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Books

lovers realise the power Rural realities
of love. All three novels, THE INDIAN VILLAGE: RURAL
thus, fulfill the objective LIVES IN THE 21ST CENTURY
of pursuit of happiness, NDIA’S 600,000 vil- Surinder S. Jodhka
through which they create lages represent a vast ALEPH BOOK COMPANY
emotional resonance Iterrain, full of diversity Rs.799
within the reader. in natural settings, social Pages 279
Wajid’s romances don’t structure, cultural life,
weave a fairy tale aura that economic conditions, and
is removed from social many other aspects of life.
reality. On the contrary, On the one hand, there is “not only empirically This book details
all her characters live and are villages that have all unsustainable, it also the relationship
breathe the same air as types of modern equip- produces a hierarchy between land reforms,
any urban middle-class ment for agricultural work among the two: the rural green revolution,
Muslim woman of their and connectivity with as being traditional and rising agricultural
milieu, that is, the con- the rest of the world. On backward, and the urban production and
servative world of south the other there are vil- as modern and evolved.” the emergence of
Indian Muslim families of lages in tribal areas, where The Indian Village marginalised people
Bengaluru. Wajid’s plots peasants still follow old critically evaluates the
do not take recourse to patterns of agriculture, colonial construction of
the extraordinary or un- and are unable to produce rural India as a land of of rural India. The book
usual to hook the reader’s sufficient food to fulfill the village republics. It is a details the relationship
interest. Though all three needs of their families. radical claim made by between the impact of land
novels retain a light tone, Apart from an intro- the author that not only reform, Green Revolution,
are fast paced and intense, duction and conclusion, Karl Marx but icons like enhancement of agricul-
with intimate experiences the book contains nine Gandhi, Tagore, and tural production, and
usually associated with chapters, which cover Nehru were also influenced emergence of marginalised
chick lit, they demonstrate diverse issues such as the by this construction of people in India’s political
a complexity that we don’t village as a site of deficit; Indian villages. Gandhi landscape.
usually associate with its imagination as a basic based his idea of swaraj on Choubey underscores
novels written for young and static unit of the na- the concept of ideal Indian that out-migration in-
women. tion, and ethnographic villages, while Nehru creased in several rural
Wajid refrains from descriptions of village life. and Ambedkar strongly areas, resulting in the
offering her readers escap- It also presents analyses criticised socio-economic dependence of many rural
ist fantasies of female of the changing nature of conditions in village India. families on the non-farm
autonomy or uncom- state policies, agriculture While Nehru considered economy. New tech-
plicated happy endings. and non-farm economy, the Indian village a space nologies also created new
The seeming absence of a class, caste and gender, of class inequalities and opportunities for people
dense web of contextuali- and new democratic spaces exploitation, Ambedkar living in rural India who
sation such as cultural and and voices emerging in vehemently criticised it established connection
political issues in Wajid’s rural India. for caste-based inequali- with people in urban
books is offset by their The author accepts ties, oppression, exclu- areas. It also improved the
ethnographic significance, that “rural realities are sion, and exploitation. lifestyle of many families,
and their entanglement not singular processes, The author underlines who were earlier margin-
in the intricate politics of they have been historically that these thinkers were alised in the village due to
religion, gender, and class. diverse and their unhappy with the existing their caste and economic
It’s time academia and trajectories of change are conditions of villages and status. It is also true that in
critics shed their bias for different across regions.” presented their solutions most villages, the masses
literature with capital L And, one of the key to overcome the deficien- have knowledge about new
and take note of writings running themes of the cies of rural life. technologies such as cell
that articulate concerns of book is that the popular Indeed the changes phones, television, and
young girls and tell about view of social life in ‘rural’ in the political life of the the internet, and the gap
their lives and choices. and ‘urban’ settings as country can be best under- between urban and rural
NISHAT ZAIDI binaries of each other stood through the changes India has reduced drasti-
(The Book Review) is completely flawed. It in the socio-economic life cally.

88 EDUCATIONWORLD FEBRUARY 2024