in the early fifties. The
latter was a traumatic experience for all involved in the movement and it led to an
agonizing appraisal of the inherent weaknesses of Indian communism. It led
them to realize painfully the fact that the Communist Party was predominantly
urban and middle-class in composition and that it was alienated from rural India
where the majority of Indians lived and worked. The communist movement,
except in some parts of the country, seemed to be mainly a town-based
movement, covering only a section of the educated class and a part of the
industrial working class. In many areas such as Uttar Pradesh, to which I
belonged, it appeared far removed from the peasant masses. I felt that the idea of a
town-based revolution was naive in a basically rural country, and that intellectual
activity not related to the understanding of the problems of the Indian village was
partial if not unreal.
Against this background, the 'discovery' of the peasant and his village as the
central fact of the Indian social situation was for me not just an intellectual
realization. It was a profound emotional experience which made me questionnot
only the thought and practice of the party to which I belonged but also the very
principles of my own intellectual and moral existence.
My introduction to some of the works of Mao Tse-Tung 9 gave a special
stimulus to this process of painful self-examination. The successes of China
under Mao provided a dramatic contrast to the failures of the Indian
communists. Studying Mao convinced me that what was wrong with Indian
communists was their failure to understand the specifics of Indian society, and in
particular, the nature and complexity of the peasant problem.' ° If a break with
the past had to be made, the peasant question had to beshifted to the centre of the
stage.
I had acquired the essentials of the Marxist perspective on the peasant
problem from the study of literature — its commitment to a historical and
dynamic approach, its insistence on treating the mode of production in the rural
sector as part of the mode of production in the economy as a whole, its rejection of
the concept of harmony of interests, its emphasis on exploring the specific form
of conflict of interests and of the mode of exploitation at each stage of historical
evolution, and so on. Much of this Marxist theory, having a West European
background, had analysed agrarian relations under capitalism rather than
explored the nature of pre-capitalist agrarian relations in Asia. Moreover,
because the West European background was characterized by an abundance of
secondary data,11 the Marxist tradition was indifferent to fact-finding through
fieldwork. Even in India the Marxist activist, who came in direct touch with the
peasantry, did not always document his rich field experience and draw upon it for
analysis of the agrarian problem. The typical Marxist theoreticians who
produced agrarian theses had no direct touch with the field situation, and even if
they had they did not draw upon it in adequate measure.12
In this context, what appeared to me as path-breaking in Mao's approach
were, first, his reliance on fieldwork as the basic source of knowledge in agrarian
societies like China,13 which was embodied in his famous statement: 'Without
investigation, no right to speak' [1956: 9]; and second, his insistence that
intellectuals should learn more from the rural people than from books. This
orientation, it seemed to me, revolutionized the entire perspective of study and
represented a sharp break from the dominant, West European Marxist tradition
which ignored fieldwork. Mao dramatized it by his formulation that 'taking
knowledge in its totality, any kind of experience is inseparable from direct
experience' [1954:288].14
Mao drew attention to the great contrast between West European and Asian
countries [7959:9]. In the former, because ofwidespread literacy and education,
and the growth of technology for acquiring, preserving and disseminating
information, there existed comprehensive records giving ample information
about conditions of life everywhere, including rural areas. Consequently,
knowledge could be gained through indirect experience, as in the case of Marx's
Capital which was based on secondary data. In Asian countries on the other hand,
widespread illiteracy,15 dominance of pre-industrial, religious modes of thought,
and scarcity of the means of collecting and preserving information had led to the
prominence of the oral tradition in learning and communication. As a result,
much greater reliance had to be placed on direa experience in the pursuit of
knowledge in agrarian than in industrial societies. By introducing the orientation
of fieldwork in Marxism, Mao tried to reorient it for the study of peasant
societies.16
Mao also highlighted the great hiatus between intellectuals and the people as a
crucial form of the rural-urban and the exploiter-exploited contradictions of the
old society. Not only the means of material production and political power but
also the means of'mental production' were concentrated in the propertied and
exploiter classes of the urban and rural areas. As a result, the peasantry could not
throw up a critical intelligentsia from its own ranks, and intellectuals from alien
classes took the initiative in studying the problems of the peasantry or in
organizing them for revolutionary struggle.
Intellectuals or activists from the alien classes had acquired deep-seated class
conceit and prejudice from tradition. They had been kept away from close
contact with peasants by the rural-urban division and by a hierarchical society.
All this resulted in creating among the upper castes and classes a view of the
village folk as backward, conservative, and resistant to change. Even the critical
intellectuals from upper castes and classes began by romanticising the peasantry
and the village. If a naked anti-peasant view was one form of ideological
alienation from peasants, rural romanticism and peasantism was another, more
subtle, form of alienation. If intellectuals coming from this upper caste and
class background wanted to serve the peasants, they had, Mao insisted, to
undergo a process of de-classing17 and ideological remoulding through fieldwork
among peasants.18 Fieldwork was, therefore, invested with a new significance
when it became a means of remoulding outlook for an intelligentsia alienated
from its own people. It became thus a sharp intellectual tool for communists to
the extent that it was an effective means of remoulding outlook. What was
striking in Mao's conception was the wider perspective from which fieldwork
was viewed. It became, on the one hand, a method of remoulding intellectuals
through contact with the people, and, on the other, of remoulding the people
through interaction with intellectuals. This unique relationship of intellectuals
to the people is captured in Mao's observation: 'we must teach the masses clearly
what we have received from them confusedly' [AndreMairaux, 1970].19
In Mao's approach to fieldwork, the style of fieldwork was of great
significance. Fieldwork was not just a matter of interviewing peasants with
ready-made questions through occasional visits to the village during the day.
Genuine fieldwork involved living with the villagers, sharing their joys and
sorrows, becoming an insider in village society for a sufficient length of time,
observing the village people minutely in their struggle with the manifold
problems of life, and combining a questioning attitude with basic sympathy and
respect for the common people all the time. Mao regarded people not merely as
passive objects of observation but as beings who could not be understood without
combining detached observation with passionate love for them. Without the
active participation of the people themselves there was no deep understanding of
village society.
I have often asked myself why fieldwork is invested with such a mystique —
why it is not viewed as just an operational tool but as a philosophical and moral
question — in Mao's thought and practice. Prolonged reflection on this issue has
convinced me that in our society the habits and traditions of centuries have
created a wide gulf between urban and rural people, between the exploiter and
the exploited, and between the educated and the uneducated masses. Both study
and work among peasants, therefore, require a qualitatively new type of
intelligentsia. The break required from past modes of thought and consciousness
is so pervasive, and the difficulties of work among peasants are so formidable,
that only such intellectuals would be motivated to undertake this task on a

lifelong basis as are inspired by a new philosophical and moral perspective.
Hence the importance of viewing fieldwork not merely as an operational
necessity but also as a moral challenge.20
When I recall my first introduction to this perspective about twenty-five years
ago, I also recall its electrifying impact on my mind. 2 ' It was a breath of fres h air in
a choking atmosphere of barren theorizing and phrase-mongering. Without the
intellectual stimulus and the moral impulse that I derived from it in my formative
years, I wonder whether I would ever have been drawn towards agrarian study as
a lifelong interest and, even if I had been attracted to it, whether I would have felt
impelled to shake off my middle-class prejudices and become immersed in U.P.
villages over more than a year in 1952-53.
If I received inspiration for fieldwork in villages from a study of Mao, I was
introduced to the concept of class as a tool of scientific analysis from my study of
Marxist classics. It must be stated that my introduction to Marxism was not via
Marx but via Lenin, Stalin22 and Mao. Mao's essays on how to analyse classes in
rural society [1954:13-20,138-41], Jen Pi Shih's analysis 'Class Stratification in
China's Countryside' [7956], Lenin's To the Rural Poor and Development of
Capitalism inRussia, Rajni Palme Dutt's analysis of Indian agrarian problems in
India Today [1940], The Revolutionary Movement in Colonies and Semi-Colonies
[1928] by the Communist International and On the Agrarian Question [1949] by
the Communist Party of India offered me models of class analysis of the agrarian
structure. A study of agrarian structure in U.P. from the class standpoint thus
became my intellectual ambition.
The idea of field research on agrarian structure provided abridge between my
political and academic interests. It brought me back to academic life. This idea of
harmonising my political interests and academic interests by pursuing thestudy
of the agrarian problem was the fruit of a long process of agonising mental
struggle. In resolving my acute mental conflicts in this manner I was helped
enormously by a micro-biologist of Marxist outlook, Dr N.P. Gupta, who was
then on the staff of the Pathology Department of the Lucknow Medical College.
He became virtually my friend, philosopher and guide till the completion of my
Ph.D. dissertation. He combined the rigour of a natural scientist with the social
perception of a Marxist.
As soon as this idea crystallized in my mind, I approached R.K. with the
proposal of a Ph.D. dissertation on the topic, 'Changing Agrarian Class
Structure in Uttar Pradesh since Independence'. He welcomed my return to
academic life and agreed to be my supervisor. He agreed so promptly as he found
my attitude to fieldwork right. He made it clear, however, that he was not in a
position to offer me a scholarship. When I asked how he expected me to
undertake fieldwork without financial support, he remarked that my party
association was a great asset and that I should take its help for my fieldwork. Let
the Kisan Sabhas (peasant associations) put me in touch with peasants and I
should live in peasant families as one of their members. This could give me, as
nothing else could, an insight into their lives.
I am grateful to R.K. for introducing me to an experiment in fieldwork which
had not been attempted perhaps by anyone else in my university. Later, in 1952,1
met E.M.S. Namboodiripad, the communist leader, in New Delhi, to secure his
help in clarifying some concepts and getting my questionnaires and schedules
mimeographed in the central offi ce of the Party. Henotonlywelcomedthe idea of
a research worker living with peasant families and being supported by them, but
also encouraged me by remarking that he had so far not come across any other
young intellectual within the party who was following this idea.
R.K. asked me to give some thought to the question of delimiting the scope of
my study. I told himof my interest in agrarian class structure andspecially in the
transition from a semi-feudal to a capitalistic economy in India since
Independence. He was amused by my attempt at what he called superimposing a
Marxian class model on the Indian rural situation. He suggested that a more
relevant general approach for India was his 'institutional approach' and the more
specific concept for understanding agrarian structure was his concept of'rural
communalism'. [R. Mukerjee, 1933 ; 1941]. He emphasised the need to
understand in the Indian context the economic significance of caste, especially
the agricultural castes, and of the rural-urban cleavage (for example, the relation
of professional and other urban classes to land). He insisted that after revising the
statement of my problem on these lines, I should plunge into fieldwork.
After a discussion with R.K. I was torn by the conflicting pulls of a Marxian
class approach and my growing awareness of the complexities of Indian rural
economy and society. I found it difficult to share my thoughts with him. He was
kind but imperious. I felt his arguments had some weight, but his basic approach
seemed unsatisfactory as it did not take a dynamic view. He saw the strength of
traditional factors such as caste, but ignored the impact of exogenous forces, such
as money, market, modern technology, and education. As a result of his approach
he found India characterized by an exceptionalism in its evolution while the
Marxists saw the break-up of the traditional society and emergence of a class-
divided society of the western type. They saw it more clearly in India's economic
evolution from semi-feudalism towards capitalism.
With these doubts I approached D.P. who always encouraged students to
think for themselves. He told me that I was now in the right frame of mind to
study the theory of the agrarian problem. The answer to my doubts lay in
theoretical clarification and historical study. This slogan of'theory first' seemed
to frighten me. I approached D.N. Majumdarfor his advice. He remarked that I
should not waste time any more on discussion. I should proceed straight to my
fieldwork. I collected some basic books on the subject and left for the field. This
seemed to me the only way in which I could reconcile the contradictory advice
from D.P on the one hand and R.K. and D.N. Majumdar on the other. It was
again N.P. Gupta who suggested this way of resolving my mental conflict.
It may be asked why in an essay dealing with fieldwork experience I should
devote so much space to issues which had agitated my mind before proceeding to
the field? Why should I not begin my essay with what happened after I had
reached the village? As I stated earlier, my fieldwork in villages was significant
only in terms of the issues which concerned me before I started fieldwork. When
the monotony and strain of routine investigation exhausted me, as they did quite
frequently, my interest in the collection of details was re-stimulated as I became

aware of their relevance for my basic theoretical interests.23
In retrospect I regard it as very fortunate that I started my fieldwork in two
villages of Meerut district in West U.P. Later I investigated two villages in
Gorakhpur district in East U.P., one in Etawa district in Central U.P., and one in
Almora district in the hills of U.P. The Meerut villages gave me a culture shock in
many ways. First of all, they jolted my basic assumptions and beliefs about
India's countryside, which I had imbibed from my Brahminical and urban
background and from my study of liberal and Marxian interpretations of Indian
society. I discovered that the real world of peasants as it unfolded itself before me
day by day in all its richness was far removed from my mental picture of the
village and of the peasantry which I had derived from books. My deepening
contact with rural life in the course of fieldwork revealed that the urban middle
class, to which I belonged, has a lot to learn from the illiterate people of village
India.
No doubt the villagers were illiterate, read no books and newspapers, did not
listen to the radio, and did not come in contact with learned people. But they had
acquired from tradition a deep philosophical background, and from practical life
an ever-growing understanding of their natural and social environment. Every
day of fieldwork brought me fresh evidence of their deep roots in the rich,
cultural tradition. It also revealed their vast understanding of land, agriculture,
crafts, and cattle economy; of human, animal and plant diseases and their cures;
of politics, administration and the courts; and of family, kinship and village
community. I was impressed by the robust common sense, sturdiness, and
industriousness of peasants. They were engaged all the year round in a relentless
struggle for their livelihood. And yet their life was not lacking in grace, dignity
and honour. There was hospitality in the the midst of scarcity, give-and-take in
the midst of disputes and conflicts, and joy and fun in the midst of sorrows,
misfortunes and calamities.
I realized increasingly that the young Jat, Pritam Singh, who was my guide and
interpreter during fieldwork and who had no book-knowledge, knew far more
about Indian rural life than I. He put me to shame time and again by his common
sense and practicality. My basic failing was that I did not even know how the
various things which I ate were produced — my contact with agriculture had so
far been only through the dining room! The Jat peasants were amused at my
ignorance of basic production processes and problems of practical life in spite of
my education and urban sophistication. They were also amused at my lack of
physical stamina, reflected in my incapacity for hard physical labour. I was the
object of their fun and ridicule because I exemplified to them all the weaknesses
of a Brahmin and town-dweller, and an educated man!
Even though the exposure of serious gaps in my upbringing and education
caused me great embarrassment almost every day, the more I came closer to the
people the more I developed respect for their basic qualities. I learnt to
appreciate their closeness to land and nature, their blending of an age-old
philosophical outlook with earthy practicality, their commitment to productive
values along with a healthy contempt for all parasitical and leisured classes — all
these had imparted a distinctive substance and quality to the life of village folk.
These were missing from India's urban life which seemed anaemic in spite of its
gloss and refinement. I became, odd as it may seem, proud of the villagers. In fact,
I got so immersed in village life that I hardly remembered town life. My own
attitude against the 'Babus' and "Sahibs' of urban areas who enjoyed a good life by
exploiting peasants and workers hardened much more after my field experience.
The robustness and richness of the common people's spoken language left an
enduring impression on my mind: the style and rhythm of their expression, the
elegance and variety of their symbols and imagery, the facility with which they
drew upon the flora, fauna and collective experience to coin a phrase or an
expression, the abundance of pithy proverbs and sayings embodying age-old
wisdom, as well as the freshness of day-to-day impressions and reactions.
Compared with their command over the language and the confidence with which
they turned and twisted words to convey their thoughts and sentiments, the
language of the urban elite seemed to lack rich local colour and authenticity.24
The language of village folk in all parts of U.P. that I visited had some common
qualities reflecting old, basic Indian values. Thus, there weretoiany well-known
concepts from scriptures, such as Karma, bhagya, satyuga, Ramarajya, bhakti,
papa, puny a, gyan, and agyan. At the same time, however, the language of each
rural region had a few unique elements both in content and form. Thus, in the
rugged Khari Boli of the Jat peasants, in the almost feminine Bhojpuri of the
leisure-loving upper castes as well as of the self-effacing poor peasants of the
Eastern districts, and in the touching simplicity and musical rhythm of the
Pahari of Kumaon, the impact of nature in all its variety was fully reflected.
In the process of interaction with the people in four rural regions of U.P., I
discovered, as it were, a major fact relating to the quality of rural life, namely, the
peculiar unity as well as contradiction between man and nature at the lower levels
of technological and economic evolution. This discovery made me conscious of
the limits of class conflict within agrarian societies which were dependent on
nature for their survival. The more I reflected on the problems of the rural
people, the more I began to realize how they were pulled in conflicting directions
by the principle of class on the one hand and the principle of community on the other.
The former reflected the contradictions between man and man, and the latter
between man and nature.
In agrarian societies the struggle against nature for survival loomed so large
before human communities that the conflicts of interest between communities
were constantly counteracted by the real or imagined identity of interests.
Consequently, the principle of community asserted its primacy over that ofclass.
Thus natural calamities such as drought, flood, famine and epidemic, and the
demands of agricultural operations in the peak seasons — which were recurrent
phenomena, and did not distinguish up to a point between the rich andpoor, the
strong and weak, and the high and low castes—reinforced the principle of group
interdependence and solidarity for survival. They frequently pushed the
principle of class into the background. Moreover, what appeared to an outsider as
exploitation of the propertyless by the propertied class was perceived by the
insider as the price that the landless paid to the landed class for its patronage
within a given social framework. When a rebel challenged this traditional world-
view in terms of the theory of exploitation, he was heard but often ignored by the
exploited class so long as the immediate prospects of an alternative method of
subsistence and survival were non-existent.
Under conditions of techno-economic backwardness, when the rural masses
found themselves at a sub-human level of existence and when the world beyond
the village was regarded as hostile, they were pathetically dependent, both
materially and psychologically, on the dominant groups. Any qualitative shift in
their attitude and their rejection of the existing social system as exploitative
presupposed not only a mental revolution but also the emergence of an
alternative source of subsistence which would give them a degree of material
independence from the traditionally dominant groups. That is why, in relatively
closed agrarian systems characterized by the almost complete economic
dependence of the rural masses on the landed gentry, the fact of class exploitation
was invariably obscured by the ideology of patronage. Thus in a Kumaon village
remote from economic opportunities, an old peasant paying adhiya and tekut to
an absentee Brahmin landowner defended this voluntary surrender of one-half
or one-third of the produce respectively in terms of the age-old rights and
obligations of the two groups of hissedars (landowners) and sirtans
(sharecroppers). If the Brahmin landowner received tribute from the sirtan, the
latter received protection and livelihood from the former. In another village
relatively open to urban influences and offering alternative economic
opportunities in the same district, however, a new view of life was emerging and
the tendency to re-interpret traditional relations between landlords and tenants
in terms of a theory of exploitation was growing. I had the same experience in a
relatively remote village in Maharaj Gunj Tehsil in Gorakhpur district where
landlord-tenant relations were viewed in traditional ideological terms. In
another village, more exposed to forces of commercialization and urbanization,
the tenants had become responsive to the ideology of exploitation and class
conflict.
In scarcity-stricken agrarian socieites,25 with all their risks and uncertainties,
the concern for survival was perennial and imposed a communitarianism from
which there was no escape. Rural society thus always oscillated between the
principles of class and community. Even in an increasingly class-conscious rural
setting, the institutions of joint family, caste, and village community retained
some force and could not be dismissed as mere survivals from the past. The
numerous rituals and ceremonies in the life of men from birth to death, the many
events of joy and sorrow, the crises of life, and the compelling needs of economic
exchange and sharing infused a new vitality into these institutions and confirmed
their usefulness in coping with the problems of life for both the rich and poor. At
the same time forces released by the spread of the money and market economy,
and by education introduced tensions and conflicts within these bulwarks of
traditional society. Further, new institutions such as the political party, the kisan
sabha (peasant association), the khet majdoor sabha (agricultural labourers'
association), the village school, the co-operative, andthepanchayat had begun to
strike roots in the village, though they had not yet fully taken the place of
traditional institutions even in secular areas. Within the rural areas, therefore,
one could see a peculiar confusion growing due to the odd intermixing of the old
and the new values and institutions.
Fieldwork revealed to me in a dramatic way the conflicting pulls of continuity
and discontinuity. At one end I saw that in agrarian societies man continuously
faced the challenge of coping with the powerful forces of nature for survival. This
resulted in a tendency to accept such social changes as strengthened community
solidarity and security and to resist those which weakened them. Thus reforms in
marriage and caste, and in customs and laws relating to landed property, and
modern education encouraging freedom and permissiveness among youth and
women — all these were evaluated not in terms of immutable principles
reflecting the backward-looking tendency of rural folk, but were welcomed or
opposed in terms of their contribution in enhancing or reducing psychological
and material security.26 In the struggle for existence the lone individual had no
chance of survival. Hence freedom of choice in marriage and change in property
laws were likely to be resisted if they introduced an element of insecurity for
members of the family. Modern education was likely to be disapproved of if it
produced a 'babu mentality' and deprived agriculture of its manpower and
family elders of the support of its young members. New methods of production
and new technology ran the risk of being disapproved of if their net contribution
was to displace labour and deprive men of their livelihood. Land reforms were
welcome if they provided security of tenure to tenants, or transferred land from
the rich to the poor, but mere promises of land reform only caused tension
between landowners and the landless. Radical rhetoric was therefore distrusted
by the village folk.
From another perspective I could also see the unmistakable symptoms of the
passing away of the traditional society under the powerful impact of exogeneous
forces. What happened within the village depended no more on the village people
themselves. Nor was it decided within the boundaries of the village. The loss of
autonomy of the village and the acceleration ofthe pace of change heightened the
hiatus between the traditional values and institutions and new demands of life. I
shall comment on this again later.
The idea that rural communities have a fixed set of beliefs and are indifferent or
hostile to their being disturbed, is false. I recall villagers in different parts of U.P.
in mental ferment, having heated discussions in homes, khets (fields), khalihans
(threshing floors), panghats (wells), chaupals (village meeting places), market
centres, courts, festivals, and funerals—on all occasions when groups of men and
women, adult and young, met and interacted. They discussed important matters,
both practical and philosophical. A continuous process of reorientation of
outlook and re-evaluation of personal and collective experience went on among
them, and their acceptance or rejection of ideas and things had a logic of its own.
Through fieldwork among rural people in the various regions of U.P., I began
to get an insight into their motivations in not welcoming certain elements of rural
change offered to them from outside. I began to see that such programmes often
failed for several reasons, namely, the conspiracy of vested interests, the
ignorance of village folk, and the threat posed by them to the interests of a large
section of villagers. More harm than good was done to rural people when the
programmes were piecemeal and half-hearted. In the context of the conditions

prevailing in Indian villages, or perhaps in Asia as a whole, it was easier to
introduce comprehensive changes if they enhanced overall security than to effect
small changes which took away even such security as the villagers enjoyed.27
As I reconsider my field experience, I realize how exaggerated ifnot false is the
idea of the inherent conservatism of rural people. The clue to the understanding
of this idea is provided by the principle of security. It helps us appreciate why
peasants sometimes exhibit an over-powering conservatism even in respect of
small changes and sometimes an amazing acceptance of sweeping changes in the
social framework, and why on other occasions they themselves become agents of
vast and cataclysmic socio-political changes. Fieldwork thus revealed to me the
Janus head of the peasantry, at once conservative and radical.
What Malinowski observed in Dynamics of Culture Change [1961:56] long ago
sums up the essence of peasant psychology; 'People are prepared to pass only
from worse to better', and 'only such change is encompassed without much
friction and with relative rapidity'. However, change can also mean that people
who expected to pass from worse to better actually pass from worse to worse still.
The frustration of expectations may produce a backlash of unprecedented
ferocity.
There was a contrast between the peasantry ofWest andEast U.P. in the above
respect. From outward appearances one expected the peasantry of West U.P. to
be more dynamic than that of East U.P. because the former was comparatively
free from feudal exploitation while the latter had suffered from it. But it seemed
to me that the very insecurity of the peasants in East U.P., who had, in asense,
nothing to lose but their chains, was likely to have greater revolutionary fervour
in times of crisis, while the relative security of West U.P. peasants might orient
them towards conservatism. This interpretation of the conflicting behaviour of
peasants in two different settings reminds me of the contrast between French
peasant proprietors and Japanese tenantry noted by Norman [1940:80]. Even
though unfamiliar with doctrines of liberty, equality and fraternity, to which his
French counterpart was exposed, 'the Japanesepeasantwithhis landhunger and
his impatience of high rents and rack-renting can display a violence when
provoked', which was not expected from the independent, small-holding,
peasant proprietor in France. The same point can be formulated in another way.
The peasants of Eastern Uttar Pradesh seemed economically irrational and
socially conservative but politically radical. The peasants of Western U.P.
seemed politically reactionary but economically rational and socially
470 . The Journal of Peasant Studies
progressive. This showed the contrast between the oppressed poor peasantry of
Eastern U.P. and more prosperous rich and middle peasants of Western U.P.
Village folk exhibited a peculiar blend of activism and fatalism in their lives.
They referred at every moment to fate {prarabdha, bhagya, hont) while at the
same time persevered to cope with a problem as efficiently as possible. For
instance, when a member of his family was ill, a peasant would make use of
Western medicine while at the same time try to propitiate an angry family god.
This is illustrative of his acceptance of modern techniques without giving up
totally his reliance on traditional beliefs and practices.
Fatalism does not imply surrender of human initiative or refusal to explore

options and exercise choice. It implies recognition of the futility or limitations of
human initiative under certain circumstances, or realization that the choices in a
given situation are extremely limited if not absent. There is neither self-
denigration nor self-pity in such fatalism but only an appreciation of given
realities. Fieldwork in villages compelled me first to take note of the proximate
cause of fatalism, namely, the influence of nature in predisposing agrarian
societies to a fatalistic outlook. At the second stage I thought of going beyond the
village and of shifting from a study of the impact of natural processes to that of
social processes such as colonialism and other man-induced changes.
Let me first stress the influence of the diversity of natural environment on
fatalism in different regions. This was revealed when I compared the outlook of
the peasants of Kumaon and Eastern U.P. with that of peasants in Western U.P.
Generalizing broadly, fatalism had much greater sway in regions where nature
oscillated between excessive bountifulness and excessive niggardliness as in the
monsoon-dependent fertile plains of Eastern U.P., or where it had been
excessively unkind as in the hilly districts of U.P. Inthe former, thevery fertility
of soil had minimized the role of human effort, while in the latter the meanness of
nature set limits to what man could achieve through his effort. In both cases
fatalism struck deep roots, though in different ways.28
I found villagers in East U.P. and Kumaon fatalistic. This fatalism is, as Marc
Bloch remarks, 'not exactly renunciation, but rather reliance upon means of
action considered more efficacious than human effort' [1961; 81 ]. It signifies that
the mental energies of village folk were not directed into creative effort in the
spheres of technology and production but into ritualism and magic. In Kumaon
and East U.P. religion and magic permeated every sphere and occasion of life.
Excessive ritualism also meant that the priestly caste occupied a far greater
importance there than in West U.P. Deep religious faith characterizes all
agrarian societies but it is deeper in some regions than in others [Bloch, 1961:81].
Both in Kumaon and in East U.P. religion represented a confluence of two
major streams — folk religion of the original inhabitants and Brahminical
religion of the upper castes. The religious mentality of the people reflected the
force of native as well as Hindu classical mythology. Mythologies of both types
thrive in an environment where the possibility of imposing human willon nature
and mastering its forces through human effort was limited. Thus, as Caudwell
suggests, when man cannot hope to achieve mastery over the forces of nature
through the scientific method of understanding and changing objective reality,
he resorts to the device of changing his own subjective attitude to reality; he
imposes illusion on reality and thereby acquires a feeling of security and self-
assurance [Caudwell, 1956]. I recall how in these, regions innumerable folk
myths, legends, songs, ballads, rituals and dances assuage the overpowering fear
of the supernatural and psychologically prepare man for his struggle for
existence.
When I reflect in retrospect on people's fatalistic orientations I also realize that
my understanding of it would have been partial if I had had no opportunity of
knowing the people from inside. If I had only studied facts from outside I would
have exaggerated the role of fatalism in keeping people backward and in

reconciling them to their low level of existence. I would have emphasized how a
people affected by fatalism helped to perpetuate their own backwardness and
exploitation. But, as I acquired an intimate knowledge of society in these regions,
I began to have serious doubts about the validity of my a priori generalizations
and first impressions. I began to understand the gravity of the totalsituation and
to regard fatalism not just as a mental aberration but as a people's response to a
specific situation. I thus became aware of the compexities and paradoxes in
human behaviour such as the coexistence of rigidity and flexibility, inertia and
initiative, and other-worldliness and worldiness. Thus my interaction with
village folk brought about a profound change in my perception of them. I shall
give a few examples.29
Within the village, people seemed to follow the path of least resistance and
avoided breaking with custom and tradition,30 though when the need arose they
did move out in search of jobs and, of course, they did go on pilgrimage, and to
fairs and market centres. Outside the village, they were capable of change even in
very traditional areas. Moreover, within the village there was a divergence
between stated ideals and practice. In Brahmin-dominated villages, priests
preaching detachment from the world during rituals disputed heatedly with
their patrons over their remuneration. Excessive concern for purity in relation to
the low castes did not prevent the higher castes from having sexual relations with
low caste women. Low caste men and women employed as servants in the homes
of the high castes entered the latter's kitchens. Thus the demands of practical life
were at variance with statements in religious texts.
A priori, I would have thought that a village society fragmented on the basis of
tribe, caste, class, and religion would never be able to act together against
common danger. However, I found the whole village acting like one man when
threatened by fire or flood. On such occasions there was demonstration of
unsuspected reserves of village solidarity, and sometimes even the solidarity of a
group of neighbouring villages.31
As my knowledge of villages increased, it became clear that people's
statements and actions had to be understood in the context of time, space, and
circumstances. Thus, statements of 'do's' and 'don'ts' about food, social
obligations, man-woman relations, work, and occupation, which held good in the
village did not apply in the town. Even in the village, illness or such other crisis in
the family, or a misfortune affecting the whole village, led to therelaxingofrules.
Even in respect of their class interests, people's attitudes were subject to
variation, depending upon their circumstances. Thus, for instance, a group of
tenants of a big landlord in Almora district vehemently protested against my
suggestion that no landowner should be allowed to keep more land than he could
cultivate with his family labour. They remarked, 'In this village we are all small
people and if that landlord is reduced to our level, whom shall we approach in
times of need and who would protect us against outsiders?' I attributed the
villagers' reply to their fear of the landlord and to their backwardness. But as my
understanding of village life became deeper I found their answer realistic,
because no alternative source of help was yet available for the villagers.32 At the
same time, the villagers did not accept whatever the landlord did, but put
pressure on him to make his conduct less unreasonable. My fieldwork thus
presented a picture of peasants quite different from what I had formed on the
basis of study of secondary material.
I must make explicit at this stage the importance of the comparative
perspective in the understanding of agrarian societies. My fieldwork in three
major regions of U.P. enhanced my capacity for discerning the qualitatively new
elements in the class structure and culture of each region and for identifying both
uniformities and varieties of human responses.33 If I had not undertaken
fieldwork in more than one region, my awareness of the vastness of India and of
the inadequacy of our concepts to comprehend it would not have been so sharp.
Let alone India, even U.P. appeared to me too big to be understood in terms of a
single model of economy, society and culture. Fieldwork brought me face to face
with the fact that diverse economic, social and cultural patterns had evolved in
U.P. in response to specific geographical conditions, historical influences, and
the peculiar interplay of endogenous and exogenous facts in each region.
Fieldwork experience made me suspicious of sweeping all-India generalizations
about the behaviour of people. Even in U.P., people's responses were not
uniform. As already indicated, I was struck by the sharp contrast between a more
pos itive evaluation of human effort in thejar-dominated villages of Meerut and a
sense of the helplessness of man before fate in the upper-caste-dominated
villages of Gorakhpur and Almora. In the former villages people seemed to
believe that your life is what you make of it. (Sakal padarathyajagmanhi, karam
keen nar pawat nanhi— this world possesses all things but they are denied to the
man sunk in inertia!) In the latter villages they strongly believed that whatever
you did you could not alter the line of fate carved on your forehead. (Hoihaisoijo
Ram rachi rakha — that alone shall happen what Rama has designed.) These
conflicting attitudes were reflected in conflicting behaviour patterns — in the
primacy of work and an economic mentality among the Jat peas ants and of rituals
and ceremonies among the Brahmin landowners of East U.P. and Kumaon.
Fieldwork in a comparative perspective helped me to discern not only the
differences in the outlook of the people in different regions but made me curious
about the causes of those differences. Some immediate explanations were
provided by the fieldwork itself. Thus the contrast in mental attitudes appeared
closely related to the contrast in economic conditions. I was struck by the
hopelessness created by resource constraints in East U.P. and Kumaon. Fatalism
found a favourable soil in these two regions, where the man-land ratio was very
high, no opportunities existed either within or outside agriculture, work was not
only arduous but also yielded very low returns, and the massive exodus of active
elements of production to urban centres outside the region seemed to be the only
way to ensure the survival of those who were left behind. Even social and
economic parasitism34 (landlordism, usury, dominance of lawyers thriving on
land disputes, and so on) found favourable soil under these circumstances.
Andreski aptly remarks, T h e energies which in an expanding economy will be
applied to production, in a stagnant or a contracting economy, will be canalized
into open or veiled predation' [1964:227],

In contrast, in the Meerut region a high premium was put on work and human
effort. Because of the favourable economic conditions obtaining there the
returns for work and human effort were high. A relatively lower man-land ratio,
possibly due to employment of surplus labour in the urban-industrial belt of
Modinagar and Muradnagar, ensured viable land holdings. Canal irrigation and
a shift to commercial crops such as sugar-cane promoted higher returns from
agriculture and thus stimulated landowners' interest in self-cultivation and
investment in land improvement. The higher level of urbanization and
commercialization created an urban demand for agricultural products and gave
dynamic farmers access to the fruits of technical progress. Last but not least, the
landownership pattern was not dominated as in the East by upper caste landlords
but by the sturdy peasant caste, the Jats. All these factors together encouraged a
break from a fatalisticoutlook and from a parasiticmode of life. In anutshell, East
and West U.P. typified the contrast between two divergent patterns of economic
evolution.
The above preliminary explanations provided by fieldwork raised a number of
exciting questions pertaining to the economic and cultural evolution of different
regions in U.P. Why had economic evolution followed different paths in these
regions, one leading towards greater dynamism, growth and prosperity as in
West U.P. and the other towards stagnation, depopulation and poverty as in East
U.P. and Kumaon? Why had commercialization, that is, penetration of money
and market economy, produced such opposite consequences in the two
regions?35
Fieldwork provided ample proof of the fact that in the Meerut region
commercialization had stimulated the growth of the rural economy, while in East
U.P. it had accelerated disintegration of the traditional economy without helping
the emergence of new economic opportunities. East U.P. therefore experienced
the negative effect of commercialization during the long period of colonial
impact. Here natural processes like population growth, and economic processes
like commercialization, change in the land and revenue systems, and the massive
extraction of surpluses rather than public investment, set in motion by colonial
rule, had adverse consequences on the traditional life pattern. They accentuated
rural-urban as well as intra-village cleavages by imposing the parastic trinity of
landlord, moneylender and trader. This trinity acted, in the words of Daniel
Thomer [1976:16], as a 'built-in depressor' of the rural economy.
These changes appeared to the rural people of East U.P. almost like the
working of supernatural forces over which they had no control and before which
they were helpless. The shattering of the economic basis of the old life was a
traumatic experience. The understanding of this phenomenon by the people
required a higher level of consciousness or a sharp break from traditional
concepts. It could come not from within but from outside the village. In the
absence of a new perspective on the fast-changing economic situation, it is no
wonder that people were thrown on the defensive after occasional outbursts of
rebelliousness. This, experience, which was not positively assimilated,
strengthened the psychology of fatalism. The quality of this fatalism was,
however, different. It was in response to social rather than tonatural processes. I

have highlighted earlier the role of nature in inducing fatalism in rural
communities, especially, in the relatively inaccessible Kumaon. But in recent
history, a far more important role has been played by factors such as colonial
policies in inducing fatalism in the Eastern U.P. region. Such fatalism could be
fought not at the village level but only when the village people joined with wider
forces to change the overall socio-economic structure.
While intensive fieldwork in villages helped me to formulate the question of
fatalism and its relation to social and economic processes, it did not help in
finding full answers to them. Having formulated it, one had reached the limits of
fieldwork. Tackling such questions required much more than fieldwork. It
required going beyond the village to analyse its interaction with the wider
economy, society and polity, and exploration of history, apart from the study of
many-sided contemporary processes.
Fieldwork gave me the kind of insight into people which the study of records
and quantitative data would never have provided. It brought me face to face with
the sense of alienation which people in landlord-dominated villages experienced,
as the structure of the old society crumbled before their eyes and a new society
had not yet emerged. This was the source of the widespread 'melancholy'36 of
rural people particularly in East U.P. and Kumaon. The people did not yet
possess the concepts to understand the roots of their melancholy. An ideological
vacuum was created by the increasing tension between old categories of thought
and the new challenges. The older generation in the village sometimes described
the changes as the end of saty uga and the rule oikaliuga. Old values also seemed to
be giving way to new values — collectivism to individualism, and patronage to
exploitation! The weakening of age-old ties of the community seemed also to
create an institutional vacuum.37 As a result, the response of people to new
situations was defensive rather than creative. There was a vague perception
among them that the days were gone when their problems lay within the village
and were intelligible in terms of familiar categories. They perceived in a direct
way the end of the autonomy of the village and its openness to powerful forces
from outside. There was both a willingness to respond to outside influences as
well as unwillingness to be totally uprooted from traditional moorings..
I left my fieldwork in the early fifties when the village people were entering a
new phase of change and turmoil. This was heralded by the advent of the U.P.
Zamindari Abolition Act, the Community Development Programme,
Panchayati Raj, adult franchise, rural education, the Anti-Untouchability Act,
and the activities of political parties, the panchayat, the kisansabha, newofficials,
Field-work Experience: Relived and Reconsidered 475
technical experts, the village school, and so on. I saw that'my' villages would not
be the same when I visited them next.38
After my fieldwork I, too, was not the person I was before. I was a haunted
being — haunted by the people among whom I had lived and of whose joys and
suffering I had had direct experience. When I think of my villages, I am both
hopeful and fearful of change, because change has now ceased to be an
impersonal process for me. It has assumed a personal meaning as a source of joy
and suffering, hope and despair, for persons whom I had known intimately.
NOTES
1. The idea of writing a paper on my fieldwork experience came to me first during my lectures to
students of the Research Methodology Training Course in economics at the Institute of
Economic Growth, Delhi (1963-8). The one-sided importance given to quantitative methods
by young economists led me to rediscover the value of fieldwork experience. When Professor
Srinivas invited me to write on the topic I seized the opportunity. My debt to him is great. I have
benefited from discussions with him during the eighteen years of our acquaintance.
2. D.P. had perhaps never done fieldwork or supervised a thesis based mainly on fieldwork. He
was willing to be my supervisor if I agreed to work on the theoretical aspects of the agrarian
problem. He has given expression to his strong views on fieldwork in some of his papers — for
example, [D.P. Mukherji, 1958].
3. Unlike D.P., R.K. proudly told his students that he had begun his academic life with fieldwork
and that all his life had continued to be a promoter of fieldwork. The Foreword to his Fields and
Farmers of Oudh [1929] is one of the places where he has expressed his views on fieldwork.
4. I have called it my good fortune to have been exposed to both points of view for definite reasons.
I have noted how a tremendous amount of fieldwork by anthropologists in recent years has
produced very little of scientific value because fieldwork was not addressed to questions of
major theoretical significance. In fact, many anthropologists have invested fieldwork itself
with a mystique as if fieldwork without integration with theory would yield insights and
empirical knowledge.
5. Leontief s paper expresses sharply his dissatisfaction with over-emphasis on model-building
and the neglect of primary data in economics [1971:1].
6. To highlight the predominance of the caste element in the consciousness of the rural people
does not imply non-existence of class-oriented categories of thought. Indeed, rural people have
native categories to comprehend the economic divisions among them based upon ownership or
non-ownership of land. Thus, in Kumaon, the land-owners were called Hissedars, the
under-proprietors Pucca Khaikars, the tenant Kuchha Khaikars and the share-croppers
Sirtans. The rural people frequently used these categories in their economic life. But what
prevented the full crystallisation and articulation of these categories as class categories was the
fact that the economic division very closely corresponded or coalesced with the caste hierarchy
of Brahmins, Khasiyas (peasant Thakurs) and Shilpkars (untouchables). The caste dimension,
thus, tended to obscure the class dimension of the differentiation in rural society.
Andre Beteille in his work on the agrarian social structure also emphasises that people
perceive the economic divisions based on ownership and control of land in terms other than
those of caste [Andri Beteille, 1974: 33-4]. But what he omits to mention is that the economic
categories were often obscured by the social categories of caste. Under normal circumstances,
the categories of caste predominated over the economic, and non-caste categories.
6a. Reflecting upon the traditionalism of the Eastern U.P. peasants in contrast to the liberalism of
the West U.P. peasants, I cannot but refer to my own experience in the courseof fieldwork. The
West U.P. Jat peasants in the midst of whom I lived knew fully well that I belonged to the
top-most Brahmin caste of Uttarakhand. And yet they had no hesitation in serving food to me
cooked in their own households. They in fact had a lot of fun at my expense. They were fully
amused at a Brahmin being fed by Jats. But in sharp contrast I faced considerable difficulty in
the course of my fieldwork in East U.P. where low-caste households were totally reluctant to
offer food cooked by low-caste households to a high-caste Brahmin. In fart, a sugar-factory
worker belonging to the Kurmi peasant caste in Siswa township in Gorakhpur with whom I had
to stay for 2-3 days before I could find suitable accommodation refused to feed me with the rice
cooked by him for fear of inviting divine wrath. The problem had to be solved by my agreeing to
be a cook and preparing food both for him and myself in the typical Brahminical way.
7. I have discussed elsewhere [1969] how I reformulated the concept of agrarian social structure
on the basis of my reflections on my fieldwork experience.
8. The perceptions of the people have both empirical and ideological elements. The former
captures a feature of the social situation while the latter rationalizes one or many features of the
situation. Juxtaposing the inside with the outside view helps the researcher to separate the
empirical from the ideological element, and the true from the false consciousness.
9. In the early fifties only some of Mao's writings were available in Indian Communist Party
circles in mimeograph form and some were reproduced in international Marxist journals.
10. Even when the party had a rural base in some areas the party leadership behaved in extremely
dogmatic fashion. It was imposing slogans relevant for Zamindari areas mechanically on
Ryotwari areas. When I started my field work in Western U.P. the Secretary of the party in the
Meerut district gave me support for my fieldwork with the hope that my investigations would
help to correct the biases of the Kisan leadership at the provincial headquarters who belonged
wholly to the Zamindari areas. Slogans of anti-landlordism (i.e. rent reduction and land-to-the
tiller) were being imposed by them on West U.P. districts where tenancy was not a serious
problem and where there was not much land for redistribution. In these, commercialised
regions demands relating to credit, remunerative prices, supply of inputs, higher wages for
landless labourers, etc. had much greater appeal for the peasantry and the landless masses. This
fart was being ignored by the Kisan Sabha leadership.
11. Commenting on this deficiency of data in backward Asian countries Mao states:
Generally speaking, unlike the bourgeoisie of Europe, America or Japan, the Chinese
bourgeoisie while in its infancy has as yet not been and will never be able to provide us with
any comprehensive or even preliminary data on social conditions, and this makes it necessary
for us to collect them ourselves. [Mao Tse-Tung, 1956: 9].
Even though the Indian bourgeoisie is more advanced than the Chinese bourgeoisie and has
contributed much more to the empirical knowledgeof Indian conditions, the basic fact remains
that the empirical knowledge about Indian rural economy and society (as compared to that of
urban economy and society) is still very deficient and underdeveloped. The principle of
fart-finding through fieldwork, therefore, is as valid for India as for China.
12. See detailed comments on this limitation of Indian Marxists in my book [1975]. The most
significant examples of this limitation are provided by the writings of Bhowani Sen and H.K.
Konar who were not only Marxist scholars but also leading figures in the peasant movement.
Their writings, however, are scholastic, not bearing much impress of their vast field
experience. Those who knew these leaders were struck by the richness of their experience. An
exception in the recent period is Jayaprakash Narayan's Face to Face [1975] which bears the full
impart of fieldwork in a Bihar village and should serve as a model for young political activists.
13. The importance of field work for knowledge is derived in Mao's methodology from the very
character of knowledge itself. The following statement from Mao is extremely illuminating
from this point of view. To quote:
What is knowledge? Eversincethe existence of class society there have been in the world only
two kinds of knowledge: that which concerns the struggle for production and that which
concerns the class struggle. The natural and social sciences are the utilisation of these two
kinds of knowledge, and philosophy is the generalisation and summary of the knowledge of
both nature and society [Mao Tse- Tung, 1956:32].
The interaction with the masses is extremely important as an aid to knowledge because of the
involvement of the masses both in productive activity and in class struggle. A person who had
only studied books and not taken part either in practical activities or in class struggle was in
Mao's view incapable of acquiring empirical knowledge about either nature or society. In
Mao's view the masses, even though they were illiterate and uneducated, had more empirical
knowledge, though of a perceptual variety, while the intelligentsia possessed only bookish
knowledge [Ibid: 32].
14. Mao, however, was conscious of the limitations of mere perceptual knowledge. In his view,
knowing involved transition from the stage of perceptual knowledge to the stage of rational
knowledge. In Mao's theory of knowledge it is subsumed that 'practical workers should learn to
raise their theoretical level and theoretical workers should learn to deepen their empirical
knowledge' [Mao Tse-tung, 1956:33, 34]. The following statement of Mao further explains this
point:
What then is comparatively complete knowledge? All comparatively complete knowledge is
acquired through two stages — first the stage of perceptual knowledge, and secondly, the
stage of rational knowledge, the latter being the development of the former to a higher plane
[Mao Tse-Tung, 1956:33].
15. Mao emphasises the importance of literacy for the masses in the following words:
In order to study theory our cadres from the working class and peasantry must first acquire
literacy. Without literacy they cannot learn Marxist-Leninist theory. When they have
acquired literacy they can learn it at any time [Mao Tse-Tung, 1956:35].
16. Mao attaches a great importance to fact-finding at the village level. To quote:
No really good leadership can result from the absence of a real, specific knowledge of the
actual conditions of the classes in Chinese society. The only way to know the conditions is to
make an investigation of society, to investigate the life and activities of each social class by
those whose duty it is to give guidance and direction; the most essential method of knowing
the conditions is that they should proceed according to plan, devote their attention to a
number of cities and villages and make a comprehensive survey of each one of them from the
bas ic viewpoint of Marxism, that is by means of class analys is. Only by doing so can one grasp
the essentials of Chinese social problems [Mao Tse-Tung, 1956: 7].
Further:
Holding a fact-finding conference is the simplest, the most practicable and the most reliable
method which has taught me a great deal, and which gives me a better education than any
university. The fact-finding conference does not require a large attendance; 3-5 or 7 or 8
persons will be enough. But ample time must be allowed and an outline of investigation
prepared beforehand. Furthermore, one must personally put questions to the participants
and jot down the answers and hold discussions with them [Mao Tse-Tung, 1956:8].
17. This concept of declassing is an essential part of Communist thought and practice all over the
world. But classical communism interpreted declassing as identifying oneself with the working
class and acquiring a proletarian outlook. Mao's contribution was to link this concept with the
village and the peasantry. There appears to be much agreement between him and Gandhi on
the question of fieldwork in villages as a method of re-education of the town-based
intelligentsia. My attention to this was first drawn by N.K. Bose whenl told him that I owed my
concept of fieldwork not to social anthropology but to Mao's thought. Looking back, I find it
odd that my interest in Gandhi's writings was stimulated not in the late forties but in the late
fifties.
18. To quote Mao:
If you want the masses to understand you and want to become one with them, you must be
determined to undergo the long and even painful process of remoulding [Mao Tse-Tung,
1956:67].
19. What importance Mao attaches to learning from the people is clear from the following
observation:
It is my wish that, together with the comrades of the whole party, I should continue to be a
pupil of the masses and learn from them [Mao Tse-Tung, 1956:10].
20. Just when I was discovering the concept of fieldwork from Mao's thought and using it for the
study of agrarian change, social anthropologists were making field studies of villages in India.
When, after studying Mao, I discussed the idea of fieldwork with D.N. Majumdar as if I had
made a discovery, he remarked, 'this is exactly what social anthropologists like me are doing,
drawing their inspiration from Malinowski'. I must admit, however, that whatever I read of
Malinowski and Majumdar then did not have as deep an impart on me as Mao's writings. While
there might be similarity in the meaning of fieldwork as an operational concept between Mao
and Malinowski, there was a wide gulf in the meaning of fieldwork as a philosophical concept.
Mao's appeal to me was greater because fieldwork was linked in him with the perspective of
revolutionary change and reconstruction of agrarian societies. Malinowski's concept had less
appeal because of its being part of the programme of reconstruction under colonial auspices.
21. There was another important element in Mao's approach to the peasant question which was
derived from Lenin. Mao did not treat the present peasant question in the abstract as many
Ruralists are inclined to treat it in many countries. In Mao's view the peasant question was
linked to the question of the stage of the revolution in a backward country. In other words, the
nature of the peasant question and the strategy of agrarian revolution was not the same in the
anti-imperialist, the bourgeois-democratic, and the socialist stages of the revolution [Mao
Tse-Tung, 1954:56-7; 72-101; 106-56]. Mao thus emphasised that the question of the attitude
to the peasantry was in fact linked to the question of the attitude to the bourgeoisie.
In the anti-imperialist stage of the revolution the peasant question was subordinate to the
question of united front against imperialism. The agrarian programme, therefore, was related
to the programme of the anti-imperialist revolution. Even the question of anti-feudalism was
adapted to the needs of anti-imperialist mobilisation. While waging war against landlordism, a
distinction was made between patriotic and collaborationist landlords. The fire of the revolution
was directed against the latter and not against the former. In the bourgeois-democratic stage
the emphasis shifted to the abolition of feudalism. Considering the backwardness of the
economy, a distinction was drawn between struggling against capitalist economic ideology on
the one hand and against capitalist economic relations on the other. While ruthlessly
exposing capitalist ideology, the anti-feudal programme allowed for controlled growth of
capitalist (rich peasant) elements in the rural economy [MaoTse- Tung, 1956: 11] . Maoopposed
the tacticof 'hitting out in all directions'. Inother words, the rich peasant had a legitimate place
within the economic programme and strategy of New Democracy.
It is in the third stage of creating the prerequisites of socialism that Mao launched upon a
policy of integrating bourgeois elements within a socialist framework through the programme
of cooperativisation. It seems to me that the subtlety and flexibility shown by Mao in his
approach to the peasant question has not been shown by Maoists in countries like India. Here
the peasant question has been detached from the question of the overall stage of the revolution.
In this background I would like to stress that while I have learnt a lot from Mao, my own
ideological and political positions are based on sharp demarcation from the Maoists in India.
22. It is important to mention the classic formulation ofStalinwhichwas the basis of the agrarian
programme of the Communists in the pre-independence period. Stalin said: 'The colonial
question is in essence a peasant question.' This formulation helps one to demarcate the nature
of the peasant problem in colonial countries fromthe nature of the peasant problem in capitalist
countries.
23. From fieldwork in villages I learnt to recognise the peculiarities of the class structure of
predominantly agrarian economies. It is through fieldwork that I realised most sharply that it
was not a polarised class structure. What I had learnt from Mao's writings was confirmed
through my own field experience. To quote Mao:
Chinese society is of a shape tapering towards the two ends but bulging out in the middle, for
the proletariat on the one hand and the landlord class and the big business on the other
constitute each only a small minority, while the peasantry, the urban petty bourgeoisie and
the other intermediate classes form the broadest sections of the masses. It is impossible for
any political party to run the country well unless its policy is formulated in line with the
interests of these classes, unless people from these classes can get their due, unless they have
the right to voice their opinion [Mao Tse-Tung, 1956:25].
24. I shall give only two examples of the richness and the directness of the language of the common
village folk. An educated communist worker from Meerut town had come on a visit to the
village to collect funds. He was asked by a group of jats sitting in a circle and relaxing with a
hukka (hubble-bubble) on the village choupal (meeting place) what his party's attitude was
towards the village people. The visitor tried to explain in tongue-twisting party jargon how the
anti-feudal revolution was left unfinished by the Congress party which compromised with
feudalism and how only the proletarian communist party could complete such a revolution, etc.
The most elderlyjator told the visitor point blank that his language was as foreign to them as his
dress and his face without a moustache! At once my interpreter, Pritam Singh, who was also a
party member, intervened and saved the situation. He remarked: 'When you sleep in a cot you
might shift the position of your head and the legs this way or that way. But the position of the
buttocks remains the same. And my party thinks the village folk are like the buttocks. They are
in the Congress regime in the same place where they were in the British Regime!' And the old
Jats not only enjoyed the remark but felt proud that the young jat had proved himself superior
in wit to the babu from the town.
On another occasion, I asked a peasant why he grumbled since the Government was now
giving loans and making schemes for providing better quality seed, more water, chemical
manures, etc. to cultivators. The peasant remarked: 'You see, all this is like pouring oil on a
bald head!' and laughed. When the blank expression on my face showed I had not understood
him, he explained: 'The fact is that I have only 2 acres of land for cultivation. That is why all this
plan of improving agriculture was like pouring oil on a bald head!'
25. Nothing revealed the gravity of the poverty of the village folk so sharply as the praaice of
Gobraha. The threshing of the harvested crop was traditionally done in East U .P. by a number
of bullocks who used to stamp the crop stems by repetitive circular motion on the threshing floor
where the harvested crop was layed in bulk. In course of this operation the bullocks would eat
crop stems along with some grain. The undigested grain eaten this way was excreted with the
dung. The scheduled castes (Chamars) of the village used to collect the droppings, dry it up and
separate the grain which was in turn used for human feeding. This practice was called Gobraha.
Moreover, during summer months sometimes the poorer sections had nothing to eat. So they
collected the Mahua flower and dried it to make sweetened gruel paste (lapsi). In some parts it
was also used to brew country liquor.
It was amazing for me to see how the poor survived on the basis of an austere diet of a couple of
balls of dried flour (Sattu), an onion piece, a red chilli along with salt.
26. My fieldwork, therefore, presented a picture of peasants quite different from that I had formed
on the basis of study of secondary material. My field observation provided abundant evidence to
confirm the blend of rigidity and flexibility in peoples' attitudes and behaviour so aptly
captured by Kroeber in a classic passage. To quote:
As long as men are concerned with their bodily wants, those which they share with the lower
animals, they appear plastic and adaptable. In proportion, however, as the socially
systematised products of their intellects are involved, where one might most expect foresight
and reason and cool calculation to be influential, societies seem swayed by aconservatism the
strength of which looms greater as we examine history more deeply. Some of this
conservatism is mere stubborn addiction to the folkways, the established, the habitual. Some
of it is due to the societies getting enmeshed in their institutions and not seeing a way out...,
some to realistically counting the cost of extraction as too burdensome on the reforming
generation. [Kroeber, 1967:522].
The truth of Kroeber's statement was revealed to me when I introduced the subject of
population explosion and the need for controlling it through family planning in a Kumaon
village. The first reaction to my introducing the subject to the villagers was that of great moral
revulsion and total rejection. The villagers told me that the children were the fruits of divinewill
and blessing. Any interference with the divine will was not only harmful but was alsoagreat sin
inviting divine wrath and punishment. The village people also felt that availability of
contraceptives would lead to widespread immorality and erosion of family stability.
I was inclined to dismiss such reactions on the part of the village people as an expression of
their deep irrationalism and conservatism. This was my view at the beginning of my field work
but having spent a few months with the village people, I was led towards revising my first
reactions, if not totally at least partially. I began to see that underlying the moral reaction against
population control expressed by the village people, there was a hard core of robust common-
sense in their attachment to the concept of a large family. I realised in course of time that
preference for a large family was induced partly because of their need for manpower both as a
productive force and as a source of material and psychological security in an insecurity-
dominated and scarcity-based village economy and society. There was also a lurking fear that
one may be rendered totally childless and, therefore, without any protection in old age if the
number of children was too small and, therefore, exposed to the uncertainties of illness and
other calamities in a rural environment.
It very soon dawned on me that my perception of the problems of the village people expressed
my urban middle-class background and prejudices. I began to appreciate that village people
were facing entirely different sets of problems and were exposed to entirely different
environmental challenges and pressures. Their views, perceptions and attitudes on man-
woman relations, on family size and population control were shaped by their life-experiences
and by specificity of their socio-economic environment. In short, what Mamdani later
presented in his insightful study on an Indian village was revealed to me through my fieldwork
in the early fifties. [Mahmood Mamdani, 1973] [P.C. Joshi, 1974: 74-88].
27. In this connection the following observations of Gunnar Myrdal are very pertinent:
In my study of conditions and trends in South Asia, I have grown more and more convinced
of the realism of the hypothesis that most often it is not more difficult, but easier to carry out
a big rapid change than a series of small gradual changes — 'just as a plunge into cold water is
less painful than slow submersion' [Gunner Myrdal, 1970:396].
28. Marx has provided brilliant insight into the influence of geography on socio-economic
institutions and human behaviour. His observations lend support to the generalisations
presented above.
It by no means follows... that the most fruitful soil is the most fitted for the growth of the
capitalist mode of production. This mode is based on the dominion of man over nature.
Where nature is too lavish, she 'keeps him in hand, like a child in leading strings.' She does not
impose upon him any necessity to develop himself. It is not the tropics with their luxuriant
vegetation, but the temperate zone, that is the mother-country of capital. It is not the mere
fertility of the soil, but the differentiation of the soil, the variety of its natural products, the
changes of the seasons, which form the physical basis for the social division of labour, and
which, by changes in the natural surroundings, spur man on to the multiplication of his
wants, his capabilities, his means and modes of labour. It is the necessity of bringing a natural
force under the control of society, of economising, of appropriatingorsubduingitonalarge-
scale by the work of man's hand, that just plays the decisive part in the history of industry
[Karl Marx, Capital Vol. 1: 514].
Marx further states how the bountifulness of nature, far from being a blessing, can become a
curse for man inhabiting such fertile regions. In support of this view, he reproduces the
following passage from another writer:
The first (natural wealth) as it is most noble and advantageous, so doth it make the people
careless, proud, and given to all excesses; whereas the second enforceth vigilancy, literature,
arts and policy...
Nor can I conceive a greater curse upon a body of people, than to be thrown upon a spot of
land, where the productions for subsistence and food were, in great measure, spontaneous,
and the climate required or admitted little care for raiment and covering... there may be an
extreme on the other side. A soil incapable of produce by labour is quite as bad as a soil that
produces plentifully without any labour [Ibid: 513].
29. Numerous examples come to mind showing how rural people made adjustments to changing
circumstances. Such readjustment was most obvious in West U.P. It is generally believed that
much conspicuous consumption is undertaken by rural people with respect to rituals and
ceremonies associated with marriage, death, etc. The Jats of West U.P., however, had brought
about a drastic reduction in conspicuous consumption in ceremonies and rituals as part of a
general rationalisation of their sociallife. Thus, abridalparty in a Jat family did not exceed more
than five members — the bridegroom, his father, his maternal uncle, a priest and the village
headman. Moreover, a limit was placed also on the dowry given by the bride's father to the
bridegroom's family. The limit was applicable both to the amount given in cash and to the
amount of silver or gold in the form of ornaments and jewellery.
Another interesting example of the rationalism of rural people came to my notice in West
U.P. It is generally believed that in rural India, the partition of the family leads to division in
property and, consequently, to multiplication of uneconomic units of cultivation. But the Jats
had devised their own ingenious method of preserving the viability of their operational
holdings. Whenever partition occurred in the family, the Jat family would split up into multiple
units of consumption. But they did not allow the principle of division to be applied to the
management and operation of land which continued to be joint as before. Thus, all assets
including land, bullocks, implements, etc. were owned and managed in common. This
rationalism of the West U.P. peasantry stood in marked contrast to the economic irrationalism
of the East U.P. peasant.
Similar rationalism was noticeable in social matters in the countryside of West U.P. and
Kumaon. Peasant life had many elements of modernity and in this respect it was qualitatively
different from the life of the educated upper castes. Freer man-woman relations within the
caste, the independence and dignity of the working peasant women, the frequency of widow
remarriage, and the tradition of men and women singing and dancing together on festive
occasions — such elements of social emancipation and equality between men and women were
conspicuously absent from upper-caste life both in Kumaon and elsewhere.
It is also to be noted that where the peasant caste was the dominant caste as in West U.P., the
upper castes were freer from the rigidities which characterised the life of upper castes in regions
like East U.P.
30. Having emphasised the fact the the text-book conception of the conservatism of rural people
and their rigid conformity to custom is highly exaggerated, if not fictitious, one must also
emphasise that the people were dynamic, active and innovative within the constraints of a given
social system. It was only in exceptional circumstances that the tendency to question and
challenge the system itself assumed predominance. Anthropologists who have rightly drawn
attention to the plasticity of human behaviour in rural India had not taken adequate cognizance
of these curbs on the initiative of the people imposed by the system. In fact, the system had
powerful mechanisms to suppress the energy, dynamism and initiative of the people if it began
to pose a threat to the system itself.
31. It would be wrong, however, to draw too idyllic a picture of rural community solidarity. Any
tendency to romanticise village solidarity has to encounter powerful empirical evidence of
factional feuds, land and property disputes and sexual rivalries and jealousies, often assuming
gruesome and violent forms.
32. The question often bothered me during my fieldwork why in view of such degrading poverty,
oppression and deprivation in India's villages the response of the peasantry was not
revolutionary; and why peasants seemed reconciled to such nakedly brutal and degrading
conditions of life. This phenomenon of mass passivity led me towards an appreciation of the role
of ideological factors. It also led me towards appreciating Barrington Moore Jr.'s remarks on the
role of culture in determining human behavioural responses. To quote:
Common observation is enough to show that human beings individually and collectively do
not react to an 'objective' situation in the same way as one chemical reacts to another when
they are put together in a test tube. This form of strict behaviourism is, I submit, just plain
wrong. There is always an intervening variable, a filter, one might say, between people and an
'objective' situation, made up from all sorts of wants, expectations, and other ideas derived from
the past. This intervening variable, which it is convenient to call culture, screens out certain
parts of the objective situation and emphasizes other parts [Barrington Moor Jr., 1967:485].
He has also emphasised how a passive response to an objective situation which is culturally
induced has powerful interest groups trying all the time to ensure such a passive response. To
quote:
The assumption of inertia, that cultural and social continuity do not require explanation,
obliterates the fart that both have to be recreated anew in each generation, often with great
pain and suffering. To speak of cultural inertia is to overlook the concrete interests and
privileges that are served by indoctrination, education, and the entire complicated process of
transmitting culture from one generation to the next [Ibid: 486].
33. Daniel Thorner, who did fieldwork in Indian villages in the early fifties, does not place
enough emphasis on regional diversity in agrarian structures [1976]. Chapter 1 in his Agrarian
Prospect inlndia mentions malik (landowner), kisan (peasant) and major (labourer) as the basic
classes. Such a classification misses the distinction between landlord-dominated and peasant-
dominated villages, a distinction which typifies the contrast between East and West U.P.
34. My paper 'The Cultural Dimension of Economic Development' [1973] presents apreliminary
analysis of parasitism. My forthcoming book bearing the same title presents a comprehensive
analysis of the phenomena of parasitism and fatalism. What I wish to stress here is that the
empirical basis for the concepts of fatalism and parasitism was first provided to me by my
fieldwork experience.
35. It is also important to emphasise how the peasant question is vitally linked with the regional
question. The peasant in each region is part and parcel of a regional society. Speaking a dialect
and having a way of life which is specific to a region, the peasantry is an inseparable part of
the regional society. The peasants of one region may from the point of view of objective class
position be similarly placed but their capacity to throw up common class movements
transcending regions is extremely limited. In fact, peasant discontent feeds regional
movements far more than class movements. Reflecting on this weakness of the peasantry I find
great force in the following formulation by Eric Hobsbawm: "The potential power of the
traditional peasantry is enormous but its actual power and influence are much more limited"
[Eric Hobsbawm, 1973: 12]. The peasantry is in this sense a subaltern class; it is generally
exploited by other classes for their own class interests and aims. The capacity of the peasantry
for independent class mobilisation is very limited.
36. 'Melancholy' is the term used by Marx with reference to Indian society being delinked from its
past tradition by British rule.
37. It is important to note how both the economic basis and non-economic superstructure of the
rural society were undergoing a qualitative transformation under the impact of both
endogenous and exogenous forces. While the changes in the economic framework were
relatively more rapid and marked, changes in the superstructure relating to religion, caste,
joint family and the village were much less rapid and marked. In fart, adherence to caste, joint
family and religion created the illusion of continuity. The discrepancy in the rate of change
between the non-economic superstructure and the economic structure would have created in
me the illusion of changelessness if I had not been initiated into the Marxist theory of social
change. This is another example of how the field-worker having no theoretical equipment to
Field-work Experience: Relived and Reconsidered 483,
guide him can be deprived an insight into the deeper forces at work in society and can derive
inferences entirely from outward appearance which dominate the mind of the fieldworker.
38. The first interpretations of my fieldwork experience are embodied in my Ph.D. dissertation
[1955] submitted to Lucknow University.
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Fieldwork is currently regarded as basic to the anthropologist's method of

Taking knowledge in its totality, any kind of knowledge is

must comment on it briefly.

appreciation of the bewildering complexity ofsocial reality and realization of the

movement as a student activist in the early years of Independence. The second

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Fatalism does not imply surrender of human initiative or refusal to explore

have exaggerated the role of fatalism in keeping people backward and in

into open or veiled predation' [1964:227],

however, different. It was in response to social rather than tonatural processes. I

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