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PROJECT  -  VILLAGE INDIA

Interim Report 

Conceptual and Cultural Contexts

Baidyanath Saraswati

UNESCO Chair in the Field of Cultural Development

THIS is a part of a major work that has been in the making for the past few months. The approach of the work is somewhat new. Here the village has been taken as the entry point for studying India’s cultural heritage. It differs from other works on village India in that it treats village as "person", as "cosmos". It is intended to serve as a practical guide for the management of development. In the process of preparing new material for determining development parameters, it is relatively independent of its predecessors. It presents conceptual and cultural contexts in which the major components of the village can be analysed without reference to development statistics. True, one cannot ignore the critical number required for studying the cultural heritage of one billion people. Happily, UNESCO has shifted its emphasis from quantitative to qualitative change. This report is more or less an outline of a possible approach and theoretical position in cultural heritage studies.

For help in carrying out this project I am indebted to many people and organizations, particularly UNESCO and UNDP. Thanks are due to the investigators and co-ordinators whose field reports have been the main source material for the present discourse. I should like to express heartful thanks to Subhash Chander, Kailash Kumar Mishra, S.S. Gusain, A.F. Inam, Sonam Lepcha, Deelip Mhamal, Anoop Prakash Mishra, Shiv Kumar Mishra, Suhas M. Parsekar, Dilip Kumar Pathak, Naresh Kumar Pathak, Babul Roy, Subrangsu Santra and Prashant Kumar Verma; and to Poonam Mathur for very helpful research assistance, to Seema Gakhar for typing the manuscript, to P.T. Deshpande for the map, to Rajindar Taragi for the illustration, and to Mukul Dube for editorial help.

New Delhi 

Baidyanath Saraswati

2nd October, 1999

Village India