Village types according to their structure –-Village forms With respect to Order/Cluster, Caste Hierarchy, Caste and Habitation area in a village – Social structure of a village community – Planning of a typical village house

1. Introduction – Village types according to their
structure –-Village forms With respect to
Order/Cluster, Caste Hierarchy, Caste and Habitation
area in a village – Social structure of a village
community – Planning of a typical village house

2. 
 The rise of the village is bound up with the rise of
agricultural economy in history. The emergence of a
village signified that man passed from the nomadic
mode of collective life to a settled one.
 A large proportion of India lives in villages. India
can rightly be called the land of Villages. As per
population profile 2001, about 72.18% of the total
Indian population lives in villages.
Introduction

3.  ON THE BASIS OF STRUCTURE:
The Nucleated Village
The Linear Village
The Dispersed Village
 ON THE BASIS OF RESIDENCE:
Migratory Village
Semi-permanent Agricultural Village
Permanent Agricultural Village
 ON THE BASIS OF ORGANISATION:
Co-operative Villages
Semi-Collective Villages
Collective Villages
 ON THE BASIS OF LAND OWENERSHIP
Landlord Villages
Ryotwari Villages
Village types

4. THE NUCLEATED VILLAGE
 Habitation area is well marked
 The boundaries of the village
together with its fields are never
percieved
 The fields owned by one village
merge into those owned by
another except where a hillock or
stream or a highway forms a
boundary
 These villages are situated on high
plateau of the Deccan
Village Types on the Basis of
Structure

5.  This type is found all over the Maharashtra and
certain parts of India such as Uttar Pradesh, Gujrat,
Andhra, Orissa, Mysore, Tamil Nadu.
Village Types on the Basis of
Structure
Poombarai Village,
Tamil Nadu (left)

6. THE LINEAR VILLAGE
 These villages are strung along
length-wise on two sides of the
road
 The houses stand on their own
compounds with their gardens
and are fenced from all sides
 One walks or drives through the
fences on both sides of the road
all the time
 This type is found on the west
coast (the Konkan)
 No sharp distinction between
the cultivated area and the
habitation area observed
Village Types on the Basis of
Structure
Road
THE KONKAN VILLAGE ROAD

7. DISPERSED VILLAGE
 The houses are situated in their own fields in clusters of two
or three huts all belonging to a single close kinship group.
 They are either huts of the father and grown up sons or
brothers and their wives.
 The next cluster of huts may be as far as a furlong or too
away depending upon how big the holding of each cluster
is. So, a scattered or dispersed dwelling is formed.
 The village boundaries are many times not defined by
streams of hillocks because the houses belonging to one
village are situated on separate hillocks or divided by
streamlets.
 The habitation area is not distinguished from the cultivated
area and the widely scattered houses of these villages are
many times nearer to the houses in the next village than to
the houses of its own villages.
 Found in Satpura mountains on the NW boundary of the
Marathi speaking region
Village Types on the Basis of
Structure
MAHABALESHWAR MAHARASHTRA

8. FUNCTION OF ROADS
The function of roads is different in the three types.
 In the nucleated villages, there are two types of roads:
1. the roads connecting different villages meant for inter-village
communications;
2. internal streets or narrow alleys connecting housing areas;
Deccan villages are the typical example.
 In the linear villages, the main road is generally the main
arterial road joining the villages of the coast from miles & miles
in a linear direction.
The road from Cape Comorin to Trivandrum in the extreme
SW of India is a typical example.
Village Types on the Basis of
Structure

9. 
FUNCTION OF ROADS
 In the dispersed type, there are no village streets
because no houses are aligned along the streets.
There are only footpaths leading from one house to
the another and the continuation of these leads to
houses in the next village.
Village Types on the Basis of
Structure

10. 
 The inhabitants of a village may be farmers or
traders or artisans or priests; and a village can be
classified according to the occupation of the majority
of its inhabitants. Villages may belong to a single
tribe or may differ from one another in caste or
religious persuasion.
 One of the most useful and objective means of
classification is furnished by the physical form taken
by a village.
Village Forms

11. Thus, the following orders
can be distinguished in
India:
 SHAPELESS CLUSTER
or agglomerate with
streets not forming an
integral part of the
design. These may be of
two types: Massive, or
Dispersed; in which the
village is reckoned to
consist of an assemblage
of discrete clusters of
comparatively smaller
size.
Village Forms
SMALL CLUSTERS OF HUTS IN THE PUNJAB
HIMALAYAS

12. 
 LINEAR CLUSTER or
assemblage with a
regular open space or
straight street provided
between parallel rows
of houses
Village Forms

13. 
Village Forms

14. 
Village Forms

15. 
 SQUARE or
RECTANGULAR
CLUSTER or
agglomerate with
straight streets
running parallel
or at right angles
to one another
Village Forms

16. 
 Villages formed of ISOLATED HOMESTEADS, a
number of which are treated together as a ‘mauza’
for convenience for collection of rents
Village Forms

17. 
 An example of shapeless
cluster may be enclosed
by a protective stone wall
for defence. Linear
clusters may grow in size
as the population
increases and parallel
streets may be added or
streets even set at right
angles to the old streets so
that, eventually, square
form results which may
appear like a shapeless
cluster from a distance.
Village Forms

18.  Houses and farms may
be isolated on high hills
or deserts, etc.
 In the high Himalayan
Range, where people
live with their flocks,
villages tend to be
clustered.
 Settlements formed of
isolated farmhouses or
homesteads are thus
found in various parts
of India irregularly.
Village Forms

19. 
 These areas include various portions of the western
Malwa plateau, where they occur in association with
dispersed clusters, in portions of the Western ghats
and some portions of high Himalayan mountains
both in Kashmir and UP.
Village Forms

20. 
Village Forms

21. 
Village Forms

22. 
Village Forms

23. 
Village Forms

24. 
 The Jati-division of Indian society is represented by
immutable social units demarcated from each other by
three attributes:
1. Hereditarily fixed occupations
2. Endogamy
3. Commensality
 These Jatis showed the unique character of Indian social
organisation along with the village community system.
 The previous division of Aryan society into four varnas of
Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas and Shudras, presented a
social ranking based on birth qualification.
Caste Hierarchy

25. 
 For the village community system, it was a social
need that the village units should not burst as under
by the tension generated within them by the
contradictory aspirations of the people in social and
material life; and this division was fulfilled by the
Jati Division of the society where everybody had a
socio-spiritual position and a specific work to do.
 Such positions of respective individuals remained
stationary for generations.
 Therefore, a Brahmin priest’s son became a priest
and likewise.
Caste Hierarchy

26. 
 Therefore, from one village when it was over-
saturated, houses belonging to various castes would
separate and form another village
 This way Jati-division of society supplied social
foundation to the village community system of India
by providing “an unalterable division of labour” in
society
Caste Hierarchy

27. 
 A village in India is socially a far more complicated structure
and the complexity is reflected in the way houses are built
and the roads existed.
 A village generally has more than one caste. There may be
one lineage of caste or more.
 The habitation area of each caste is separated from other by a
greater or a lesser distance. The castes which are always
separated from the others are those whose touch was
supposed to pollute the rest – the untouchables. Their
habitation area has generally a distinct name.
Caste and Habitation Area in
a Village

28. 
 In Maharashtra, there is a Maharwada in every
village. Mang is another untouchable caste which
has its dwelling cluster separate from rest of the
village and also from the Mahars.
 In Andhra Pradesh, the Mala live apart from rest of
the village. The Madiga live near Mala but have a
separate cluster of houses.
 The Maharwada, or Mala & Madiga Wadi are
generally at the end of the village.
Caste and Habitation
Area in a Village

29. 
 Likewise, the Kumbhars live little apart and their
habitation area is called the Kumbhar Wada.
 This tendency to have separate sub-areas for
habitation within a larger unit called a village can be
explained on different grounds such as caste-
hierarchy, ideas of impurity and pollution, the need
for certain occupations to have room for carrying out
the different processes needed for their craft.
Caste and Habitation
Area in a Village

30. 
 Amminabhavi is a
village in the
southern state of
Karnataka.
 Amminabhavi lies
seven miles NE of
Dharwad;
 an old settlement;
 a black soil
agricultural village;
Amminabhavi Village
Aminbhavi

31.   Caste and community
largely govern the
layout.
 Of its 4106
inhabitants,
Lingayats, a sturdy
agricultural caste of
Karnataka, form some
2650 in number.
 Next are the Muslims
comprising 550 in
number.
 Culturally dominant
groups are the Jains
(250) and the
Brahmins (75).
Amminabhavi Village

32.   An Inaam Village
(Landlord
Village)belonging to
Desai (Jains) and
Deshpande families
whose wadas stand on
the best sites.
 The Desai provide the
Village Patel or the
headman.
 Each caste tends to
occupy a solid block of
contiguous houses in a
lane named from the
caste.
Amminabhavi Village

33.   The smaller groups of
lower castes : Talwars
(domestic servants and
agricultural labourers,
Harijans (untouchables),
Wadars (quarry men),
live on the circumference
of the village or even
beyond the old moat.
 Occupations are mainly
on caste basis.
Amminabhavi Village

34.  The house layout is as standard as in any British
Working Class Street
 In front is a porch (katte) used to dry the
agricultural produce as a formal reception room
 Above all is the sleeping room in the stifling
summer nights
 Behind this is the main room around 25 sq.ft. part
of which is a cattle pen at threshold level
 The raised platform is a general living room for
sleeping, eating , more intimate entertainment of
guests
 The most prominent object is the pile of grain that
gets depleted towards the end of the agricultural
year.
 Behind is a separate kitchen with a corner for bath
and the backyard with manure pit and haystacks.
Amminabhavi Village
Aminnabhavi House Plan

35. 
Amminabhavi Village

36.  Jains and Brahmins do not live so tightly packed as the rest either in
spacing of houses or within them
 The poorest castes lived in wretched one room wattle huts with
thatched roofs.
 Apart from these, all houses have 1 or 2 ft. thick mud brick walls
with few or high or most likely no windows (burglar phobia)
 The flat roof is supported by wooden posts and is made of mud on a
framework of crude beams and Babul branches
Amminabhavi Village

37. 
 As far as services are
concerned, they’re
grouped around the main
village lane: market place,
shops, booths selling
bidis and tea.
 Near the market place is
the room for village
Panchayat. Joined with it
is the tiny ‘urban core’ are
the Govt. establishments:
Police Station, Post
Office, Grain Warehouse.
 There is a mosque and almost eight to ten temples.
 A large masonry-lined public well may be observed : an apt reminder of the
importance of water supply in Indian life.

38. 
The aspect of village varies not only with the general regional
setting, with building materials & house-types but also with social
factors.
No one village can be typical of the whole
subcontinent; though many features can be
paralleled over and over again in most parts
of India. Amminabhavi is at least very
representative.
Thankyou!
Presented by:
VIDISHA BARWAL
SOURCE:
Rural Sociology in India, A.R.Desai