Volume : VIII, Issue : VI, June - 2019

Ethnic relations in a village in West Bengal

Ashim Das

Abstract :

Relation between people of different ethnic groups is an important issue in today’s world. At both the national and international levels, ethnic conflicts have become frequent which hampers social harmony. In this work I have made an attempt to map ethnic relations in a village. The major objective of this paper is to understand the ethnic relationship in terms of various social and economic aspects among the different communities in the study area. The village which I have studied has four ethnic groups, viz., Lodha, Bhumij, Oraon and Teli. In terms of percentage the Lodha community constituted 79% out of total population in the study area. In this village I did not find any caste hierarchy. The different communities in the village were related through (i) economic co–operation, (ii) inter–community marriages, (iii) participation in communal and village festivals, (iv) traditional village organization, (v) access to common property resources and (vi) participation in the rituals related to rites of passage and (vii) common language. In this paper, I have described through representative case studies how the above factors behind the different ethnic communities operate in a harmonious relationship.

Article: Download PDF    DOI : https://www.doi.org/10.36106/paripex  

Cite This Article:

ETHNIC RELATIONS IN A VILLAGE IN WEST BENGAL, Ashim Das PARIPEX‾INDIAN JOURNAL OF RESEARCH : Volume-8 | Issue-6 | June-2019

Number of Downloads : 150

References :