Title: South India: yesterday, today and tomorrow: Mysore villages revisited.

POPLINE Document Number: 018144

Author(s):

Epstein TS

Source citation:

New York, New York, Holmes and Meier, 1973. 273 p.

Abstract:

An interdisciplinary approach to the study of development at the micro-level was employed in an effort to examine the interaction between economic and other variables within a social system. The 1st field work was conducted in South India in 1954-56, when the impact of irrigation on the economic and social organization of 2 villages within a regional economy was studied. Dalena, a dry, and Wangala, a wet village, are situated close to each other within the same culture area near Mandya town in Mysore State, South India. These particular villages were chosen because of their multicaste compostion and because they were then still outside the sphere of the Community Development Project. Results wre published in 1962. The villages were revisited after a lapse of 15 years, and this study enables an identification of the trends of change in these 2 South Indian villages, and within the different sections and economic strata in each of them, and an analysis of the various economic, political, and social factors and their interactions responsible for the observed changes. The sample was random insofar as the actual households in the sample were selected at random, but it was at the same time stratified in as much as households had been previously put into economic categories on the basis of landholding and the size and age composition of the household. The Wangala sample was made up to 64 of the 192 village households; of the sample of 51 of Dalena's 153 households, 3 had to be discarded. Dalena's population has increased at an average annual rate of at least 2.5% over the last 15 years. Family planning, although widely advocated in Mandya district, has not been accepted by many villagers, natural population increase must be expected to continue at least at its present rate. Unless migration takes on unprecedented proportions, Dalena's population is likely to double within the next 30 years. There is little chance that within this period canal irrigation will bring water to Dalena, though there is a possibility of more efficient pump irrigation being introduced to irrigate the village dry land and thereby increase agricultural reproductivity. If this were accompanied by the introduction of high yielding varieties of millet and paddy seeds comparable in result with the high yielding wheat varieties, Dalena might be able to produce overall sufficient crops to feed its population for the next 10-15 years, but in view of past trends such expectations seem optimistic. More realistic is the assumption that population will continue to grow much faster than the increase in village food production. Wangala's population also must be expected to continue growing. Wangala men are even less interested in family planning than are their Dalena counterparts. Wangala's population will problably double in about 25 years. If in the meantime a high yielding variety of paddy can be successfully introduced this will obviously increase the carrying capacity of irrigated land. Although Wangala has been incorporated in the cash economy, farmers are still only secondarily cash croppers. Their basic concern is to grow sufficient subsistence food.

Keywords:

India
Rural Population
Residence Characteristics
Agricultural Development
Rural Development
Economic Development
Development Planning
Social Development
Population Growth
Population Dynamics
Social Change
Socioeconomic Factors
Attitude
Family Planning
Carrying Capacity
Asia, Southern
Asia
Developing Countries
Population Characteristics
Demographic Factors
Population
Population Distribution
Geographic Factors
Economic Factors
Psychological Factors
Behavior
Natural Resources
Environment