B.R. CHAUHAN BY DR SAROJ

1. DR BRIJ RAJ CHAUHAN
BY
DR SAROJ
PERSONAL PROFILE
Born in 1927 in Uttar Pradesh
Belongs to Lucknow School of Sociology
Graduated from Lucknow University in 1947 B.A. (hons.)
M. A. In Economics (1948) with specialization in sociology
Founding father of Sociology in Rajasthan
Spent many years teaching in Rajasthan
Founder principal of Rajasthan Tribal Research Institute in Udaipur
Died in November 2009
He was a great specialist of rural sociology of his time
A RAJASTHAN VILLAGE
A Rajasthan village was his Ph.D work started in 1955 under Prof D.N. Majumdar
Context of the study
Social:
India just got independence
Country was in the process of planning for economic and social development
Rural development was the centre of all the planning programmes led by government
Community development programmes were launched
It was the era of nation building and development
International Scenario of Social Sciences
At the International level it was the time when structural functional approach was
developing in western countries.
K. Davis, R.K. Merton, and T. Parsons were writing their perspectives and theories at
this time.
Radcliffe Brown and B. Malinowski like functionalists were also presenting their
functional theories at this time. (British Anthropologists).

2. American anthropologists like Robert Redfield and Mckim Mariott etc were also
conducting their studies. So it was the era of functionalism
B.R. Chauhan and the study of A Rajasthan Village (Rana-waton -ki Sadri)
 Location: Chittorgarh (northwestern part of India)
Before independence it was a jagir village in the princely state of Mewar.
Jagirdars were Kshatriyas who established the village
Princely State because it was established by the decendents of Maharana Pratap
The village was about 30 km away from Udaipur.
 Village: Small Hamlet
Its initial population of 19 families in 5 castes has grown to 31 family units of 23
castes, 24 sub-castes and 51 lineages over 80 years. Passed through the maturing
stage and attained the characteristics of a full grown village community over a
perioud of 100 years.
Village was founded in the first quarter of 19th
century
According to Dr Chauhan each village has its own history. So if you want to know
any Indian village first you must know the history of that village. There is no need of
generalization of Indian villages.
It is not the representative of all Indian villages (like Robert Redfield’s generalization
of little community)
The perspective of his analysis of Rajasthan village was structural functional but he
also criticized traditional structural functional perspective and argued that it is
synchronic not dychronic. It is also having lack of historicity.
B. R. Chauhan also quoted R.Brown’s Structure and Function in Primitive
Society and laid emphasis on historical dimensions of the study. (Brown termed it as
evolution)

3. Dr Chauhan studied Ranawaton Ki Sadri on some basic points:
Social relations,
Organizations
Institutions
Caste structure
Economy
Ritual structure : festival, ceremonies etc.
Education
Political structure
According to Dr Chauhan when he go into the history of the village it is a Jagir
village, it is not a normal village. Though it was established by Kshatriyas so in its
earliest period it was a single caste village.
Gradually to make it a functional unit other casts also added to this village.
Villlage has it own organization and caste structure.
No Brahmins are existing in this village, they called from other villages for the
completion religious obligation and ritual duties.
Similarily barber also called from other village for various ceremonial and functional
purposes of the village.
Caste is a functional organization which has social, economic, cultural and
institutional dimensions and it also gives wholeness to the village.
Dr Chauhan mentioned CHOKHALA (subcaste) institution, Prof. K.M/. Kapadia and
Prof G.S. Ghurye also mentioned subcaste groups.
He said that migration is a reason of division of a caste into subcaste. He also
indicated that political reasons are also responsible for forming subcaste groups.
CHOKHALA: he defined as the unit of a caste or sub caste that goes beyond a
village and covers a number of contiguous village which bind the members of the
caste to some collective regulations.
Chokhala is not existing among Rajputs it is only existing among middle castes. It is a
mechanism of community control. It is very similar to Khap of Western U.P
Dr Chauhan questioned the unity of village and said that village is not an unit in itself.

4. The concept of Little Community by Robert Redfield is partially relevant for Indian
village according to him
Robert Redfield explains four features of little community
Distinctiveness
Smallness
Homogenous
Self-sufficiency
Dr Chauhan agreed with the feature of distinctiveness and smallness but he was not
agreed with the two other features of little community which were to be compared
with Indian villages.
He said that Indian villages are not homogenous because
 Various castes are existing in one village
 Demographic heterogenity (All the women of village comes outside of the village
in marriage and all the girls go other villages or outside village after marriage)
Self sufficiency: though most of them are involved in agriculture but some are
artisans. The other thing is that the villagers are dependent on other villages, nearby
towns and cities to sell their produces and purchase agricultural equipment and their
daily requirements.
Intensive field study by Dr B.R Chauhan in a Rajasthan village raised questions on
the applicability and adequacy of concepts of the little community and the peasant
society as developed by Robert Redfield.
RITUAL STRUCTURE. : he talked in context of McKim Mariott and influenced
with Dr D.N. Majumdar. McKim Mariott has given the concept of Universalization an
Parochialization. He observed the village’s ritual structure in context of inter-caste
relations. He elaborately discussed about the rituals related to the three crisis of life
(birth, marriage and death) and on festivals in regards to different caste and caste-
groups and tried to find out how they tend to promote a community life within a multi
caste village. The ritual structure of village was dealt under
1 Festivals: Akha Teej, Navaratra, Deo Jhulni Ekadashi etc

5. 2 Deities and diseases
3 Rituals and life cycles
4 Charity
5 Pilgrimage
Enhance Ritualization: Dr B.R Chauhan evaluated Sanskritization and he
prefers to use enhance ritualization in place of Sanskritization because the former
concept can take of the non-sanskritic elements which cannot be accommodated by
the concept of Sanskritization.
Education: Dr Chauhan observes that access of education to all make villages more
functions, matured and participatory. Before independence education was only limited
to upper caste specially to Kshatriyas but after independence other caste also started
getting education (dynamic evolution of village)
Politics: He considered the history of Panchayati Raj drawing from ancient texts to
modern sources and also discussed the role of village panchayats and development
process of village. He also talked about the democratic decentralization and emerging
party politics in the village.

6. RURAL LIFE AND GRASSROOT PERSPECTIVE (BOOK)
RURAL PROFILE (B.R. CHAUHAN)
Brij Raj Chauhan pioneered teaching of sociology in Rajasthan way back in the mid
1950’s. he was the first Director of the Rajasthan Tribal Research Institute Udaipur.
After a brief stint at the University of Sagar he to returned to Udaipur but thereafter
joined as Reader Institute of Social Sciences Agra. Later he become the founder, head
and Professor of Sociology at Merrut University where he worked till his retirement.
Author of several books and articles in English and Hindi Dr Chauhan was President
of Indian Sociological Society.
Through his studies Dr Chauhan tried to look at the possibilities of sociology in Uttar
Pradesh, he want to establish Uttar Pradesh as an Unit of study and it develops due to
cumulative studies done by Dr B.R Chauhan.
When Ram Krishna Mukherjee published Dynamics of Rural Sociology (1958) then
history comes into rural sociology and it becomes important that how history is
important to study rural society and sociology. So in this way inputs of history comes
into rural sociology.
Caste is not only important in rural India on the basis of caste there are other
categories which formulated on the basis of caste which are also having important
place in rural society like
Class (Marxian) in caste
Land relations etc.
After the death of Radcliffe Brown E.E.Evans Pritchard becomes the supervisor of
M.N Srinivas then he also advised him to include the input of history in his rural
study of Mysore village. At that time in rural studies only structural functional
perspective was not significant but historical approach also becomes very important.

7. It means the way society was changing people (Researchers) were giving importance
to history and land relations in rural studies. This fact can be proved by the studies of
Andre Beteille (Student of M.N. Srinivas) in Caste, Class and Power.
Then studies on Peasant Movement started. D.N. Dhanagre studied social movements
in historical perspectives. The nature of history rural sociology in India was changing
because the nature of society was also changing.
Community Development and other governmental schemes were coming in village
which were changing and affecting the nature of rural society.
Education: access to education to all also affecting rural society at large scale.
Politics: State and intervening institutions- in Uttar Pradesh how state was influenced
and effected the way and size of agriculture.
Who is having land?
How much a person is having land- means land holding patterns are now decided by
state.
Dr Chauhan noticed all the changes that happened at that time in Uttar Pradesh in
rural society.
Given the proposal: village in history-history in village (Then we can understand
Indian village. This grass root proposition will make us understand rural society.
State: Block, Tehsil
Intermediary institutions: Village Panchayats
Village
These intermediary institutions make us understand the process and structural
changes in villages.
According to Dr Chauhan one cannot study village as an isolated whole. Those
institutions which effects village to be studied in this context.

8. How state from ancient to contemporary society effected the process and society of
village. The role of state policies and electoral process and how they impacted on the
villages and their process-like panchayats and their elections.
Lineage, Clan and Caste : these are three important categories of rural India and have
to be understand in the context of rural India. He clearly explains that these three
groups are not only exist in a village but also connect one village to another.
‘
Lineage-Khap: Explained about Baliyan and Malik Khap
Dr Chauhan explains types of lineage and how it affects the village society and other
villages. How it controls the behaviour of the behaviour of the people of rural society
and regularize the live of rural people.
Caste: how it effects daily lives and controls the lives of rural people.
Marriage: How lineage affects marriage
Demography: Demography phenomena is important. The exchange of population in
terms of that all women comes from outside of the village and go outside from the
village in marriage (Village exogamy). It creates connectivity to other villages.
Dr Chauhan explains how instruments of rural development are entering into villages,
how villages prepare itself for development. He also talks about rural urban
articulation: given the idea of rural-urban articulation and refined the idea of folk
urban continuum by Robert Redfield. He explained the interconnections between folk
and urban society.
He argued that now the time is not suitable to study village as an isolable unit. Block
can also be study as an unit because at that time when Dr Chauhan was conducting his
field studies in U.P. (especially Western UP) each block was consists 64 village. So
block becomes the centre.

9. His intention was to find out the possibility of sociology of Uttar Pradesh because
Uttar Pradesh is a rural Society. According to him U.P. can be seen as whole.
Economy and Society of U.P can be studied in the context. It appears that B.R
Chauhan wants to conceive of Indian village as a concept.