Rural India and peasantry in Hindi stories : narratives after Premchand / edited by Vanashree Tripathi.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Vanashree, 1956- editor.

Series:

Oxford scholarship online.

Oxford scholarship online

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Short stories, Hindi--History and criticism.

Short stories, Hindi.

Rural conditions in literature.

Peasants in literature.

Genre:

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (225 pages)

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2023.

Language Note:

English; story excerpts translated from Hindi into English.

Summary:

Drawing on a rich storehouse of short stories in Hindi, after Premchand, this book evokes the entire spectrum of crises that the rural world has experienced since the early decades of independent India through the period of liberalization till the recent decades. The transcribed excerpts poignantly carry the spirit of rural India.

Contents:

Cover

Half-Title

Title

Copyright

Contents

Introduction: Rural India and Peasantry in Stories

The Focus of this Study on Narratives in Hindi

Rural Economic Conditions: Era of Premchand and the Rise of Hindi

India's Freedom Synchronized with the Freedom of Peasantry

Post-​Independence Rural India and the Programmes Espoused by the State

The Impact of Green Revolution: Agriculture Embodied Chaos of India in the Throes of Development

Fasal Bima Yojana 2016 (Prime Minister Crops Insurance Plan)

Indebtedness and the Financial Assistance Programmes

Gram Swaraj: A Farce

Agrarian Society in Deep Distress

Why Only Short Story

A Note on Translation of Excerpts from Hindi into English

1. Village India: Difficult Stories

'There Cannot Be Good Stories of Peasantry

There Are Only Difficult Stories'

From Premchand to Shrilal Shukla: Colonialism to Elite Nationalisms

Winter's Night ('Poos ki Raat') Is Severe

Usury Renders Them Refugees in Their Own Land

Tortuous Snare of Moneylending: Private Loaners and State Assistance Programs

Panchayats to Rural Banks: Agencies of Rural Welfare

Doublethink in the Welfare State: Experts and Intermediaries

Deal Done! An Ailing Buffalo with Three Teats

Poor Peasants, Targets of Indignity of Vasectomy

Indirect Violence: Land Ceiling Act

Rural Population, Streaming to Distant Lands

Clearing of Forests Have Cleared Even Vultures and Bats, Neel Gai, or Even the Crowd of Deer

The Village, a Site of Crimes, No Police Patrolling

The Caste of Power Matters

Toddy Sinks Hori into Unthinking Stupor, Prolefeed Lends Illusion

Dreary, Drudging Village, but There Is Surfeit of Bright Images to Keep the Blues Away

2. Land Grab: The Dispossessed in the Spectacles of Jugaad

Faustian Bargain: 'Bhudan'.

They 'Hold Your Nose from Behind'

Resistance to Indigo Planting: 'Chest Stained with Blood'

The Grim Outcome of Development

Chakbandi (Land Ceiling): Benami Holdings and Profiteering in Dikshit's 'Darwaje vala Khet' (Farm at the Door)

Spectacles of Jugaad: Surplus Lands in the Phony Names, Divorced, but Not Divorced Wives, Temple, Cats and Dogs

Manipulating Provisions of Law

The Aggrieved and the Sahib

Sahib Has No Patience for Nonsense

The Destiny of Marked Letter: They Reach Nowhere

3. Small Farmers of Cane and Paddy: Post-​Harvest Delays and Non-​Payment

Difficult Relationship with the State: The Bowl of Sugarcane Farming

Maiku's Travails of Wait: Such a Long Journey!

The Set-​up Is Staged: Heckling and Manhandling

Flouting of Moral Economy: Death by Starving or Cardiac Arrest

The Village Administration and the Profiteers: Hassles of Long Wait

Middlemen, Grocers, and Dealers Slide Ahead of the Farmers

Difficult to Seek Hearing: Sahib Speaks English

4. Women Peasants in Triple Jeopardy: Conmen as Philanthropists

Women and the Village Administration

Land Remains a Covert but Contentious Issue

Saguna's Derangement and Death

Treacherous Plan to Usurp the Land

Saguna's Plot of Two Bighas Is the Target

The Stronghold of a Race of Parasites: The Handler-​Manipulator

Land Declared Benami: No Scope for Damage Control

The Development: Reality Check

Human Trafficking and Murders: Underbelly of Rural life in 'Kasaibada'

Women Complainant: No FIR at the Police Station, but Sexual Expletives

Special Connect with the Police: Villages, the Site of Roguery, Addiction, Arrack

Illiteracy of Womenfolk: The Literate Offenders Defend Their Crime

New Class of Rich: 'Progenies of Parasitism'

5. Why Do Rural Poor Continue to Remain Poor and Uneducated?.

Wrongs, since the Foundation of New India after Independence

Dearth of Adequate Number of Schools: Village School in Debris

Caste Identity, Branding, and Expletives

Casual Cruelty to Inhuman Punishment: 'Can Studies Make a Crow Sprout the Peacock's Wings?'

Pairavi, Jugaad: The Crafty Deal to Manipulate School Inspection

Trying Times Force Us to Call 'a Donkey Our Father'

Post-​Mandal Storm: Forged Upper-​Caste Solidarity

Male Teachers: Lower Female Attendance in Rural India

Status Quo Challenged that Calls for some Shadayantra (Conspiracy)

Fault Lines in the Rural System of Pedagogy

6. Rural Migration: Dismantling Rural Resources

The Presence of Migrant Subculture in the Cities

Peasants, Non-cultivators Associated with Farming, Buckled under the Pressure

Straddling Country and the City: Mansaram's Craft and Labour is Not Wanted

Times Have Changed the Village and the Values

For Pardes (Foreign Land): The Tough Toiling, Precarious World of Migrant Labourers

Harassment at the Hands of Employers or Police or Anti-​social Elements

Drift into Criminal Route: 'The Boats Capsize, Where? Nobody Knows!'

Weavers Made to Abandon Their Work

Lives Hostage to Anonymity, Could Have Sinister Ends

7. When Hunger Hits the Rural Poor, Aged, and Disabled: The Meal of Mice and Dead Cow

Premchand's 'Kafan': The Indignity of Hunger

the Joys of a Good Feast

Disabled in Rural India: No Friendly Infrastructure

Hunger and an Injured, Disabled Body

The Ritual of Punishment

Starving in Parched Fields: Jayakaran's Ordeal

The Caste Tensions Polarized the Upper Caste, The RED Flag Instigated but Failed to Help

Mango Kernel and Field Rats

The Famine Relief and the Intermediaries: The Red Card Was Withheld

Manoeuvring: Prem Kumar Mani 'Jugaad'.

8. Farmers in Death Row: Farming-​Risky, Sisyphean

Usury-​Back Breaking

Peasants Not Attuned to Alternative Modes of Subsistence

Drought, Debt, Daughter: 'Pret Chhaya'

Farming on Lease, Vagaries of Weather, and Predators of Drought: 'Prakop'

Drowned in Suffering, None Could Understand

Peasant's Death Is a Commodity: Police Extortion

Wrath of God and Ludicrous Relief: 'Tractor and Suhaga'

'Mukti': The Promise of Quick Money

9. Despoiled Environment: In the Politics of Integrated Development, Money Grows on Trees

Nepotism, Bribery, Complicity in Corruption, Cut/Commission

The Rise of Swami/​Guru

Village, a True Model of Communal Amity or Business Interest!

Discourse of Progress Overawe the Common People

Appropriation of Land, Deforestation

Trees Are Withered Skeletons: When Corruption Infects the Sovereign Segment of a Society, Every Individual Becomes a Predator

The Destiny of an Ancient Forest: Instead of the Trees, Trucks Line Up: Logging, Stealing, and Auctioning

Corruption and the Politics and Economics of Development

The 'Finished' Job of Transporting the Stolen Goods

The Sinister Sound and Sights of Logging

The Seed Capital and More Network

The Land Utilization Act and the Project: Slaughter Trees

State's Ownership of Forest

What Are the Implications of Despoiled Environment?

Slow Violence: Calamities That Are Slow but Long Lasting

References

Index.

Notes:

This edition also issued in print: 2023.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from home page (viewed on June 26, 2023).

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

0-19-269963-6

0-19-196791-2

0-19-269962-8

OCLC:

1373347091