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THE PEOPLE AND THEIR CULTURE
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VILLAGE COMMUNITIES
The Barabalute system of village organisation has now broken down under the impact of new influences. Heredity no longer determines the profession of any caste, community or individual and equality of opportunity for all is universally agreed upon as guaranteeing individual liberty and initiative for self-development. But 150 years ago, every village used to be a well-knit and well-organised community with its rigid castes and their hereditary professions which supplied the functional needs of the community. Captain Briggs found in 1818 that in Khandesh the Barabalute included the Brahman priest, guru ; the Muslim priest, mulla; the astrologer, joshi; the carpenter, sutara; the blacksmith, lohar; the potter, kumbhar; the goldsmith, sonar; the barber, nhavi; the washerman, parit ; the village hard, bhat ; the village watchman and guide, jaglya ; the scavenger, mang and shoemaker, chambhar. In lieu of the services rendered they received annual grams of grains plus some cash payment from every household. The system has of course now outlived its utility and has in many instances almost completely disappeared.
Now as in olden times, the people of a village are a mixed lot. Rarely a village can be found that is peopled by a single caste. Yet there were no mixed dinners. Caste harriers prevented not only intercaste marriages but even eating and drinking together. Rigidity in regard to the latter has, however, now very considerably slackened. On some festive occasions, whole village dinners are held but they are caste-wise. No special arrangements exist for
the exercise of common rights. Cattle belonging to any one may drink water from the same trough or from the same watering place in a river and as soon as the crops are off the fields, they can graze all over the village lands. Herdsmen are paid by villages a certain wage per head, but quite often cattle are turned loose and allowed to graze and roam about anywhere they like. They have only to be driven home in the evening by the herdsman, who is usually a Bhil.
The break-up of village communities with the consolidation of British rule weakened the ties which bound the villagers to their headmen and priests and to each other. The village council or panchayat even where it continued to exist became an inane body. The relations between the various craftsmen and the villagers are still cordial because they depend on one another for daily business. Yet the baluta system has broken down and services of craftsmen are hired in terms of money. Many craftsmen have left their villages in search of better paid work in towns and in fact the old village organisation has more or less broken up everywhere. After the advent of freedom various constructive activities like Community Development Projects and the national extension services have begun to put new life in the rural areas and, with the increasing amenities now being provided for new areas, villages may again become attractive places to live in and migration to cities may be checked.
Jalgaon is a meeting place for people from north India, Gujarat, the Satpuda hills, Vidarbha, Marathvada and the neighbouring districts of Nasik and Ahmadnagar. The present population contains elements from all these places and in the urban areas of the district this variety is more pronounced. Communication with Bombay has quickened this process in the professions like law, medicine and education as also in the cotton trade and textile works.
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