Dhani and Villages - What Is Dhani?

What Is Dhani?

In North-West India, a dhani is the smallest conglomeration of huts. All families living in a Dhani are relatives of each other or at least are of the same caste. Most Indian villages are small; nearly 80 percent have fewer than 1,000 inhabitants, according to the census of India 2001. Most are nucleated settlements, while others are more dispersed. It is in villages that India's most basic business—agriculture—takes place.

For a tourist visiting Rajasthan for the first time, it is actually difficult to find a village in the vast stretches of barren land. It is only when a herd of cattle is seen around that the tourist gets an inkling of a village nearby.

Dhanis are ancillaries to the village. Those who want to live in proximity to their fields make their huts in the field and are able to take care of their crop in a better way. The crop when ready is a valuable asset and needs to be properly guarded from stray animals and enemies.

A dhani(also known as a boothra) is a complex socio-economic unit. According to the Revenue Act, in India this is smallest viable unit. A cluster of a few houses is known as “Dhani” in Rajasthan. Indian villages are definitely simple. A cluster of mud-plastered walls shaded by a few trees, set among a stretch of green or dun-colored fields, men sitting under some old tree smoking bidis with fellow villagers of their own age group, ladies with veiled faces moving towards the central well to fetch water, cattle making many types of noises, children playing typical village games like gulli-danda and satoliya—all present an image of eternally peaceful bliss and harmony.

Indian city dwellers often refer nostalgically to their native village and how they miss that life but soon are taken back by absurdly hectic city life. City artists portray colorfully garbed village women gracefully carrying water pots on their heads, and writers describe isolated rural settlements unsullied by the complexities of modern urban civilization. Poets including Indian National Poet Maithili Sharan Gupt have written poems in praise of village life. Social scientists of the past wrote of Indian villages as virtually self-sufficient communities with few ties to the outside world.

Since all marriages are done in the same or nearby village, villagers in India manifest a deep loyalty to their village, identifying themselves to strangers as residents of a particular village, harking back to family residence in the village that typically extends into the distant past. A family rooted in a particular village does not easily move to another, and even people who have lived in a city for a generation or two refer to their ancestral village as "our village." Even business communities who have shifted to far-off places for business activities like traders from Rajasthan in Culcutta, Chennai and Assam make it a point to visit their native village for performing social ceremonies.

No matter how strong the bond of the villagers is, their unity is challenged by a lot of conflicts, rivalries, and factionalism. Disputes, strategic contests and even violence occur. Most villages of India include prosperous, powerful people, who are fed and serviced through the labors of the lower-class people. Due to the expanding government influence in rural areas and increased pressure on land and resources, the populations are sto;; a target of factionalism and competitiveness in many parts of rural India.