Communities: Sholapur
Communities: Sholapur
This is an extract from a British Raj gazetteer pertaining to Sholapur that seems |
Communities
The organization of village communities varies little in different parts of the district. The duties and position of the deshmukh or district head and the deshpande or district clerk formerly corresponded for a group of villages to the duties of the patil or village head and thekulkarni or village clerk in one village. Under the British system of land management no duties attach to the offices of deshmukh and deshpande, but under the Summary Settlement Act (VII, of 1863) about two-thirds of their former emoluments have been continued to the holders of those offices. Such of them as are well-to-do are still respected as men of old family, but division of land has brought most of these families to poverty. The full village staff is composed of the Patil or headman, the Kulkarni or accountant, the Joshi or astrologer, the Gurav or temple ministrant, the Sonar or goldsmith, the Sutar or carpenter, the Lohar or iron-Smith, the Parit or washerman, the Nhavi or barber, the Kumbhar or potter, the Mhar or the village watchman and beadle, the Mang or scavenger, and the Chambhar or shoemaker. Only the largest villages support the full staff of servants. Ordinary villages have a varying number of servants and every village has at least the patil, kulkarni, Mang, and Mhar. The barber, washerman, carpenter, blacksmith, astrologer, and others have often to serve several villages. In the south and south-east of the district where Kanarese is spoken thepatil is called gavda and the accountant is called shanbhog. Since the introduction of the survey rates villagers have neglected to pay the village servants grain allowance or balute,and many village servants have either left their villages or have taken to tillage. Still as most landholders continue to pay the old allowance of grain the community keeps its hold on most of its servants. The population of most Sholapur villages is mixed. Some villages are entirely Dhangar settlements, who, though the two classes do not intermarry, can hardly be known from Kunbis. The village clerk or kulkarni and the astrologer or joshi, as a rule, are Brahmans. The headman or patil is generally a Maratha Kunbi and occasionally a Musalman, Dhangar, Gurav, or Lingayat. Mangs, Mhars, Chambhars, and Dhors are not allowed to use the village well; they have generally their own well and when they have no well, they get their water from a Kunbi, or a member of the other classes who has the right to use the village well. When a work of public usefulness, such as repairing the village temple is to be done, a subscription is raised by the richer families, and those who cannot pay in cash pay in labour. But village unions to carry out public works of this kind are gradually becoming rarer. Formerly with few exceptions the villages were surrounded with walls generally of mud. These are now neglected and as a rule are in ruins. There is no distinction between original settlers and new comers. Here and there an inhabitant of one village tills land in another village. The headman receives special honour in most public religious ceremonies. He offers the first cake when the Holi is worshipped during the Shimga holidays in March, his bullocks take the lead in the cattle procession on Pola or Ox Day in August, and on DasaraDay in September-October he is the first to worship the apta tree. The women of the headman's family take the first place at all Maratha marriage parties. The headman sometimes, but not often, acts as a moneylender. After the 1876-77 famine the headmen in several cases used their influence to persuade moneylenders to make advances to villagers. But as a rule they never interfere between the lender and the borrower, and the professional moneylender rarely calls in the headman to help him in settling a claim. Religious disputes and disputes regarding the sharing of ancestral property when the amount is not very large, are still sometimes referred to village councils. Of late years a large area of land has virtually passed from the husbandman to the moneylender. In many cases the land continnes in the village books in the husbandman's name, but the rent is paid by the moneylender to whom the land has been mortgaged.
