About the Book
In the 1950s, when Indian Sociology stepped into the terrain of village studies, Brij Raj Chauhan – the founder Professor of Sociology in Rajasthan – initiated research in rural Rajasthan. Located close to the capital of the princely state of Mewar and locally governed by Rajput chiefs appointed by the Maharana, the village Ranawaton-ki-Sadri was chosen by B.R. Chauhan for doing the ethnography of a small community using an emerging paradigm for such studies.
Indian Village Revisited is a posthumous publication based on B.R. Chauhan’s revisit to Ranawaton-ki-Sadri in Udaipur district. The book tries to locate the key differences in the village between 1950s and the first decade of the 21st century. Having studied the same village at two points of time, the author had the advantage of deciphering change. As a field anthropologist, he insisted on observation and informal interviews. Enormous secondary data relative to the village and the region was also collected to locate the microcosmic changes occurring in the village as a consequence of urbanization and modernization, democratic decentralization, and the emerging party politics.
Unfortunately, Professor Chauhan passed away soon after the completion of this study. This volume has been edited by one of B.R. Chauhan’s students, Yogesh Atal, who has also contributed an essay in his honour. As a tribute to the teacher, and as the first such venture of restudying the village community, this publication is of special significance. The book is written in a descriptive style, as the ethnography of a changing village.
Contents
PreliminariesPrologue – T.M. Dak
Prolegomenon – Yogesh Atal
The Author and the Editor: Mutual Introductions
Yogesh Atal introducing Brij Raj Chauhan
Chauhan introducing Atal
The Book: Indian Village RevisitedPreface
1 Sources of Data
2 The Village
3 Social Profiles I
4 Social Profiles II
5 Rituals of the Village Life
6 New Institutions
7 Negotiating with Increasing Complexities
Obituaries and TributesObituary: Brij Raj Chauhan – Yogesh Atal
Brij Raj Chauhan: A Personal Tribute – Surendra Munshi
Remembering Professor Brij Raj Chauhan – Jagdish Kumar Pundir
My Guru Chauhan Saheb – Jainendra Kumar Doshi
About the Author / Editor
Brij Raj Chauhan pioneered teaching of Sociology in Rajasthan way back in the mid-1950s. He was the first Director of the Rajasthan Tribal Research Institute, Udaipur. After a brief stint at the University of Saugar, he returned to Udaipur but thereafter joined as Reader, Institute of Social Sciences, Agra. Later he became the founder head and Professor of Sociology at Meerut University where he worked till his retirement. Author of several books and articles in English and Hindi, Professor Chauhan was President of the Indian Sociological Society. The Society honoured him with the Lifetime Achievement Award.
THE EDITOR
Yogesh Atal is a sociologist of international renown. After having taught at the universities of Saugar, Punjab, and Agra, he joined IIT New Delhi, and then became the first Research Director at the Indian Council for Social Science Research. He joined UNESCO as its first Regional Advisor for Social and Human Sciences in Asia and the Pacific in 1974; he retired from UNESCO as Deputy Assistant Director-General in 1997. He is Emeritus Professor at the M.P. Institute of Social Science Research, Ujjain.
