THE ECONOMIC WEEKLY
A
September 12, 1953
Survey of the Economic and Social Conditions
of the Chamars of Barpali in Orissa
A n d Proposals for a Development Programme
Nityananda
Patnaik
The following economic and social .survey of the Chamars in the village of Barpali in Orissa was carried out in response to a request from the Community Development authorities Dial the possibilities of setting up a small factory for leather work in the village should he explored. All the sixty Chamar families m
the village were surveyed by direct questioning and observation of their daily activities and on the basis of
the findings, a development programme was drawn up which would suit best the present set"-up of the Chamar
society. The author is a rural life analyst to the American Friends Service Committee at Barpali.
T
H I S is a diagnostic survey carried on among the Chamars i n habiting the village of Barpali. The
nomenclature, Chamar, denotes a
group of people who work on
chamda (hide or leather). Though
they are Hindus, they belong to a
scheduled caste and are untouchables. In this community of Chamars, leather work and business in
hides constitute the main source of
income. Hindus of higher
castes
consider the occupation of the Chamars as unclean so they have no
social communion with them in
matters of eating together or " sitting " together, etc. The Chamars
of the village bear a surname
" M e h e r " which the weavers of this
area also bear. The word Meher
means weaver, not Chamar. In
Sundergarh, an adjoining district of
Sambalpur, the Chamars are known
as Ruidas, - which means Raidesh
(Raigarh) a place in Madhya Pradesh from where they migrated.
The Chamars of Barpali admit that
they have come from Raigarh and
Chhatisgarh, all in Madhya Pradesh,
but
they feel ashamed of being
called Ruidas.
This is the origin of the people
about whom we carried out a socioeconomic survey.
Sometime ago
Dr Haribandhu Mohanty invited the
Barpali Project to look into the possibilities of a small factory for leather work and to see if one could
be set up in this village among the
Chamars. In order to find out the
basic facts, such as the social and
economic organization of the Chamar society, availability of rawmaterials, the economic condition of
the people and their felt need for a
factory, a survey was carried out
among the sixty families of the community by the method of direct
questioning and observing them in
their daily activities. The survey
helped to guide us in drafting a
development programme which would
best fit the present set-up of the
Chamar society.
number of hides they each
monthly are given below;
collect
GENERAL. CONDITIONS
There are sixty families of Chamars in the village of Barpali of
which fifteen are landless. We may
divide the Chamars into three main
sections according to their occupations as follows:
(1) Agriculturists.
(2) Non-agriculturists who carry on
business in hides.
(3) Non-agriculturists w h o depend on shoemaking.
Most of the fan lilies which fall
under categories (2) and (3) have
land but not enough of it to be a
primary source of income. There
are seven agricultural chamar families, nine shoemaker families, and
ten in business who have land. On
the other hand, there are two bepari
(trader) chamars and ten shoemaking
families who have no land. The
rest of the families do not come
under any of the above categories
as they carry on business in bides
sometimes, shoemaking at leisure
hours and cultivate the land of other
people on the basis of chidol and
bandhaki, etc. The reputed Beparies
among the Chamars are:
1. Ghanasyam Meher
2. Karna Meher
3. Kesab Meher
4. Lochana Meher
5. Bhagirathi Meher
6. Sagri Meher
7. Ram Copal Meher
8. Kiru Meher
9. Kulhu Meher
10. Budu Meher
11. Lokanath Meher
12. Kanci Meher
Among them Karna, Kesab and
Lochana are rich beparies who have
sufficient money to carry on purchase and sale of hide throughout
the year.
The names of Beparies and the
1003
These 2260 pieces of gila (raw, untanned), sukha nimki (dried, salted),
and sukha gukhi (only dried) hides
of cattle and buffaloes are exported
by the chamars of Barpali to Sambalpur.
The system of collection of hide
and means of transport and payment
of money in advance and the business transaction involved in the hide
business are as follows:—As soon as
an animal dies, its owner calls for a
Ganda or a Ghasi or a Chamar to
whom he usually gives the dead
animal. It is the custom that no
owner receives anything from him
in return for the carcass. This custom was followed strictly by every
caste so scrupulously that if a man
was found receiving any payment, he
was generally outcasted. Now-a-days
this custom is followed less strictly.
Accordingly Waje bul-urge, the village Choukidar, is entitled to collect
all the dead animals from his village
people without any money payment
to them.
He performs certain
duties for them in return. He keeps
watch over the village, supplies footwear to those who wish to have
them in return for their carcass and
carries messages of death to relatives
of the village people. For all these
services, the village Choukidar is
T H E ECONOMIC WEEKLY
September 12, 1953
entitled to all the dead animals
without cost. But in the changing
conditions the people, in order to
get money, give their dead animals
secretly to Ghasis or Chamars because these people are ready to pay
for the carcase
So under this
changing situation, the hides of a
village are distributed anions the
village Choukular, Ghand, the Gha
sis and the Chamars. 'The village
Choukidar belongs to the Ganda
Caste. In the past all the Caudas
were cutting open the dead animals
and eating carrion. But nowadays
some of them no Ion gel" do so.
Those who still eat carrion do so
most secretly. So as soon as a Ganda
receives a dead animal, he calls the
Chamar to whom he gives skins
regularly. The Chamar comes and
skins it and takes the skin and flesh
and in some eases the hones.
Whatever hides the village Choukidar, Chamar and Ghasi collect, all
come to the hands of the Bepari
Chamars of Barpuli. The Bepari
Chamars give the village Chamars
some money in advance for collecting hides for them and also tell
them approximately the time when
they will come to collect the hides.
Thus a Bepari Chamar collects the
hides irom his area and sends them
in cartloads to Sambalpur where he
sells them to the Mahajans. These
Mahajans are Muslims and though
they have different shops and are unrelated to one another, they have
been united under the same principle of business. So far as business
is concerned, they are one and have
unity and co-operation. They buy
whatever hides the Barpali Chamars
supply them. The Mahajans give
some of the Beparies money in advance for buying hides. They do
not fix any regular rate at ' which
they will buy from the
Chamars.
When the Bepari Chamars arrive at
the shop of a Mahajan in Sambalpur
with cart loads of hides, the latter
declares a rate and buys the goods
accordingly, He also examines the
hides individually and declares that:
some of them are had, even though
in many cases this is not true. For
the so-called bad ones,, the Mahajan
will pay only half the price. Should
the Chamar protest, the Mahajan
would threaten to reject the whole
consignment!
The poor Chamar,
as he has no alternative, must sell
at the price the Mahajan fixes. The
Chamars also complain against the
way the Mahajan weighs the hides,
deliberate under-weighing being frequent.
The only means of transporting
the hides to Sambalpur is by bullock
cart which the Chamars do not
possess.
Therefore they depend
upon the Ghasis who have bullocks
and carts. Each time the Chamars
have hides ready for transportation,
they call upon the Ghasis to perform this service. Generally speaking this provides the only source of
income for the Ghasis who are thus
1004
economically dependent upon the
Chamars. So far motor transport
has not entered this field.
In order to study the economic
position of the Chamars, some samples for each economic class were
taken. These samples were studied
and the information was supplemented by direct questioning,
R G M: His family consists of
five members. Last year he got two
purngs of paddy from his field.
This was sufficient for two months
for his family of five. For the rest
of the year, he depends on his business in hides which he has been
doing for the last 25 years. 'The
following business chart of a Chammar is an account of his business which he could recall from
memory and give me before his
fellow-businessmen on 16th July:
From this chart if we analyse the
accounts of a month or two in
detail we come to know some interesting points relating to the business of hides. For example, let us
take the first and the last, cases.
THE ECONOMIC WEEKLY
These 49 hides were sent to Sambalpur.
The Mahajan purchased
them from him at the following;
rates:
Rs
Gila hide per piece ...
4
Sukhn Nnnki—cattle per
maund
...
... 25
Sukha Gukhi—cattle per
maund
...
... 40
A maund of .sukha nimki tattle
hide
consists
approximately
of
10 pieces, suk ka gukhu comes to
1 2 pieces. From these rates we
calculated that the price of 49 hides
came to approximately Rs 20c. In
transporting the hides to Sambalpur
the cart charges were Rs 12.
Therefore the man obtained a net
profit of Rs 19-7.
Hides sent in the month of Kartik:
He collected 400 hides which cost
h i m Rs 1,100. These were dried—
silled, For salting he spent Rs 100
Then he look them to Sambalpur,
paying Rs 100 FOR cartage. The
September 12, 1953
Mahajan checked the hides- and
selected 838 as being good
and
insisted that 62 hides were of poor
quality. The- Mahajan paid Rs 4
each for the good hides and Rs 2
for the poor ones. Thus the price
of the whole lot of hides came to
Rs 1,476. After the expense incurred in transport and suit are deducted from the amount which he
received from the Mahajan, it leaves
him Rs 1,270, so the Chamai suffered a net loss of Rs 124.
R C M had two years ago
S acres of land. As he had no
deposit money to purchase hides, he
mortgaged 75 decimals and 5 acres
to Ganasyam Meher and Parikhita
Meher respectively and received a
sum of Rs 400 and Rs 1,500 respectively against the mortgaged properly, He has not been able to
pay off the loan nor does he see
any hope of recovering his mortgaged property in the future. He
receives advance money
from the
1005
Mahajan for supplying him with
hides. There are six people now at
Sanibalptir and Jhaisaguda who have
consanguine relationship with one
another, engaged in buying hides
and bones and exporting them to
B o m b a y , Calcutta and Madras.
They are very clever business men.
When they give advances to their
hide suppliers, they do not (tell
them at what price they will buy
the hides. Moreover the Clamars
are illiterate. They have been supplying hides to those particular merchants because there is no other
merchant to whom they could take
them. When they come with their
hides to these merchants, the latter
tell them a rate which is much below
the market price. The Chamars having no other alternative, sell their
hides at that rate. Moreover, the
merchants' plea that many hides
seem bad is often an excuse for paying only half price.
(To he continued)