Author: Harold H. Mann

Publisher: Forgotten Books

Published: 2015-06-15

Total Pages: 204

ISBN-13: 9781330302750

Excerpt from Land and Labour in a Deccan Village: Study No; 2 The study of rural life and of rural conditions by close inquiry into the circumstances of a single unit, be it village, parish, or estate, has come to the front prominently in recent years as a method of social and economic investigation. And by the use of this method, if the villages to be studied are well chosen, a very much more intimate acquaintance with the actual conditions of life than by any other method can be obtained. And this is certainly true in the Deccan where the villages are still the economic and social units in a sense that is far more true than is the case in most countries, and to an extent which even in India is, I think, only found in the Peninsula. The villages are perhaps now tending to be less the relatively isolated units than hitherto, but they are still so to an extent that gives the knowledge even of a single village a very special value for the study of the whole rural conditions of the country. On this account, with the collaboration of a number of friends and assistants, I undertook some years ago the study of a single village near Poona, and the result was published in 1917 under the title of 'Land and Labour in a Deccan Village.' This purported to give a picture of life and conditions in a 'dry' Deccan village. By a 'dry' village, I mean one where irrigation is very limited in amount and where the prosperity of the village depends almost entirely on the annual monsoon rain. That study revealed a number of unexpected facts, and the general conclusions which I drew were certainly of a far more depressing character than I had expected. Only one serious criticism has, however, been made. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.