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Village Republics Economic Conditions For Collective Action In South India Robert Wade

Village Republics Economic Conditions For Collective Action In South India Robert Wade Village Republics Economic Conditions For Collective Action In South India Robert Wade Village Republics Economic Conditions For Collective Action In South India Robert Wade

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VILLAGE REPUBLICS A publication of the INTERNATIONAL CENTER FOR SELF-GOVERNANCE
The mission of the International Center for Self-Governance is to encourage men and women in developing countries to achieve the self-governing and entrepreneurial way of life. In addition to publishing the finest academic stud- ies, such a~ this edition of Village Republics, ICSG also provides ;)ractical materials in a variety of readily accessible fonnats, including manuals, learn- ing tools, and interactive tasks. For more infonnation on ICSG or i.s publications, training materials, and videos, please contact: ICSG 720 Market Street San Francisco, CA 94102 USA (415) 981-5353
VILLAGE REPUBLICS Economic Conditions for Collective Action in South India ROBERT WADE IDi PRESS INSTITUTE FOR CONTEMPORARY STUDIES SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA
© 1994 Institute for Contemporary Studies This book is a publication of the International Center for Self-Governance, dedicated to promoting the self-governing and entrepreneurial way of life aromtd the world. The Center is nffiliated with the Institute for Contempo- rary Studies, a nonpartisan, nonprofit pl'blic plllky research organization. TI1e ana!yses, conclusians, anJ opinions expressed in ICS Press publica- tions are those of the authors and not necessarily thme of the Institute for Contemporary Studies, or of the Institute's officers, its ciirectors, or others associated with, or funding, its work. First publisheJ in 1988 by Cambridge University Press. Publication of this edition was funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development. Pri"ted in the United States of America on acid-free paper. All rights re- served. No part of this book may be used or repruduced in any manner without written pennissiol' ex.:ept in the case of bri.:f quotations in critical articles and reviews. Inquiries, book orders, and catalog requests should be addre~sed to ICS Press, 720 Market Street, San Francisco, CA 94102. (415) 981-5353. Fax (415) 986-4878. For 9ook orders and catalog requests call toll free : (800) 326-0263. Cover design by Kent Lytle Cover photographs by Elise P. Schoux 0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 I Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available ISBN: l-55815-387-X
To Freddy Bailey, who taught that anthropology is the better part of politics and economics. Anrl to Syed Hashim Ali, lAS, professor of integrity.
2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 II CONTENTS List ofJllustrativns Ust of Tables Foreword Preface Robert B. Hawkins. Jr. Tne Village as J Corporate Group The Circumstances of Village Organization Kottapalle The Social Response to Open-Field Husbandry The Social Response to Irrigation The Ro.~nge of Council Activities The Mode of Public Choice Variation between Villages (I): Social Structure Variaticn between Villages (2): Ecology and Risk Conclusions (I): The Conditions for Collective Action Conclusions (2): Theories of Collective Action Appendix Water Supply and Irrigation Network Bibliography Index vii viii ix xi xiii 19 37 59 72 96 Ill 134 160 179 199 218 223 235
ILLUSTRATIONS Figures 1.1 Village-based Corporate Institutions 3.1 Cropping Pattern, Crops as a Percentage of Total Cultivable Area, Kottapalle Maps 7 41 2.1 Two Canal Systems and Village Locations 20 2.2 The V Distributary System of the MN Canal and Village Locations (Inset from Map 2.1) 21 2.3 Hydrology. Soils and Landforms: The V Distributory Area 22 3.1 Scattering of Big Men's Holdings. Kottapalle Village 46 Appendix Map I Irrigation Channel Layout, Kottapalle Village 220 viii
TABLES 3.1 Long-run Average Rainfall and Potential Evapotranspiration (PET) 39 6.1 Village Fund Expenditure Accounts. Various Years 97 6.2 Summary of Expenditure Accounts 100 6.3 Village Fund Income Account, Various Years 104 8.1 Village Organization, Sample of Irrigated Villages 136 8.2 Village Organization, Sample of Dry Villages 138 8.3 Frequency of Village Corporate Institutions in Sample of Irrigated Villages 139 9.1 Cropping Pattern in Head Reach and Tail Reach Villages of V Distributary System, 1901-05 170 Appendix Table I Zone and Actual Irrigated Area, by Blocks 219 ix
FOREWORD How can farmers in rural India or poor residents of public housing in American cities organize themselves for successful self-governance? Must they depend on some outside authority to make and enforce the rules and impose cooperation? Or can they work together productively for their common good? If we arc to know how to build successful ~elf-governing organizations where they have not existed before. it is essential that we understand the conditions that foster them. Much of what we have learned about these conditiuns comes from empirical observation nf the manage- ment of common property resources. This imp<1rtant study of common property management in South India is a major contribution to that body of observation. Robert Wade asks why some groups can form "village republics" to manage their common assets. while others leave those assets to he over-ex- ploited by individual users-to the ultimate disad·:antage of the group as a whole. Drawing on his field research in several South Indian villages, Wade finds that scarcity and risk-in addition to other factors such as social struc- ture of the village. demographic composition, relations with markets outside the village, and the apparatus of the state-arc particularly important in in- nuencing collective action. When resources, such as grazing land or irriga- tion water, ;u·c scarce, he discovers. collective action is more likely to take hold. Wade show~ that the main reason why some villages organize and others do not lies in the risk of crop loss-whether from scarcity of water at the tail-end of an irrigation system or frnm imensivc usc of grazing lands by a high density of livestock. To state the matter in reverse. the potential benefits of collective action arc clear and substantial. Wade's work counteract~ the theories of collective action pessimists. He dcmonstrutcs the weakness of theoretical constructs such as the Pris- oner's Dilemma in predicting outcomes in ongoing and interactive situ- ations and shows that people at the village level ::an manifest remarkable capacities for self-organized activity. The village public realm is a real. not a theoretical. ceremonial. or symbolic one. For these villagers, collec- tive action is a very practical matter, a way to get things done and pmvide for the public good. Villa~e Reprtblics was first published by Cambridge University Press as part of the Cambrige South Asian Studies series. The International :ri
Foreword Center for Self-Governance is pleased to be able to reissue this important work and to make it newly available to a widening network of individualc; and organizations working in many settings to create and sustain local action for self-governance. xii Robert B. Hawkins, Jr. President Institute for Contemporary Studies
PREFACE When will villagers come together to supply themselves with goods and services that they all need but could not provi~e themselves individually? In what circumstances wi!l those who face a potential "tragedy of the commons" be able to organize a system of rules by which the tragedy is averted? Many writers on collective action and common property are inclined to think that the circumstances are very limited. A long line of collective action theorists has been concerned to elaborate the proposition that peo- ple placed in a situation in which they could all benefit from cooperation will be unlikely to cooperate in the absence of an external enforcer of agreements. An equally long line of theorist~ on property rights has ar- gued 1hat common property resources arc bound to be over-exploited as demand rises. The ouly solution is private enclosure, according to some theorists, or state regulation. according to others. This book is about village~ in one small p:1rt of South India. Some villages in this a~ca have organized the public aspects of resource use to a more sophisticated degree that has been reponed previously in the literature on Indian villages, while others have not organized at all. Only a few miles may separate a village with :1 lot of organization from one with none. From the iitcraturc on collective action thc::Jry we would not expect to find villages maintaining a steady pattern of collective control. From the literature on "peasants-in-general" we would not expect such a range of variati0n between villages in the same area, for that literature prefers to characterize peasants as broadly individualistic or communitarian, accord- ing to the author·~ predilection. From the literature on Indian villages we would not expect to find that caste. factions, marriage rules, inheritance rules, and other such sociological variables, arc unimportant in explaining the observed pattern of variation between viliagcs. This book offers an explanation of the variation and an account of how the collective action probicms are overcome in those villages with a large amount of organization. It is a study, in other words, of the emer- gence of a "public realm," of the origins of small politics and formal politics. The public realm is here concerned with "efficiency" rather than "dignity," with providing public goods and services in the vital agricul- tural sphere rather tha'l symbolically representing the village to itself and xiii
Preface the supernatural. It bears similarities to the open-field form of village or- ganization found over much of medieval westrrn Europe, and is in part a response to the same problems of mixed arable and animal husbandry as gave rise to that medieval form. But is is also a response to the hazards of irrigation, which introduce complexities not found in western Europe. If, with some politit:al theorists, we look upon the stale as based on a con- junction of contract and coercion, and if the first states arc thought uf as representing a relatively advanced stage of evolution of a public realm in local communities, we might draw on an understanding of how the com- bination of contract and coercion is sustained in these Indian villages to- day for insights about how it emerged in ihc agricultural communities of pristine states. We shall at the end of the story examine why most collective action theories-including Prisoner's Dilemma, Hardin's "tragedy of the com- mons," and Olson's "logic of collective action"-fa:l to give accurate pre- dictions in the present case, and thereby sec why their sweeping pessimism about voluntary organization is unwarranted. We shall also specify some general criteria for idenllfying the conditions in which one would expect more, or less, collective action on the pan of lilosc faced with the need to regulate their usc of common property resources. Clearly there can be no general presumption that collective acti<m ratlwr than privatization or state regulation will work-the dismal frequency of degraded grazing commons, despoiled forests, over-exploited groundwater and depleted fisheries is testi- mony to the contrary. On the other hand, there arc many cases. in addition to these, where villagl!s have been able to sustain common property man- agement arrangements over long periods of time. Privatization or state regu- lation is therefore not always necessary for successful management of re- sources of this type. The third option of locally based collective action needs to be taken seriously. For one thing, it is likely to he much chcapcr in tenns of state resources than either of the other two. Already over-stretched states should encourage local systems of rules where they can be expected to work-hence the usefulness of establishing the conditions which arc more, or less, favourable. The research project began in 1977. as a by-product of another study on the operation of large-scale canal schemes. In the course of talking to fanners about their experience of the water bureaucracy I ~;tumbled quite accidentally across :1 number of villages whose water organization seemed remarkable in relation to what was then known aboul Indian village urgani- zation. I made a quick study of 24 irrigated and Hdry villages, the results of which called for a more intensive inquiry. I rctum~d in 1980, together with Jeremy Jackson and Ro~emm-y Jackson. They lived in Kollapallc village for 7 months in 1980. I lived in the village and nearby market town for 8 xiv
Preface mo~ths over several periods between 1980 and 1982. Altogether we studied 31 inigated and I0 dry villages. The present tense in what follows refers to 1980-! except where otherwise noted. Further details on the field-work are given in chapter 8, n. I. p. 135. I thank the following people and groups of people, without whom Village Repuh/ics would not ha'e been completed. The Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex is my own cornm~nity. whose ahility to surmount collective action prohlem:; in supplying a supporlive research environment no doubt coloured my sense of the possibilities for Indian villagers. The Social Science Re:;earch Council of the United Kingdom (since renamed the Economic and Social Research Council) funded the study. Syed Hashim Ali gave it his blessing. Jeremy Jackson provided core ideas in my interpretation of the institution of field guards. and much help hesidcs. Lakshmi Reddy was our indefatigable research assistant and translator. Tirupal Reddy, Nonnan and Pamela Reynolds. Hunter and Avcld<t Wade, and Ray Pahl helped in various crucial ways. Freddy Bailey, Ronald Dore, Michael Lipton. and especially Bruce Graham commented on parts of the argument. Elizabeth Crayford and f-ernando Leohons helped prepare the manuscript for publication. Susan Joekes did her hest, as always, to put the project to hed. The manuscript was completed in the interstices of other work at the World Bank. and I thank that organization for its support. In particular, Hans Binswanger's t:l'mmitment to scholarship was essential, for without it the devotitlll of machine bun:aucracies to "on time" or "overdue" as the chief planning criterion would have hro•.1ght the project to a premature end. Finally. a special thanks to Elinor Ostrom, who gave generously of her insights on common property resource management. and emanated an enthusia~m wonderfully infectious for a writer approaching the end of a long manuscript. Kurnool district is the real name. hut most names below this level art invented, for reasons which will become clear in chapter 5. In particular, "MN" and "TS" canals arc pseudonyms. XV
1 The village as a corporate group This book is about how and why some peasant villagers in one part of India act collectively to provide goods and services which they all need and cannot provide for themselves individually. And why some do 'lot. Ever since Henry Maine, scholars have proffered generalizations about the Indian village. 'An Indian Village Community,' said Maine, 'is an organized society, and besides providing for the management of the common fund, it seldom fails to provide, by a complete staff of functior.aries, for internal government, for police, for the adminis- tration of justice, and for the appointment of taxes and public duties' (1905: 262). Nowdays sucn ~ picture is generally scorned as idyllic, owing more to wishful thinking than to empirical evidence. The new hard-nosed school offers a rival picture of the Indian village in terms roughly the reverse of Maine's. 'Indian rural society today,' says V.R. Gaikwad, 'is an atomized mass, composed ofindividuals who are not in any organized fold except the family and the extended kin-groups which form the sub-caste' (1981: 331 ). The obvious truth is that villages vary, some being more like Maine's communitarian ideal than others. Why? What accour.ts for variation between villages even within culturally homogeneous areas? My answer is that several factors bear on the situation, related to ecology. internal social structure. demographic composition, relations with externa; markets and the apparatus of the state. Of these. I argue that the ecological factors- particularly scarcity and risk -are very important. yet do not seem to have interested students of Indian village organization very much. I argue that variations in scarcity and risk in the vital agriculturJl sphere explain much of the variation to be found in village organization within one small part of upland South India. Nevertheless, when all that is explainable by these kinds of factors is stated, much variation remains unexplained. Perhaps new variables will be discovered to reduce the randomness; perhaps some of it is unexplainable. In the meantime a certain modesty is in order. I
Village republics The debate Much current literature boldly generalizes not just about tlte Indian village but about the village in peasant society, no less. For instance, political scientist James Scott portrays the village in pre-capitalist peasant society as a key institution, characterized by a variety of social arrangements designed to insure village members against a subsistence crisis. These arrangements include labour .!xchangcs, the use of communal property for the livelihood of orphans and widows, rent reductions at times of crop failure, and gifts by patrons at the birth of a child or the death of a farmer. The underlying principle is 'all should have a place, a living, not that all should be equal' (1976:40). To the extent that the village elite respects this principle by protectir:g poor members of the com;nunity <Jgainst ruin in bad years, their position is considered legitimate; they arc leaders of a moral community. In similar vein, economist Yujiro Hayami identifies the village as the basic unit of rural life in Asia, not simply the place where people livf! but also 'a community which mobilizes collective actions to supply public goods essential for the sec'Jrity and the survival of community members. The village mobilizes labour and other resources collectively to construct and maintain social-vverhead capital such as roads and irrigation systems. Also it stipubtcs and enforces rules and regulations to coordinate and reduce conflicts on the usc of resources among villagers' (1980:27). On the other hand, many other scholars have presented the peasant village in quite different terms. According to what might be called the 'scarcity consciousness' or 'peasant pie' approach, pcasanl~ typically behave as if all possible 'good fortune' accessible to them is strictly limited. The result is ~trong social pressure towards normative and static behavior patterns, and extreme individualism in sucial relations. The anthropologist George Foster, whose theory of 'the Image of Limited Good' is perhaps the best known example of this approach, argues that 'People who see lhcmsclvcs in "threatened circumstances", which the Image of Limited Good implies, usually react in one of two ways: maximum cooperation and sometimes communism- burying differ- ences and placing sanctions against individualism; or extreme individual- ism. Peasant societies seem always to choose the second alternative' (1965: 301). 'Traditional peasant socictie~ arc cooperative [he continucsj only in the sense of honoring reciprocal obligations, rather than in the sense of understanding community welfare, and ... mutual suspicions seriously limit cooperative approaches to village problems' (308). Samuel Popkin (1979) takes a broadly similar position. Arraying 2
The village as a corporate group himself against Scott, Popkin stresses the tenuousness and the dif- ficulties of collective action at village lr.vel, the limited abilities of peasants to generate villagewide insurance or welfare arrangements. His view, like Foster's, is a world apart from Hayami's image of the Asian village. Organizing to supply themselves with public goods is precisely what peasant villagers find very difficult to do, according to Foster and Popkin. This selection of views ahout the nature of the peasant village demonstrates the hazards of mounting exalted general;zations about 'peasantry' as a social type. Hayami takes Japan as his primary reference point, and villages in Japan co show a great deal of village-based collective action. 1 Foster takes his primary material from Mexico, where the amount of village-based collective action is often rather limited.2 Scott and Popkin both take their material primarily from Indochina, Scott from Annan, a densely populated area of ancient settlement, Popkin from Cochinchina, a more recently settled economic frontier region. It is perhaps not surprising that Scott emphasizes the conserva- tive sense of community, the natural collectivism of pre-capitalist 'peasants in general,' while Popkin stresses the entrepreneurial individu- alism of peasant life (Baker 1981 ). The fact is that rural sorcties ofthe non-western world are marked by greatly varying features and tendencies. both in their internal ecology and culture, and in their connections with markets, state structures and other external influences before and during western penetration. We must seek generalizations, ofcourse. But our generalizations should be less about the essential nature of peasant society than about the factors- ecology, markets, etc.- which make for more, or less, com- munity organization, thereby expanding the proportion of social structure which can be explained in terms of a universal human nature acting in different kinds of situations and reducing the explanatory recourse to culture as a residual variable. The Indian l'illage The picture of village India whicll emerges from existing village studies i<> a long way from Hayami's picture of the Asian village or Scott's account of the pre-capitalist peasant village. It is true that the existence of a formally constituted body for arbitration and adjudication on 1 For examples from a huge literawre, Beardsley 1964; Eyre 1955; Dore 1978; McKean 1984. 2 For non-religious purposes. See for example, Foster 1948; Lewis 1951; Wolf 1971. 3
Villare republics matters unresolvable by the participants themselves is often noted, though more for the nineteenth century than for the twentieth. Hugh Tinker, writing of'traditionallndian village government', took a village panchayat (council) to be nearly universal. 'Although Indian vilbge government has never been "democratic" in western terms, there was a sense in which the whole body ofvillagers took their part in affairs. The old panclzayat, whether as a caste tribunal or as a judicial or administra- tive body, normally conducted its deliberations in the presence of all those who cared to attend. The onlookers although having no direct share in the proceedings formed a sort of "chorus" ... ' (1954: 20). Bernard CohP.n, drawing on studies of twelve dominant caste villages in the twentietl, century, found village panclwyats to be common though hardly universal: three or possibly four of the twelve had inter-caste pancltayats (1965). However even in the nineteenth century village-based arrangements to mobilize 'labor and other resources collectively' and to enforce 'rules and regulations to coordinate and reduc'! conflicts on the use of resources' - Hayami's central features- were weak or absent alto- gether. So were Scott's villagewide insl'rance and welfare arrangements. Today, according to the existing studies. a concrete r,olitical or public realm is even more attenuated. A number of men may be widely regarded as 'big men', as being in some sense first in the village; and they may overlap with village officers empowered by the state. But there is no clearly defined social domain or institution separate from state authority where choices and activities ofa 'public' nature are organized; no center of community management other than the bottom levels of the state apparatus; no administrative staff; and no machinery for raising resour;:;es for public purposes other than through state-sanctioned taxation.3 Indeed, in Louis Dumont's celebrated sociology of Indian society. Homo Hierarclzicus, the village vanishe-s altogether as a significant social unit, appearing only as a locus for the gteat principles of caste and kinship to work themseives out on the ground. However, the importance of the sub-caste in Indian villages also distinguisht:s them from the peasant villages of Foster and Popkin. While they stress the individualistic charactt:r of peasant life, Indian villagers are emotionally dependant on and derive their identity from, groups- and in that sense are not individualistic (Hofstede 1980; Kakar 3 A study of popular involvement in India and three other countries makes a similar point. 'Even though civic organizations exist in India, the small number of people who participate in them and the limited role they have in local communities make organi7.ational participation a weak basis for evaluation of popular involvement' (ISVIP 1971:245-6). 4
The village as a corporate group 1981). It is just that territorially-defined groups like villages are not a focus for their identity and !leeds. Indeed, the strength ofattachment to non-terri•orial groups like the sub-caste is said to obstruct emotional attachment to the village. Studies of village power relations emphasize a complex web of pmron·-client lies within the village and stretching upwards to higher levels of politics and administration. They also show the actual management of disputes to be often a matter of self-help in feuds, revenge, and exacting reparations. Commentators frequently remark on how laden with menace :·elations between villagers are perceived to be. 'In their interpersonal relations the people are hypercritical and very sensitive', said Dube about a villagl! a few hundred kilometres north of our area. 'They do not easily let go an opportunity of commenting on and criticizing their neighbors, their relat:ons are never very smooth and certain... It is common to suspect others' motives, and not unusual to be always on the alert to read hidden meanings into the seemingly innocent utterances of others' (1955: 181-4). One of Carstairs' informants warned him, 'These people are not to be trustt~d. they will be sure to rob you ... You should not trust me either. How can you know what is really in my heart?' (1958:40, 42). Comparative studies have shown that in India the idea of 'trust' is closely associated with the idea of 'treachery' (Triandis eta/. 1972: 256). At the level of elite political culture, Hindu political philosophy emphasized to a degree unusual in other major cultures the need for the ruler to use punishment as a technique of rule (Pye 1985). Comparisons of Indian and western civilization have often stressed the despotic character of central power in India- nowhere more succinctly than in Marx's dictum, the loCIL~ classicus on Orier.tal Despotism, that the 'prime necessity ofan economical and common use of water, which, in the Occident, drove private enterprises to voluntary association, as in Flanclers and Italy, necessitated in the Orient where civilization was too low and the territorial extent too vast to call into life voluntary association, the interference of the centralizing power of Government' (1853). Given all this, the absence of a concrete political realm in Indian villages, autonomous from the state, comes as no surprise. The 'corporate' exceptions However this book will show that within one small area of the South Indian uplands some villages sustain a public realm of a sophistication which to my knowledge has not previously been reported for Indian caste villages. Their level of organization approaches Hayami's picture 5
Village republics of'the Asian village in general,' and indeed is not so very far from Henry Maine's generally discredited account.4 In contrast, other villages in the same area show almost no village-based collective action at all, in line with Foster's and Popkin's characterizations of peasant villages in general and with Gaikwad's characterization of Indian villages today. Only a few miles may separate a village with a great deal of public organization from one with very little. Take Kottapalle, with its population ofjust over 3,000. It has a council of about nine members. with general authority to take decisions affecting all the village. The members are expressly chosen year by year, and are quite distinct from the statutory village ~ouncil of local government legislation, the Panclwyat, which in virtually all villages in the area is moribund. (I shall adopt the convention of Panchayat to refer to this statutory council and panclzayat to indicate non-governmental councils.) The council administers the village's standing jimd, which spends someRs. I0,000 a year (in an economy where a male agricultural labourer gets Rs. 4 a day). The village fund pays the salaries of a work group of village field guard~. employed by the council to protect the crops against depreJations of livestock and thieves. Four field guards are employed for the whole year, and six to eight near harvest time. The village council also employs a work group of common irrigators to distribute water among the village's irrigated rice fields and to bring more water through the government-run irrigation canal. About 12 common irrigators are employed for up to two and a half months, for about 1,200 acres of irrigated rice. At the time of the rice harvest, the common irrigators supplement the field guards, giving Kottapalle some 20 village-appointed men for crop protection. In addition, the council lays down regulations to govern harvesting and animal grazing, which the field guards are to enforce. Fines are levied for infractions of the rules. While crop protection and water d;.>tribution are the two central services, the council also organizes tlte supply of other public goo<is important in village life. These include the construction of an animal clinic, ridding the village of monkeys, repair of wells and field-access 4 Dull brings :oge1her examples of 1hc Maine genre. 'Every villaec with its twelve Agagandeas, as Ihey are dcnomina1ed, is a pclly commonwcallh, with its ... r.hief inhabitant al the head of il, and India is a !;real assemblage of such commonweallhs', wrote the Madras Board of Revenue in 1808. Again, 'In pursuit of this supposed improvement [assessmer>l ofland lax on each field in the Presidency, inslead ofcollective village tax assessment! we find them uninlcnlionally dissolving the ancient ties, the ancient usages which united the republic ofeach Hindu village, and by a kind ofagrarian law, newly assessing and parcelling out the lands which from lime immemorial had belonged to the Village Community collectively ... ' (1963:96, 101). 6
The village as a corporate group ••• •••••• Poyrner.t to 1 G ----!~:.::~=:: ~ commrss•on on sole a grorn etc I ' I ', I ', I ' I ', I ', .. ,, r-~----~ ~------~ Freid Guards conec11ve Uses 1.1 Village-ba~ed corporate institutions roads, donations towards the cost of a new primary school building, contributions towards prizes at the local high school. provision ofa male stud buffalo to service the lillage's female buffalos, and so on (table 6.1, p. 97). The village council is loosely accountable to a general meeting of the village's cultivators. Between 40 and 100 men attend the annual general meeting. The council and the general meeting, then, constitute a mechanism by which Kottapalle's cultivators supply themselves with a range of public goods, including the public good of 'law and order'. The mechanism is wholly local and autonomous, in the sense that authority is not derived from the state. Indeed state officials outside the village barely know ofits existence. Figure 1.1 shows the relationship between the main components. Kottapalle is not an iwlated case. In a sample of 31 canal-irrigated villages, all in Kurnool district of Andhra Pradesh (map 2.1, p. 20), 8 villages have all four of the main corporate institutions -council, fund, 5 1 I refer to the fund as an 'institution· for expository convenience. II is not an institution in !he sense of a group of people whose activities arc coordinated towards some goal. However the fund does need to be distinguished from the council, because either can be present without the other. 7
Vi/luge republics field guards, and common irrigators; II have some but not all; and 12 show no trace of any of them (table 8.1, p. 136). The sample was not drawn randomly (but rather with an eye to ease of access and a representative range ofwater supply conditions),6 so one cannot read off from these proportions how frequent the corporate forms are in canal- irrigated villages of Kurnool district as a '"'hole. But it is clear that they are not rare. Moreover, many dry villages have some of the same institutions. Jn a sample of I0 dry villages in lhe same area, 8 have field guards, 6 have a village council, and 6 have a village fund (table 8.2. p. 138). So some of the dry villages have more corporate organization than some of the irrigated villages. How does this type of organization differ from the traditional village panchayat? First of all, the Kottapalle type ofcouncil is not involved in what is normally identified as the central task of the village panchayat- the settlement of disputed claims and the administration of justice (other than in cases which directly involve its own authority); and there are good reasons why not. Most such tasks are performed by ad hoc musters of big men, or by government courts. Second, the Kottapalle type of council is involved in resource rr.anagement within the- village boundaries, in regulating what can and cannot he done and in sanctioning those regulations. Resource management is not identified as a usual function of village panchayats. Third, it has the authority to extract resources from village society for pursuing these purposes. Fourth, it has a specialized staff responsible to it for execution of its decisions. Finally, it is formally constituted, with a membership selected and re-selected year by year at a meeting of the general assembly and formally accountable to that assembly- so that it must keep written records of village fund expenditure and present these accounts (orally) to the general meeting. Jn these ways the Kottapalle type of council is significantly different from what is normally understood to be or to have been the village panchayat of village India. Jn another respect it is similar. Jt is no more representative of the main groupings in the village than the traditional panchayat was. Tinker says in his account ofJndian village government in general that '(the panchayat) was rarely representative ofthe village as a whole; it might be drawn from the members ofthe founding families or from the Brahmins and superior cultivators' (1954: 19). Most villages in our area are dominated by the Reddy caste, which is the main land- controlling and political office-controlling caste in the wider region. The 6 For details on the selection of the sample see chapter 8, n. I, p. 135. 8
The village as a corporate group Reddys are not a numerical majority in each village but collectively own more of its area than any other caste grouping and hold the main positions at village level of the state administration. They also tend to monopolize councils of the Kottapalle type. Dumont is scornful of those wh.J fail to st:e the significaPce of the unrepresent?.tive nature of ostensibly village-wide bodies like the traditional panclwyat (or the Kottapalle council). It means. he says, that one cannot speak of a 'village' panchayat but only ofa 'dominant caste' panclzayat, and this is an important part ofhis argument that caste, not the village, is the primary unit of thought and action in Indian society. Dumont bases !1is argument only on the social composition of the panclwyat, not on what the panchayat does (a question in which he is, indeed, not much interested). Yet if the panchayat or council makes decisions in the agricultural sphere which are binding on all cultivating households - regardless of caste- it can sensibly be r'!ferred to as a 1•i//age organization. The roots of corporateness: scarcity and risk My approach to the question ofwhy some villages sustain a high level of corporate organization while others in the same area do not, places central importance on the net material benefits to be obtained from such organization by all or most participants. Features of soda! structure- the sorts of thing:; described by the classic sociological variables- are also relevat:t. to be sure. But the impetus comes from the attempt to secure certain b.enefits. or avoid certain costs. which could not be secured without deliberately concerted uction b) cultivators. The benefits relate to reduced risk of crc.p loss and of social contlict in the agricultural sphere. In 'corporate' villages these risks tend to be higher- as I shall show - than in 'noncorporatc' villages,7 because of differences between corporate and noncorporate villages in two kinds of scarcities. One is ofgrazing land, which tends to be scurcer in relation to the number of livestock in corporate villuges. The other is of canal irrigation water, which also tends to be scarcer and more unreliable in corporate villages. Both kinds of scarcities are likely to be found in widely differing peasant societies. which makes an account ofhow some Indian peasants respond to them ofmore than parochial interest. I now discuss these scarcities and social responses to them in more detail. Exclusivl.! possession (freehold) is one extreme on a continuum of 7 Corporate and non·corporate arc used as shorthand to refer to the presence or absence of the four institutions. 9
Village republics property rights. No property, as in ocean fisheries or the atmosphere. is the other extreme. In between lies common property, where the rights to exploit a resource are hrld by persons in common with certain others. These rights may take a variety of forms: they may allow unlimited exploitation for those within a sp:!cificd group (as in commercial fisheries under national jurisdiction. until recently). or they may stipulate limits on exploitation for each user (as is commonly the case for commercial fisheries today. or as in 'stinting' on a grazing commons). Whether a resource is usea under private or some form of common property rights depends in large part (revolutions aside) on the cost of excluding others from the resource. Whereas it i!i easy for a farmer to demarcate an area ofcrop land and (;Xclude other people from its use, it is more difficult for him to demarcate an area of grazing land and exclude unwanted animals fi''Jm it (Coase 1960). 'fr do so reliably require~ ~encing. and fencing may be expensive in te..ns of materials. labour. und land taken out of production. So crop land in peasant societies is often owned privately while grazing land is owned in common by a local group. As low-cost fencing is introduced. grazing land may - sometimes only with protracted struggle agains1 those who benefit from the commons - also be made private. In many parts of the peasant world population pressure has reached the point at which most wasll' land has been put under the plough and little land is left fallow from one year to the next. At prevailing yield levels most ofthe produce has to go to feed humans rather than animals. Yet animals are needed not only as almost the sole non-human means of traction but also to provide manure on which the yield of the crops depends. As the English bishop Latimer declared in the sixteenth century. 'A plough Jur.d must have sheep: yea. they must have sheep to dung their ground for bearing ofcorn: for if they have no sheep to help fat the ground. they shall have but bare corn and thin' (Kerridge 1953-4: 282). A standard solution has been to put the fallow la1· · and the stubble left behind •1ft.:r the harvest in common: that is. to re: rict the rights of landowners to rights over the crops. leaving the fallow rasses and crop residues for the village's animals in common. An an.~al owner can choose to cut grasses or crop residues and carry them to his animals in their stalls: or tether them: or let them graze under the watch of a shepherd. Bui stall feeding is expensive in labour time: tethers can be slipped and in any case arc not feasible for large numbers of sheep and goats, which are the main source of ma11ure: and young shepherds may run away and play games. Where there are no natural obstacles 10
The village as a corporate group separating crops from animals and where fencing is ruled out for cost reasons, it is difficult to protect the crops from the depredations of straying animals. The danger is worse the smaller and more scattered are the plots of each landowner, and the more uneven the harvesting dates. Scattering of holdings - the division of each holding into several or more plots in different locations - is common in peasant societies, from Japanese paddies to Swiss meadows. McCloskey (1975, 1976) argues that scattering is to be understood primarily as a means of reducing the risk ofcrop loss. by holding land in a diversified portfolio of locations (also Lipton 1968; Farmer 1960). Small scattered plots of course greatly increast: the cost of fencing- the cost of excluding animals. When the harvest is not regulated, tht:re will be times of the year when animal owners have the right to graze their animals on small scattered plots of fallow or stubble land adjacent to small plots ofstanding crops. The risk to those crops is then very high. All the more so because the incentives on tethering and watching are, unlike fencing. asymmetrical: whereas A's fence protects A's crop from B's animals as it protects B's crop from A's animals. A's tethering or watching is only to protect B's crop from A's animals- and A may not be unhappy seeing his animals getting fat on B's grain. So B's protection is contingent upon A's good will, A's fear of B's anger. or on the force of law (McCloskey 1976). Alternatively, crop watcr.ers may be placed on each plot, night and day. whenever animals are in the fields. Bur this is expensive, if not in cash then in terms ofother work which thest: crop watchers might otherwise be doing. The social and economic implications of these conditions have received strangely little attention from students of present-day peasant societies. On the other hand. they have been among the central concerns ofeconomic and social historians of medieval northern Europe. Across the Great European Plain, from England to east-central Europe, a single type ofagricultural system prevailed throughout !he later Middle Ages. This 'open-field' system8 had four main features: the land ofeach village was unfenced: the holdings of each farmer were scattered in several or many parcels about the land of the village; the fallow and the stubble was grazed in common; and an a~sembly ofvillagers regulated cropping, grazing and other facets of farm management (Hoffman 1975, Blum 8 I skirt a controversy among English medieval historians as to the meaning and utility of 'open-fields', 'common-fields', and 'sub-divided' fields (Thirsk 1967; Baker 1979).1 use open-fields in a morphological sense to describe land ownership where the land is divided into separately owned parcels without fencing around the parcels or around the larger blocks in which the parcels are located. JJ
Village republics 1978, McCloskey 1975, Campbell 1981 ). Medieval historians have given much attention to the by-laws enacted by these village assemblies for the regulation of cropping and grazing (Ault 1972). In our 'corporate' villages of South India all four features of the classic European open-field system are found. and much ofour attention will be on how that system operates in the specific ecological conditions ofupland South India today. We shall see that whereas the medieval by- laws commonly gave emphasis to regulation of the cropping, the corporate organization of our villages emphasizes regulation of the livestock. The institution of village field guards has the function of making the balance of incentives on tethering and animal shepherding less asymrr.etrical, by increasing the animal owner's liability for what his animals do. Water scarcity is the second main impetus to corporate control. Canal (or tank) irrigation water, even more than grazing land, is difficult to privatize because of the high ~ost of excluding othas. Water does not come in neat packages, and tends to escape wherever the ground slopes downwards. One tends to find, then, a system of common property rights in canal water (once tt has passed out of the government-owned and operated canal). The general feature of common rights is that the use of the resource is determined on a first come, first served basis: anyone within the unit ofcommon ownership can use the resource and cannot exclude others who are alrt>. iy using it. With water, those owning land closest to the canal outlc. :,ave first uccess and under simple common rights cannot be prevented from taking as much as they wish by those lower down who see themselves disadvantaged by excessive use higher up- no more than drivers on a road can be excluded by later arrivals who find the road congested. Beca•Jse of this, top-enders are inclined to waste water and to skimp on maintenance of field channels, and may dispose of their drainage water in ways inconvenient to tail- enders. How serious are the consequences for tail-enders depends very much on how scarce water is, as well as on crop type, topography and the density offield channels. It makes sense to suppose that as water scarcity increases, the risks to downstream farmers of crop loss due to inadequate water supply will increase. It might be possible for them to agree to compensate top-enders for not taking more than their share of water (Coase 1960), but the transaction costs ofsuch agreements would clearly be very high, the difficulties of policing it considerable. A more likely outcome is that tail-enders facing water shortages will push for strong community organization and formal rules of water allocation, while top-end farmers will have little such inclination. 12
The village as a corporate group If the whole village is in a downstream location - far down a distributary from the main cana! -all or almost all irrigators may have a strong common in tcrest in bringing more water to the village as a whole. And if, as in Kottapalle, the fields ofmany irrigators are scattered rather than concentrated in one place, some in top-end, some in tail-end locations, they may each prefer formal rules and community control over unregulated, cont1ict-laden access to water. In Kottapalle, the institution of'common irrigators' embodies this prcference.9 Indeed, it has been noted worldwide that .:ommunities which depend on surface- t1ow irrigation tend to have a more clearly defined authority structure, a 'denser' community organization, than those which do noi (Hunt and Hunt 1976, Beardsley 1964, Coward (ed.) 1980). Water scarcity and the population-pressure-induced mixing of live·- stock with crops arc both aspects ofa fundamental problem which affects farmers almost everywhere. Farmers arc in varying degrees interdepend- ent in production, i!i the sense that wh&t one farmer docs wi!l have re- percussions for oihers in the neighbourhood. In classic peasant villages, with the land held in small, scattered plots, thts interdependence in production can be very high. Y~L pt:asant farmers make decisions about production in a pri·,ate, fragmented, uncoordinrned way. They do not themselves have to take account of the costs or benefits whir.h their actions impose on others. T!,e greater the interdependr.nce in produc- tion, the greater these 'ncig~•bourhood effects' or 'externalities' ofbenefit and cost are. So decisions which make sense from {he individual producer's point of view may turn out in the aggregate to be socially irration:JI; they may cause harm not only to the village <:~s a wrole but also to the apparently rational individuals themselves. The conse- quences of 'external' costs may be to reduce the incentive to apply optimal inputs to the land, for if the fruits of X's labor and investment are dissipated by Y's actions, X's incentives to cultivate his land are attenuated. Or, in the crop/livestock context, X may have to spend unproductive labour in crop-guarding against Y's animals, labour which could be better used for other things. But to suppose that these externalities of grazing and water are an important source of crop loss and social conflict is to suppose that villagers take no steps to reduce the risks. This is where village-based corporate organization, with its functions of regulating, rationing, and policing, intervenes. It represents an adaptatio... to the disjunction between the interdependence in production and the private decisionma- 9 The warahandi rules ofwater allocation in Northwest India rcprrscnl an alternative way of circumscribing common rights lo water; sec chapter 5. 13
Village republics king system which directs agriculture, by which the scope of private decisionmaking is reduced and the scope of collective decisionmaking increased. In this way some at least of the more costly externalities are 'internalized' (Barkley and Seckler 1972). Being under the regulation of a common authority, each private farmer in the village is no longer free to ignore the effects of his actions on others. However, many villages in our area arc not corporate in this sense: they have no village council or fund or field guards or common irrigators. It is not because the grazing and irrigation water has been privately enclosed. Rather, the interdependencies in production are handled informally, with external costs being reduced by mutual restraint between neighbours, especially that which proceeds from the danger that A will damage B's crops if Ballows his livestock to damage A's. So a village-based response to these interdependencies, with the group acting as a single unit rather than as a collection ofindividuals, is by no means inevitable. That is just what the Foster-Popkin image of peasant villages highlights. The collective act!on pessimists I shall argue that corporate organization of the- Kottapalle type is likely only when external costs arc high -when, in other words, the interde- pendencies in production are such that any one cultiviltor is exposed to a high risk of crop loss and social conflict as a re~ult of the activities of other people. The organization once in existence can then be elaborated to pursue common interests not closely related to the original defensive aims. This hypothesis not only explains much of the variation in corporateness within the sample of irrigated villages, but also explains why- surprisingly in view of those anthropological generalizations about irrigation causing a centralization of (local) authority- some dry villages have more corporate organization than some irrigated villages. At first glance the hypothesis makes obvious good sense. It is only a special case of orthodox group theory, which explains group formation in terms of the benefits of membership to rational, self-interested individuals (Truman IQ5J ). It could even be seen as a special case of the familiar Marxist interpretation of the role of the state in capitalist society: that the self-interested actions of individual capitalists (cul- tivators) are in sharp contradiction to the need of the system of production as a whole, because competition compels them to take certain actions which, if unchecked, would be disastrous for the continuation of the system within which they are major beneficiaries; so 14
The village as a corporate woup the role of the state (council) is to intervene to pro~~ide the general conditions for non-destructive production and reproduction (Aithusser 1971 ). The problem common to both these sorts ofexplanations is that they make :m unproblematic jump from the functions to be served by group action t(J the fact ofgroup action; they take identification of the benefits to rational self-interested individuals, or of the needs of capitalists, as suflkicntto explain the institutional response. Rut the dismal frequency of degraded grazing comiJlons, depleted fisheries, and overexploited ground water is sufllcient reminder that groups often do not form and collective action frequently is not forthcoming, even when the benefits to rational, self-interested individuals arc clear. If the disjunction between interdependence in production and private dccisiomnaking always gave rise to a sociali1ing adaptation, the long-term future of the human race would indeed be assur.:d (Cowgill 1975). The problems in the way of that adaptation have been familiar to political theorists for a long time. David Humc, in the eighteenth century, put the dillicultics like this: two neighbours 111ay a~rce to drain a mcadr,w, which they possess in common; because 'tis easy for them to know each others mind; and each must perceive, that the im111ediatc conseqncnces of his f'aili ng in his pan, is the abandoning the whole project. But 'tis very ditliruh, and indt·ed impossible, that a thousand persons shou'd agree in any such acti·.l~l. it being ditlicult for them to concert !;o complicated a design. and still more diflicnh for them to execute it; while each seeks a pretext to free himself of the trouble and expense, and won'd lay the whole burden on others. Political society easily remedies both these inconveniences (A Tmui.H' o( //rmzmr Nawrc, llJ65: 5JH). In other words, collective action is easier to organize on a voluntary basis in small groups than in larger groups. Humc's usc of 'political society' as the deus ex machina for resolving tht~ rrohlcms oflarge groups will strike the modern eye as quaint. But the underlying argument remains cogent. The distinction between individual and group interests means that collective action requires more than intensity of need; it requires ways by which the inconveniences of each person's attempt to lay the burden on others, and of huving to reach agreement on a single level of supply, can be overcome. This is a classic problem in what has come to be known variously as the theory of 'collective action' or 'public goods'. 10 Public goods, in contrast to private goods, have the quality that no individual can be 10 Some writers treat the theory ofpuhlic goods as a spc.:ial case ofthe theory ofcollective action (e.g. Snidal 1985). 15
Village republics excluded from benefiting from them once they are provided (the quality of'non-excludability'). Or at any rate, public goods have the quality that exclusion is costly or difficult. If people cannot be excluded from using the good it is intuitively clear that thi!y may be reluctant to contribute towards the provision of the good; they may be tempted to 'free ride', to obtain the good without themselves contributing. Why should a shipowner voluntarily contribute to the cost of lighthouses if he can be11efit from the lighthouse service without paying'! He may value the service highly, but unless he and other shipowners a.·e prepared to pay, their collective demand will not be translated into effective Jemand. Without sources of finance other than voluntary contributions there may be no lighthouses to warn ships off the rocks. It is also intuitively clear that if a group contains diverse preferences about how much of the public good should be supplied (how thoroughly ihe meadow shouk~. be drained, inHume's example) it may be difficult to reach a consensus. Yettherc can be only one level ofsupply in the case of a public good, so a consensus must somehow be reached. Where there are more than a handful of individuals whose preferences must converge, the transa.:tion costs ofobtaining the agreement may be high. Even ifthere was perfect consensus the free rider problem would remain; but the need to reach consensus adds to the difficulties facing any group or potential group that would provide itself with public goods. This line of thought has led many analysts to be pessimistic about the chances that those who confront the problem of providing themselves with public goods can find satisfnctory solutions by agreement within the group. 11 Mancur Olson has captured this pessimism in a now celebrated theorem: 'u::less there is coercion or some other special device to make individuals act in their common interest, rational, self-interested individuals n·i/1 not act to acl>i<>ve their common or group interests' (1971 :2). Olson talks of comr: :m 'interests', which are also public goods; by definition the achievement of any common goal or the satisfaction of any common interest (that is, a goal or interest that cannot be obtainerl by an individual actiitg on his own) means ·chat a public or collective r.ood has been provided. So Olson's theorem 1 ' Russell, commenting on a set of papers applying public choice theory to rural development analysis, states that, 'identifying what will not work nearly e11:hausts the capability of the theory, for its ~·~ongest results are impossibility theorems ... When it comes to positive results, to solutions to the problems ofcollective choice in general or of public goods provision in particular, the theorists have been much less successful' (1981:8). While this is a central tendency of the public choice literature it is no more than that. Some theorist~ within the same intellectual tradition do have a much more constructive orientation; such as Elinor Ostrom (1985a and b), R. Hardin (1982), Michael Laver (1981), Richard Kimb:r (1981), Ford Runge (1984). 16
The ril/age as 1 . .rporate group maintains that interest group membership, in the sense ofcontributions to a group objective, must be accounted for not bv the rational, self- interested choice ofindividuals, but b) their being compelled or offered inducements to belong. (The punishments and inducements must be 's~lective' so that those who do not contribute canoe treated differently from those who do.) Without either selective pt.nishments or induce- ments, individuals will free ride, and the public good will not be supplied or will be supplied in sub-optimal amounts. Garrett Hardin captures the same pessimism in his account of the 'tragedy of the comli1ons'. He asks the reader to imagine a finite pasture 'open to all'. Each herdsman is assumed to be a rational utility maximizer who receives positive utility from selling his own animals and negative utility from overgrazing. When the aggregate ofall herdsmen's activities begins ~o exceed the sustainab1 ~ yield of the pasture, each herdsman is still motivated to add murc and more animals since he receives all of the proceeds from his extra animals and only a partial share of th~ additional cost resulting from his own overgrazing. The denouement is appalling: 'Each man is locked into a system that compels him to increase his herd without limit - in a world that is limited. Ruin is the destination towards which all men rush, each pursuing his own best interest in a society that believes in the freedom of the commons' (1968: 1244). [n more measured terms, Hardin's argument is that if a group of people are placed analytically in a situation where they could mutually benefit ifall adopted a rule ofrestrained usc ofa common resource, they wiil not uo so in the absence ofan external enforcer ofagreements. Each individual has an incentive to ignorl! the social costs of his resource use for fear that others will capture the benefits ofthe resource before he can. The lack of exclusion from the resource thus creates an incentive for a rate ofaggregate usc which exceeds the physical or biological renewal of the resource (Ostrom 1985a). Far-reaching proposals for institutional change in the management of common property resources have been justified by this kind ofargument (Ostrom 1985b, Runge 1986). According to one school, the establish- ment of full privat;! property rights over the commons is a necessary condition for avoidinJ the tragedy. 'The only way to 11 1id the tragedy of the commons in !lat.;raJ resources and wildlife', says Robe~! Smith, 'is to end the common-properly system by creating a system of private property rights' (1981 :457; see also Demsetz l967. North and Thomas 1977, Johnson 1972, Picardi and Siefert 1976). Another school, however, is equally emphatic that only the allocation to the state of full authority to regulate the commons can hope to succeed (Ehrenfeld 1972, 17
Village republics Carruthers and Stoner 1981, Hardin 1968). William Ophuls. for example, argues that 'because of the tragedy of the commons. environ- mental problems cannot be solved through cooperation ... and the rationale for government with major coercive powers is overwhelming ... · (1973: 229). For proponents on both sides. the policy issue is simply how to get the desired change accomplished with the least opposition from those involved. Yet here we have a case in rural India which tits neither of the prevailing approaches. In villages where the potential externalities of water and grazing arc high, there has been no move to privatize these resources- this option is largely ruled out on cost grounds; nor docs the state lay down rules ofresource use- it would in any case be too weak to enforce them. Rather, the villagers themselves have constituted an authority to impose rules of restrained a.-:ccss. So in this case the people ·.vho face the problems lrm·e been able to devise and sustain rules which serve to keep costs and conflict within tolerable limits. To do so tl":ey have created a differentiated and active public core, extending authorita- tive regulation into village society in the form ol water rules, grazing rules. harvesting rulc3, roao maintenance, well repairs, and other things. Compared to other villages. more of their social interactions are 'political' in the sense of being in relation to a distinct political institution. If we follow Eck~tcin (1982) and take political development to be the growth of the poitical domain of society. we (;an talk of these corporate villages as polit:cally more developed than those without such organization. How and why has this come about, and what docs this expe:icnce say about prevailing theories of collective action and comr.1on property resource management? 18
2 The circumstances of village organization Peninsula India has three distinct ecological zones. A coastal plain rims the perimeter; mountain ranges bound the coastal plain; and in betJeen is a vast uplanci, 500 to 3,000 feet in elevation, generally flat but dissected by river gorges and punctuated by stark rocky outcrops (maps 2.1, 2.2, 2.3). The climate of the upland is semi-arid; rainfall is generally less than 750 millimetres a year concentrated in a single season. Agriculture is based on sorghum and millet, the typical food ~rops of the semi-arid tropics. 1 Agricultural operations are almost entirely unmechanized. Oxen provide the draught power, men and womrn with simple tools provide the rest. Most of the population lives in large villages, tightly clustered and regularly spaced settlements usu:.~lly of between 1,000 and 4,000 people, surrounded by a patchwork of open fields. Being constructed of stone and mud with few houses higher than a single storey, the villages seem to grow out of the land. Then! are no fences or hedgerows to define the landscape, and what trees are seen are clustered around villages and along the margins of roads, rivers, and canals. Agriculture is a hazardous under•aking in this dry and unadorned setting. How village cultivators respond to the hazards is a matter not only of village characteristi1;s, but also of the wider struc- tures of markets, states, and inequalities into which villages are- more or less- integrated. This chapter examines thr.se larger circumstances. Governments, markets and inequality We must begin in the nineteenth century (with a glance still further back), for while little is known of the history of the pattern ofcorporate organization it is clear enough that it is not a recent, post-independencl! phenomenon, a local off-shoot from governmental development efforts. There are hints that something like it was not uncommon in the late nineteenth century. 1 On millels and 1heir distribulion SCI! Mann 1968: Ch. 31. 19
!~ ~ -p~ AlP ', _,.,.., ,¢ I e ~?' ~/1dl? = __ ,___ ' tJ ~~~ I ~ LOAC( 0 tOO Ja:1 Dl '-"lf.MOO·~· > 5CI:)n ~ r. ;' W1S Al:1oR 1';. /'i' -~ / ( s;!IW«A '"~~J I I ~ ~CapDal ~co.~ - - - ~ llo<rday L.J .rYJ 010 . 0 10 20 30 MUS 2.1 Two canal systems and village locations os. 16. INDIA TWO (;ANAL SYSTEMS AND VILlAGE LOCATIONS' .06 --L....i- Canals ----.....c:::: Dis In butanes lle!erence lllumbcn: ~ed V1lloges 15. ('Table 8.1) 06. Drv Villages (Table 8.2) ·..,...and~ LOccftcns .,..~
INDIA THE V DISTRIBUTARY SYSTEM OF THE M N CANAL AND VILLAGE LOCATIONS (INS£T FROM MAP 2 7) __.___.___ Canol ......______ Dlshtbulorlel Reromnce Numbers: 0 Irrigated VIllages (Table e1) 01 O!y VIllages (Table e2) VIllage Boundoltes 3 5 KOTTAPALLE 2 01 19 02 04 20 03 2.2 The VDistributary System ofthe MN Canal and village locations (inset from map 2.1) 21
-- 7(0-- ..-/ I' I INDIA / ' '·-aQJ .woROLOGY, SOILS AND !ANDFORMS THE V DiSTRIBUTARY AREA Worlor ~ST.dl ;': .•,· ~~' Clavi/Looms 2.3 Hydrology. soils and landforms: the V Distributary area 22
The circumstances of village organization The South Indian uplands in historical perspecti1•e The British colonial government took over the administration ofmost of the uplands of South India in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.2 For many centuries prior to the arrival of the British, the political history of the IJplands was a constant succession of wars and skirmishes between small feuding states and chiefdoms, each centred upon a town or small city (Beals 1974: 13-15). There were periodic unifications, but these often meant little more than t~e exacting of tribute from subordinate chiefs and princelings, who themselves were exacting tribute from their often poorly controlled villages and towns.3 In particular, the sophisticated kingdoms which evolved on the fertile eastern coastal plain periodically spread westwards into the uplands in an :lltempt to control the watersheds on which their livelihoods were based. But the cost of control over large distances and the infertility of the soil caused them repeatedly to withdraw,leaving behind petty states and chiefdoms as the basic units of political organization above the locality- run on the basis of brawn, ceremonial pomp, and warlike display. State 'administration', such ~sit was, was concentrated in the principal towns. Local power rested with those who dominated the land and its labour; and their political orientation was almost exclusively confined to very restricted localities, to face-to-face relationships. They had, in Washbrook's terms, a 'local-level' rather than a 'state-level' political culture (1977). In the countryside, groups of 'urban' or 'state- level' culture which might have formed the age11ts of direction in localities, were few in number. On the well-watered tracts of the eastern coastal plain, on the other h;md, such groups were much more important even in countryside localities. For there, abundant r<>infall and irrigation made cultivation operations sufficiently routine to be left in the hands of low status labourers, while the landowners could detach themselves from the direct management of agriculture and devote themselves to more 'urbane' pursuits. Outside these lowland riverine tracts. more hazardous rainfall and more restricted irrigation made such 2 'South India' is today sometimes used to refer to the states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala. It is also sometime~ used to designate the entire peninsula. Stein's usage is more precise: 'that portion of pei insula India south of the Karnataka watershed (excluding modern Kerala) on the west, and the Krishna- Godavari delte. on the east. Within this portion of the peninsula, there has eltisted a region characterized by a high degree of sharing of significant social, cultural, and political elements and an order ofinteraction such as to constitute a viable unit for the study of certain problems' (19110:32-3). 3 Stein 1980:44-5. 23
Village republics detachment by landowners from management oftheir lands less feasible (Stein 1980:27-9).4 When the British arrived the village was already established as the basic economic unit, in the sense that all its fields were worked under the direction of and almost exclusively with the labour of its residents, and most mcome rights from the land were restricted to persons of the settlement (Stein I980:417). It had also been established as the basic political unit in a wider structure of rule. The rulers of the last great empire before the British, the Vijayanagar Empire (from the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries), introduced a set of village officers and servants which the British were later to revive: namely, the headman (often called the Reddy), the accountant (karnum), and the watchmen (talaiyari- known today in our area as tallari). Just what these 'watchmen' did is not clear (today, they assist the village acco11ntant as crop inspectors, revenue collectors. runners and general dogsbodies). The village functionaries were paid in the form of rights to particular plots of village lands, which were exempt from regular tax payments (Stein 1980:424). Inequality and market relations With the arrival of the British colonial government war-lords every- where lost their military power, and in many places much of their economic power as well. At village level, however, the existing structure continued. Villa&:!S tended to consist ofa small number oflandlords and a great mass ofpeople who depended on both wage labouring a'ld petty cultivation, the latter being comprehensively dependent on the former. Even worse off were the estimated I0 to 20 per cent of the population which depended entirely on labouring on the fields of others; such people were seldom more than 'predial serfs' (Washbrook 1977:68). In 4 Stein emphasizes that local assemblies (ofsupra-village size) were important during the medieval period in South India. 'A distinctive fealur.: of medieval South Indian slates was the primacy ofassemblies ofall kinds in the governance of the numerous localized societies of contemporary South India. It was an assembly of some sort which most consistently articulated and took responsibility for the decisions to allocate agrarian resources to various purposes, at least from the ninth to the fourteenth centuries. With regard to agrarian resources, the polity was less one of regal ... raj [rule), than one of assembly, or sabbha raj' (1980:47). Later, however, he qualifies this generalization, saying that assembly rule was larsely limited to the fertile, well-watered tracts of the plains; while in the dry uplands hereditary, highly localized chieftainships prevailed, the chiefs belonging to the dominant local peasantry (110, 142). Moreover, even in the areas of'assembly rule' it is difficult to see from his account just what the assemblies did, and in particular whether they e11r.rcised control over cropping and livestock other than on lands apportioned to temple maintenance (161, 168). 24
The circumstances of village organization tht. late nineteenth century, probably only about 5 to 10 per cent of cultivators would have enjoyed a comfortable degree of economic independence or better. 5 In the part of the uplands where Kurnool district is located, this class of independents was composed very largely of members of the Reddy caste. It was mainly the big landowners who responded as the uplands became more closely integrated into international markets. By the 1870s some parts of upland peninsula Indi1 had as much as 30 to 50 per cent of cultivated area under commercial crops. mainly cotton and groundnut; elsewhere IS to 25 per cent was quite common.6 But it is to be noted that even big landlords had most of their land under food crops and obtained their own food from their own land; the degree of speciali- zation in commercial crops was not large. To promote this expansion ofmarket relations the British constructed roads, railways, and canals.7 A railway linking Madras and Bombay was built in the second half of the nineteenth century, crossing the southern part of Kurnool district in 1870. Nowk. the market town near to which most of our villages lie, was connected to the railway network in 1887. By 1886 Kurnool district had 900 kilometres of made-up road (in an area of 18,200 square kilometres). having had none in 1839 (Rajagopal 1974: 128-32). Canals were intended to provide navigation as well as irrigation. In mid ninetet:nth century a ;-Jian was mounted (astonishingly ambitious it seems even today) to build a chain of navigable canals right across the country between Madras and Bornbay. ' Washbrook 1977:71, see also Brakenbury 1915:87. Eleven per cent of Kurnool landowners paid more than Rs. 30 in the 1880s, 63 per cent paid less than Rs. 10 (Benson 1889: 102). 6 Banaji 1978:361- 2. Commercial crops in Banaji's calculation include wheat, cotton, oilseeds and 'miscellaneous crops'. 7 Roads, railways and canals were intended not just to promote commercial agriculture, but also to protect against famine. Early colonial administrators frequently exclaimed about the severity of the environment. 'No high mountain ranges, no thick forest, the paucity ofperennial rivers, a low rainfall, an enervatir.g climate- these are part of what nature has given to this land and no wonder its material progress is hampered', wrote one. 'At first glance', remarked another, 'the great hlack plains, the aching wilderness of stone, the bare dusty roads and summer air, halfdust and wholly heat. realize vividly the abomination of desolation' (Government of Andhra Pradesh, Finance and Planning Department, 1973:113 and 31 respectively. no source given for fmt, second from J.C. Molony in his Census Report for the Deccan Division, 1911 ). In the Great Famine of 1876-8, S'lme 250,000 people died or ned Kurnool district out or a population or just under a million at the start of the 1870s; twenty years later the population had still not regained its pre-1876 level. This was the last big killer famine. The westerly part of the district suffered a population fall of37 per cent between the 1871 and 1881 censuses, the Nowk valley tract, 25 per cent. and a more easterly, good rainfallta/uk, since detached, less than 25 per cent, giving a district average of 26 per cent (Benson 1889). 25
Village republics Only one upland link in this proposed chain was built. It is the MN Canal, from which most ofthe villages of this study are irrigated. It was constructed between 1860 and 1890, 300 kilometres (190 miles) long. The expansion of market relations did not do much to reduce one of the genericcharacteristics ofSouth Indian peasant society- it'> localness and autonomy. Compared to the Indo-Gengetic Plain, heartland of successive North Indian civilizations, Brahmins and other Sanskritized, 'urban-oriented' groups were thin on the ground; there was little connection between the religious organization of the towns and that of localities; the poverty of dry cultivation did not encourage extensive, urban-based trade network ofthe sort that developed in the North; and the method of tax collection used by the British in the South -direct collection of tax from each landowner, rather than tax-farming by intermediaries- meant that South Indian localities were not connected to towns via links with supra-local tax or rent receivers. Hence the social structure ofSouth Indian peasant society continued to be characterized by territorially segmented clientage relationships between land control- ling groups and their dependents, while socially-horizontal, territorially-extensive relationships were much more important in the North (Washbrook 1975). The contrast can still be seen today in marriage patterns: the typical radius from which village brides are obtained in North India is of the order of 200 to JOO villages, in the South, 20 to 30 villages (Srinivas and Shah with reference to 1960, cited in Stein, 1980:9). On the other hand, villages in South India have not been 'closed' in the sense used by Wolf(l957), at least since the early colonial period. Most villages had no communally owned arable land, no clear notion of village membership, and no restriction on outsid_.,_, owning land (though on the upland!> difficulties of travel and the absence of legally defined tenancy made ownership at a distance more problematic than in the North). The British soon gave up an attempt to implement collective tax assessment village by village. The colonial government Under colonial government the Madras Presidency had the 'thinnest' administration of any area of British India. It had vast districts (sometimes twice the size ofdistricts in North India), and a tiny cadre of provincial -centrally appointed and mobile- officials, whether British or Indian. It had vast responsibilities, for over three-quarters of the Presidency the British used a different method ofland revenue collection to that used in much of North India and to that which had prevailed in 26
The circumstances of village organization the South prior to their arrival. Instead of relying on tax-farming intermediaries (zamindars) andfor collective village assessment, the government stripped away intermediary layers of authority between itself and the cultivator and undertook to measure and assess land revenue to be paid on each field - in a Presidency ofsome 140,000 square miles and 30 to 40 million people, most of them in villages. The government concluded that the only way its small core of officers could effectively govern was simultaneously to utilize and circumscribe the powers of the pre-existing village establishments which had been created under tlte Vijayanagar Empire. The dilemma was to sustain a village Md sub-district administration strong enough to raise revenue, keep order and undertake some limited civic responsibilities- but not strong enough to shut the government out. One line of approach was to build up intermediate levels of government between village and state. Hence it at:empted to create a three-tiered arrangement of government within each district, of'Union Panchayats' (councils for clusters of villages), 'Taluk Boards', and 'District Boards'. The intention was to make thes~ institutions respon- sible for many conservation and development tasks and to give power in them to local Indian notables, so en~uring that the local powers had an interest in seeing that the work got done. 'Between the 1890s and the 1920s, bcal cc•mmittees to enforce forest conservation, to control the siting and size ofliquor shops, to hear appeals against the income-tax, to select policemen, to settle communal disputes and to control the distribution of water from irrigation schemes were set up in many areas [of the Presidency]' (Washbrook 1977: 62). It is not clear how much, if any, presence this local government structure had in villages. In particular, it is very doubtful that the 'Union Panchayat' at the bottom had t:ven as much significance as its successor, •he village Panchayat of today.8 On the other hand, this government structure ofcommittees and special fund~. operating at a level not very far above the village, may have provided institutional models for village- based institutions. Just as the government got a considerable portion of its revenue from liquor licensing (by 1882 liquor licensing formed as much as IS per cent of gross government revenue in the Presidency), so the Kottapalle council has learned ways of instituting its own liquor licensing, to raise money for the village fund. The second line of approach was to strengthen the establishment of village revenue and law functionaries, in particular, the offices of 8 The vast majority of villages were not touched by a Union Panchayal, at least up until 1922 (Rajagopal 1974: 10). 27
Village republics accountant (karnam) and headman - the headman was nonnally from the dominant landowning caste (the Reddy caste), while the accountant was commonly a Brahmin. These were the two roles through which passed most communication between government and village populace; they were the pivot of the revenue and law and order systems. As executors of government, and under only remote and flexible supervi- sion, they enjoyed considerable power and perquisites. Until early in the twentieth century it remained a fairly simple matter for them to make (illegally) their own distribution of the tax demand within the village, collecting their cut on the way. In short, 'At the base of the sprawling superstructure of imperial government, the British had built a little monolith' (Baker 1979:30). For our purpose three points about the political institutions of the colonial government arc important. First, the village was taken as a single unit in the overall structure of government. Second, the government's ability to intervene was very limited. The administration tended, in the absence of effective supervision or social controls, to become 'a series ofdespotisms within despotisms from the village to the district capital and beyond' (Washbrook 1977:27). As long as the revenue flowed out of the localities and order was maintained, the British government left its officials alone- for it had no choice. 'Indigenous, non-official powers, by one means or another, absorbed and controlled the functions of the state in the locality' (1977:47). Third, the new pattern of political institutions which the British created did not create nell' channels along which the resources could be passed- from tenant to tenant, from Muslim to Muslim, or other such socially-horizontal networks which did emerge in North India. Rather, the new arrangements supported the existing socially-vertical relation- ships of local clientage, passing resources down these lines. So, as Washbrook sums up, 'Political development elongated the factions of local Madras, it did not cut across or undermine them' (1975: 17). The village in colonial government The village officer establishment was paid out of a 'village service fund' until early in the twentieth century. This fund was filled from the produce ofcertain lands which belonged nominally to the state and were made available to the functionaries at much reduced rates of tax; and secondly, from a small portion of each farmer's nop.9 One calculation for coastal Andhra in the 1840s suggested th:.tt about 8 to 12 per cent of 9 The small proportion was called mera, the Telegu version of jajmani. 28
The circumstances of' village organization gross village tax revenue was apportioned for the village service fund. In addition to provisioning the village 'Jfficcrs and servants, the fund was also used to make payments to sub-district (taluk) office personnel, temple maintenance, village entertainments, and the like (Rao 1977: 25). And at least in the government's administrative models- to wha. extent in practice is difficult to tell- the village officers also controlled a number ofother special funds, such as a fund for maintenance oft-Inks (local carthcrn-dam resc:-voirs) fina need from tax exemptions O'l certain lands, a forl'St conservancy fund financed from a tax on sales of forc~;t produce, and other funds from sources as diverse as road tolls, grass rents and fishing rents (Gop<lakrishnamah Chctty 1886:ch. 16). There is also some indication that ad hoc collections were made from village households for specific purposes, either to supplement a fund or to make up for a fund that did not exist. Rao reports for coastal Andhm in the 1840s that, 'a portion of the gross [village] produce was in general appropriated apparently for repair of tanks and the like, but its outlay was always so inefficient that the ryots [farmers] were frequently obliged to make a collection among themselves for this purpose' (1977:21). Today the local fund principle is continued in the Panchayat's income arrangements. The Panclmyat's fund is to be paid a percentage of the value of all registered land transactions which take place within the village; a percentage ofthe land tax, a population grant, a house tax. The Panclwyat may demand licence fees for tempor<Jry occupation of sites for market or other purposes, and may levy fines for stipulated offences, to be paid into the fund. In practice. however, such provisions arc little used. Here then arc a series of more or less close parallels with the institutions of Kottapallc's 'autonomous' organization. The ideas of management of village affairs by village otliccrs, of standing funds for 'public' village purposes. of franchises with which to raise revenue for the funds, of village work groups paid from the village fund (and prot.Jably selected by the village officers). of fines for certain kinds of offences to be paid into a viiLtge fund - these ideas were familiar in governmental ordinances for village governance (and presumably reflected patterns already in usc). And the long-existing principle of dispute settlement - the ad hoc grouping of a number of people, normally an uneven number between five and nine, to hear a dispute and passjudgement, emphasizing not so much the question ofwhat is the law but what is a workable compromise · this principle was written into the formal orJinanccs for village governance; the village magistrate (munsif) was to be given powers to call such a panchayat to settle disputes, 29
Village republics provided both sides agreed in writing to abide by the verdict. 10 This is not the same thing as a standing committee for village resource management, but it does embody the idea of a committee of villagers nonetheless. Post-independence g01•ernment Despite Independence in 1949, the structure of local administration has continued virtually intact from the days of British rule. The district remains the major administrative uuit under the state. Responsibility for Jaw and order and collection oftax revenue is concentrated in the hands ofthe collector, a civil service official appointed from above by the state government. Below the collector, the district is divided into a number of units of general administration, the relevant one for our purpose being the sub-district (ta{uk), with roughly I00,000-200,000 people. Tl!n years after Independence India launched a program to create a new hierarchy for carrying out de'dopment ta:;ks and for increasing popular participation in development. This was the system ofPanchayat Raj. A new hierarchy was creat(!d parallel with the old administrative hierarchy, to specialize in canrying out development programs. In Andhra Pradesh (but not in all states) the Collector is also responsible for this hierarchy. The level of this hierarchy which corresponds to the sub-district, is the 'block,' comprising 50 to ISO villages. It has a staff of extension officers and village-level workers. There is no lower-level unit in this hierarchy. Alongside the development hierarchy was created a set of tiered electoral bodies, to which considerable powers were to be devolved. These are called, collectively, Panchayats. At the lowest level, villagers directly elect members ofa Gram Panchayat or statutory village council. These bodies are then represented on tile Panchayat Samiti, covering a development block. At the third level, the Zilla Parishad functions for an area coterminus with the district. The Panchayati Raj system is separate from the general legislative process. The legislative assemblies ofea.ch state and the national parliament are directly elected from constituencies that usually have 'lome correspondence with taiuks. There is no formal conne(:tion between the Panchayats and the legislatures, except that the members ofthe Legislative Assembly may be ex-officio members of th~ Samiti and Zilla Parishad. This is the structure. Much has been written on why, on the whole, it has not worked; and why, in particular, it has failed to root develop- 10 In practice the use of a 'public' panchayat of this fonn was very restricted (Gopalakrishnamah Chetty 1886:237). 30
The circumstances of village organization mental decisionmaking in the hands of villagers through their elected representatives (ISVIP 1971: 173ff, Gaikwad 1981 ). Part ofthe answer is that the scopt: for local autonomy is in fact severely restricted. As one study puts it, 'with Panchayati Raj, the pouw of decision remains concentrated and centrC~Jized in the political and administrative hierar- chies, though in form it seems dispersed through the various organs of local self-government' (ISVIP 1971: 183). In Andhra Pradesh the village Panchayat.1· are moribund virtually everywhere (for example, no elec- tions were held between 1970 and 19R I). They do receive a small grant of income to be spent on village development purposes: but in practice this is spent largely at the di-;cretion of the Panchayat president (sarpanch). State governments over the 1970s have seen to it that the powers and resourc(;S of the middle-tier Panchayat Samiti are very restricted. Government, whether electoral or administrative, is for most villages another world. The 'block' office has oflkials who might be helpful to cultivators, such as agricultural extension oflkers and veterinary officers. But such otlkers rarely set foot in villages, and then generally as a result of special pleading. The lowest level cmrloyecs of the Irrigation Department -the channel men who patrol the banks of the canal network and their foremen - move freely in and about the irrig2.ted villages. But the next higher official. the Supervisor, the lowest rank to wield significant authority, spends his time between office and major water control structures, rarely moving along the canal roads unless specifically requested to by concern·~d farmers. Police, too, are rarely seen in the villages. They tend to be much feared, and brought into a case only ifit is very serious, as for a murder. Villagers say with wry cynicism, 'police keep the company of criminals only'. At the local level, then. the state remains for most of the population a grace-and-favour state. Officials are set:n and sec themselves as dis- pensers of favours. It is widely assumed that if an official wishes to do something for you he can, and the probiem is how to make him want to. If you fail, it is because you do not have enough influence or have not paid enough money. Politicians make all kinds of promises before an election, and they might pass through your village to muster support. But that's the last you see of them and their promises, till the next election (Bailey 1971 ). Access to governmental power is much easier for some than for others. Wealth helps; so does being a Reddy. The Reddy caste is the dominant caste in the southern uplands of Andhra Pradesh, in the sense that its memhers own more land than other castes and also dominate the legislative bodies and (to a somewhat lesser extent) the bureaucratic 31
Village republics hierarchies of the state.11 They are, hoUever, a farming caste, people of the soil. Whereas in other parts of South India the dominant castes (often Brahmins) have long since disengaged from the active manage- ment of land, living on rents and making the business of rule their original vocation, this is not the case amongst the Reddys (Elliott 1970). So today, as in the past, effective management of land and effective political authority are combined in the h?.'lds ofone ascriptively-defined group. The Congress Party has long been the dominant party in Andhra Pradesh; indeed, the state is known as one ofits national strongholds. 12 This is not due to a lack of competition from other parties or independents; in every Assembly election there are normally several contestants per seat. But the main challenges to Congress have come from rival groups within the party, not from without. Voting turnout has averaged 60 to 70 per cent ofthe electorate, and a 1972 study showed that four-fifths of the (sampled) electorate could correctly name the winner in their Assembly constituency, and four-fifths correctly named the Prime Minister. But membership ofa political party is limited to less than I per cent (Sharma and Madhusudan Reddy 1979:457-90). Kurnool district Kurnool is a rural district. Over 80 per cent of its population Gust under 2million in 1971) is classed as rural. Population density is IOS people per square kilometre,13 which on Boserup's scale is group 8, 'dense' as distinct from 'medium' and 'very dense'. There are over 900 villages, most with between I,000 and 4,000 inhabitants; and 10 towns. 14 The district headquarters, Kurnool town, has a population of 140,000, and four other towns have over 20,000 people. One of these is Nowk, a bustling marketicg centre of 63,000, the nearest town to many of our irrigated villages. The district is crossed by important interstate road and rail routes. Hyderabad, the state capital, population nearly 2 million, is seven to nine hours away from Nowk by several-times-daily II Since lhr.; fom.alion of Ihe slale or Andhra Pradesh in Ihe mid-l950s, Reddys, Velma~ and Kammas have held 45 lo 58 per cenl of Cabinel seals, wilh Ihe Reddys being lhe largesl group (28lo 38 per cenllillt971) (Sharma and Madhusudan Reddy 1979:470). 12 The eleclions of t983 broughl a regional parly 10 power allhe slale level, ending lhe era of Congress dominance. 13 The slale average is 153 persons per sq. km. This and olher dala in lhis paragraph come from lhe 1971 census. 14 Towns are defined as seulemenls wilh more !han 5,000 people of whom alleasllhree- quarlers depend on non-agricullural pursuils. 32
Exploring the Variety of Random Documents with Different Content
The probability is, that whenever Mr. Spence read in Burke's Landed Gentry that Mr. A. or Mr. B., in preference to being considered as the founder of a new family, supposed himself, or wished to be supposed by others, to be descended from an old stock of the same name, he kindly offered to supply the desired information, and was ready to execute a pedigree to order. G. A. C. [The Editor has been informed by a person on whose accuracy he can rely, that a lady who received a letter from Mr. Spence offering certain information respecting his family taken from the Cotgreave pedigree, and who imprudently sent money for the same, got nothing but the most absurd rubbish in return, and having been induced to make inquiries into the subject, was fully satisfied that the whole thing was a fraud.] LICENCES TO CRENELLATE. (Vol. ix., p. 220.) The subjoined list of names and places will supply Mr. Parker with the counties of all the places named in his inquiry, except two in which I suspect some error. If farther references to authorities are desired, they will be given with pleasure in reply to a private application, but would crowd your pages inconveniently. 1. Cokefield for Melton—Cokefeud for Moulton, Suffolk. 2. Grisnak for Molun—Query this? 3. Langeton for Newton in Makerfield.—L. for Newton Hall or Castle, the head of the Palatine Barony of Newton, in Lancashire. 4. Esselynton for Esselynton—E. in Northumberland. 5. Trussel for Cubleston—C. in Staffordshire.
6. De la Beche for De la Beche—De la Beche Castle. Aldworth, Berks. 7. The same for Beaumes—Beaumys Castle, Shinfield, Berks. 8. Cobham for Pringham—P. alias Sterborough Castle, Surrey. 9. The same for Orkesdene—O. in Kent. 10. "Burghchier" for Stanstede—Bourchier for Stansted, Essex. 11. Dalham for "Credonio"—"Fortalicium in loco de Crodonio." Printed Cal. Rot. Pat. p. 143. 12. Lengleys for Heyheved—Highhead Castle, in Cumberland. 13. Aeton for Chevelyngham—Heton for Chillingham, Northumberland. Geo. O. Sedbury Park, Chepstow. There can, I think, be little doubt that Stansstede, in Mr. J. H. Parker's list, is Stanstead Hall, near Halstead in Essex. I have never seen Stanstead Hall, but about a month since I was in company with the late occupant; from whom I learned, in casual conversations, that it was an ancient house, with moat and fortifications. In addition to this I may state, that there are monuments in the old church (St. Andrew) of Halstead to some of the Bourchier family. These facts, taken together, seem to fix the locality with sufficient precision. One of the monuments just referred to is a brass, commemorating Sir Bartholomew Bourchier and his two wives; which, when I copied it in 1847, was under the flooring of a pew in the south aisle. He died May 8, 1409; and was previously the possessor of Stanstead Hall: so I learn from my own MS. Catalogue of brass rubbings in my collection, but I am not able to give any better reference to authenticate the statement.
W. Sparrow Simpson. Heyheved, mentioned in Mr. Parker's list, is Highhead Castle in Cumberland. In the reign of Edward II. it was a peel house (pelum de Heyheved) possessed by Harcla, Earl of Carlisle. In modern times it became the property of a family named Richmond, one of whom erected the present house, after a plan by Inigo Jones. But he died before it was finished, leaving co-heirs, who quarrelled about the partition of the estate, and actually put a hedge through the centre of the house. Eventually one-half came into the hands of Lord Brougham, who is understood to have purchased the other, and will probably restore the whole. K. NEWSPAPER FOLK LORE. (Vol. vi., pp. 221. 338. 466.; Vol. ix., pp. 29. 84.) It may be instructive to collate the four stories recorded in the above references, and compare them with a case that was brought before Mr. Jardine at Bow Street Police Court; and which was reported in The Times for February 22, 1854. Let the following extract suffice: it is descriptive of the operations of extracting a worm from the body of one Harriet Gunton, by a female quack of the name of Jane Browning: "I laid myself on the bed as she desired, and she told Mrs. Jones to hold my mouth to prevent my breathing. Mrs. Jones held me from behind, and nearly suffocated me. She kept me down, while the prisoner tried to get the worms out of my body with her hands. This lasted for about a quarter of an hour, and caused me dreadful pain. The prisoner told me that one of the worms had bit her finger, and slipped away again, and she could not get at it. She tried a second time, and said the worm had bit her again. I then begged her to leave off, if she could not
succeed in getting it away; for I believed I should die under the operation. She tried a third time, and said she had broken two skins of it, which would prevent it getting up my body. ... She then put her hand under the clothes. I felt something touch me like a cloth, and she drew away her hand; throwing something into the pan, which sounded with a heavy splash. She said she had been trying at it all night, and had got it away at last." Mr. Robert Biggs, the medical attendant, pronounced the "reptile" to be a fine conger eel, which he believed had often done duty in the same way. C. Mansfield Ingleby. Birmingham. It would be well if every popular error were hunted down, as your correspondents have done in the case of the snake-vomiting at Portsmouth. The public need to be told, that no animal can live in the alimentary canal but the parasites which belong to that part of the animal economy. Of these the Lumbricus intestinalis is the largest, and is discharged by children even of the size mentioned in the case of Jonathan Smith. Two years ago I met with a curious illustration of the popular ignorance of that branch of natural history which treats of our own reptiles, as well as of the mode of growth of a popular marvel. During the hot weather of the summer before last, I was asked by a respectable farmer, if I had seen the "serpent" which was lately killed in an adjoining parish. "Serpent!" I replied; "I suppose you mean some overgrown common snake—perhaps a female full of eggs?" "Well, it might have been a snake at first, but it was grown into a serpent; and pursued a boy through the hedge, but was fortunately encountered and killed by the father." It is a moot point, whether the parasites of animals are engendered or not within the body. In the case of the bots of horses, they are known to be the larvæ of a fly which deposits its eggs on the skin;
from whence they are licked off, and conveyed into the animal's stomach, where they are hatched and prepared for their other metamorphoses. I believe the only parasite taken in with water in tropical climates is the Guinea Worm; an animal which burrows under the skin of the arms or legs, and is extremely difficult of extraction, and often productive of great inconvenience. But whether the egg of this worm be taken into the stomach, and conveyed by the blood into the limbs, there to be hatched into life, or whether it enter through the pores of the skin, I believe is not determined. The popular delusion respecting the swallowing of young snakes, and of their continuance in the stomach, is a very old one, and is still frequent. A medical friend of mine, not long since, was called on to treat a poor hysterical woman, who had exhausted the skill of many medical men (as she asserted) to rid her of "a snake or some such living creature, which she felt confident was and had been for a long time gnawing in her stomach." I suggested the expediency of working on the imagination of this poor hypochondriac, as was done in the well-known facetious story of the man who fancied he had swallowed a cobbler; and who was cured by the apparent discharge first of the awls and strap, then of the lapstone, and, finally, of Crispin himself. M. (2) FRENCH SEASON RHYMES AND WEATHER RHYMES. (Vol. ix., p. 9.) The following weather rules are taken from a work which is probably but little known to the generality of English readers. It is entitled:
"Contes populaires, Préjugés, Patois, Proverbes, Noms de Lieux, de l'Arrondissement de Bayeux, recueillis et publiés par Frédéric Pluquet, &c.: Rouen, 1834." Where saints' days are mentioned, I have added the day of the month on which they fall, as far as I have been able to ascertain it; but as it sometimes happens that there is more than one saint of the same name, and that their feasts fall on different days, I may perhaps, in some cases, have fixed on the wrong one: "Année venteuse, Année pommeuse." "Année hannetonneuse, Année pommeuse." "L'hiver est dans un bissac; s'il n'est dans un bout, il est dans l'autre." "Pluie du matin N'arrête pas le pélerin." "À Noël au balcon, À Pàques au tison." "À Noël les moucherons, À Pàques les glaçons." "Pàques pluvieux, An fromenteux." "Le propre jour des Rameaux Sème oignons et poreaux." "Après Pàques et les Rogations, Fi de prêtres et d'oignons."
"Fêves fleuries Temps de folies." "Rouge rosée au matin, C'est beau temps pour le pélerin." "Pluie de Février Vaut jus de fumier." "Février qui donne neige Bel été nous plège." "Février L'anelier" [anneau]. This saying has probably originated in the number of marriages celebrated in this month; the season of Lent which follows being a time in which it is not usual, in Roman Catholic countries, to contract marriage. "Février emplit les fosses; Mars les sèche." "Mars martelle, Avril coutelle." An allusion to the boisterous winds of March, and the sharp, cutting, easterly winds which frequently prevail in April. "Nul Avril Sans épi." "Avril le doux, Quand il se fàche, le pis de tout." "Bonne ou mauvaise poirette, Il faut que Mars a trouve faite."
Poirette, in the dialect of Bayeux, means a leek. "Froid Mai et chaud Juin Donnent pain et vin." "En Juignet [Juillet], La faucille au poignet." "À la Saint-Vincent [Jan. 22], Tout dégèle, ou tout fend." "Saint-Julien brise glace [Jan. 27], S'il ne la brise, il l'embrasse." "À la Chandeleur [Feb. 2], La grande douleur." Meaning the greatest cold. "À la Chandeleur, Où toutes bêtes sont en horreur." Probably alluding to the rough state of their coats at this season. "À la Saint-George [April 23], Sème ton orge." "Quand il pleut le jour Saint-Marc [April 25], Il ne faut ni pouque ni sac." "À la Saint-Catherine [April 29], Tout bois prend racine." "À la Saint-Urbain [May 25], Le froment porte grain." "À la Saint-Loup [May 28?],
La lampe au clou." "S'il pleut le jour Saint-Médard [June 8], Il pleuvra quarante jours plus tard." "À la Saint-Barnabé [June 11] La faux au pré." "À la Saint-Sacrement [this year, June 15] L'épi est au froment." "Quand il pleut à la Saint-Gervais [June 19], Il pleut quarante jours après." "À la Madeleine [July 22], Les noix sont pleines." "À la Saint-Laurent [Aug. 10], La faucille au froment." "Passé la Saint-Clément [Nov. 23?], Ne sème plus le froment." "Si le soleil rit le jour Sainte-Eulalie [Dec. 10], Il y aura pommes et cidre à folie." "À la Sainte-Luce [Dec. 13?], Les jours croissent du saut d'une puce." "À la Saint-Thomas [Dec. 21], Les jours sont au plus bas." Edgar MacCulloch. Guernsey. VAULT INTERMENTS (Vol. ii., p. 21.): BURIAL IN AN ERECT POSTURE (Vol. viii., pp. 329.
630.): INTERMENT OF THE TROGLODITÆ (Vol. ii., p. 187.). In the 4th book of Evelyn's Sylva there is much interesting matter on this subject, besides what has been quoted above; and, to those herein interested, the following extract from Burn's History of Parish Registers in England will doubtless be acceptable: "Many great and good men have entertained scruples on the practice of interment in churches. The example of the virtuous and primitive confessor, Archbishop Sancroft, who ordered himself to be buried in the churchyard of Fresingfield in Suffolk, thinking it improper that the house of God should be made the repository of sinful man, ought to command the imitation of less deserving persons: perhaps it had an influence over the mind of his successor, Archbishop Secker, who ordered himself to be buried in the churchyard of Lambeth. The Bishops of London in succession, from Bishop Compton to Bishop Hayter, who died in 1762, inclusive, have been buried in Fulham Churchyard."[1] Of the same opinion were Dr. Edward Rainbow, Bishop of Carlisle; Sir Matthew Hale, who used to say that churches were for the living and to churchyards for the dead[2]; Joseph Hall, Bishop of Norwich, who "did not hold God's house a meet repository for the greatest saint;" and William Bedell, Bishop of Kilmore, who made a canon in his synod to the following effect: "IX. Ut corpora defunctorum deinceps in Ecclesiis non humentur, sed nec intra quintum pedem a pariete extrorsum." Sir Thomas Latymer, of Braibroke in Northamptonshire, by his will directed thus:
I, Thomas Latymer of Braybroke, a fals knyghte to God, &c., my wrecchyd body to be buried where that ever I die in the next chirche yerde, God vouchsafe, and naut in the chirche, but in the utterist corner, as he that is unworthy to lyn therein, save the merci of God." Dr. Isaac Barrow, Bishop of St. Asaph, was buried in a churchyard, although, from his having generously repaired and endowed his cathedral, he might be considered to have a claim of interment within its walls; and Baldwin, the great civilian, severely censures this indecent liberty, and questions whether he shall call it a superstition or an impudent ambition. Lanfranc, Archbishop of Canterbury, was the first who made vaults under the chancel, and even under the altar, when he rebuilt the choir of Canterbury, about 1075.[3] "The Irish long retained an attachment to their ancient customs and pagan superstitions; and the custom of burying in consecrated ground was not universal in Ireland in the twelfth century on the arrival of the English, as we find it enjoined in the Council of Cashel, held in 1172, mentioned by Cambrensis. A short time since some small earthen tumuli were opened on the Curragh of Kildare, under which skeletons were found standing upright on their feet, and in their hands, or near them, spears with iron heads. The custom of placing their dead erect was general among all the northern nations, and is still retained in Lapland and some parts of Norway; and the natives of North America bury their dead sitting in holes in the ground, and cover them with a mound of earth."—Transactions of the R. Irish Academy, vol. iii. A Query I proposed (Vol. ii., p. 187.) in reference to the Trogloditæ never having been answered, I shall, perhaps, be allowed to use this opportunity myself to furnish an apposite and explanatory quotation, viz.—
"Troglodytæ mortui cervicem pedibus alligabant et raptim cum risu et jocis efferebant, nullaque loci habita cura mandabant terræ; ac ad caput cornu caprinum affigebant."—Cœlii Rhodigini, Lectiones Antiquæ, p. 792. I shall conclude with the rationale of the erect posture, as illustrated by Staveley in his History of Churches in England: "It is storied to be a custom among the people of Megara in Greece, to be buried with their faces downwards; Diogenes gave this reason why he should be buried after the same way, that seeing all things were (according to his opinion) to be turned upside down in succeeding times, he, by this posture, would at last be found with his face upwards, and looking towards heaven." Bibliothecar. Chetham. Footnote 1:(return) Cole's MSS. vol. iv. p. 100. Footnote 2:(return) The Assembly at Edinburgh, in 1588, prohibited the burying in kirks. Footnote 3:(return) Cole's MSS., vol. iv. In Much Ado about Nothing, Act III. Sc. 2., Don Pedro says: "She shall be buried with her face upwards." Theobald, Johnson, and Steevens have left notes upon this line. The following passage is part of Steevens' note: "Dr. Johnson's explanation may likewise be countenanced by a passage in an old black-letter book, without date, intitled, 'A
merye Jest of a Man that was called Howleglas, &c.: How Howleglas was buryed: "'Thus as Howleglas was deade, then they brought him to be buryed. And as they would have put the coffyn into the pytte with 2 cordes, the corde at the fete brake, so that the fote of the coffyn fell into the botome of the pyt, and the coffyn stood bolt upryght in the middes of the grave. Then desired ye people that stode about the grave that tyme, to let the coffyn to stande bolt upryght. For in his lyfe tyme he was a very marvelous man, &c., and shall be buryed as marvailously. And in this maner they left Howleglas,' &c. "Were not the Claphams and Mauleverers buried marvailously, because they were marvelous men?"—Johnson and Steevens' Shakspeare, vol. ii. p. 310. J. W. Farrer. "In Oliver Heywood's Register is the following entry [Oct. 28, 1684]: 'Capt. Taylor's wife of Brig House, buried in her garden with head upwards, standing upright, by her husband, daughter, &c. Quakers.'"—Watson's History of Halifax, p. 233. Cervus. "Some Christians [Russians?] decline the figure of rest, and make choice of an erect posture in burial."—Browne's Hydriotaphia, ch. iv. p. 246. Query, With the desire of meeting the Judge, face to face, when He cometh? Mackenzie Walcott, M.A. DO CONJUNCTIONS JOIN PROPOSITIONS ONLY?
(Vol. ix., p. 180.) Professor Boole's communication on the above question reminds me of some remarks of mine, published in an article on Sir John Stoddart's Philosophy of Language, in the North British Review for November, 1850. In reference to the opinion maintained by Sir John Stoddart and Dr. Latham, that the conjunction always connects sentences, the preposition words, it is observed: "It does not apply to cases where the conjunction unites portions of the predicate, instead of the subject, of a proposition. If I assert that a gentleman of my acquaintance drinks brandy and water, he might not relish the imputation of imbibing separate potations of the neat spirit and the pure element. Stradling versus Stiles is a case in point: 'Out of the kind love and respect I bear to my much honoured and good friend, Mr. Matthew Stradling, Gent., I do bequeath unto the said Matthew Stradling, Gent., all my black and white horses.' The testator had six black horses, six white horses, and six pied horses. The whole point at issue turns upon the question whether the copulative and joins sentences or words. If the former, the plaintiff is entitled to the black horses, and also to the white, but not to the pied. If the latter he has a right to the pied horses but must forego his claim to the rest. And if the latter interpretation be adopted, must we say that and is a preposition, not a conjunction, or must we modify the definitions of these two parts of speech?" The following definitions are finally proposed in place of the ordinary ones: "A preposition is a part of speech annexed to a noun or verb in a proposition, and serving to connect it with a noun or pronoun by which it is limited, as the subject or predicate of that proposition."
"A conjunction is a part of speech serving to unite two propositions as parts of the same complex assertion, or two words as similar parts of the subject or predicate of one proposition. By similar parts it is meant that the words so united stand in similar relations to the term to which they belong. For example, 1. As attributes, both qualifying a subject, 'Sic bonus et sapiens dignis ait esse paratus.' 2. As prepositions, both introducing limiting nouns 'without money and without price.' 3. As substantives, both forming parts of a collective subject, 'two and three are five.' Whereas with the preposition, the words united are not similar, but opposed, the limiting and the limited notion." While differing from some of Professor Boole's views on the relation of logic to mathematics, I fully agree with him that the true functions of the several parts of speech must be determined by an analysis of the laws of thought. Both grammar and logic might be considerably improved by an accurate development on psychological principles. H. L. Mansel, B.D. St. John's College, Oxford. Has not your correspondent G. Boole fallen into an inaccuracy whilst contending about the accuracy of another's logic? He seems to employ the proposition, all trees are endogens or exogens, as an example of an accurate proposition. I forget the technicalities in which the objection to such a proposition would be properly expressed; but it cannot well be denied that all comprehends the whole genus, and expresses that whole collectively. If so, the proposition affirms that the whole genus of trees must either be acknowledged to be endogens, or else to be all exogens. Does not such an affirmation require the word every to clear it from ambiguity? Will it be cleared of ambiguity by saying, "Every tree is endogen or exogen?" Or must we say "Every tree is either endogen or exogen?"
If your correspondents should happen to take down the second volume of Locke on Human Understanding, b. III. ch. iii. § 11., on "Universals," his note will supply them with another knot to unravel, of which I would gladly see their solution. For he has there said, "Three Bobaques are all true and real Bobaques, supposing the name of that species of animals belongs to them." Is this name formed in jest? For the philosopher sometimes puts on an awkward affectation of humour in his replies to Bishop Stillingfleet, to whom this note is addressed. H. W. HAS EXECUTION BY HANGING BEEN SURVIVED? (Vol. ix., p. 174.) Two instances of criminals being restored to life after having been hanged are recorded, on good authority, to have occurred in this town. Henry of Knighton (who was a Canon of Leicester Abbey) relates in his Chronicle (col. 2627), under the year 1363, that— "One Walter Wynkeburn having been hanged at Leicester, on the prosecution of Brother John Dingley, Master of Dalby, of the order of Knights Hospitallers, after having been taken down from the gallows as a dead man, was being carried to the cemetery of the Holy Sepulchre of Leicester, to be buried, began to revive in the cart, and was taken into the church of the Holy Sepulchre by an ecclesiastic, and there diligently guarded by this Leicester ecclesiastic to prevent his being seized for the purpose of being hanged a second time. To this man King Edward granted pardon in Leicester Abbey, and gave him a charter of pardon, thus saying in my hearing, 'Deus tibi dedit vitam, et nos dabimus tibi Cartam?"
We learn, on the authority of a cotemporary record, preserved in the archives of this borough, and quoted in Thompson's History of Leicester, p. 110., that in June, 1313, Matthew of Enderby, a thief, was apprehended and imprisoned in the king's gaol at Leicester; and that being afterwards convicted, he was sentenced by Sir John Digby and Sir John Daungervill, the king's justices, to be hanged; that he was led to the gallows by the frankpledges of Birstall and Belgrave, and by them suspended; but on his body being taken down, and carried to the cemetery of St. John's Hospital for interment, he revived and was subsequently exiled. Three instances are narrated in Wanley's Wonders of Man, vol. i. pp. 125, 126., and another will be found in Seward's Spirit of Anecdote and Wit, vol. iii. p. 88., quoted from Gamble's Views of Society, &c. in the North of Ireland; whilst in vol. ii. p. 220. of the same work, another restoration to life is stated to have taken place in the dissecting-room of Professor Junker, of Halle: but I know not how far these last-mentioned anecdotes are susceptible of proof. William Kelly. Leicester. There appears to be no reason to doubt the truth of individuals having survived execution by hanging. Margaret Dickson was tried, convicted, and executed in Edinburgh, in the year 1728. After the sentence had been accomplished, her body was cut down and delivered to her friends, who placed it in a coffin, and conveyed the same in a cart towards her native place for the purpose of interment. On her journey the dead came to life again, sat up in her coffin, and alarmed her attendants. She was, however, promptly bled, and by the next morning had perfectly recovered. She lived for twenty-five years afterwards, and had several children. In 1705 one John Smith was executed at Tyburn; after he had hung fifteen minutes a reprieve arrived. He was cut down and bled, and is
said to have recovered. (Paris and Fonblanque, Med. Jur., vol. ii. p. 92.) When it is considered that death takes place after hanging, in most cases by asphyxia, in very rare instances by dislocation of the spine, we can understand the possibility of recovery within certain limits. That artificial means have been adopted to ensure recovery, the case of Gordon, which occurred in the early part of the seventeenth century, satisfactorily establishes. This evil-doer had been condemned for highway robbery, and with a view to escape from his penalty, succeeded in obtaining the following friendly assistance. A young surgeon named Chovell (concerning whose motives we will not inquire too curiously) introduced a small tube through an opening which he made in the windpipe. The hangman, having accomplished his part of the tragedy, Gordon's body was handed over to his friends. Chovell bled him, and the highwayman sighed deeply, but subsequently fainted and died. The want of success was attributed to the great weight of the culprit, who consequently dropped with unusual violence. (Memoirs of the Royal Academy of Surgery in France, Sydenham Society Publications, p. 227.) How far the mechanical contrivance by which Bouthron, in Scott's Fair Maid of Perth, was kept alive after hanging, was founded on successful experience, I know not. Nor do I know whether Hook, in his Maxwell, had any farther authority than his imagination for his story of resuscitation, though I have heard it said to be founded on the supposed recovery of a distinguished forger, who had paid the last penalty for his offences, and who was said to have really died only a short time since. Oliver Pemberton. Birmingham.
The Cork Remembrancer, a chronicle of local events, which I recollect seeing among my late father's (a Cork man) books, relates the fact of a men who was hanged in that city, and on the evening of the same day appeared, not in the spirit, but in body, in the theatre. I regret I have not the book, but it is to be had somewhere. Undoubtedly your late venerable correspondent, James Roche, Esq., could have authenticated my statement, and with fuller particulars, as I only relate the record of it from memory, after a lapse of many years. I think the occurrence, of which there is no doubt, took place somewhere about the year 1782 or 1784; and after all there is nothing very extraordinary about it, for the mode of execution by hanging at that time presented many chances to the culprit of escaping death; he ascended a ladder, upon which he stood until all the arrangements were completed, and then was quietly turned off, commonly in such a manner as not to break the neck or hurt the spinal marrow. It was most likely so in the case I relate and the man having been suspended the usual time, and not having been a murderer, was handed over to his friends, who took prompt measures, and successfully, to restore animation, and so effectually, that the man, upon whom such little impression by the frightful ordeal he had passed was made, mixed in the world again, and was at the theatre that evening. Little chance is there of escaping death by the present mode of executing. Umbra. Dublin. The Gentleman's Magazine, vol. x. p. 570., after giving the names of those executed on Nov. 24, says: "And William Duell, for ravishing, robbing, and murdering Sarah Griffin at Acton. The body of this last was brought to Surgeons' Hall to be anatomised; but after it was stripped and laid on the board, and one of the servants was washing him in order to be cut, he perceived life in him, and found his breath to come
quicker and quicker; on which a surgeon took some ounces of blood from him: in two hours he was able to sit up in his chair, and in the evening was again committed to Newgate." And at p. 621. of the same volume,— "Dec. 9th. Wm. Duell (p. 570.) ordered to be transported for life." Other instances will be found in the Gentleman's Magazine, vol. i. p. 172., and vol. xxxvii. p. 90; and in vol. lxx. pt. i. p. 107. is the very curious case of Anne Green of Oxford, quoted from Dr. Plot's Natural History of Oxfordshire, p. 197., which is well worth reading. Also, in vol. lvii. pt. i. p. 33., is a letter, containing the two following quotations from Cardan, in explanation of the phenomenon of surviving death by hanging: "Is qui diu suspensus Bononiæ jacuit, vivus inventus est, quod asperam arteriam non cartilagineam sed osseam habuit."— Cardanus, lib. ii. tr. 2. contr. 7. "Constat quendam bis suspensum servatum miraculi specie; inde cum tertio Judicis solertiâ periisset, inventam osseam asperam arteriam."—Cardanus, lib. xiv., De rerum variet., cap. 76. In the Newgate Calendar, or Malefactors' Bloody Register, vol. ii. p. 233., is the account of Margaret Dickson, who was executed for child-murder at Edinburgh, June 19, 1728, with an engraving of her "rising from her coffin near Edinburgh, as she was carrying from the place of execution in order for interment." "By the Scottish law," says the author, "every person on whom the judgment of the court has been executed has no more to suffer, but must be for ever discharged; and the executed person is dead at law, so that the marriage is dissolved. This was exactly the case with Margaret Dickson, for the king's
advocate could not pursue her any farther, but filed a bill in the High Court of Justiciary against the sheriff for not seeing the judgment executed. And her husband being a good-natured man, was publicly married to her within a few days after the affair happened." Zeus. For the information of your correspondent I send an extract from the Gentleman's Magazine for February, 1767: "Saturday 24th (Jan.).—One Patrick Redmond having been condemned at Cork, in Ireland, to be hanged for a street robbery, he was accordingly executed, and hung upwards of twenty-eight minutes, when the mob carried off the body to a place appointed, where he was, after five or six hours, actually recovered by a surgeon, and who made the incision in his windpipe called bronchotomy, which produced the desired effect. The poor fellow has since received his pardon, and a genteel collection has been made for him." C. R. I would refer your correspondent Σ., who has put a Query whether persons who have suffered execution by hanging have outlived the infliction, to a case of a woman named Anne Green, which appears to be authenticated upon the most unequivocal testimony of two very estimable authors. The event to which I allude is described in Dr. Robert Plot's History of Oxfordshire, folio, Oxford, 1705, p. 201.; and also in the Physico-Theology of Rev. W. Derham, F.R.S., 3rd edit., 8vo., London, 1714, p. 157. The above-mentioned Anne Green was executed at Oxford, December 14, 1650. I will not trespass upon your space, which appears pretty well occupied, with a lengthened detail from the authors pointed out, as their works are to be found in most libraries; and thinking Polonius's observation that "brevity is the soul of wit" may be more extensively applied than to what relates to fancy and imagination. I would,
however, crave one word, which is, that you would suggest to your correspondents generally that in referring to works they would give, as distinctly as possible, the heads of the title, the name of the author, the edition, if more than one, the place of publication, date, and page. I have experienced much loss of time from incorrect and imperfect references, not to mention complete disappointment in many instances, which I trust may plead my apology for this remark. [4] Γ.
Footnote 4:(return) As our pages are frequently consulted for literary purposes, the suggestion of Γ is extremely valuable, and we trust his hints will be adopted by our numerous correspondents.—Ed. PHOTOGRAPHIC CORRESPONDENCE. A Stereoscopic Note.—I possess a small volume entitled A Disquisition about the Final Causes of Natural Things, by T. H., B.B., Fellow of the Royal Society, 1688. "To which are subjoined, by way of Appendix, some uncommon observations about vitiated sight." In this strange appendix, one of the uncommon observations is worth the notice of your correspondents who write on stereoscopic subjects. I give you an extract from it: "It has been of late the opinion of very learned men, that though both our eyes are open, and turned towards an object, yet 'tis but one of them at a time that is effectually employed in giving us the representation of it: which opinion, in this place where I am writing but observations, it were not proper to discuss, especially because what is suppos'd to be observed will not always uniformly happen, but may vary in particular persons according to their several customs, and the constitution of their eyes: for I have, by an experiment purposely made, several times found, that my two eyes together see an object in another situation than either of them apart would do." And in giving instances for and against binocular vision, the author says: "A yet more considerable instance of such mistakes I afterwards had from a noble person, who, having in a fight, where he play'd the hero, had one of his eyes strangely shot out by a musquet bullet, that came out at his mouth, answered me, that not only he could not well pour drink out of one vessel into another, but had broken many glasses by letting them fall out of his hand, when he thought he had put them into another's, or set them down upon
a table." The whole book is a very curious one, and I should be obliged if the Editor of "N. & Q." could tell me who T. H. was?[5] J. Lawson Sisson. Edingthorpe. Footnote 5:(return) The Hon. Robert Boyle. Photographic Query.—I think many amateur photographers would be thankful for plain and simple directions how to mount their positives on cardboard. Would the Editor of "N. & Q." assist us in this? J. L. S. Deepening Collodion Negatives.—I have lately been trying a method of deepening collodion negatives, so as to render instantaneous impressions capable of being printed from, which I have found to answer admirably; and although it is but a slight modification of Mr. Lyte's process described in "N. & Q.," it is a very important one, and will be found to produce far better results. The picture having been developed in the usual way, with a solution of pyrogallic acid, is whitened by means of Mr. Archer's solution of bichloride of mercury. The plate is then washed with water and a solution of iodide of cadmium poured on. This converts the white chloride of mercury, which constitutes the picture, into the yellow iodide, in the same manner as the solution of iodide of potassium recommended by Mr. Lyte; but is much to be preferred, as it produces a more uniform deposit. The solution of iodide of potassium dissolves the iodide of mercury as soon as it is formed, and therefore cannot be left on the plate until the decomposition of the chloride is complete, without injury resulting to the picture, as the half-tones are thereby lost, and those parts over which the solution first flows become bleached before the other parts have attained their highest tone; whereas the solution of iodide of cadmium may be allowed to remain for any length of time on the plate, without any fear of its injuring the negative.
J. Leachman. Caution to Photographers.—About six months since, I procured some gun cotton from a chemist which appeared very good, being quite soluble, and the collodion produced by it was excellent. That which I did not use I placed in what I believed to be a clean dry-stopped bottle, and put the bottle in a dark cupboard. I was much surprised the other day, upon going to the cupboard, to find the stopper blown out, and the cotton giving out dense red fumes of nitrous acid. It appears to me to be almost upon the point of combustion, and I have, accordingly, placed it under a bell-glass in a porcelain dish to watch the result. I feel satisfied, however, that there is some risk, and, as it may often be near ether, spirits of wine, or other inflammable chemicals, that caution is necessary not only in preserving it at home, but especially in its transmission abroad, which is now done to some extent. An Amateur.
Replies to Minor Queries. Artesian Wells (Vol. ix., p.222.).—Wells are often so called without just pretence to a similarity with those in Artois, whence this name is derived. There are some natural springs in the northern slope of the chalk in Lincolnshire, near the Humber, called blow-wells, which may be considered naturally Artesian. The particular character by which an Artesian well may be known is, that the water, if admitted into a tube, will rise above the level of the ground in its immediate vicinity up to the level of its sources in the basin of the district; this basin being usually gravel, lying betwixt two strata impervious to water, formed the surrounding hills, and extending often over many miles of the earth's surface. If we conceive the figure of a large bowl, inclosing a somewhat smaller one, the interstice being filled with gravel, and the rain falling on the earth being collected within such interstice, then this interstice being tapped by boring a well, the water will rise up from the well to the same height as it stands in the interstice, or rim of the natural basin. Such is an Artesian well. Supposing this huge mineral double bowl to be broken by a geological fault, the same hydrostatic principle will act similarly. The question of preferable put by Stylites must be governed by the cui bono. Universal adoption is forbidden, first, by the absence of a gravelly stratum betwixt two strata impervious to water; and secondly, by the excessive expense of boring to such great depths. Where expense is not in excess of the object to be attained, and where the district is geologically favourable, the Artesian wells are preferable to common ones derived from natural tanks or water caverns, first, for the superabundant supply; secondly, for the height to which the water naturally rises above the ground; and thirdly, because boring Artesian wells, properly so called, does not rob a neighbour's well for your own benefit, afterwards to be lost when
any neighbour chooses to dig a little deeper than you. This is a matter with which London brewers are familiar. T. J. Buckton. Lichfield. Prior's Epitaph on Himself (Vol. i., p. 482.).—Mr. Singer quotes an epitaph on "John Carnegie," and says it is the prototype of Prior's epitaph on himself. I have looked among Prior's poems for this epitaph, and have not been able to discover anything that can be said to answer Mr. Singer's description of it. Would your correspondent oblige me with a copy of the epitaph to which he alludes? My edition of Prior is a very old one; and this may account for the omission, if such it be. Henry H. Breen. St. Lucia. [The following is a copy of the epitaph: "Nobles and heralds, by your leave, Here lies what once was Matthew Prior, The son of Adam and of Eve; Can Bourbon or Nassau claim higher?"] Handwriting (Vol. viii., p. 639.).—In your concluding Number of last year, E. B. requested information as to any work in English, French, German, or Spanish, giving a standard alphabet for the various kinds of writing now in use, with directions for teaching the same. I fear I shall not satisfy all your correspondent's inquiries; but the following may be of some service. I have in my possession a German work, nearly of the kind he requires. The title is, Gründliche Anweisung zum Schönschreiben, by Martin Schüssler, Wiesbaden, 1820. It is of an oblong shape, and consists entirely of engraved plates, in number thirty-two. It begins with some directions for the form and inclination of letters; then follows an explanation of five rules for writing, which are given in the German handwriting. After exhausting the German, the author proceeds to English letters and handwriting, followed by
engrossing hand. Then he gives the fractur, or black-letter characters, with some elaborate and beautiful capitals. He next gives specimens of French handwriting, and ends with Greek current hand, and plates of large capitals of ornamental patterns; all different. If this work would at all answer the purpose of E. B., and he would wish to see it, it shall be sent to him by post on his giving his address to the writer, whose card is enclosed. F. C. H. I have in my possession for sale, a scarce old work, folio, a good clean copy of Geo. Bickman's Universal Penman, 1733; with numerous engravings. D. H. Strahan. 10. Winsly Street, Oxford Street. "Begging the Question" (Vol. viii., p. 640.; Vol. ix., p. 136.).—It may interest your logical readers to be informed of the fact that this fallacy was called the petition of the principle, this being, of course, a literal rendering of the Latin phrase. The earliest English work on logic in which I have found this Latinism is, The Arte of Logike, plainelie set foorth in our English Tongue, easie both to be understoode and practised, 1584. Here occurs the following passage: "Now of the default of Logike, called Sophisme. It is eyther { Generall. } / { Speciall. } The generall are those which cannot be referred to any part of Logike. They are eyther { Begging of the question, called the petition of the principle. } / { Bragging of no proof. } Begging of the question is when nothing is brought to prooue, but the question, or that which is as doubtfull." C. Mansfield Ingleby. Birmingham.
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Village Republics Economic Conditions For Collective Action In South India Robert Wade

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  • 7.
    VILLAGE REPUBLICS A publicationof the INTERNATIONAL CENTER FOR SELF-GOVERNANCE
  • 9.
    The mission ofthe International Center for Self-Governance is to encourage men and women in developing countries to achieve the self-governing and entrepreneurial way of life. In addition to publishing the finest academic stud- ies, such a~ this edition of Village Republics, ICSG also provides ;)ractical materials in a variety of readily accessible fonnats, including manuals, learn- ing tools, and interactive tasks. For more infonnation on ICSG or i.s publications, training materials, and videos, please contact: ICSG 720 Market Street San Francisco, CA 94102 USA (415) 981-5353
  • 10.
    VILLAGE REPUBLICS Economic Conditions forCollective Action in South India ROBERT WADE IDi PRESS INSTITUTE FOR CONTEMPORARY STUDIES SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA
  • 11.
    © 1994 Institutefor Contemporary Studies This book is a publication of the International Center for Self-Governance, dedicated to promoting the self-governing and entrepreneurial way of life aromtd the world. The Center is nffiliated with the Institute for Contempo- rary Studies, a nonpartisan, nonprofit pl'blic plllky research organization. TI1e ana!yses, conclusians, anJ opinions expressed in ICS Press publica- tions are those of the authors and not necessarily thme of the Institute for Contemporary Studies, or of the Institute's officers, its ciirectors, or others associated with, or funding, its work. First publisheJ in 1988 by Cambridge University Press. Publication of this edition was funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development. Pri"ted in the United States of America on acid-free paper. All rights re- served. No part of this book may be used or repruduced in any manner without written pennissiol' ex.:ept in the case of bri.:f quotations in critical articles and reviews. Inquiries, book orders, and catalog requests should be addre~sed to ICS Press, 720 Market Street, San Francisco, CA 94102. (415) 981-5353. Fax (415) 986-4878. For 9ook orders and catalog requests call toll free : (800) 326-0263. Cover design by Kent Lytle Cover photographs by Elise P. Schoux 0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 I Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available ISBN: l-55815-387-X
  • 12.
    To Freddy Bailey,who taught that anthropology is the better part of politics and economics. Anrl to Syed Hashim Ali, lAS, professor of integrity.
  • 13.
    2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 II CONTENTS List ofJllustrativns Ust ofTables Foreword Preface Robert B. Hawkins. Jr. Tne Village as J Corporate Group The Circumstances of Village Organization Kottapalle The Social Response to Open-Field Husbandry The Social Response to Irrigation The Ro.~nge of Council Activities The Mode of Public Choice Variation between Villages (I): Social Structure Variaticn between Villages (2): Ecology and Risk Conclusions (I): The Conditions for Collective Action Conclusions (2): Theories of Collective Action Appendix Water Supply and Irrigation Network Bibliography Index vii viii ix xi xiii 19 37 59 72 96 Ill 134 160 179 199 218 223 235
  • 14.
    ILLUSTRATIONS Figures 1.1 Village-based CorporateInstitutions 3.1 Cropping Pattern, Crops as a Percentage of Total Cultivable Area, Kottapalle Maps 7 41 2.1 Two Canal Systems and Village Locations 20 2.2 The V Distributary System of the MN Canal and Village Locations (Inset from Map 2.1) 21 2.3 Hydrology. Soils and Landforms: The V Distributory Area 22 3.1 Scattering of Big Men's Holdings. Kottapalle Village 46 Appendix Map I Irrigation Channel Layout, Kottapalle Village 220 viii
  • 15.
    TABLES 3.1 Long-run AverageRainfall and Potential Evapotranspiration (PET) 39 6.1 Village Fund Expenditure Accounts. Various Years 97 6.2 Summary of Expenditure Accounts 100 6.3 Village Fund Income Account, Various Years 104 8.1 Village Organization, Sample of Irrigated Villages 136 8.2 Village Organization, Sample of Dry Villages 138 8.3 Frequency of Village Corporate Institutions in Sample of Irrigated Villages 139 9.1 Cropping Pattern in Head Reach and Tail Reach Villages of V Distributary System, 1901-05 170 Appendix Table I Zone and Actual Irrigated Area, by Blocks 219 ix
  • 17.
    FOREWORD How can farmersin rural India or poor residents of public housing in American cities organize themselves for successful self-governance? Must they depend on some outside authority to make and enforce the rules and impose cooperation? Or can they work together productively for their common good? If we arc to know how to build successful ~elf-governing organizations where they have not existed before. it is essential that we understand the conditions that foster them. Much of what we have learned about these conditiuns comes from empirical observation nf the manage- ment of common property resources. This imp<1rtant study of common property management in South India is a major contribution to that body of observation. Robert Wade asks why some groups can form "village republics" to manage their common assets. while others leave those assets to he over-ex- ploited by individual users-to the ultimate disad·:antage of the group as a whole. Drawing on his field research in several South Indian villages, Wade finds that scarcity and risk-in addition to other factors such as social struc- ture of the village. demographic composition, relations with markets outside the village, and the apparatus of the state-arc particularly important in in- nuencing collective action. When resources, such as grazing land or irriga- tion water, ;u·c scarce, he discovers. collective action is more likely to take hold. Wade show~ that the main reason why some villages organize and others do not lies in the risk of crop loss-whether from scarcity of water at the tail-end of an irrigation system or frnm imensivc usc of grazing lands by a high density of livestock. To state the matter in reverse. the potential benefits of collective action arc clear and substantial. Wade's work counteract~ the theories of collective action pessimists. He dcmonstrutcs the weakness of theoretical constructs such as the Pris- oner's Dilemma in predicting outcomes in ongoing and interactive situ- ations and shows that people at the village level ::an manifest remarkable capacities for self-organized activity. The village public realm is a real. not a theoretical. ceremonial. or symbolic one. For these villagers, collec- tive action is a very practical matter, a way to get things done and pmvide for the public good. Villa~e Reprtblics was first published by Cambridge University Press as part of the Cambrige South Asian Studies series. The International :ri
  • 18.
    Foreword Center for Self-Governanceis pleased to be able to reissue this important work and to make it newly available to a widening network of individualc; and organizations working in many settings to create and sustain local action for self-governance. xii Robert B. Hawkins, Jr. President Institute for Contemporary Studies
  • 19.
    PREFACE When will villagerscome together to supply themselves with goods and services that they all need but could not provi~e themselves individually? In what circumstances wi!l those who face a potential "tragedy of the commons" be able to organize a system of rules by which the tragedy is averted? Many writers on collective action and common property are inclined to think that the circumstances are very limited. A long line of collective action theorists has been concerned to elaborate the proposition that peo- ple placed in a situation in which they could all benefit from cooperation will be unlikely to cooperate in the absence of an external enforcer of agreements. An equally long line of theorist~ on property rights has ar- gued 1hat common property resources arc bound to be over-exploited as demand rises. The ouly solution is private enclosure, according to some theorists, or state regulation. according to others. This book is about village~ in one small p:1rt of South India. Some villages in this a~ca have organized the public aspects of resource use to a more sophisticated degree that has been reponed previously in the literature on Indian villages, while others have not organized at all. Only a few miles may separate a village with :1 lot of organization from one with none. From the iitcraturc on collective action thc::Jry we would not expect to find villages maintaining a steady pattern of collective control. From the literature on "peasants-in-general" we would not expect such a range of variati0n between villages in the same area, for that literature prefers to characterize peasants as broadly individualistic or communitarian, accord- ing to the author·~ predilection. From the literature on Indian villages we would not expect to find that caste. factions, marriage rules, inheritance rules, and other such sociological variables, arc unimportant in explaining the observed pattern of variation between viliagcs. This book offers an explanation of the variation and an account of how the collective action probicms are overcome in those villages with a large amount of organization. It is a study, in other words, of the emer- gence of a "public realm," of the origins of small politics and formal politics. The public realm is here concerned with "efficiency" rather than "dignity," with providing public goods and services in the vital agricul- tural sphere rather tha'l symbolically representing the village to itself and xiii
  • 20.
    Preface the supernatural. Itbears similarities to the open-field form of village or- ganization found over much of medieval westrrn Europe, and is in part a response to the same problems of mixed arable and animal husbandry as gave rise to that medieval form. But is is also a response to the hazards of irrigation, which introduce complexities not found in western Europe. If, with some politit:al theorists, we look upon the stale as based on a con- junction of contract and coercion, and if the first states arc thought uf as representing a relatively advanced stage of evolution of a public realm in local communities, we might draw on an understanding of how the com- bination of contract and coercion is sustained in these Indian villages to- day for insights about how it emerged in ihc agricultural communities of pristine states. We shall at the end of the story examine why most collective action theories-including Prisoner's Dilemma, Hardin's "tragedy of the com- mons," and Olson's "logic of collective action"-fa:l to give accurate pre- dictions in the present case, and thereby sec why their sweeping pessimism about voluntary organization is unwarranted. We shall also specify some general criteria for idenllfying the conditions in which one would expect more, or less, collective action on the pan of lilosc faced with the need to regulate their usc of common property resources. Clearly there can be no general presumption that collective acti<m ratlwr than privatization or state regulation will work-the dismal frequency of degraded grazing commons, despoiled forests, over-exploited groundwater and depleted fisheries is testi- mony to the contrary. On the other hand, there arc many cases. in addition to these, where villagl!s have been able to sustain common property man- agement arrangements over long periods of time. Privatization or state regu- lation is therefore not always necessary for successful management of re- sources of this type. The third option of locally based collective action needs to be taken seriously. For one thing, it is likely to he much chcapcr in tenns of state resources than either of the other two. Already over-stretched states should encourage local systems of rules where they can be expected to work-hence the usefulness of establishing the conditions which arc more, or less, favourable. The research project began in 1977. as a by-product of another study on the operation of large-scale canal schemes. In the course of talking to fanners about their experience of the water bureaucracy I ~;tumbled quite accidentally across :1 number of villages whose water organization seemed remarkable in relation to what was then known aboul Indian village urgani- zation. I made a quick study of 24 irrigated and Hdry villages, the results of which called for a more intensive inquiry. I rctum~d in 1980, together with Jeremy Jackson and Ro~emm-y Jackson. They lived in Kollapallc village for 7 months in 1980. I lived in the village and nearby market town for 8 xiv
  • 21.
    Preface mo~ths over severalperiods between 1980 and 1982. Altogether we studied 31 inigated and I0 dry villages. The present tense in what follows refers to 1980-! except where otherwise noted. Further details on the field-work are given in chapter 8, n. I. p. 135. I thank the following people and groups of people, without whom Village Repuh/ics would not ha'e been completed. The Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex is my own cornm~nity. whose ahility to surmount collective action prohlem:; in supplying a supporlive research environment no doubt coloured my sense of the possibilities for Indian villagers. The Social Science Re:;earch Council of the United Kingdom (since renamed the Economic and Social Research Council) funded the study. Syed Hashim Ali gave it his blessing. Jeremy Jackson provided core ideas in my interpretation of the institution of field guards. and much help hesidcs. Lakshmi Reddy was our indefatigable research assistant and translator. Tirupal Reddy, Nonnan and Pamela Reynolds. Hunter and Avcld<t Wade, and Ray Pahl helped in various crucial ways. Freddy Bailey, Ronald Dore, Michael Lipton. and especially Bruce Graham commented on parts of the argument. Elizabeth Crayford and f-ernando Leohons helped prepare the manuscript for publication. Susan Joekes did her hest, as always, to put the project to hed. The manuscript was completed in the interstices of other work at the World Bank. and I thank that organization for its support. In particular, Hans Binswanger's t:l'mmitment to scholarship was essential, for without it the devotitlll of machine bun:aucracies to "on time" or "overdue" as the chief planning criterion would have hro•.1ght the project to a premature end. Finally. a special thanks to Elinor Ostrom, who gave generously of her insights on common property resource management. and emanated an enthusia~m wonderfully infectious for a writer approaching the end of a long manuscript. Kurnool district is the real name. hut most names below this level art invented, for reasons which will become clear in chapter 5. In particular, "MN" and "TS" canals arc pseudonyms. XV
  • 23.
    1 The village asa corporate group This book is about how and why some peasant villagers in one part of India act collectively to provide goods and services which they all need and cannot provide for themselves individually. And why some do 'lot. Ever since Henry Maine, scholars have proffered generalizations about the Indian village. 'An Indian Village Community,' said Maine, 'is an organized society, and besides providing for the management of the common fund, it seldom fails to provide, by a complete staff of functior.aries, for internal government, for police, for the adminis- tration of justice, and for the appointment of taxes and public duties' (1905: 262). Nowdays sucn ~ picture is generally scorned as idyllic, owing more to wishful thinking than to empirical evidence. The new hard-nosed school offers a rival picture of the Indian village in terms roughly the reverse of Maine's. 'Indian rural society today,' says V.R. Gaikwad, 'is an atomized mass, composed ofindividuals who are not in any organized fold except the family and the extended kin-groups which form the sub-caste' (1981: 331 ). The obvious truth is that villages vary, some being more like Maine's communitarian ideal than others. Why? What accour.ts for variation between villages even within culturally homogeneous areas? My answer is that several factors bear on the situation, related to ecology. internal social structure. demographic composition, relations with externa; markets and the apparatus of the state. Of these. I argue that the ecological factors- particularly scarcity and risk -are very important. yet do not seem to have interested students of Indian village organization very much. I argue that variations in scarcity and risk in the vital agriculturJl sphere explain much of the variation to be found in village organization within one small part of upland South India. Nevertheless, when all that is explainable by these kinds of factors is stated, much variation remains unexplained. Perhaps new variables will be discovered to reduce the randomness; perhaps some of it is unexplainable. In the meantime a certain modesty is in order. I
  • 24.
    Village republics The debate Muchcurrent literature boldly generalizes not just about tlte Indian village but about the village in peasant society, no less. For instance, political scientist James Scott portrays the village in pre-capitalist peasant society as a key institution, characterized by a variety of social arrangements designed to insure village members against a subsistence crisis. These arrangements include labour .!xchangcs, the use of communal property for the livelihood of orphans and widows, rent reductions at times of crop failure, and gifts by patrons at the birth of a child or the death of a farmer. The underlying principle is 'all should have a place, a living, not that all should be equal' (1976:40). To the extent that the village elite respects this principle by protectir:g poor members of the com;nunity <Jgainst ruin in bad years, their position is considered legitimate; they arc leaders of a moral community. In similar vein, economist Yujiro Hayami identifies the village as the basic unit of rural life in Asia, not simply the place where people livf! but also 'a community which mobilizes collective actions to supply public goods essential for the sec'Jrity and the survival of community members. The village mobilizes labour and other resources collectively to construct and maintain social-vverhead capital such as roads and irrigation systems. Also it stipubtcs and enforces rules and regulations to coordinate and reduce conflicts on the usc of resources among villagers' (1980:27). On the other hand, many other scholars have presented the peasant village in quite different terms. According to what might be called the 'scarcity consciousness' or 'peasant pie' approach, pcasanl~ typically behave as if all possible 'good fortune' accessible to them is strictly limited. The result is ~trong social pressure towards normative and static behavior patterns, and extreme individualism in sucial relations. The anthropologist George Foster, whose theory of 'the Image of Limited Good' is perhaps the best known example of this approach, argues that 'People who see lhcmsclvcs in "threatened circumstances", which the Image of Limited Good implies, usually react in one of two ways: maximum cooperation and sometimes communism- burying differ- ences and placing sanctions against individualism; or extreme individual- ism. Peasant societies seem always to choose the second alternative' (1965: 301). 'Traditional peasant socictie~ arc cooperative [he continucsj only in the sense of honoring reciprocal obligations, rather than in the sense of understanding community welfare, and ... mutual suspicions seriously limit cooperative approaches to village problems' (308). Samuel Popkin (1979) takes a broadly similar position. Arraying 2
  • 25.
    The village asa corporate group himself against Scott, Popkin stresses the tenuousness and the dif- ficulties of collective action at village lr.vel, the limited abilities of peasants to generate villagewide insurance or welfare arrangements. His view, like Foster's, is a world apart from Hayami's image of the Asian village. Organizing to supply themselves with public goods is precisely what peasant villagers find very difficult to do, according to Foster and Popkin. This selection of views ahout the nature of the peasant village demonstrates the hazards of mounting exalted general;zations about 'peasantry' as a social type. Hayami takes Japan as his primary reference point, and villages in Japan co show a great deal of village-based collective action. 1 Foster takes his primary material from Mexico, where the amount of village-based collective action is often rather limited.2 Scott and Popkin both take their material primarily from Indochina, Scott from Annan, a densely populated area of ancient settlement, Popkin from Cochinchina, a more recently settled economic frontier region. It is perhaps not surprising that Scott emphasizes the conserva- tive sense of community, the natural collectivism of pre-capitalist 'peasants in general,' while Popkin stresses the entrepreneurial individu- alism of peasant life (Baker 1981 ). The fact is that rural sorcties ofthe non-western world are marked by greatly varying features and tendencies. both in their internal ecology and culture, and in their connections with markets, state structures and other external influences before and during western penetration. We must seek generalizations, ofcourse. But our generalizations should be less about the essential nature of peasant society than about the factors- ecology, markets, etc.- which make for more, or less, com- munity organization, thereby expanding the proportion of social structure which can be explained in terms of a universal human nature acting in different kinds of situations and reducing the explanatory recourse to culture as a residual variable. The Indian l'illage The picture of village India whicll emerges from existing village studies i<> a long way from Hayami's picture of the Asian village or Scott's account of the pre-capitalist peasant village. It is true that the existence of a formally constituted body for arbitration and adjudication on 1 For examples from a huge literawre, Beardsley 1964; Eyre 1955; Dore 1978; McKean 1984. 2 For non-religious purposes. See for example, Foster 1948; Lewis 1951; Wolf 1971. 3
  • 26.
    Villare republics matters unresolvableby the participants themselves is often noted, though more for the nineteenth century than for the twentieth. Hugh Tinker, writing of'traditionallndian village government', took a village panchayat (council) to be nearly universal. 'Although Indian vilbge government has never been "democratic" in western terms, there was a sense in which the whole body ofvillagers took their part in affairs. The old panclzayat, whether as a caste tribunal or as a judicial or administra- tive body, normally conducted its deliberations in the presence of all those who cared to attend. The onlookers although having no direct share in the proceedings formed a sort of "chorus" ... ' (1954: 20). Bernard CohP.n, drawing on studies of twelve dominant caste villages in the twentietl, century, found village panclwyats to be common though hardly universal: three or possibly four of the twelve had inter-caste pancltayats (1965). However even in the nineteenth century village-based arrangements to mobilize 'labor and other resources collectively' and to enforce 'rules and regulations to coordinate and reduc'! conflicts on the use of resources' - Hayami's central features- were weak or absent alto- gether. So were Scott's villagewide insl'rance and welfare arrangements. Today, according to the existing studies. a concrete r,olitical or public realm is even more attenuated. A number of men may be widely regarded as 'big men', as being in some sense first in the village; and they may overlap with village officers empowered by the state. But there is no clearly defined social domain or institution separate from state authority where choices and activities ofa 'public' nature are organized; no center of community management other than the bottom levels of the state apparatus; no administrative staff; and no machinery for raising resour;:;es for public purposes other than through state-sanctioned taxation.3 Indeed, in Louis Dumont's celebrated sociology of Indian society. Homo Hierarclzicus, the village vanishe-s altogether as a significant social unit, appearing only as a locus for the gteat principles of caste and kinship to work themseives out on the ground. However, the importance of the sub-caste in Indian villages also distinguisht:s them from the peasant villages of Foster and Popkin. While they stress the individualistic charactt:r of peasant life, Indian villagers are emotionally dependant on and derive their identity from, groups- and in that sense are not individualistic (Hofstede 1980; Kakar 3 A study of popular involvement in India and three other countries makes a similar point. 'Even though civic organizations exist in India, the small number of people who participate in them and the limited role they have in local communities make organi7.ational participation a weak basis for evaluation of popular involvement' (ISVIP 1971:245-6). 4
  • 27.
    The village asa corporate group 1981). It is just that territorially-defined groups like villages are not a focus for their identity and !leeds. Indeed, the strength ofattachment to non-terri•orial groups like the sub-caste is said to obstruct emotional attachment to the village. Studies of village power relations emphasize a complex web of pmron·-client lies within the village and stretching upwards to higher levels of politics and administration. They also show the actual management of disputes to be often a matter of self-help in feuds, revenge, and exacting reparations. Commentators frequently remark on how laden with menace :·elations between villagers are perceived to be. 'In their interpersonal relations the people are hypercritical and very sensitive', said Dube about a villagl! a few hundred kilometres north of our area. 'They do not easily let go an opportunity of commenting on and criticizing their neighbors, their relat:ons are never very smooth and certain... It is common to suspect others' motives, and not unusual to be always on the alert to read hidden meanings into the seemingly innocent utterances of others' (1955: 181-4). One of Carstairs' informants warned him, 'These people are not to be trustt~d. they will be sure to rob you ... You should not trust me either. How can you know what is really in my heart?' (1958:40, 42). Comparative studies have shown that in India the idea of 'trust' is closely associated with the idea of 'treachery' (Triandis eta/. 1972: 256). At the level of elite political culture, Hindu political philosophy emphasized to a degree unusual in other major cultures the need for the ruler to use punishment as a technique of rule (Pye 1985). Comparisons of Indian and western civilization have often stressed the despotic character of central power in India- nowhere more succinctly than in Marx's dictum, the loCIL~ classicus on Orier.tal Despotism, that the 'prime necessity ofan economical and common use of water, which, in the Occident, drove private enterprises to voluntary association, as in Flanclers and Italy, necessitated in the Orient where civilization was too low and the territorial extent too vast to call into life voluntary association, the interference of the centralizing power of Government' (1853). Given all this, the absence of a concrete political realm in Indian villages, autonomous from the state, comes as no surprise. The 'corporate' exceptions However this book will show that within one small area of the South Indian uplands some villages sustain a public realm of a sophistication which to my knowledge has not previously been reported for Indian caste villages. Their level of organization approaches Hayami's picture 5
  • 28.
    Village republics of'the Asianvillage in general,' and indeed is not so very far from Henry Maine's generally discredited account.4 In contrast, other villages in the same area show almost no village-based collective action at all, in line with Foster's and Popkin's characterizations of peasant villages in general and with Gaikwad's characterization of Indian villages today. Only a few miles may separate a village with a great deal of public organization from one with very little. Take Kottapalle, with its population ofjust over 3,000. It has a council of about nine members. with general authority to take decisions affecting all the village. The members are expressly chosen year by year, and are quite distinct from the statutory village ~ouncil of local government legislation, the Panclwyat, which in virtually all villages in the area is moribund. (I shall adopt the convention of Panchayat to refer to this statutory council and panclzayat to indicate non-governmental councils.) The council administers the village's standing jimd, which spends someRs. I0,000 a year (in an economy where a male agricultural labourer gets Rs. 4 a day). The village fund pays the salaries of a work group of village field guard~. employed by the council to protect the crops against depreJations of livestock and thieves. Four field guards are employed for the whole year, and six to eight near harvest time. The village council also employs a work group of common irrigators to distribute water among the village's irrigated rice fields and to bring more water through the government-run irrigation canal. About 12 common irrigators are employed for up to two and a half months, for about 1,200 acres of irrigated rice. At the time of the rice harvest, the common irrigators supplement the field guards, giving Kottapalle some 20 village-appointed men for crop protection. In addition, the council lays down regulations to govern harvesting and animal grazing, which the field guards are to enforce. Fines are levied for infractions of the rules. While crop protection and water d;.>tribution are the two central services, the council also organizes tlte supply of other public goo<is important in village life. These include the construction of an animal clinic, ridding the village of monkeys, repair of wells and field-access 4 Dull brings :oge1her examples of 1hc Maine genre. 'Every villaec with its twelve Agagandeas, as Ihey are dcnomina1ed, is a pclly commonwcallh, with its ... r.hief inhabitant al the head of il, and India is a !;real assemblage of such commonweallhs', wrote the Madras Board of Revenue in 1808. Again, 'In pursuit of this supposed improvement [assessmer>l ofland lax on each field in the Presidency, inslead ofcollective village tax assessment! we find them uninlcnlionally dissolving the ancient ties, the ancient usages which united the republic ofeach Hindu village, and by a kind ofagrarian law, newly assessing and parcelling out the lands which from lime immemorial had belonged to the Village Community collectively ... ' (1963:96, 101). 6
  • 29.
    The village asa corporate group ••• •••••• Poyrner.t to 1 G ----!~:.::~=:: ~ commrss•on on sole a grorn etc I ' I ', I ', I ' I ', I ', .. ,, r-~----~ ~------~ Freid Guards conec11ve Uses 1.1 Village-ba~ed corporate institutions roads, donations towards the cost of a new primary school building, contributions towards prizes at the local high school. provision ofa male stud buffalo to service the lillage's female buffalos, and so on (table 6.1, p. 97). The village council is loosely accountable to a general meeting of the village's cultivators. Between 40 and 100 men attend the annual general meeting. The council and the general meeting, then, constitute a mechanism by which Kottapalle's cultivators supply themselves with a range of public goods, including the public good of 'law and order'. The mechanism is wholly local and autonomous, in the sense that authority is not derived from the state. Indeed state officials outside the village barely know ofits existence. Figure 1.1 shows the relationship between the main components. Kottapalle is not an iwlated case. In a sample of 31 canal-irrigated villages, all in Kurnool district of Andhra Pradesh (map 2.1, p. 20), 8 villages have all four of the main corporate institutions -council, fund, 5 1 I refer to the fund as an 'institution· for expository convenience. II is not an institution in !he sense of a group of people whose activities arc coordinated towards some goal. However the fund does need to be distinguished from the council, because either can be present without the other. 7
  • 30.
    Vi/luge republics field guards,and common irrigators; II have some but not all; and 12 show no trace of any of them (table 8.1, p. 136). The sample was not drawn randomly (but rather with an eye to ease of access and a representative range ofwater supply conditions),6 so one cannot read off from these proportions how frequent the corporate forms are in canal- irrigated villages of Kurnool district as a '"'hole. But it is clear that they are not rare. Moreover, many dry villages have some of the same institutions. Jn a sample of I0 dry villages in lhe same area, 8 have field guards, 6 have a village council, and 6 have a village fund (table 8.2. p. 138). So some of the dry villages have more corporate organization than some of the irrigated villages. How does this type of organization differ from the traditional village panchayat? First of all, the Kottapalle type ofcouncil is not involved in what is normally identified as the central task of the village panchayat- the settlement of disputed claims and the administration of justice (other than in cases which directly involve its own authority); and there are good reasons why not. Most such tasks are performed by ad hoc musters of big men, or by government courts. Second, the Kottapalle type of council is involved in resource rr.anagement within the- village boundaries, in regulating what can and cannot he done and in sanctioning those regulations. Resource management is not identified as a usual function of village panchayats. Third, it has the authority to extract resources from village society for pursuing these purposes. Fourth, it has a specialized staff responsible to it for execution of its decisions. Finally, it is formally constituted, with a membership selected and re-selected year by year at a meeting of the general assembly and formally accountable to that assembly- so that it must keep written records of village fund expenditure and present these accounts (orally) to the general meeting. Jn these ways the Kottapalle type of council is significantly different from what is normally understood to be or to have been the village panchayat of village India. Jn another respect it is similar. Jt is no more representative of the main groupings in the village than the traditional panchayat was. Tinker says in his account ofJndian village government in general that '(the panchayat) was rarely representative ofthe village as a whole; it might be drawn from the members ofthe founding families or from the Brahmins and superior cultivators' (1954: 19). Most villages in our area are dominated by the Reddy caste, which is the main land- controlling and political office-controlling caste in the wider region. The 6 For details on the selection of the sample see chapter 8, n. I, p. 135. 8
  • 31.
    The village asa corporate group Reddys are not a numerical majority in each village but collectively own more of its area than any other caste grouping and hold the main positions at village level of the state administration. They also tend to monopolize councils of the Kottapalle type. Dumont is scornful of those wh.J fail to st:e the significaPce of the unrepresent?.tive nature of ostensibly village-wide bodies like the traditional panclwyat (or the Kottapalle council). It means. he says, that one cannot speak of a 'village' panchayat but only ofa 'dominant caste' panclzayat, and this is an important part ofhis argument that caste, not the village, is the primary unit of thought and action in Indian society. Dumont bases !1is argument only on the social composition of the panclwyat, not on what the panchayat does (a question in which he is, indeed, not much interested). Yet if the panchayat or council makes decisions in the agricultural sphere which are binding on all cultivating households - regardless of caste- it can sensibly be r'!ferred to as a 1•i//age organization. The roots of corporateness: scarcity and risk My approach to the question ofwhy some villages sustain a high level of corporate organization while others in the same area do not, places central importance on the net material benefits to be obtained from such organization by all or most participants. Features of soda! structure- the sorts of thing:; described by the classic sociological variables- are also relevat:t. to be sure. But the impetus comes from the attempt to secure certain b.enefits. or avoid certain costs. which could not be secured without deliberately concerted uction b) cultivators. The benefits relate to reduced risk of crc.p loss and of social contlict in the agricultural sphere. In 'corporate' villages these risks tend to be higher- as I shall show - than in 'noncorporatc' villages,7 because of differences between corporate and noncorporate villages in two kinds of scarcities. One is ofgrazing land, which tends to be scurcer in relation to the number of livestock in corporate villuges. The other is of canal irrigation water, which also tends to be scarcer and more unreliable in corporate villages. Both kinds of scarcities are likely to be found in widely differing peasant societies. which makes an account ofhow some Indian peasants respond to them ofmore than parochial interest. I now discuss these scarcities and social responses to them in more detail. Exclusivl.! possession (freehold) is one extreme on a continuum of 7 Corporate and non·corporate arc used as shorthand to refer to the presence or absence of the four institutions. 9
  • 32.
    Village republics property rights.No property, as in ocean fisheries or the atmosphere. is the other extreme. In between lies common property, where the rights to exploit a resource are hrld by persons in common with certain others. These rights may take a variety of forms: they may allow unlimited exploitation for those within a sp:!cificd group (as in commercial fisheries under national jurisdiction. until recently). or they may stipulate limits on exploitation for each user (as is commonly the case for commercial fisheries today. or as in 'stinting' on a grazing commons). Whether a resource is usea under private or some form of common property rights depends in large part (revolutions aside) on the cost of excluding others from the resource. Whereas it i!i easy for a farmer to demarcate an area ofcrop land and (;Xclude other people from its use, it is more difficult for him to demarcate an area of grazing land and exclude unwanted animals fi''Jm it (Coase 1960). 'fr do so reliably require~ ~encing. and fencing may be expensive in te..ns of materials. labour. und land taken out of production. So crop land in peasant societies is often owned privately while grazing land is owned in common by a local group. As low-cost fencing is introduced. grazing land may - sometimes only with protracted struggle agains1 those who benefit from the commons - also be made private. In many parts of the peasant world population pressure has reached the point at which most wasll' land has been put under the plough and little land is left fallow from one year to the next. At prevailing yield levels most ofthe produce has to go to feed humans rather than animals. Yet animals are needed not only as almost the sole non-human means of traction but also to provide manure on which the yield of the crops depends. As the English bishop Latimer declared in the sixteenth century. 'A plough Jur.d must have sheep: yea. they must have sheep to dung their ground for bearing ofcorn: for if they have no sheep to help fat the ground. they shall have but bare corn and thin' (Kerridge 1953-4: 282). A standard solution has been to put the fallow la1· · and the stubble left behind •1ft.:r the harvest in common: that is. to re: rict the rights of landowners to rights over the crops. leaving the fallow rasses and crop residues for the village's animals in common. An an.~al owner can choose to cut grasses or crop residues and carry them to his animals in their stalls: or tether them: or let them graze under the watch of a shepherd. Bui stall feeding is expensive in labour time: tethers can be slipped and in any case arc not feasible for large numbers of sheep and goats, which are the main source of ma11ure: and young shepherds may run away and play games. Where there are no natural obstacles 10
  • 33.
    The village asa corporate group separating crops from animals and where fencing is ruled out for cost reasons, it is difficult to protect the crops from the depredations of straying animals. The danger is worse the smaller and more scattered are the plots of each landowner, and the more uneven the harvesting dates. Scattering of holdings - the division of each holding into several or more plots in different locations - is common in peasant societies, from Japanese paddies to Swiss meadows. McCloskey (1975, 1976) argues that scattering is to be understood primarily as a means of reducing the risk ofcrop loss. by holding land in a diversified portfolio of locations (also Lipton 1968; Farmer 1960). Small scattered plots of course greatly increast: the cost of fencing- the cost of excluding animals. When the harvest is not regulated, tht:re will be times of the year when animal owners have the right to graze their animals on small scattered plots of fallow or stubble land adjacent to small plots ofstanding crops. The risk to those crops is then very high. All the more so because the incentives on tethering and watching are, unlike fencing. asymmetrical: whereas A's fence protects A's crop from B's animals as it protects B's crop from A's animals. A's tethering or watching is only to protect B's crop from A's animals- and A may not be unhappy seeing his animals getting fat on B's grain. So B's protection is contingent upon A's good will, A's fear of B's anger. or on the force of law (McCloskey 1976). Alternatively, crop watcr.ers may be placed on each plot, night and day. whenever animals are in the fields. Bur this is expensive, if not in cash then in terms ofother work which thest: crop watchers might otherwise be doing. The social and economic implications of these conditions have received strangely little attention from students of present-day peasant societies. On the other hand. they have been among the central concerns ofeconomic and social historians of medieval northern Europe. Across the Great European Plain, from England to east-central Europe, a single type ofagricultural system prevailed throughout !he later Middle Ages. This 'open-field' system8 had four main features: the land ofeach village was unfenced: the holdings of each farmer were scattered in several or many parcels about the land of the village; the fallow and the stubble was grazed in common; and an a~sembly ofvillagers regulated cropping, grazing and other facets of farm management (Hoffman 1975, Blum 8 I skirt a controversy among English medieval historians as to the meaning and utility of 'open-fields', 'common-fields', and 'sub-divided' fields (Thirsk 1967; Baker 1979).1 use open-fields in a morphological sense to describe land ownership where the land is divided into separately owned parcels without fencing around the parcels or around the larger blocks in which the parcels are located. JJ
  • 34.
    Village republics 1978, McCloskey1975, Campbell 1981 ). Medieval historians have given much attention to the by-laws enacted by these village assemblies for the regulation of cropping and grazing (Ault 1972). In our 'corporate' villages of South India all four features of the classic European open-field system are found. and much ofour attention will be on how that system operates in the specific ecological conditions ofupland South India today. We shall see that whereas the medieval by- laws commonly gave emphasis to regulation of the cropping, the corporate organization of our villages emphasizes regulation of the livestock. The institution of village field guards has the function of making the balance of incentives on tethering and animal shepherding less asymrr.etrical, by increasing the animal owner's liability for what his animals do. Water scarcity is the second main impetus to corporate control. Canal (or tank) irrigation water, even more than grazing land, is difficult to privatize because of the high ~ost of excluding othas. Water does not come in neat packages, and tends to escape wherever the ground slopes downwards. One tends to find, then, a system of common property rights in canal water (once tt has passed out of the government-owned and operated canal). The general feature of common rights is that the use of the resource is determined on a first come, first served basis: anyone within the unit ofcommon ownership can use the resource and cannot exclude others who are alrt>. iy using it. With water, those owning land closest to the canal outlc. :,ave first uccess and under simple common rights cannot be prevented from taking as much as they wish by those lower down who see themselves disadvantaged by excessive use higher up- no more than drivers on a road can be excluded by later arrivals who find the road congested. Beca•Jse of this, top-enders are inclined to waste water and to skimp on maintenance of field channels, and may dispose of their drainage water in ways inconvenient to tail- enders. How serious are the consequences for tail-enders depends very much on how scarce water is, as well as on crop type, topography and the density offield channels. It makes sense to suppose that as water scarcity increases, the risks to downstream farmers of crop loss due to inadequate water supply will increase. It might be possible for them to agree to compensate top-enders for not taking more than their share of water (Coase 1960), but the transaction costs ofsuch agreements would clearly be very high, the difficulties of policing it considerable. A more likely outcome is that tail-enders facing water shortages will push for strong community organization and formal rules of water allocation, while top-end farmers will have little such inclination. 12
  • 35.
    The village asa corporate group If the whole village is in a downstream location - far down a distributary from the main cana! -all or almost all irrigators may have a strong common in tcrest in bringing more water to the village as a whole. And if, as in Kottapalle, the fields ofmany irrigators are scattered rather than concentrated in one place, some in top-end, some in tail-end locations, they may each prefer formal rules and community control over unregulated, cont1ict-laden access to water. In Kottapalle, the institution of'common irrigators' embodies this prcference.9 Indeed, it has been noted worldwide that .:ommunities which depend on surface- t1ow irrigation tend to have a more clearly defined authority structure, a 'denser' community organization, than those which do noi (Hunt and Hunt 1976, Beardsley 1964, Coward (ed.) 1980). Water scarcity and the population-pressure-induced mixing of live·- stock with crops arc both aspects ofa fundamental problem which affects farmers almost everywhere. Farmers arc in varying degrees interdepend- ent in production, i!i the sense that wh&t one farmer docs wi!l have re- percussions for oihers in the neighbourhood. In classic peasant villages, with the land held in small, scattered plots, thts interdependence in production can be very high. Y~L pt:asant farmers make decisions about production in a pri·,ate, fragmented, uncoordinrned way. They do not themselves have to take account of the costs or benefits whir.h their actions impose on others. T!,e greater the interdependr.nce in produc- tion, the greater these 'ncig~•bourhood effects' or 'externalities' ofbenefit and cost are. So decisions which make sense from {he individual producer's point of view may turn out in the aggregate to be socially irration:JI; they may cause harm not only to the village <:~s a wrole but also to the apparently rational individuals themselves. The conse- quences of 'external' costs may be to reduce the incentive to apply optimal inputs to the land, for if the fruits of X's labor and investment are dissipated by Y's actions, X's incentives to cultivate his land are attenuated. Or, in the crop/livestock context, X may have to spend unproductive labour in crop-guarding against Y's animals, labour which could be better used for other things. But to suppose that these externalities of grazing and water are an important source of crop loss and social conflict is to suppose that villagers take no steps to reduce the risks. This is where village-based corporate organization, with its functions of regulating, rationing, and policing, intervenes. It represents an adaptatio... to the disjunction between the interdependence in production and the private decisionma- 9 The warahandi rules ofwater allocation in Northwest India rcprrscnl an alternative way of circumscribing common rights lo water; sec chapter 5. 13
  • 36.
    Village republics king systemwhich directs agriculture, by which the scope of private decisionmaking is reduced and the scope of collective decisionmaking increased. In this way some at least of the more costly externalities are 'internalized' (Barkley and Seckler 1972). Being under the regulation of a common authority, each private farmer in the village is no longer free to ignore the effects of his actions on others. However, many villages in our area arc not corporate in this sense: they have no village council or fund or field guards or common irrigators. It is not because the grazing and irrigation water has been privately enclosed. Rather, the interdependencies in production are handled informally, with external costs being reduced by mutual restraint between neighbours, especially that which proceeds from the danger that A will damage B's crops if Ballows his livestock to damage A's. So a village-based response to these interdependencies, with the group acting as a single unit rather than as a collection ofindividuals, is by no means inevitable. That is just what the Foster-Popkin image of peasant villages highlights. The collective act!on pessimists I shall argue that corporate organization of the- Kottapalle type is likely only when external costs arc high -when, in other words, the interde- pendencies in production are such that any one cultiviltor is exposed to a high risk of crop loss and social conflict as a re~ult of the activities of other people. The organization once in existence can then be elaborated to pursue common interests not closely related to the original defensive aims. This hypothesis not only explains much of the variation in corporateness within the sample of irrigated villages, but also explains why- surprisingly in view of those anthropological generalizations about irrigation causing a centralization of (local) authority- some dry villages have more corporate organization than some irrigated villages. At first glance the hypothesis makes obvious good sense. It is only a special case of orthodox group theory, which explains group formation in terms of the benefits of membership to rational, self-interested individuals (Truman IQ5J ). It could even be seen as a special case of the familiar Marxist interpretation of the role of the state in capitalist society: that the self-interested actions of individual capitalists (cul- tivators) are in sharp contradiction to the need of the system of production as a whole, because competition compels them to take certain actions which, if unchecked, would be disastrous for the continuation of the system within which they are major beneficiaries; so 14
  • 37.
    The village asa corporate woup the role of the state (council) is to intervene to pro~~ide the general conditions for non-destructive production and reproduction (Aithusser 1971 ). The problem common to both these sorts ofexplanations is that they make :m unproblematic jump from the functions to be served by group action t(J the fact ofgroup action; they take identification of the benefits to rational self-interested individuals, or of the needs of capitalists, as suflkicntto explain the institutional response. Rut the dismal frequency of degraded grazing comiJlons, depleted fisheries, and overexploited ground water is sufllcient reminder that groups often do not form and collective action frequently is not forthcoming, even when the benefits to rational, self-interested individuals arc clear. If the disjunction between interdependence in production and private dccisiomnaking always gave rise to a sociali1ing adaptation, the long-term future of the human race would indeed be assur.:d (Cowgill 1975). The problems in the way of that adaptation have been familiar to political theorists for a long time. David Humc, in the eighteenth century, put the dillicultics like this: two neighbours 111ay a~rce to drain a mcadr,w, which they possess in common; because 'tis easy for them to know each others mind; and each must perceive, that the im111ediatc conseqncnces of his f'aili ng in his pan, is the abandoning the whole project. But 'tis very ditliruh, and indt·ed impossible, that a thousand persons shou'd agree in any such acti·.l~l. it being ditlicult for them to concert !;o complicated a design. and still more diflicnh for them to execute it; while each seeks a pretext to free himself of the trouble and expense, and won'd lay the whole burden on others. Political society easily remedies both these inconveniences (A Tmui.H' o( //rmzmr Nawrc, llJ65: 5JH). In other words, collective action is easier to organize on a voluntary basis in small groups than in larger groups. Humc's usc of 'political society' as the deus ex machina for resolving tht~ rrohlcms oflarge groups will strike the modern eye as quaint. But the underlying argument remains cogent. The distinction between individual and group interests means that collective action requires more than intensity of need; it requires ways by which the inconveniences of each person's attempt to lay the burden on others, and of huving to reach agreement on a single level of supply, can be overcome. This is a classic problem in what has come to be known variously as the theory of 'collective action' or 'public goods'. 10 Public goods, in contrast to private goods, have the quality that no individual can be 10 Some writers treat the theory ofpuhlic goods as a spc.:ial case ofthe theory ofcollective action (e.g. Snidal 1985). 15
  • 38.
    Village republics excluded frombenefiting from them once they are provided (the quality of'non-excludability'). Or at any rate, public goods have the quality that exclusion is costly or difficult. If people cannot be excluded from using the good it is intuitively clear that thi!y may be reluctant to contribute towards the provision of the good; they may be tempted to 'free ride', to obtain the good without themselves contributing. Why should a shipowner voluntarily contribute to the cost of lighthouses if he can be11efit from the lighthouse service without paying'! He may value the service highly, but unless he and other shipowners a.·e prepared to pay, their collective demand will not be translated into effective Jemand. Without sources of finance other than voluntary contributions there may be no lighthouses to warn ships off the rocks. It is also intuitively clear that if a group contains diverse preferences about how much of the public good should be supplied (how thoroughly ihe meadow shouk~. be drained, inHume's example) it may be difficult to reach a consensus. Yettherc can be only one level ofsupply in the case of a public good, so a consensus must somehow be reached. Where there are more than a handful of individuals whose preferences must converge, the transa.:tion costs ofobtaining the agreement may be high. Even ifthere was perfect consensus the free rider problem would remain; but the need to reach consensus adds to the difficulties facing any group or potential group that would provide itself with public goods. This line of thought has led many analysts to be pessimistic about the chances that those who confront the problem of providing themselves with public goods can find satisfnctory solutions by agreement within the group. 11 Mancur Olson has captured this pessimism in a now celebrated theorem: 'u::less there is coercion or some other special device to make individuals act in their common interest, rational, self-interested individuals n·i/1 not act to acl>i<>ve their common or group interests' (1971 :2). Olson talks of comr: :m 'interests', which are also public goods; by definition the achievement of any common goal or the satisfaction of any common interest (that is, a goal or interest that cannot be obtainerl by an individual actiitg on his own) means ·chat a public or collective r.ood has been provided. So Olson's theorem 1 ' Russell, commenting on a set of papers applying public choice theory to rural development analysis, states that, 'identifying what will not work nearly e11:hausts the capability of the theory, for its ~·~ongest results are impossibility theorems ... When it comes to positive results, to solutions to the problems ofcollective choice in general or of public goods provision in particular, the theorists have been much less successful' (1981:8). While this is a central tendency of the public choice literature it is no more than that. Some theorist~ within the same intellectual tradition do have a much more constructive orientation; such as Elinor Ostrom (1985a and b), R. Hardin (1982), Michael Laver (1981), Richard Kimb:r (1981), Ford Runge (1984). 16
  • 39.
    The ril/age as1 . .rporate group maintains that interest group membership, in the sense ofcontributions to a group objective, must be accounted for not bv the rational, self- interested choice ofindividuals, but b) their being compelled or offered inducements to belong. (The punishments and inducements must be 's~lective' so that those who do not contribute canoe treated differently from those who do.) Without either selective pt.nishments or induce- ments, individuals will free ride, and the public good will not be supplied or will be supplied in sub-optimal amounts. Garrett Hardin captures the same pessimism in his account of the 'tragedy of the comli1ons'. He asks the reader to imagine a finite pasture 'open to all'. Each herdsman is assumed to be a rational utility maximizer who receives positive utility from selling his own animals and negative utility from overgrazing. When the aggregate ofall herdsmen's activities begins ~o exceed the sustainab1 ~ yield of the pasture, each herdsman is still motivated to add murc and more animals since he receives all of the proceeds from his extra animals and only a partial share of th~ additional cost resulting from his own overgrazing. The denouement is appalling: 'Each man is locked into a system that compels him to increase his herd without limit - in a world that is limited. Ruin is the destination towards which all men rush, each pursuing his own best interest in a society that believes in the freedom of the commons' (1968: 1244). [n more measured terms, Hardin's argument is that if a group of people are placed analytically in a situation where they could mutually benefit ifall adopted a rule ofrestrained usc ofa common resource, they wiil not uo so in the absence ofan external enforcer ofagreements. Each individual has an incentive to ignorl! the social costs of his resource use for fear that others will capture the benefits ofthe resource before he can. The lack of exclusion from the resource thus creates an incentive for a rate ofaggregate usc which exceeds the physical or biological renewal of the resource (Ostrom 1985a). Far-reaching proposals for institutional change in the management of common property resources have been justified by this kind ofargument (Ostrom 1985b, Runge 1986). According to one school, the establish- ment of full privat;! property rights over the commons is a necessary condition for avoidinJ the tragedy. 'The only way to 11 1id the tragedy of the commons in !lat.;raJ resources and wildlife', says Robe~! Smith, 'is to end the common-properly system by creating a system of private property rights' (1981 :457; see also Demsetz l967. North and Thomas 1977, Johnson 1972, Picardi and Siefert 1976). Another school, however, is equally emphatic that only the allocation to the state of full authority to regulate the commons can hope to succeed (Ehrenfeld 1972, 17
  • 40.
    Village republics Carruthers andStoner 1981, Hardin 1968). William Ophuls. for example, argues that 'because of the tragedy of the commons. environ- mental problems cannot be solved through cooperation ... and the rationale for government with major coercive powers is overwhelming ... · (1973: 229). For proponents on both sides. the policy issue is simply how to get the desired change accomplished with the least opposition from those involved. Yet here we have a case in rural India which tits neither of the prevailing approaches. In villages where the potential externalities of water and grazing arc high, there has been no move to privatize these resources- this option is largely ruled out on cost grounds; nor docs the state lay down rules ofresource use- it would in any case be too weak to enforce them. Rather, the villagers themselves have constituted an authority to impose rules of restrained a.-:ccss. So in this case the people ·.vho face the problems lrm·e been able to devise and sustain rules which serve to keep costs and conflict within tolerable limits. To do so tl":ey have created a differentiated and active public core, extending authorita- tive regulation into village society in the form ol water rules, grazing rules. harvesting rulc3, roao maintenance, well repairs, and other things. Compared to other villages. more of their social interactions are 'political' in the sense of being in relation to a distinct political institution. If we follow Eck~tcin (1982) and take political development to be the growth of the poitical domain of society. we (;an talk of these corporate villages as polit:cally more developed than those without such organization. How and why has this come about, and what docs this expe:icnce say about prevailing theories of collective action and comr.1on property resource management? 18
  • 41.
    2 The circumstances ofvillage organization Peninsula India has three distinct ecological zones. A coastal plain rims the perimeter; mountain ranges bound the coastal plain; and in betJeen is a vast uplanci, 500 to 3,000 feet in elevation, generally flat but dissected by river gorges and punctuated by stark rocky outcrops (maps 2.1, 2.2, 2.3). The climate of the upland is semi-arid; rainfall is generally less than 750 millimetres a year concentrated in a single season. Agriculture is based on sorghum and millet, the typical food ~rops of the semi-arid tropics. 1 Agricultural operations are almost entirely unmechanized. Oxen provide the draught power, men and womrn with simple tools provide the rest. Most of the population lives in large villages, tightly clustered and regularly spaced settlements usu:.~lly of between 1,000 and 4,000 people, surrounded by a patchwork of open fields. Being constructed of stone and mud with few houses higher than a single storey, the villages seem to grow out of the land. Then! are no fences or hedgerows to define the landscape, and what trees are seen are clustered around villages and along the margins of roads, rivers, and canals. Agriculture is a hazardous under•aking in this dry and unadorned setting. How village cultivators respond to the hazards is a matter not only of village characteristi1;s, but also of the wider struc- tures of markets, states, and inequalities into which villages are- more or less- integrated. This chapter examines thr.se larger circumstances. Governments, markets and inequality We must begin in the nineteenth century (with a glance still further back), for while little is known of the history of the pattern ofcorporate organization it is clear enough that it is not a recent, post-independencl! phenomenon, a local off-shoot from governmental development efforts. There are hints that something like it was not uncommon in the late nineteenth century. 1 On millels and 1heir distribulion SCI! Mann 1968: Ch. 31. 19
  • 42.
  • 43.
    INDIA THE V DISTRIBUTARYSYSTEM OF THE M N CANAL AND VILLAGE LOCATIONS (INS£T FROM MAP 2 7) __.___.___ Canol ......______ Dlshtbulorlel Reromnce Numbers: 0 Irrigated VIllages (Table e1) 01 O!y VIllages (Table e2) VIllage Boundoltes 3 5 KOTTAPALLE 2 01 19 02 04 20 03 2.2 The VDistributary System ofthe MN Canal and village locations (inset from map 2.1) 21
  • 44.
    -- 7(0-- ..-/ I' I INDIA / ' '·-aQJ .woROLOGY, SOILSAND !ANDFORMS THE V DiSTRIBUTARY AREA Worlor ~ST.dl ;': .•,· ~~' Clavi/Looms 2.3 Hydrology. soils and landforms: the V Distributary area 22
  • 45.
    The circumstances ofvillage organization The South Indian uplands in historical perspecti1•e The British colonial government took over the administration ofmost of the uplands of South India in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.2 For many centuries prior to the arrival of the British, the political history of the IJplands was a constant succession of wars and skirmishes between small feuding states and chiefdoms, each centred upon a town or small city (Beals 1974: 13-15). There were periodic unifications, but these often meant little more than t~e exacting of tribute from subordinate chiefs and princelings, who themselves were exacting tribute from their often poorly controlled villages and towns.3 In particular, the sophisticated kingdoms which evolved on the fertile eastern coastal plain periodically spread westwards into the uplands in an :lltempt to control the watersheds on which their livelihoods were based. But the cost of control over large distances and the infertility of the soil caused them repeatedly to withdraw,leaving behind petty states and chiefdoms as the basic units of political organization above the locality- run on the basis of brawn, ceremonial pomp, and warlike display. State 'administration', such ~sit was, was concentrated in the principal towns. Local power rested with those who dominated the land and its labour; and their political orientation was almost exclusively confined to very restricted localities, to face-to-face relationships. They had, in Washbrook's terms, a 'local-level' rather than a 'state-level' political culture (1977). In the countryside, groups of 'urban' or 'state- level' culture which might have formed the age11ts of direction in localities, were few in number. On the well-watered tracts of the eastern coastal plain, on the other h;md, such groups were much more important even in countryside localities. For there, abundant r<>infall and irrigation made cultivation operations sufficiently routine to be left in the hands of low status labourers, while the landowners could detach themselves from the direct management of agriculture and devote themselves to more 'urbane' pursuits. Outside these lowland riverine tracts. more hazardous rainfall and more restricted irrigation made such 2 'South India' is today sometimes used to refer to the states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala. It is also sometime~ used to designate the entire peninsula. Stein's usage is more precise: 'that portion of pei insula India south of the Karnataka watershed (excluding modern Kerala) on the west, and the Krishna- Godavari delte. on the east. Within this portion of the peninsula, there has eltisted a region characterized by a high degree of sharing of significant social, cultural, and political elements and an order ofinteraction such as to constitute a viable unit for the study of certain problems' (19110:32-3). 3 Stein 1980:44-5. 23
  • 46.
    Village republics detachment bylandowners from management oftheir lands less feasible (Stein 1980:27-9).4 When the British arrived the village was already established as the basic economic unit, in the sense that all its fields were worked under the direction of and almost exclusively with the labour of its residents, and most mcome rights from the land were restricted to persons of the settlement (Stein I980:417). It had also been established as the basic political unit in a wider structure of rule. The rulers of the last great empire before the British, the Vijayanagar Empire (from the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries), introduced a set of village officers and servants which the British were later to revive: namely, the headman (often called the Reddy), the accountant (karnum), and the watchmen (talaiyari- known today in our area as tallari). Just what these 'watchmen' did is not clear (today, they assist the village acco11ntant as crop inspectors, revenue collectors. runners and general dogsbodies). The village functionaries were paid in the form of rights to particular plots of village lands, which were exempt from regular tax payments (Stein 1980:424). Inequality and market relations With the arrival of the British colonial government war-lords every- where lost their military power, and in many places much of their economic power as well. At village level, however, the existing structure continued. Villa&:!S tended to consist ofa small number oflandlords and a great mass ofpeople who depended on both wage labouring a'ld petty cultivation, the latter being comprehensively dependent on the former. Even worse off were the estimated I0 to 20 per cent of the population which depended entirely on labouring on the fields of others; such people were seldom more than 'predial serfs' (Washbrook 1977:68). In 4 Stein emphasizes that local assemblies (ofsupra-village size) were important during the medieval period in South India. 'A distinctive fealur.: of medieval South Indian slates was the primacy ofassemblies ofall kinds in the governance of the numerous localized societies of contemporary South India. It was an assembly of some sort which most consistently articulated and took responsibility for the decisions to allocate agrarian resources to various purposes, at least from the ninth to the fourteenth centuries. With regard to agrarian resources, the polity was less one of regal ... raj [rule), than one of assembly, or sabbha raj' (1980:47). Later, however, he qualifies this generalization, saying that assembly rule was larsely limited to the fertile, well-watered tracts of the plains; while in the dry uplands hereditary, highly localized chieftainships prevailed, the chiefs belonging to the dominant local peasantry (110, 142). Moreover, even in the areas of'assembly rule' it is difficult to see from his account just what the assemblies did, and in particular whether they e11r.rcised control over cropping and livestock other than on lands apportioned to temple maintenance (161, 168). 24
  • 47.
    The circumstances ofvillage organization tht. late nineteenth century, probably only about 5 to 10 per cent of cultivators would have enjoyed a comfortable degree of economic independence or better. 5 In the part of the uplands where Kurnool district is located, this class of independents was composed very largely of members of the Reddy caste. It was mainly the big landowners who responded as the uplands became more closely integrated into international markets. By the 1870s some parts of upland peninsula Indi1 had as much as 30 to 50 per cent of cultivated area under commercial crops. mainly cotton and groundnut; elsewhere IS to 25 per cent was quite common.6 But it is to be noted that even big landlords had most of their land under food crops and obtained their own food from their own land; the degree of speciali- zation in commercial crops was not large. To promote this expansion ofmarket relations the British constructed roads, railways, and canals.7 A railway linking Madras and Bombay was built in the second half of the nineteenth century, crossing the southern part of Kurnool district in 1870. Nowk. the market town near to which most of our villages lie, was connected to the railway network in 1887. By 1886 Kurnool district had 900 kilometres of made-up road (in an area of 18,200 square kilometres). having had none in 1839 (Rajagopal 1974: 128-32). Canals were intended to provide navigation as well as irrigation. In mid ninetet:nth century a ;-Jian was mounted (astonishingly ambitious it seems even today) to build a chain of navigable canals right across the country between Madras and Bornbay. ' Washbrook 1977:71, see also Brakenbury 1915:87. Eleven per cent of Kurnool landowners paid more than Rs. 30 in the 1880s, 63 per cent paid less than Rs. 10 (Benson 1889: 102). 6 Banaji 1978:361- 2. Commercial crops in Banaji's calculation include wheat, cotton, oilseeds and 'miscellaneous crops'. 7 Roads, railways and canals were intended not just to promote commercial agriculture, but also to protect against famine. Early colonial administrators frequently exclaimed about the severity of the environment. 'No high mountain ranges, no thick forest, the paucity ofperennial rivers, a low rainfall, an enervatir.g climate- these are part of what nature has given to this land and no wonder its material progress is hampered', wrote one. 'At first glance', remarked another, 'the great hlack plains, the aching wilderness of stone, the bare dusty roads and summer air, halfdust and wholly heat. realize vividly the abomination of desolation' (Government of Andhra Pradesh, Finance and Planning Department, 1973:113 and 31 respectively. no source given for fmt, second from J.C. Molony in his Census Report for the Deccan Division, 1911 ). In the Great Famine of 1876-8, S'lme 250,000 people died or ned Kurnool district out or a population or just under a million at the start of the 1870s; twenty years later the population had still not regained its pre-1876 level. This was the last big killer famine. The westerly part of the district suffered a population fall of37 per cent between the 1871 and 1881 censuses, the Nowk valley tract, 25 per cent. and a more easterly, good rainfallta/uk, since detached, less than 25 per cent, giving a district average of 26 per cent (Benson 1889). 25
  • 48.
    Village republics Only oneupland link in this proposed chain was built. It is the MN Canal, from which most ofthe villages of this study are irrigated. It was constructed between 1860 and 1890, 300 kilometres (190 miles) long. The expansion of market relations did not do much to reduce one of the genericcharacteristics ofSouth Indian peasant society- it'> localness and autonomy. Compared to the Indo-Gengetic Plain, heartland of successive North Indian civilizations, Brahmins and other Sanskritized, 'urban-oriented' groups were thin on the ground; there was little connection between the religious organization of the towns and that of localities; the poverty of dry cultivation did not encourage extensive, urban-based trade network ofthe sort that developed in the North; and the method of tax collection used by the British in the South -direct collection of tax from each landowner, rather than tax-farming by intermediaries- meant that South Indian localities were not connected to towns via links with supra-local tax or rent receivers. Hence the social structure ofSouth Indian peasant society continued to be characterized by territorially segmented clientage relationships between land control- ling groups and their dependents, while socially-horizontal, territorially-extensive relationships were much more important in the North (Washbrook 1975). The contrast can still be seen today in marriage patterns: the typical radius from which village brides are obtained in North India is of the order of 200 to JOO villages, in the South, 20 to 30 villages (Srinivas and Shah with reference to 1960, cited in Stein, 1980:9). On the other hand, villages in South India have not been 'closed' in the sense used by Wolf(l957), at least since the early colonial period. Most villages had no communally owned arable land, no clear notion of village membership, and no restriction on outsid_.,_, owning land (though on the upland!> difficulties of travel and the absence of legally defined tenancy made ownership at a distance more problematic than in the North). The British soon gave up an attempt to implement collective tax assessment village by village. The colonial government Under colonial government the Madras Presidency had the 'thinnest' administration of any area of British India. It had vast districts (sometimes twice the size ofdistricts in North India), and a tiny cadre of provincial -centrally appointed and mobile- officials, whether British or Indian. It had vast responsibilities, for over three-quarters of the Presidency the British used a different method ofland revenue collection to that used in much of North India and to that which had prevailed in 26
  • 49.
    The circumstances ofvillage organization the South prior to their arrival. Instead of relying on tax-farming intermediaries (zamindars) andfor collective village assessment, the government stripped away intermediary layers of authority between itself and the cultivator and undertook to measure and assess land revenue to be paid on each field - in a Presidency ofsome 140,000 square miles and 30 to 40 million people, most of them in villages. The government concluded that the only way its small core of officers could effectively govern was simultaneously to utilize and circumscribe the powers of the pre-existing village establishments which had been created under tlte Vijayanagar Empire. The dilemma was to sustain a village Md sub-district administration strong enough to raise revenue, keep order and undertake some limited civic responsibilities- but not strong enough to shut the government out. One line of approach was to build up intermediate levels of government between village and state. Hence it at:empted to create a three-tiered arrangement of government within each district, of'Union Panchayats' (councils for clusters of villages), 'Taluk Boards', and 'District Boards'. The intention was to make thes~ institutions respon- sible for many conservation and development tasks and to give power in them to local Indian notables, so en~uring that the local powers had an interest in seeing that the work got done. 'Between the 1890s and the 1920s, bcal cc•mmittees to enforce forest conservation, to control the siting and size ofliquor shops, to hear appeals against the income-tax, to select policemen, to settle communal disputes and to control the distribution of water from irrigation schemes were set up in many areas [of the Presidency]' (Washbrook 1977: 62). It is not clear how much, if any, presence this local government structure had in villages. In particular, it is very doubtful that the 'Union Panchayat' at the bottom had t:ven as much significance as its successor, •he village Panchayat of today.8 On the other hand, this government structure ofcommittees and special fund~. operating at a level not very far above the village, may have provided institutional models for village- based institutions. Just as the government got a considerable portion of its revenue from liquor licensing (by 1882 liquor licensing formed as much as IS per cent of gross government revenue in the Presidency), so the Kottapalle council has learned ways of instituting its own liquor licensing, to raise money for the village fund. The second line of approach was to strengthen the establishment of village revenue and law functionaries, in particular, the offices of 8 The vast majority of villages were not touched by a Union Panchayal, at least up until 1922 (Rajagopal 1974: 10). 27
  • 50.
    Village republics accountant (karnam)and headman - the headman was nonnally from the dominant landowning caste (the Reddy caste), while the accountant was commonly a Brahmin. These were the two roles through which passed most communication between government and village populace; they were the pivot of the revenue and law and order systems. As executors of government, and under only remote and flexible supervi- sion, they enjoyed considerable power and perquisites. Until early in the twentieth century it remained a fairly simple matter for them to make (illegally) their own distribution of the tax demand within the village, collecting their cut on the way. In short, 'At the base of the sprawling superstructure of imperial government, the British had built a little monolith' (Baker 1979:30). For our purpose three points about the political institutions of the colonial government arc important. First, the village was taken as a single unit in the overall structure of government. Second, the government's ability to intervene was very limited. The administration tended, in the absence of effective supervision or social controls, to become 'a series ofdespotisms within despotisms from the village to the district capital and beyond' (Washbrook 1977:27). As long as the revenue flowed out of the localities and order was maintained, the British government left its officials alone- for it had no choice. 'Indigenous, non-official powers, by one means or another, absorbed and controlled the functions of the state in the locality' (1977:47). Third, the new pattern of political institutions which the British created did not create nell' channels along which the resources could be passed- from tenant to tenant, from Muslim to Muslim, or other such socially-horizontal networks which did emerge in North India. Rather, the new arrangements supported the existing socially-vertical relation- ships of local clientage, passing resources down these lines. So, as Washbrook sums up, 'Political development elongated the factions of local Madras, it did not cut across or undermine them' (1975: 17). The village in colonial government The village officer establishment was paid out of a 'village service fund' until early in the twentieth century. This fund was filled from the produce ofcertain lands which belonged nominally to the state and were made available to the functionaries at much reduced rates of tax; and secondly, from a small portion of each farmer's nop.9 One calculation for coastal Andhra in the 1840s suggested th:.tt about 8 to 12 per cent of 9 The small proportion was called mera, the Telegu version of jajmani. 28
  • 51.
    The circumstances of'village organization gross village tax revenue was apportioned for the village service fund. In addition to provisioning the village 'Jfficcrs and servants, the fund was also used to make payments to sub-district (taluk) office personnel, temple maintenance, village entertainments, and the like (Rao 1977: 25). And at least in the government's administrative models- to wha. extent in practice is difficult to tell- the village officers also controlled a number ofother special funds, such as a fund for maintenance oft-Inks (local carthcrn-dam resc:-voirs) fina need from tax exemptions O'l certain lands, a forl'St conservancy fund financed from a tax on sales of forc~;t produce, and other funds from sources as diverse as road tolls, grass rents and fishing rents (Gop<lakrishnamah Chctty 1886:ch. 16). There is also some indication that ad hoc collections were made from village households for specific purposes, either to supplement a fund or to make up for a fund that did not exist. Rao reports for coastal Andhm in the 1840s that, 'a portion of the gross [village] produce was in general appropriated apparently for repair of tanks and the like, but its outlay was always so inefficient that the ryots [farmers] were frequently obliged to make a collection among themselves for this purpose' (1977:21). Today the local fund principle is continued in the Panchayat's income arrangements. The Panclmyat's fund is to be paid a percentage of the value of all registered land transactions which take place within the village; a percentage ofthe land tax, a population grant, a house tax. The Panclwyat may demand licence fees for tempor<Jry occupation of sites for market or other purposes, and may levy fines for stipulated offences, to be paid into the fund. In practice. however, such provisions arc little used. Here then arc a series of more or less close parallels with the institutions of Kottapallc's 'autonomous' organization. The ideas of management of village affairs by village otliccrs, of standing funds for 'public' village purposes. of franchises with which to raise revenue for the funds, of village work groups paid from the village fund (and prot.Jably selected by the village officers). of fines for certain kinds of offences to be paid into a viiLtge fund - these ideas were familiar in governmental ordinances for village governance (and presumably reflected patterns already in usc). And the long-existing principle of dispute settlement - the ad hoc grouping of a number of people, normally an uneven number between five and nine, to hear a dispute and passjudgement, emphasizing not so much the question ofwhat is the law but what is a workable compromise · this principle was written into the formal orJinanccs for village governance; the village magistrate (munsif) was to be given powers to call such a panchayat to settle disputes, 29
  • 52.
    Village republics provided bothsides agreed in writing to abide by the verdict. 10 This is not the same thing as a standing committee for village resource management, but it does embody the idea of a committee of villagers nonetheless. Post-independence g01•ernment Despite Independence in 1949, the structure of local administration has continued virtually intact from the days of British rule. The district remains the major administrative uuit under the state. Responsibility for Jaw and order and collection oftax revenue is concentrated in the hands ofthe collector, a civil service official appointed from above by the state government. Below the collector, the district is divided into a number of units of general administration, the relevant one for our purpose being the sub-district (ta{uk), with roughly I00,000-200,000 people. Tl!n years after Independence India launched a program to create a new hierarchy for carrying out de'dopment ta:;ks and for increasing popular participation in development. This was the system ofPanchayat Raj. A new hierarchy was creat(!d parallel with the old administrative hierarchy, to specialize in canrying out development programs. In Andhra Pradesh (but not in all states) the Collector is also responsible for this hierarchy. The level of this hierarchy which corresponds to the sub-district, is the 'block,' comprising 50 to ISO villages. It has a staff of extension officers and village-level workers. There is no lower-level unit in this hierarchy. Alongside the development hierarchy was created a set of tiered electoral bodies, to which considerable powers were to be devolved. These are called, collectively, Panchayats. At the lowest level, villagers directly elect members ofa Gram Panchayat or statutory village council. These bodies are then represented on tile Panchayat Samiti, covering a development block. At the third level, the Zilla Parishad functions for an area coterminus with the district. The Panchayati Raj system is separate from the general legislative process. The legislative assemblies ofea.ch state and the national parliament are directly elected from constituencies that usually have 'lome correspondence with taiuks. There is no formal conne(:tion between the Panchayats and the legislatures, except that the members ofthe Legislative Assembly may be ex-officio members of th~ Samiti and Zilla Parishad. This is the structure. Much has been written on why, on the whole, it has not worked; and why, in particular, it has failed to root develop- 10 In practice the use of a 'public' panchayat of this fonn was very restricted (Gopalakrishnamah Chetty 1886:237). 30
  • 53.
    The circumstances ofvillage organization mental decisionmaking in the hands of villagers through their elected representatives (ISVIP 1971: 173ff, Gaikwad 1981 ). Part ofthe answer is that the scopt: for local autonomy is in fact severely restricted. As one study puts it, 'with Panchayati Raj, the pouw of decision remains concentrated and centrC~Jized in the political and administrative hierar- chies, though in form it seems dispersed through the various organs of local self-government' (ISVIP 1971: 183). In Andhra Pradesh the village Panchayat.1· are moribund virtually everywhere (for example, no elec- tions were held between 1970 and 19R I). They do receive a small grant of income to be spent on village development purposes: but in practice this is spent largely at the di-;cretion of the Panchayat president (sarpanch). State governments over the 1970s have seen to it that the powers and resourc(;S of the middle-tier Panchayat Samiti are very restricted. Government, whether electoral or administrative, is for most villages another world. The 'block' office has oflkials who might be helpful to cultivators, such as agricultural extension oflkers and veterinary officers. But such otlkers rarely set foot in villages, and then generally as a result of special pleading. The lowest level cmrloyecs of the Irrigation Department -the channel men who patrol the banks of the canal network and their foremen - move freely in and about the irrig2.ted villages. But the next higher official. the Supervisor, the lowest rank to wield significant authority, spends his time between office and major water control structures, rarely moving along the canal roads unless specifically requested to by concern·~d farmers. Police, too, are rarely seen in the villages. They tend to be much feared, and brought into a case only ifit is very serious, as for a murder. Villagers say with wry cynicism, 'police keep the company of criminals only'. At the local level, then. the state remains for most of the population a grace-and-favour state. Officials are set:n and sec themselves as dis- pensers of favours. It is widely assumed that if an official wishes to do something for you he can, and the probiem is how to make him want to. If you fail, it is because you do not have enough influence or have not paid enough money. Politicians make all kinds of promises before an election, and they might pass through your village to muster support. But that's the last you see of them and their promises, till the next election (Bailey 1971 ). Access to governmental power is much easier for some than for others. Wealth helps; so does being a Reddy. The Reddy caste is the dominant caste in the southern uplands of Andhra Pradesh, in the sense that its memhers own more land than other castes and also dominate the legislative bodies and (to a somewhat lesser extent) the bureaucratic 31
  • 54.
    Village republics hierarchies ofthe state.11 They are, hoUever, a farming caste, people of the soil. Whereas in other parts of South India the dominant castes (often Brahmins) have long since disengaged from the active manage- ment of land, living on rents and making the business of rule their original vocation, this is not the case amongst the Reddys (Elliott 1970). So today, as in the past, effective management of land and effective political authority are combined in the h?.'lds ofone ascriptively-defined group. The Congress Party has long been the dominant party in Andhra Pradesh; indeed, the state is known as one ofits national strongholds. 12 This is not due to a lack of competition from other parties or independents; in every Assembly election there are normally several contestants per seat. But the main challenges to Congress have come from rival groups within the party, not from without. Voting turnout has averaged 60 to 70 per cent ofthe electorate, and a 1972 study showed that four-fifths of the (sampled) electorate could correctly name the winner in their Assembly constituency, and four-fifths correctly named the Prime Minister. But membership ofa political party is limited to less than I per cent (Sharma and Madhusudan Reddy 1979:457-90). Kurnool district Kurnool is a rural district. Over 80 per cent of its population Gust under 2million in 1971) is classed as rural. Population density is IOS people per square kilometre,13 which on Boserup's scale is group 8, 'dense' as distinct from 'medium' and 'very dense'. There are over 900 villages, most with between I,000 and 4,000 inhabitants; and 10 towns. 14 The district headquarters, Kurnool town, has a population of 140,000, and four other towns have over 20,000 people. One of these is Nowk, a bustling marketicg centre of 63,000, the nearest town to many of our irrigated villages. The district is crossed by important interstate road and rail routes. Hyderabad, the state capital, population nearly 2 million, is seven to nine hours away from Nowk by several-times-daily II Since lhr.; fom.alion of Ihe slale or Andhra Pradesh in Ihe mid-l950s, Reddys, Velma~ and Kammas have held 45 lo 58 per cenl of Cabinel seals, wilh Ihe Reddys being lhe largesl group (28lo 38 per cenllillt971) (Sharma and Madhusudan Reddy 1979:470). 12 The eleclions of t983 broughl a regional parly 10 power allhe slale level, ending lhe era of Congress dominance. 13 The slale average is 153 persons per sq. km. This and olher dala in lhis paragraph come from lhe 1971 census. 14 Towns are defined as seulemenls wilh more !han 5,000 people of whom alleasllhree- quarlers depend on non-agricullural pursuils. 32
  • 55.
    Exploring the Varietyof Random Documents with Different Content
  • 56.
    The probability is,that whenever Mr. Spence read in Burke's Landed Gentry that Mr. A. or Mr. B., in preference to being considered as the founder of a new family, supposed himself, or wished to be supposed by others, to be descended from an old stock of the same name, he kindly offered to supply the desired information, and was ready to execute a pedigree to order. G. A. C. [The Editor has been informed by a person on whose accuracy he can rely, that a lady who received a letter from Mr. Spence offering certain information respecting his family taken from the Cotgreave pedigree, and who imprudently sent money for the same, got nothing but the most absurd rubbish in return, and having been induced to make inquiries into the subject, was fully satisfied that the whole thing was a fraud.] LICENCES TO CRENELLATE. (Vol. ix., p. 220.) The subjoined list of names and places will supply Mr. Parker with the counties of all the places named in his inquiry, except two in which I suspect some error. If farther references to authorities are desired, they will be given with pleasure in reply to a private application, but would crowd your pages inconveniently. 1. Cokefield for Melton—Cokefeud for Moulton, Suffolk. 2. Grisnak for Molun—Query this? 3. Langeton for Newton in Makerfield.—L. for Newton Hall or Castle, the head of the Palatine Barony of Newton, in Lancashire. 4. Esselynton for Esselynton—E. in Northumberland. 5. Trussel for Cubleston—C. in Staffordshire.
  • 57.
    6. De laBeche for De la Beche—De la Beche Castle. Aldworth, Berks. 7. The same for Beaumes—Beaumys Castle, Shinfield, Berks. 8. Cobham for Pringham—P. alias Sterborough Castle, Surrey. 9. The same for Orkesdene—O. in Kent. 10. "Burghchier" for Stanstede—Bourchier for Stansted, Essex. 11. Dalham for "Credonio"—"Fortalicium in loco de Crodonio." Printed Cal. Rot. Pat. p. 143. 12. Lengleys for Heyheved—Highhead Castle, in Cumberland. 13. Aeton for Chevelyngham—Heton for Chillingham, Northumberland. Geo. O. Sedbury Park, Chepstow. There can, I think, be little doubt that Stansstede, in Mr. J. H. Parker's list, is Stanstead Hall, near Halstead in Essex. I have never seen Stanstead Hall, but about a month since I was in company with the late occupant; from whom I learned, in casual conversations, that it was an ancient house, with moat and fortifications. In addition to this I may state, that there are monuments in the old church (St. Andrew) of Halstead to some of the Bourchier family. These facts, taken together, seem to fix the locality with sufficient precision. One of the monuments just referred to is a brass, commemorating Sir Bartholomew Bourchier and his two wives; which, when I copied it in 1847, was under the flooring of a pew in the south aisle. He died May 8, 1409; and was previously the possessor of Stanstead Hall: so I learn from my own MS. Catalogue of brass rubbings in my collection, but I am not able to give any better reference to authenticate the statement.
  • 58.
    W. Sparrow Simpson. Heyheved,mentioned in Mr. Parker's list, is Highhead Castle in Cumberland. In the reign of Edward II. it was a peel house (pelum de Heyheved) possessed by Harcla, Earl of Carlisle. In modern times it became the property of a family named Richmond, one of whom erected the present house, after a plan by Inigo Jones. But he died before it was finished, leaving co-heirs, who quarrelled about the partition of the estate, and actually put a hedge through the centre of the house. Eventually one-half came into the hands of Lord Brougham, who is understood to have purchased the other, and will probably restore the whole. K. NEWSPAPER FOLK LORE. (Vol. vi., pp. 221. 338. 466.; Vol. ix., pp. 29. 84.) It may be instructive to collate the four stories recorded in the above references, and compare them with a case that was brought before Mr. Jardine at Bow Street Police Court; and which was reported in The Times for February 22, 1854. Let the following extract suffice: it is descriptive of the operations of extracting a worm from the body of one Harriet Gunton, by a female quack of the name of Jane Browning: "I laid myself on the bed as she desired, and she told Mrs. Jones to hold my mouth to prevent my breathing. Mrs. Jones held me from behind, and nearly suffocated me. She kept me down, while the prisoner tried to get the worms out of my body with her hands. This lasted for about a quarter of an hour, and caused me dreadful pain. The prisoner told me that one of the worms had bit her finger, and slipped away again, and she could not get at it. She tried a second time, and said the worm had bit her again. I then begged her to leave off, if she could not
  • 59.
    succeed in gettingit away; for I believed I should die under the operation. She tried a third time, and said she had broken two skins of it, which would prevent it getting up my body. ... She then put her hand under the clothes. I felt something touch me like a cloth, and she drew away her hand; throwing something into the pan, which sounded with a heavy splash. She said she had been trying at it all night, and had got it away at last." Mr. Robert Biggs, the medical attendant, pronounced the "reptile" to be a fine conger eel, which he believed had often done duty in the same way. C. Mansfield Ingleby. Birmingham. It would be well if every popular error were hunted down, as your correspondents have done in the case of the snake-vomiting at Portsmouth. The public need to be told, that no animal can live in the alimentary canal but the parasites which belong to that part of the animal economy. Of these the Lumbricus intestinalis is the largest, and is discharged by children even of the size mentioned in the case of Jonathan Smith. Two years ago I met with a curious illustration of the popular ignorance of that branch of natural history which treats of our own reptiles, as well as of the mode of growth of a popular marvel. During the hot weather of the summer before last, I was asked by a respectable farmer, if I had seen the "serpent" which was lately killed in an adjoining parish. "Serpent!" I replied; "I suppose you mean some overgrown common snake—perhaps a female full of eggs?" "Well, it might have been a snake at first, but it was grown into a serpent; and pursued a boy through the hedge, but was fortunately encountered and killed by the father." It is a moot point, whether the parasites of animals are engendered or not within the body. In the case of the bots of horses, they are known to be the larvæ of a fly which deposits its eggs on the skin;
  • 60.
    from whence theyare licked off, and conveyed into the animal's stomach, where they are hatched and prepared for their other metamorphoses. I believe the only parasite taken in with water in tropical climates is the Guinea Worm; an animal which burrows under the skin of the arms or legs, and is extremely difficult of extraction, and often productive of great inconvenience. But whether the egg of this worm be taken into the stomach, and conveyed by the blood into the limbs, there to be hatched into life, or whether it enter through the pores of the skin, I believe is not determined. The popular delusion respecting the swallowing of young snakes, and of their continuance in the stomach, is a very old one, and is still frequent. A medical friend of mine, not long since, was called on to treat a poor hysterical woman, who had exhausted the skill of many medical men (as she asserted) to rid her of "a snake or some such living creature, which she felt confident was and had been for a long time gnawing in her stomach." I suggested the expediency of working on the imagination of this poor hypochondriac, as was done in the well-known facetious story of the man who fancied he had swallowed a cobbler; and who was cured by the apparent discharge first of the awls and strap, then of the lapstone, and, finally, of Crispin himself. M. (2) FRENCH SEASON RHYMES AND WEATHER RHYMES. (Vol. ix., p. 9.) The following weather rules are taken from a work which is probably but little known to the generality of English readers. It is entitled:
  • 61.
    "Contes populaires, Préjugés,Patois, Proverbes, Noms de Lieux, de l'Arrondissement de Bayeux, recueillis et publiés par Frédéric Pluquet, &c.: Rouen, 1834." Where saints' days are mentioned, I have added the day of the month on which they fall, as far as I have been able to ascertain it; but as it sometimes happens that there is more than one saint of the same name, and that their feasts fall on different days, I may perhaps, in some cases, have fixed on the wrong one: "Année venteuse, Année pommeuse." "Année hannetonneuse, Année pommeuse." "L'hiver est dans un bissac; s'il n'est dans un bout, il est dans l'autre." "Pluie du matin N'arrête pas le pélerin." "À Noël au balcon, À Pàques au tison." "À Noël les moucherons, À Pàques les glaçons." "Pàques pluvieux, An fromenteux." "Le propre jour des Rameaux Sème oignons et poreaux." "Après Pàques et les Rogations, Fi de prêtres et d'oignons."
  • 62.
    "Fêves fleuries Temps defolies." "Rouge rosée au matin, C'est beau temps pour le pélerin." "Pluie de Février Vaut jus de fumier." "Février qui donne neige Bel été nous plège." "Février L'anelier" [anneau]. This saying has probably originated in the number of marriages celebrated in this month; the season of Lent which follows being a time in which it is not usual, in Roman Catholic countries, to contract marriage. "Février emplit les fosses; Mars les sèche." "Mars martelle, Avril coutelle." An allusion to the boisterous winds of March, and the sharp, cutting, easterly winds which frequently prevail in April. "Nul Avril Sans épi." "Avril le doux, Quand il se fàche, le pis de tout." "Bonne ou mauvaise poirette, Il faut que Mars a trouve faite."
  • 63.
    Poirette, in thedialect of Bayeux, means a leek. "Froid Mai et chaud Juin Donnent pain et vin." "En Juignet [Juillet], La faucille au poignet." "À la Saint-Vincent [Jan. 22], Tout dégèle, ou tout fend." "Saint-Julien brise glace [Jan. 27], S'il ne la brise, il l'embrasse." "À la Chandeleur [Feb. 2], La grande douleur." Meaning the greatest cold. "À la Chandeleur, Où toutes bêtes sont en horreur." Probably alluding to the rough state of their coats at this season. "À la Saint-George [April 23], Sème ton orge." "Quand il pleut le jour Saint-Marc [April 25], Il ne faut ni pouque ni sac." "À la Saint-Catherine [April 29], Tout bois prend racine." "À la Saint-Urbain [May 25], Le froment porte grain." "À la Saint-Loup [May 28?],
  • 64.
    La lampe auclou." "S'il pleut le jour Saint-Médard [June 8], Il pleuvra quarante jours plus tard." "À la Saint-Barnabé [June 11] La faux au pré." "À la Saint-Sacrement [this year, June 15] L'épi est au froment." "Quand il pleut à la Saint-Gervais [June 19], Il pleut quarante jours après." "À la Madeleine [July 22], Les noix sont pleines." "À la Saint-Laurent [Aug. 10], La faucille au froment." "Passé la Saint-Clément [Nov. 23?], Ne sème plus le froment." "Si le soleil rit le jour Sainte-Eulalie [Dec. 10], Il y aura pommes et cidre à folie." "À la Sainte-Luce [Dec. 13?], Les jours croissent du saut d'une puce." "À la Saint-Thomas [Dec. 21], Les jours sont au plus bas." Edgar MacCulloch. Guernsey. VAULT INTERMENTS (Vol. ii., p. 21.): BURIAL IN AN ERECT POSTURE (Vol. viii., pp. 329.
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    630.): INTERMENT OF THETROGLODITÆ (Vol. ii., p. 187.). In the 4th book of Evelyn's Sylva there is much interesting matter on this subject, besides what has been quoted above; and, to those herein interested, the following extract from Burn's History of Parish Registers in England will doubtless be acceptable: "Many great and good men have entertained scruples on the practice of interment in churches. The example of the virtuous and primitive confessor, Archbishop Sancroft, who ordered himself to be buried in the churchyard of Fresingfield in Suffolk, thinking it improper that the house of God should be made the repository of sinful man, ought to command the imitation of less deserving persons: perhaps it had an influence over the mind of his successor, Archbishop Secker, who ordered himself to be buried in the churchyard of Lambeth. The Bishops of London in succession, from Bishop Compton to Bishop Hayter, who died in 1762, inclusive, have been buried in Fulham Churchyard."[1] Of the same opinion were Dr. Edward Rainbow, Bishop of Carlisle; Sir Matthew Hale, who used to say that churches were for the living and to churchyards for the dead[2]; Joseph Hall, Bishop of Norwich, who "did not hold God's house a meet repository for the greatest saint;" and William Bedell, Bishop of Kilmore, who made a canon in his synod to the following effect: "IX. Ut corpora defunctorum deinceps in Ecclesiis non humentur, sed nec intra quintum pedem a pariete extrorsum." Sir Thomas Latymer, of Braibroke in Northamptonshire, by his will directed thus:
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    I, Thomas Latymerof Braybroke, a fals knyghte to God, &c., my wrecchyd body to be buried where that ever I die in the next chirche yerde, God vouchsafe, and naut in the chirche, but in the utterist corner, as he that is unworthy to lyn therein, save the merci of God." Dr. Isaac Barrow, Bishop of St. Asaph, was buried in a churchyard, although, from his having generously repaired and endowed his cathedral, he might be considered to have a claim of interment within its walls; and Baldwin, the great civilian, severely censures this indecent liberty, and questions whether he shall call it a superstition or an impudent ambition. Lanfranc, Archbishop of Canterbury, was the first who made vaults under the chancel, and even under the altar, when he rebuilt the choir of Canterbury, about 1075.[3] "The Irish long retained an attachment to their ancient customs and pagan superstitions; and the custom of burying in consecrated ground was not universal in Ireland in the twelfth century on the arrival of the English, as we find it enjoined in the Council of Cashel, held in 1172, mentioned by Cambrensis. A short time since some small earthen tumuli were opened on the Curragh of Kildare, under which skeletons were found standing upright on their feet, and in their hands, or near them, spears with iron heads. The custom of placing their dead erect was general among all the northern nations, and is still retained in Lapland and some parts of Norway; and the natives of North America bury their dead sitting in holes in the ground, and cover them with a mound of earth."—Transactions of the R. Irish Academy, vol. iii. A Query I proposed (Vol. ii., p. 187.) in reference to the Trogloditæ never having been answered, I shall, perhaps, be allowed to use this opportunity myself to furnish an apposite and explanatory quotation, viz.—
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    "Troglodytæ mortui cervicempedibus alligabant et raptim cum risu et jocis efferebant, nullaque loci habita cura mandabant terræ; ac ad caput cornu caprinum affigebant."—Cœlii Rhodigini, Lectiones Antiquæ, p. 792. I shall conclude with the rationale of the erect posture, as illustrated by Staveley in his History of Churches in England: "It is storied to be a custom among the people of Megara in Greece, to be buried with their faces downwards; Diogenes gave this reason why he should be buried after the same way, that seeing all things were (according to his opinion) to be turned upside down in succeeding times, he, by this posture, would at last be found with his face upwards, and looking towards heaven." Bibliothecar. Chetham. Footnote 1:(return) Cole's MSS. vol. iv. p. 100. Footnote 2:(return) The Assembly at Edinburgh, in 1588, prohibited the burying in kirks. Footnote 3:(return) Cole's MSS., vol. iv. In Much Ado about Nothing, Act III. Sc. 2., Don Pedro says: "She shall be buried with her face upwards." Theobald, Johnson, and Steevens have left notes upon this line. The following passage is part of Steevens' note: "Dr. Johnson's explanation may likewise be countenanced by a passage in an old black-letter book, without date, intitled, 'A
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    merye Jest ofa Man that was called Howleglas, &c.: How Howleglas was buryed: "'Thus as Howleglas was deade, then they brought him to be buryed. And as they would have put the coffyn into the pytte with 2 cordes, the corde at the fete brake, so that the fote of the coffyn fell into the botome of the pyt, and the coffyn stood bolt upryght in the middes of the grave. Then desired ye people that stode about the grave that tyme, to let the coffyn to stande bolt upryght. For in his lyfe tyme he was a very marvelous man, &c., and shall be buryed as marvailously. And in this maner they left Howleglas,' &c. "Were not the Claphams and Mauleverers buried marvailously, because they were marvelous men?"—Johnson and Steevens' Shakspeare, vol. ii. p. 310. J. W. Farrer. "In Oliver Heywood's Register is the following entry [Oct. 28, 1684]: 'Capt. Taylor's wife of Brig House, buried in her garden with head upwards, standing upright, by her husband, daughter, &c. Quakers.'"—Watson's History of Halifax, p. 233. Cervus. "Some Christians [Russians?] decline the figure of rest, and make choice of an erect posture in burial."—Browne's Hydriotaphia, ch. iv. p. 246. Query, With the desire of meeting the Judge, face to face, when He cometh? Mackenzie Walcott, M.A. DO CONJUNCTIONS JOIN PROPOSITIONS ONLY?
  • 69.
    (Vol. ix., p.180.) Professor Boole's communication on the above question reminds me of some remarks of mine, published in an article on Sir John Stoddart's Philosophy of Language, in the North British Review for November, 1850. In reference to the opinion maintained by Sir John Stoddart and Dr. Latham, that the conjunction always connects sentences, the preposition words, it is observed: "It does not apply to cases where the conjunction unites portions of the predicate, instead of the subject, of a proposition. If I assert that a gentleman of my acquaintance drinks brandy and water, he might not relish the imputation of imbibing separate potations of the neat spirit and the pure element. Stradling versus Stiles is a case in point: 'Out of the kind love and respect I bear to my much honoured and good friend, Mr. Matthew Stradling, Gent., I do bequeath unto the said Matthew Stradling, Gent., all my black and white horses.' The testator had six black horses, six white horses, and six pied horses. The whole point at issue turns upon the question whether the copulative and joins sentences or words. If the former, the plaintiff is entitled to the black horses, and also to the white, but not to the pied. If the latter he has a right to the pied horses but must forego his claim to the rest. And if the latter interpretation be adopted, must we say that and is a preposition, not a conjunction, or must we modify the definitions of these two parts of speech?" The following definitions are finally proposed in place of the ordinary ones: "A preposition is a part of speech annexed to a noun or verb in a proposition, and serving to connect it with a noun or pronoun by which it is limited, as the subject or predicate of that proposition."
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    "A conjunction isa part of speech serving to unite two propositions as parts of the same complex assertion, or two words as similar parts of the subject or predicate of one proposition. By similar parts it is meant that the words so united stand in similar relations to the term to which they belong. For example, 1. As attributes, both qualifying a subject, 'Sic bonus et sapiens dignis ait esse paratus.' 2. As prepositions, both introducing limiting nouns 'without money and without price.' 3. As substantives, both forming parts of a collective subject, 'two and three are five.' Whereas with the preposition, the words united are not similar, but opposed, the limiting and the limited notion." While differing from some of Professor Boole's views on the relation of logic to mathematics, I fully agree with him that the true functions of the several parts of speech must be determined by an analysis of the laws of thought. Both grammar and logic might be considerably improved by an accurate development on psychological principles. H. L. Mansel, B.D. St. John's College, Oxford. Has not your correspondent G. Boole fallen into an inaccuracy whilst contending about the accuracy of another's logic? He seems to employ the proposition, all trees are endogens or exogens, as an example of an accurate proposition. I forget the technicalities in which the objection to such a proposition would be properly expressed; but it cannot well be denied that all comprehends the whole genus, and expresses that whole collectively. If so, the proposition affirms that the whole genus of trees must either be acknowledged to be endogens, or else to be all exogens. Does not such an affirmation require the word every to clear it from ambiguity? Will it be cleared of ambiguity by saying, "Every tree is endogen or exogen?" Or must we say "Every tree is either endogen or exogen?"
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    If your correspondentsshould happen to take down the second volume of Locke on Human Understanding, b. III. ch. iii. § 11., on "Universals," his note will supply them with another knot to unravel, of which I would gladly see their solution. For he has there said, "Three Bobaques are all true and real Bobaques, supposing the name of that species of animals belongs to them." Is this name formed in jest? For the philosopher sometimes puts on an awkward affectation of humour in his replies to Bishop Stillingfleet, to whom this note is addressed. H. W. HAS EXECUTION BY HANGING BEEN SURVIVED? (Vol. ix., p. 174.) Two instances of criminals being restored to life after having been hanged are recorded, on good authority, to have occurred in this town. Henry of Knighton (who was a Canon of Leicester Abbey) relates in his Chronicle (col. 2627), under the year 1363, that— "One Walter Wynkeburn having been hanged at Leicester, on the prosecution of Brother John Dingley, Master of Dalby, of the order of Knights Hospitallers, after having been taken down from the gallows as a dead man, was being carried to the cemetery of the Holy Sepulchre of Leicester, to be buried, began to revive in the cart, and was taken into the church of the Holy Sepulchre by an ecclesiastic, and there diligently guarded by this Leicester ecclesiastic to prevent his being seized for the purpose of being hanged a second time. To this man King Edward granted pardon in Leicester Abbey, and gave him a charter of pardon, thus saying in my hearing, 'Deus tibi dedit vitam, et nos dabimus tibi Cartam?"
  • 72.
    We learn, onthe authority of a cotemporary record, preserved in the archives of this borough, and quoted in Thompson's History of Leicester, p. 110., that in June, 1313, Matthew of Enderby, a thief, was apprehended and imprisoned in the king's gaol at Leicester; and that being afterwards convicted, he was sentenced by Sir John Digby and Sir John Daungervill, the king's justices, to be hanged; that he was led to the gallows by the frankpledges of Birstall and Belgrave, and by them suspended; but on his body being taken down, and carried to the cemetery of St. John's Hospital for interment, he revived and was subsequently exiled. Three instances are narrated in Wanley's Wonders of Man, vol. i. pp. 125, 126., and another will be found in Seward's Spirit of Anecdote and Wit, vol. iii. p. 88., quoted from Gamble's Views of Society, &c. in the North of Ireland; whilst in vol. ii. p. 220. of the same work, another restoration to life is stated to have taken place in the dissecting-room of Professor Junker, of Halle: but I know not how far these last-mentioned anecdotes are susceptible of proof. William Kelly. Leicester. There appears to be no reason to doubt the truth of individuals having survived execution by hanging. Margaret Dickson was tried, convicted, and executed in Edinburgh, in the year 1728. After the sentence had been accomplished, her body was cut down and delivered to her friends, who placed it in a coffin, and conveyed the same in a cart towards her native place for the purpose of interment. On her journey the dead came to life again, sat up in her coffin, and alarmed her attendants. She was, however, promptly bled, and by the next morning had perfectly recovered. She lived for twenty-five years afterwards, and had several children. In 1705 one John Smith was executed at Tyburn; after he had hung fifteen minutes a reprieve arrived. He was cut down and bled, and is
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    said to haverecovered. (Paris and Fonblanque, Med. Jur., vol. ii. p. 92.) When it is considered that death takes place after hanging, in most cases by asphyxia, in very rare instances by dislocation of the spine, we can understand the possibility of recovery within certain limits. That artificial means have been adopted to ensure recovery, the case of Gordon, which occurred in the early part of the seventeenth century, satisfactorily establishes. This evil-doer had been condemned for highway robbery, and with a view to escape from his penalty, succeeded in obtaining the following friendly assistance. A young surgeon named Chovell (concerning whose motives we will not inquire too curiously) introduced a small tube through an opening which he made in the windpipe. The hangman, having accomplished his part of the tragedy, Gordon's body was handed over to his friends. Chovell bled him, and the highwayman sighed deeply, but subsequently fainted and died. The want of success was attributed to the great weight of the culprit, who consequently dropped with unusual violence. (Memoirs of the Royal Academy of Surgery in France, Sydenham Society Publications, p. 227.) How far the mechanical contrivance by which Bouthron, in Scott's Fair Maid of Perth, was kept alive after hanging, was founded on successful experience, I know not. Nor do I know whether Hook, in his Maxwell, had any farther authority than his imagination for his story of resuscitation, though I have heard it said to be founded on the supposed recovery of a distinguished forger, who had paid the last penalty for his offences, and who was said to have really died only a short time since. Oliver Pemberton. Birmingham.
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    The Cork Remembrancer,a chronicle of local events, which I recollect seeing among my late father's (a Cork man) books, relates the fact of a men who was hanged in that city, and on the evening of the same day appeared, not in the spirit, but in body, in the theatre. I regret I have not the book, but it is to be had somewhere. Undoubtedly your late venerable correspondent, James Roche, Esq., could have authenticated my statement, and with fuller particulars, as I only relate the record of it from memory, after a lapse of many years. I think the occurrence, of which there is no doubt, took place somewhere about the year 1782 or 1784; and after all there is nothing very extraordinary about it, for the mode of execution by hanging at that time presented many chances to the culprit of escaping death; he ascended a ladder, upon which he stood until all the arrangements were completed, and then was quietly turned off, commonly in such a manner as not to break the neck or hurt the spinal marrow. It was most likely so in the case I relate and the man having been suspended the usual time, and not having been a murderer, was handed over to his friends, who took prompt measures, and successfully, to restore animation, and so effectually, that the man, upon whom such little impression by the frightful ordeal he had passed was made, mixed in the world again, and was at the theatre that evening. Little chance is there of escaping death by the present mode of executing. Umbra. Dublin. The Gentleman's Magazine, vol. x. p. 570., after giving the names of those executed on Nov. 24, says: "And William Duell, for ravishing, robbing, and murdering Sarah Griffin at Acton. The body of this last was brought to Surgeons' Hall to be anatomised; but after it was stripped and laid on the board, and one of the servants was washing him in order to be cut, he perceived life in him, and found his breath to come
  • 75.
    quicker and quicker;on which a surgeon took some ounces of blood from him: in two hours he was able to sit up in his chair, and in the evening was again committed to Newgate." And at p. 621. of the same volume,— "Dec. 9th. Wm. Duell (p. 570.) ordered to be transported for life." Other instances will be found in the Gentleman's Magazine, vol. i. p. 172., and vol. xxxvii. p. 90; and in vol. lxx. pt. i. p. 107. is the very curious case of Anne Green of Oxford, quoted from Dr. Plot's Natural History of Oxfordshire, p. 197., which is well worth reading. Also, in vol. lvii. pt. i. p. 33., is a letter, containing the two following quotations from Cardan, in explanation of the phenomenon of surviving death by hanging: "Is qui diu suspensus Bononiæ jacuit, vivus inventus est, quod asperam arteriam non cartilagineam sed osseam habuit."— Cardanus, lib. ii. tr. 2. contr. 7. "Constat quendam bis suspensum servatum miraculi specie; inde cum tertio Judicis solertiâ periisset, inventam osseam asperam arteriam."—Cardanus, lib. xiv., De rerum variet., cap. 76. In the Newgate Calendar, or Malefactors' Bloody Register, vol. ii. p. 233., is the account of Margaret Dickson, who was executed for child-murder at Edinburgh, June 19, 1728, with an engraving of her "rising from her coffin near Edinburgh, as she was carrying from the place of execution in order for interment." "By the Scottish law," says the author, "every person on whom the judgment of the court has been executed has no more to suffer, but must be for ever discharged; and the executed person is dead at law, so that the marriage is dissolved. This was exactly the case with Margaret Dickson, for the king's
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    advocate could notpursue her any farther, but filed a bill in the High Court of Justiciary against the sheriff for not seeing the judgment executed. And her husband being a good-natured man, was publicly married to her within a few days after the affair happened." Zeus. For the information of your correspondent I send an extract from the Gentleman's Magazine for February, 1767: "Saturday 24th (Jan.).—One Patrick Redmond having been condemned at Cork, in Ireland, to be hanged for a street robbery, he was accordingly executed, and hung upwards of twenty-eight minutes, when the mob carried off the body to a place appointed, where he was, after five or six hours, actually recovered by a surgeon, and who made the incision in his windpipe called bronchotomy, which produced the desired effect. The poor fellow has since received his pardon, and a genteel collection has been made for him." C. R. I would refer your correspondent Σ., who has put a Query whether persons who have suffered execution by hanging have outlived the infliction, to a case of a woman named Anne Green, which appears to be authenticated upon the most unequivocal testimony of two very estimable authors. The event to which I allude is described in Dr. Robert Plot's History of Oxfordshire, folio, Oxford, 1705, p. 201.; and also in the Physico-Theology of Rev. W. Derham, F.R.S., 3rd edit., 8vo., London, 1714, p. 157. The above-mentioned Anne Green was executed at Oxford, December 14, 1650. I will not trespass upon your space, which appears pretty well occupied, with a lengthened detail from the authors pointed out, as their works are to be found in most libraries; and thinking Polonius's observation that "brevity is the soul of wit" may be more extensively applied than to what relates to fancy and imagination. I would,
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    however, crave oneword, which is, that you would suggest to your correspondents generally that in referring to works they would give, as distinctly as possible, the heads of the title, the name of the author, the edition, if more than one, the place of publication, date, and page. I have experienced much loss of time from incorrect and imperfect references, not to mention complete disappointment in many instances, which I trust may plead my apology for this remark. [4] Γ.
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    Footnote 4:(return) As ourpages are frequently consulted for literary purposes, the suggestion of Γ is extremely valuable, and we trust his hints will be adopted by our numerous correspondents.—Ed. PHOTOGRAPHIC CORRESPONDENCE. A Stereoscopic Note.—I possess a small volume entitled A Disquisition about the Final Causes of Natural Things, by T. H., B.B., Fellow of the Royal Society, 1688. "To which are subjoined, by way of Appendix, some uncommon observations about vitiated sight." In this strange appendix, one of the uncommon observations is worth the notice of your correspondents who write on stereoscopic subjects. I give you an extract from it: "It has been of late the opinion of very learned men, that though both our eyes are open, and turned towards an object, yet 'tis but one of them at a time that is effectually employed in giving us the representation of it: which opinion, in this place where I am writing but observations, it were not proper to discuss, especially because what is suppos'd to be observed will not always uniformly happen, but may vary in particular persons according to their several customs, and the constitution of their eyes: for I have, by an experiment purposely made, several times found, that my two eyes together see an object in another situation than either of them apart would do." And in giving instances for and against binocular vision, the author says: "A yet more considerable instance of such mistakes I afterwards had from a noble person, who, having in a fight, where he play'd the hero, had one of his eyes strangely shot out by a musquet bullet, that came out at his mouth, answered me, that not only he could not well pour drink out of one vessel into another, but had broken many glasses by letting them fall out of his hand, when he thought he had put them into another's, or set them down upon
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    a table." Thewhole book is a very curious one, and I should be obliged if the Editor of "N. & Q." could tell me who T. H. was?[5] J. Lawson Sisson. Edingthorpe. Footnote 5:(return) The Hon. Robert Boyle. Photographic Query.—I think many amateur photographers would be thankful for plain and simple directions how to mount their positives on cardboard. Would the Editor of "N. & Q." assist us in this? J. L. S. Deepening Collodion Negatives.—I have lately been trying a method of deepening collodion negatives, so as to render instantaneous impressions capable of being printed from, which I have found to answer admirably; and although it is but a slight modification of Mr. Lyte's process described in "N. & Q.," it is a very important one, and will be found to produce far better results. The picture having been developed in the usual way, with a solution of pyrogallic acid, is whitened by means of Mr. Archer's solution of bichloride of mercury. The plate is then washed with water and a solution of iodide of cadmium poured on. This converts the white chloride of mercury, which constitutes the picture, into the yellow iodide, in the same manner as the solution of iodide of potassium recommended by Mr. Lyte; but is much to be preferred, as it produces a more uniform deposit. The solution of iodide of potassium dissolves the iodide of mercury as soon as it is formed, and therefore cannot be left on the plate until the decomposition of the chloride is complete, without injury resulting to the picture, as the half-tones are thereby lost, and those parts over which the solution first flows become bleached before the other parts have attained their highest tone; whereas the solution of iodide of cadmium may be allowed to remain for any length of time on the plate, without any fear of its injuring the negative.
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    J. Leachman. Caution toPhotographers.—About six months since, I procured some gun cotton from a chemist which appeared very good, being quite soluble, and the collodion produced by it was excellent. That which I did not use I placed in what I believed to be a clean dry-stopped bottle, and put the bottle in a dark cupboard. I was much surprised the other day, upon going to the cupboard, to find the stopper blown out, and the cotton giving out dense red fumes of nitrous acid. It appears to me to be almost upon the point of combustion, and I have, accordingly, placed it under a bell-glass in a porcelain dish to watch the result. I feel satisfied, however, that there is some risk, and, as it may often be near ether, spirits of wine, or other inflammable chemicals, that caution is necessary not only in preserving it at home, but especially in its transmission abroad, which is now done to some extent. An Amateur.
  • 81.
    Replies to MinorQueries. Artesian Wells (Vol. ix., p.222.).—Wells are often so called without just pretence to a similarity with those in Artois, whence this name is derived. There are some natural springs in the northern slope of the chalk in Lincolnshire, near the Humber, called blow-wells, which may be considered naturally Artesian. The particular character by which an Artesian well may be known is, that the water, if admitted into a tube, will rise above the level of the ground in its immediate vicinity up to the level of its sources in the basin of the district; this basin being usually gravel, lying betwixt two strata impervious to water, formed the surrounding hills, and extending often over many miles of the earth's surface. If we conceive the figure of a large bowl, inclosing a somewhat smaller one, the interstice being filled with gravel, and the rain falling on the earth being collected within such interstice, then this interstice being tapped by boring a well, the water will rise up from the well to the same height as it stands in the interstice, or rim of the natural basin. Such is an Artesian well. Supposing this huge mineral double bowl to be broken by a geological fault, the same hydrostatic principle will act similarly. The question of preferable put by Stylites must be governed by the cui bono. Universal adoption is forbidden, first, by the absence of a gravelly stratum betwixt two strata impervious to water; and secondly, by the excessive expense of boring to such great depths. Where expense is not in excess of the object to be attained, and where the district is geologically favourable, the Artesian wells are preferable to common ones derived from natural tanks or water caverns, first, for the superabundant supply; secondly, for the height to which the water naturally rises above the ground; and thirdly, because boring Artesian wells, properly so called, does not rob a neighbour's well for your own benefit, afterwards to be lost when
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    any neighbour choosesto dig a little deeper than you. This is a matter with which London brewers are familiar. T. J. Buckton. Lichfield. Prior's Epitaph on Himself (Vol. i., p. 482.).—Mr. Singer quotes an epitaph on "John Carnegie," and says it is the prototype of Prior's epitaph on himself. I have looked among Prior's poems for this epitaph, and have not been able to discover anything that can be said to answer Mr. Singer's description of it. Would your correspondent oblige me with a copy of the epitaph to which he alludes? My edition of Prior is a very old one; and this may account for the omission, if such it be. Henry H. Breen. St. Lucia. [The following is a copy of the epitaph: "Nobles and heralds, by your leave, Here lies what once was Matthew Prior, The son of Adam and of Eve; Can Bourbon or Nassau claim higher?"] Handwriting (Vol. viii., p. 639.).—In your concluding Number of last year, E. B. requested information as to any work in English, French, German, or Spanish, giving a standard alphabet for the various kinds of writing now in use, with directions for teaching the same. I fear I shall not satisfy all your correspondent's inquiries; but the following may be of some service. I have in my possession a German work, nearly of the kind he requires. The title is, Gründliche Anweisung zum Schönschreiben, by Martin Schüssler, Wiesbaden, 1820. It is of an oblong shape, and consists entirely of engraved plates, in number thirty-two. It begins with some directions for the form and inclination of letters; then follows an explanation of five rules for writing, which are given in the German handwriting. After exhausting the German, the author proceeds to English letters and handwriting, followed by
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    engrossing hand. Thenhe gives the fractur, or black-letter characters, with some elaborate and beautiful capitals. He next gives specimens of French handwriting, and ends with Greek current hand, and plates of large capitals of ornamental patterns; all different. If this work would at all answer the purpose of E. B., and he would wish to see it, it shall be sent to him by post on his giving his address to the writer, whose card is enclosed. F. C. H. I have in my possession for sale, a scarce old work, folio, a good clean copy of Geo. Bickman's Universal Penman, 1733; with numerous engravings. D. H. Strahan. 10. Winsly Street, Oxford Street. "Begging the Question" (Vol. viii., p. 640.; Vol. ix., p. 136.).—It may interest your logical readers to be informed of the fact that this fallacy was called the petition of the principle, this being, of course, a literal rendering of the Latin phrase. The earliest English work on logic in which I have found this Latinism is, The Arte of Logike, plainelie set foorth in our English Tongue, easie both to be understoode and practised, 1584. Here occurs the following passage: "Now of the default of Logike, called Sophisme. It is eyther { Generall. } / { Speciall. } The generall are those which cannot be referred to any part of Logike. They are eyther { Begging of the question, called the petition of the principle. } / { Bragging of no proof. } Begging of the question is when nothing is brought to prooue, but the question, or that which is as doubtfull." C. Mansfield Ingleby. Birmingham.
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