2.1.

5 Religion

As we know that India is a diverse country which includes Hinduism, Islam, Christianity,
Sikhism, Buddhism, Jainism, etc. The village we stayed in had people from two categories that
are Hindu with a majority of 97% and Muslim in minority. Unlike other places, the people of
different background lived together in harmony and used to help each other in their ups and
down. People might think that its just for saying and people of different religion cant live in
harmony but the participation of both the communities in celebration and commemoration is
attestation to the same,, the road is not always smooth and this could be seen from the hindering
activity of eating from each others kitchen because of dissimilar eating habits.
Even though differences existed between different castes, the village has not seen any violence
activity such as riot between people of different religions.

2.1.6 Castes and housing pattern

The Village comprised 4 broad categories that included various sub castes. The four main
categories and their sub castes are as follows:
1. SC: Harijan, Dhobhi, Beldar
2. GN: Baniya
3. OBC: Naai, Yadav, Barhai, Teli, Lohar, Mallah
The settlement area was primarily dependent on the caste living there. The people of the village
used to identify a settlement area on the basis of the caste residing there.

(Source:Census 2011, Village Partappur, Uttar Pradesh)

The baniyas were primarily for the facile trade & access to the market in the nearby villages
therefore their settlement used to be on a land alongside the main road along with the kewats and
telis. The Harijans and the scheduled castes, on the contrary, had settled at the backside of the
village that was connected to the nearby village of Balua through a kuccha road. The
Chaudharys and Saithwars had the major power in their hands and hence occupied the central
part of the village.
It has never been heard from the people of the village that caste is a matter of differentiating
people however, reality was not the same. The difference in the village could be seen in terms of
power that upper caste has over lower caste.
The Mukhiya in the village was just for the namesake because of the reservation of lower caste
but the power to take the decision was in the hands of the upper caste.
The caste difference could also be seen in the location and housing pattern in the village. The
lower castes were used to stay in concentrated spaces however the upper caste used to stay in a
free space. Also, the drainage system in both the area was quite different. The drainage near
lower caste houses was open leading to more diseases and stagnated water, however, the
drainage near the upper castes house was close and well maintained.

2.7 Conflict and Cooperation

At various instances, the people of the village have felt isolated because of the biased nature of
the Mukhiya towards his people.
When the government used to offer any general scheme or send seeds to distribute among the
people, the mukhiya use to favor his people first and give them all the offerings then the
remaining was given to other people.
The joint families in the village were disintegrating into nuclear families because of the jealousy
and the conflicts related to the property that the individuals hold in the family. The mechanism of
such family conflicts is taken through a Panchayat where the decisions remain mutual and if the
situation intensified by some reason then it was taken to the Nyaya panchayat located in the
nearby village of Sihorwa.
To address the conflicts related to community, people used to approach the priest in the
Gorakhpur temple who was known for giving justice without any partiality.

4. Village Polity and Governance

4.1 Gram Panchayat

The Gram Panchayat of Partappur covering an area of 2.73 square kilometers and having a
population of 3,667 governs two villages namely Partappur and Balua and has eleven members.
Illaichi devi was elected from Partappur in February 2015 under the reservation for SC women
candidate. Though Illaichi Devi was elected democratically, she doesnt exercise the power she
holds as the previous Pradhan, Ram Singh is the one who runs the Gram Panchayat.

A brief detail about Illaichi Devi: She has seven children that include 3 sons and 4 daughters, out
of which six are married and settled outside Partappur. The youngest daughter helps her mother
with household chores as she is a school dropout.
The Gram Panchayat of Partappur covers a total area of 2.73 square kilometers with a population
of 3,667 and governs two villages namely Partappur and Balua. There are eleven ward members
in this Gram panchayat that included reservation for SC women candidate in the village. Under
this reservation category Illaichi Devi from Partappur was elected in february 2015.During the
election around 80% voters came. Ram Singh, the previous Pradhan who supported Illaichi Devi
runs the gram panchayat even though she was elected democratically.
Illaichi Devi is a mother of 3 sons and 4 daughters. All her children except one are married and
settled in different places outside Partappur. Her youngest daughter is a school dropout and helps
with household chores. The family owns the land of the size of two-third of an acre, which is
taken care by her husband.
Ram Singh the ex-pradhan is a Saithwar (OBC) who is very active politically in the village. He
lives with his wife and a son in the village while his daughter lives in Gorakhpur with some
relatives. His youngest daughter was affected by cancer and faced an unwelcome death which
broke Ram Singh, the responsibility to handle all the businesses of the petrol pump and flour mill
was on him was taken over by his son. The villagers have the opinion that Ram Singh is biased
towards Saithwars and works only for them.
As we see the work and initiatives taken by Ram Singh, we found that mud roads have been
developed into brick roads. Also, mud roads have been constructed in the farm area farm
vehicles to pass through.

4.2 Gram Sabha

The Gram Sabha has a building called the Panchayat Bhavan, that lies in a tumbledown
condition but it is never used for the meetings and people usually use Ram Singhs house as the
Panchayat Bhavan. The function of Gram Sabha is to organize meetings and discuss the
development in the village; however, there has been no schedule of the meetings nor the
participation from the villagers.

Case: Are voters interested in the growth of the village or the benefits that they get during
election and the benefits that they can get after their candidate comes in power.

Ram singh is politically strong and had been pradhan often, but this time Illaichi devi became the
Pradhan because of the reservation of the SC category. The Ram Singh could not become
pradhan this time as he is not SC and hence he influenced Illaichi devi to be in power. To remain
in the power he chose an illiterate woman from SC category who is unaware of all the
procedures and proceedings of the official work that takes place as pradhan and the power she
owns. As a result no one knows who Illaichi devi is as all the power is in hands of Ram Singh
and he influences her for all the community gains. He decides what action to be taken and what
decisions to be made, and Illaichi Devi does exactly as told by Ram Singh.
In villages, elections does not happen by fair means as candidates spend a lot of money and use
others means such as bribery, liquor distribution etc to win in elections .
Being a democratic country, bureaucracy still exists at such places. Is it the fault of people living
there or the political system because of which such people are getting elected who cant
contribute to the growth of the village and are so weak that they cant exercise their power in
hand.

and lack of street lights. Also, the roads of village are not broad that two trucks can cross at same
time. In one incidence around seven women died at roadside because of the narrow roads and
mindset of people. But still people prefer open defecation despite the fact that toilets have been
built in almost 70% households under the Swachh Bharat Abhiyaan.
3. Village Economy and Livelihoods
3.1 Agriculture
The village has two agreements for the farmers. One is the adhiya system where the land is
divided into parts and provided to the labor that does not have land. In this system, the labor does
the farming and has to give half of the produce and capital earned to the owner as he allowed
them to use his land. The second agreement empowers the rich farmers as they can acquire and
farm on the land of the poor farmers against the money borrowed by them.
The irrigation facilities are different for the different level of farmers, the farmers borrow the
pump set from large farmers that own them an hourly basis at a price of Rs160/hour.
The marginal farmers prefer growing crops that require less water as they are highly dependent
on the water is drawn from rivers, ponds, and rain. However, the government officials
commented on the irrigation facility aid, that is a provision for pipelines and their free
installation in villages for the farmers, the awareness about the aid is very less among the farmers
because of the lack of communication through official channels.

Farmers in this village do not promote organic farming as they find it more time consuming
instead they abruptly use pesticide and fertilizer (urea, DAP) without even knowing the cause of
it in the long term. People in this village do not promote vegetable farming for commercial
purpose though the soil and weather condition is good for these cash crops because they require
more labor and care than crops like wheat and rice.

Prosperous farmer usually have combine machines or thrashers of their own for harvesting the
crop but marginal farmers do not have such machines as these machines costs 18 Lakh rupees so
they used to rent it from the bigger farmers or other vendors at the rate of 300Rs/hr.

In this village major crop that are produced are wheat in rabi season and rice which is cultivated
in kharif season but now farmers are shifting to other crops like groundnut and maize because
they find more profitable. Apart from the people also grow vegetable crops for their household
consumption as well as for commercial purpose .They also grow some of the zaid crop like
Eucalyptus and Turmeric.
 60%
51%
50%

40% 37%

30%

20%

10% 7%
3%
1% 1%
0%
Wheat Rice Pulses Cash Crops Til Others

Figure 2: Crop Production and Distribution (Source: BDO)

Case: Is people of the village making right use of things that are being provided?
Whenever the farmers are provided with seeds from the GEAG or government, they dont use it
in farms for the production purpose however, they use it for personal use with a mindset that they
will receive the seeds again the next year meanwhile this can be used personally.
For example, we saw that the farmers grind the turmeric seed given to them and store it as a
stock for future use as haldi powder instead of using they for farming

3.2 Animal Husbandry

Usually the local breeds that are wealthy owned the animals such as goats, buffalos etc. that are
used for rearing the land. The produce was not used for the trade purpose however; it was
basically for self-consumption. The vaccination of the animals was the responsibility of the
government officials but the schedule was not specified for the same. The animals were not
insured hence the farmers relied mostly on the veterinarians and the visiting government
officials.
Many people in the village are directly dependent on cows and buffaloes for their nutrition and
milk rearing but this pose a problem during dry months of animals thereby leading to lack of
nutrition. The primary source of fodder was the farm produce.

3.7 Markets

Sihorwa is the nearest market to Partappur which is 1 km away from the village that caters to the
daily need of villagers as it does not have a market of its own. There are various shops in the
market of Sihorwa such as garments, vegetables, medicines, stationary, grocery, electronics
items and mobile service etc. As the market is away from village various hawkers come to the
village regularly to sell products like sarees, woolen items, bed sheet, utensils, dry fruits,
bangles, etc and the number of these hawkers increase during the festival as people spend more
during festival time. The nearest agriculture market is PIPIGANJ which is located at a distance
of 13Km from the village thats why villagers prefer selling their produce to the local dealers
because of which they did not get the good price of their product. Same is the case with milk
collection center, the nearest center is located in Gorakhpur City which is about 23km from the
village and most of the farmers sell the milk to local vendors at Rs.25-30 which is very low in
comparison to market price of milk which is Rs.45-50.

3.8 Labour

Around 30% of the villagers are wage workers and it has been observed that the manual labor is
done mostly by the SC community and as there is no labor market in village people travel to
nearby city or migrate to distant state in search of work. Child labor which is an offense as per
the government rules has been witnessed in such villages. Generally children used to help their
parents in farming activities and other household work but children from lower class family used
to work as agricultural labor.
The earnings of the villagers are very low, due to the MGNREGS projects men earn Rs.180 per
day and women earn Rs.150 per day. If we consider the manual labor in farms, they earn around
Rs.250-300 per day. The Kanaujiyas, one of the OBC caste has been said to acquire skills from
ancestors and by travelling to different states, usually do the work of a carpenter or mason

1.1 Village Culture

Holi Diwali, Bhaidooj, rakshabandhan, Moharram, Chatt pooja , Durga pooja are some of the
major festivals celebrated in the village.
Bhaidooj is very similar to rakshabandhan, it is celebrated one day after Diwali. On this day
sisters after performing Gowardhan Pooja, performs aarti of brother and also apply red Tika on
forehead of brother. This ceremony signifies the love and blessing of sister for long and happy
life of her brother. Then sister treat brother with sweets and in return brother give gift or cash to
sister. On the occasion of bhai dooj brothers visit their sisters so they can perform the rituals.
Chatt Pooja was celebrated by all the women in the Hindu family, in this festival villagers
worship sun with the belief that it will ensure long and happy life for their family. This festival
lasts till four days and all the devotees fast during this period and perform different rituals.

Day 1: Naha Kha/ Nahaye Khaye

The first day symbolize the purity and discipline and all the family members will eat after taking
bath in water bodies and women fast whole day and have only one meal.

Day 2: Kharna
On second day women keep Nirajal vrat which means fast without water, and they breakfast
after offering Kheer Roti to god sun.

Day 3: Pehla Arghya / Sandhya Arghya

This is the main day of the festival. People start the day with Surya Namaskar & taking a dip in
water bodies in the evening. They sing melodious folklore and praying for the Sun. Devotees
observe nirjala vrat and offer argha (sweets, fruits) to the God Sun. The fast continues
throughout the night and is broken on the fourth day with the sunrise.

Day 4: Doosra Arghya/ Paaran

The last day of festival is celebrated by offering prayers and sweets in the morning to the rising
Sun this is called as Usha Arghya. Then the fast is broken after offering the argha and Surya
Namaskar.

1.2 Shocks

1.3.1 Flood
Pratappur is in flood prone area, the geographical location of village is between two rivers
Rohini and Rapti which makes it more vulnerable to flood. This year the village was hit by
massive flood, whole village was submerged in the flood water for almost a month resulting in
human and economic loss. There were reports of many deaths from nearby villages. People lost
their livestocks and crops, which made them more vulnerable, they lost their investment as well
as the profit which they were expecting to get this year from the produce, they are left with no
income source and the after effect of flood have resulted in increase of prices of most of the
commodities so their expenses have also been increasing which resulted that most of the
villagers are migrating to nearby cities in order to get a source of income. Those who was in
occupation of farm workers are having the worse time, they used to get more than Rs.300 per
day working in farm because of their specialization, but now they are working as construction
workers and without specialization they are getting around Rs.200- 220 per day for which they
have to travel to nearby city Gorakhpur which is 23 K.M away from village and also the regular
work is not ensured. The last flood in 1998 had a big impact on the livelihood of the village and
people were not being able to recover from that shock and this years flood made the condition
worse. Villagers are waiting for government support money which will cover their crop losses on
some extent but the loss of family, houses, livestock, and business opportunity is far from
recovery.

1.3.2 Drought
Drought is major issue for the villagers who are into occupation of agriculture, because of recent
climate change the area is suffering from series of drought which have resulted in very low
productivity of soil and uncertainty of produce. The common practice in this region is using
more fertilizers and pesticides to increase the productivity which is making their land more
acidic and their produce harmful. The prosperous farmers use resources to irrigate their farms
and manage to cope with this situation to some extent but the marginal farmers are mostly hit,
they dont have resources to irrigate their land, so they are left with the only choice of changing
their profession. Government intervention by providing relief fund is not done on a efficient
scale and most of the relief funds go to the prosperous farmers and most of the marginal did not
get any money.
1.4 Consumption
Food availability wasnt the issue for most of the villagers, almost everyone owned enough land
to produce enough to ensure food for their family, but this year flood made situation bad for
some of the families and they were dependent on PDS for food to some extent, many families
had BPL card which availed them grains at very low price. The mid-day meal and Aanganwadi
supplements was important part of some of the BPL families, they used to send their children to
schools so they can get good food and the grains in their stock can be used till longer time. There
were complaints by some families that because this year one of the SC candidate contested in the
election against current Sarpanch, so they are not getting any benefits from the gram panchayat
and their name are also removed from the BPL list.

1.5 Market
Sihorwa is the nearest market to Partappur which is 1 km away from the village that caters to the
daily need of villagers as it does not have a market of its own. There are various shops in the
market of Sihorwa such as garments, vegetables, medicines, stationary, grocery, electronics
items and mobile service etc. As the market is away from village various hawkers come to the
village regularly to sell products like sarees, woollen items, bed sheet, utensils, dry fruits,
bangles, etc. and the number of these hawkers increase during the festival as people spend more
during festival time. The nearest agriculture market is PIPIGANJ which is located at a distance
of 13Km from the village thats why villagers prefer selling their produce to the local dealers
because of which they did not get the good price of their product. Same is the case with milk
collection center, the nearest center is located in Gorakhpur City which is about 23km from the
village and most of the farmers sell the milk to local vendors at Rs.25-30 which is very low in
comparison to market price of milk which is Rs.45-50.

5. Village Institutions
5.1 Formal Institutions

5.1.1 Bank

Nearest banks were State Bank of India singorwa which was established in 2010 and work as
Business Correspondents/Banking correspondents (BC) along with 3 Customer Service Points
which were opened after that. After the Jan Dhan Yojana scheme Almost every households have
accounts in this bank, most of these accounts were opened because villagers were told that
government will provide money to them in these accounts. Very few of villagers visited the bank
regularly with the purpose of either withdrawal of pension money or to deposit money after
selling their crops. The awareness about the schemes and facilities of the bank between villagers,
though the bank official claimed that they organize regular awareness camps in order to motivate
people to know and use these facilities. The ATM facilities were present near the branch but
most of the time it was closed or not working. Instead of ATM villagers preferred the Customer
Service Points were they can easily get the money up to RS.10000 with their Aadhar card and
thumb impression in just couple of minutes.
5.1.3 Fair price shops

The village had a fair price shop (Public distribution system) which was headed by Mr. Dinesh
Gupta from last seven year. The shop was open only some of the days, and villagers used to go
to Mr. Dinesh Guptas home when they needed the ration. Villagers didnt had the ration card
since after expiry of old ration cards the new ration cards are yet to be received by the villagers.
The ration distribution is done on the basis of a list provided by the jungle kaudiya block which
contained names of only those villagers who had ration cards earlier leaving the fresh applicants
in waiting for new ration cards so they can avail this benefit. There were no reports of any
corruption by the villagers and they get information whenever the new stock is there for
distribution.

5.1.2 Anganwadi / Balwadi

There were two Anganwadi centers present in the village which also covered nearby small village
Balua. The sarpanch mentioned that the panchayat bhawan is being used as the Anganwadi center
but it was closed most of the days. The distribution of supplementary nutrition food to children
and pregnant women was done from the home of one of the Anganwadi worker and villagers
mostly used it as supplement to the fodder of livestocks.

1.1.3 Non-government organizations

GEAG is an NGO that undertakes development initiatives to impact positively the lives of the
poor, deprived and marginalized sections of the society through a people-centered approach
focusing on their participation, awareness and empowerment for sustainable development.it also
promote people-led models of development.
In 1975 GEAG (Gorakhpur Environmental Action Group) was formed by the student,
researchers and faculty of the Ecology lab of the Botany department of Gorakhpur University in
Uttar Pradesh, influenced by Chipko Movement a forest conservation movement in India that
began in 1973. Gorakhpur Environmental Action Group (GEAG) was formed with a mission to
preserve the ecology and provide a sustainable environment.
GEAG have helped many farmers not just by education them with the modern techniques of
farming but also by introducing many cash crops (Groundnut and turmeric) which have high
market value than regular crops and can be easily cultivated in that area. Pratappur is a drought
prone area and many of the farmers migrate because of the low income from the agriculture, but
after the intervention of GEAG most of the farmers are shifting back to agriculture. The group
have made continuous effort to organize and collectivize the farmers, its the result of continuous
working that the farmers have made an co-operative where they are contribute small amount of
money regularly to buy the better machines and seeds provided by GEAG at a subsidized rates.
The groups also provide regular training through kissan training program where farmers get
information about the kind of seed, pesticide, and type of pests and the timing of harvesting the
crops.

1.1.4 Cooperative

With the help of GEAG (Gorakhpur Environmental Action Group) villagers have formed a
Farmers cooperative where all the members contribute Rs100 per month and that saving is used
to purchase the high tech machines to facilitate and promote modern farming techniques. This
Co-Operative is running since 1 years and have accumulated funds around Rs42000 . The
regular activities of Co-Operative like organizing meeting regularly, collection of money,
depositing money in bank account, maintaining record of use of machinery by the members are
done by Mr. Durga Prasad who is one of the oldest associate of GEAG in the village and regulate
the co-operative. GEAG plays active role in providing direction and guidelines to the members
of this co-operative and keep them updated with the new techniques of farming. With the help of
GEAG co-operative have been able to purchase groundnut harvesting machine and thresher
machine at a subsidized rate which is been used by the members and also rented to no members
to generate income for the co-operative.

1.3 Informal institutions

1.2.1 Self help groups

There were no working SHGs in the village, GEAG and NRLM made several efforts to
motivate and mobilize people to form SHG but none of them lasted for long.

Village Migration

Pratappur have long history of migration, many people in search of better opportunity migrate to
cities like Gorakhpur, Varanasi , Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, these people are mainly engaged in
the work like drivers, carpenters and painters, and construction workers etc. The migration
pattern can be observed are seasonal, permanent, return to village.
Seasonal : the change in the climate and series of drought over the time in village have created
uncertainty of production and this have made marginal farmers to look for more stable and
certain opportunities so they migrate after cultivating the crops and they work in nearby cities in
between times and return back in the harvesting season.
Permanent migration: Many prosperous families in village have moved to the cities to ensure
better education for their children or for better business opportunities and they rarely visit the
village once or twice in years. Many of the people in the village got government jobs and they
moved out from the village with their families.
Return to Village: There are many people who regularly migrate to nearby places and have their
families in the village so they return back daily or weekly to the village. Even some of the people
after retiring from their jobs choose to live in the village. Many people after some time come
back to village if they did not find satisfying jobs want to get back to the occupation of farming,
or get back with families.

This case is under sanitation heading

Case: Are people in villages ready to accept the changes that are for their betterment?
people say that open defecation should not happen as it may harm the image of women and also its not
secure but in Pratppur we have seen the cases of open defecation which has led to deaths of various
people. Women in night usually go to roadside instead of farms as snakes and other harmful insects could
be found there and at night truck drivers have a blur vision because of fog