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Society
Tale of Two Villages
 Dr T Scarlet
Epstein, an economist and anthropologist based in Britain, recently
screened excerpts from `Villages Voices' - a film based documenting rural
transformation in South India since 1954 - at the Vienna Institute for
Development and Cooperation. `Village Voices', based on Epstein's book by
the same name, showcases the development process in two villages, one
irrigated and one dry, in the state of Karnataka.
Guest speaker Epstein's book was first released in 1999. However, the film
documents changes right up to 2004. Epstein's research is ongoing, and she
continues to visit India. Epstein, 83, says the purpose of her over
40-year research has been to find out from the villagers themselves how
they define development.
In the film, Shoba, a wide-eyed teenager from village Wangala, talks of
her dream of studying to become a high court advocate. She does want to
marry, but only after she has a degree in law. Epstein first visited Shoba
in 1994. A decade later, when Epstein returned to Wangala, a village
located near Mysore, she found that Shoba seemed less enthusiastic about
the future. She was married with a child and seemed to be completely under
the thumb of her husband and in-laws. Shoba told Epstein that although
India won freedom in 1947, only the men appeared to be free in the country
today.
Shoba is a living example of how gender inequalities persist in India
despite the country having progressed substantially in many spheres. While
technological changes and modern ideas have generally benefited women,
their gains are small compared to the discrimination and inequalities they
continue to suffer even today.
In 1954, Epstein was a post graduate student at the University of
Manchester, Britain, when she was invited by Professor M N Srinivas, the
eminent Indian social anthropologist, to investigate the impact of a large
canal irrigation scheme on the socio-economic system of villagers. Epstein
first visited Wangala in 1954. In 1970, when she re-visited Wangala, which
was now irrigated, she found an increase in educational facilities,
leading to a great interest in family planning.
Talking of the effects of economic change on the role of women in southern
India, Epstein felt that the negative valuation of women is linked to a
rise in employment that does not involve agricultural activities. When
occupations diversify away from agriculture, more women than men are left
without jobs. In India, women are traditionally hired along with their
husbands to till the land. But after the men leave the villages to work in
urban areas, the wives are not given their jobs in the field.
Summarising her field experiences as both negative and positive, Epstein
said that the introduction of irrigation in Wangala village allowed the
transition from subsistence farming to the plantation of cash crops like
paddy and sugar cane, making some villagers very prosperous. In the dry
village of Dalena, villagers looked for employment opportunities away from
agriculture to create an integrated regional economy.
While the irrigated village cultivated the produce, the dry village
processed and marketed the crops. However, with an increase in household
incomes, in both the irrigated and dry villages, Epstein noticed that many
women were happy not to have to earn a living. They were relieved to
retire indoors, often losing interest in the world beyond. Some were even
reluctant to send children to school as they noticed that the traditional
village culture, which revolves around conformity, clashed with modern
education, where the spirit of competition is encouraged.
Throughout her stay in Wangala, Epstein wore a loose bush coat over khaki
trousers; kept her hair short; and learnt the local language. "I
considered the men to be my major source of information and tried my best
to disassociate myself from any overt features of womanhood," she said
during her presentation.
She recalls having forged close friendships with many men, but the village
women remained aloof and reluctant to share their knowledge with her.
Epstein once asked a group of village women why they did not want to mix
with her as freely as their menfolk. The most articulate of them told
Epstein: "You have the body of a woman but the mind of a man and you
behave like a man. You are so different from us village women that we feel
that we have nothing in common with you. At an age when most of us are
married and already have a number of children, you have no children and
are without a husband. Our lives revolve around our families; you have no
experience of this. Our paths therefore do not cross anywhere and this is
why we remain remote."
Epstein, only 32 at that time, was taken aback. She wondered then if her
account of the village life would have been significantly different if she
had concentrated more on studying women, rather than relying on men. In
fact, she regretted that the economist in her had overlooked her interest
in discovering more about the women in the village. From 1974 onwards,
Epstein started involving more women in her research.
She even introduced a novel research model that remains exceptionally
gender-sensitive to this day. A four-year study of the role of women in
Asian rural development was started in 1973, with female Asian students
from Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Indonesia.
In a village in Pakistan, where most men had migrated to the Middle East,
Epstein's study shows that overnight women took on the role of
decision-makers. In the absence of men, some women terminated pregnancies
and decided the future of their children. But with prosperity, most rural
women seem content to move into the women's quarter of their new, more
plush homes, happy to live in purdah in imitation of upper-class women.
Epstein is considered a pioneer in promoting a growing concern about the
lopsided path often taken by rural developers. Her work is significant as
it continues to point towards a more culturally sensitive development
strategy.
Epstein made Britain her home in 1938, after fleeing the Nazi occupation
of Austria. She now travels across the globe sharing her unique research.
– Mehru Jaffer
August 14, 2005
By arrangement with
Womens Feature Service
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