DHUSARA Village in Una District of HP State in INDIA

DHUSARA is a small village in Una District of Himachal Pradesh State in INDIA. Mata Chintpurni and Dera BABA Barbhag Singh at Mairi in Una are the famous religious places, which attract large number of devotees every year.

LOCATION

Dhusara is situated on the both sides of the Una-Dharamshala road at a distance of 13 km from the headquarters of district Una of HP state. The Dhusara panchayat contains seven wards across two villages’ viz. ‘Dhusara’ and ‘Saloori’. In the rest of the description to come Dhusara would mean Gram-Panchayat Dhusara including village Saloori. It falls under the development block ‘Amb’ where block development officer’s (BDO) office is located. From the tehsil and sub-division point of view the Dhusara falls under the jurisdiction of tehsil‘Amb.’of Una district. The entire village is naturally divided into two parts, by a seasonal rivulet, called Dhusara east and Dhusara west for revenue purposes. There are two polling stations in the village (No.73 & 74).

TRANSPORTATION FACILITIES

A metalled road which leads from district headquarters Una to Dharamshala also slices the village into two parts. Road as a means of communication is one of the effective means in bringing about new changes in the social, economical and political life of rural people. There is a great change in the frequency of people migrating from village now. The people own all type of vehicles like tractors, trucks, Light commercial vehicles, cars, and two wheelers in the village. The transport factor has given rise to dire vicissitudes in every sphere of life—social, political, economical and religious. The government policy of linking villages to main road has motivated the villagers to have more and more vehicles. The road that runs across the village was meatalled in 1969.After that only two metalled road links connecting the interior of the village to main road have been constructed under the ‘Pradhan mantra gramin sarak yojna’ in the year 2003.

Buses ply through the village every half an hour, but there is no bus service to the interior of the village and people have to travel on foot to catch the bus. The nearest railway station is ‘Panoh-Himachal’ at a distance of 3 km. A local train passes through this station one a day.

The village community is divided into many habitation blocks, locally known as mohallas or majras, which are occupied by Brahmin, Jat, Harijan, Nai (Barber), Carpenter, Goldsmiths, Bahti, Saini, Weaver, Muslim (Bharai) castes. In this village, as in other villages all habitations are at a distance from each other.

EDUCATION

Education is the root of every democratic society as it is essential for the continuation and survival of democracy. The crucial need of education for the people in various spheres of life has been recognized. The literacy among the younger generation is about 95 per cent, whereas overall literacy is 88 per cent. There is a sufficient number of graduates and post –graduates in the village apart from MBBS doctor. Many persons from this village are serving in the state and centre government at various posts. The affluent families from the village are sending their wards to nearby cities for better education and give them coaching for competitive exams.

This village has two primary schools, a senior secondary school, a civil dispensary, a rotary eye hospital, a sub-post office, a veterinary dispensary to take care of education, health, communication, and cattle health of the village. There is also a ‘PatwarKhana’ and Panchayat-ghar in the village.

The people who subscribe to news papers are few in number; newspapers are either read at shops or neighbors house. The local employee is the main communicator in the village. Since this village is not far from the Una city so it has city influence reflected in the routine style of living of its people.

There is no difference in dresses and ornaments worn by different caste groups in this village. However people do dress according to the dress code of their religion. All old habitations are situated on small hillocks. The majority of the houses constructed are permanent type made of bricks and concrete roofs. House types, to a large extent, indicate the relative socio-economic status of its occupants: the lowest form of construction being temporary huts made of thatched roof and walls and the highest are permanent type pucca houses (brick wall and concrete roof). Dhusara has four types of houses: (1) Hut (2) Kutcha house--mud walls with tiled or sheet roof (3) Semi-pucca house—brick walls with tiled or sheet roof, and (4) Pucca house. The cattles are generally kept at a distance from the houses. The food grains are kept in the same dwelling whereas the agricultural implements and fodder are stacked near the cattle houses. There is lack of drainage system in the village, as every household throws its garbage near the house.

POPULATION

The total population of Dhusara is 2,479; comprising 1,312 males and 1,167 females[1] as on March 31, 2005..The percentage of males is 53 per cent against the 47 per cent population of females in the Dhusara village.

Figure 1

In India, caste largely determines the function, status, the available opportunity as well as the handicaps for an individual. Caste differences even determine the differences in modes of domestic and social life, types of houses and cultural patterns of the people which are found in the village. Caste influences the political life to a great extent in the village. The population of different categories is as follows: scheduled caste –496, other backward classes— 711 and General—1272 persons.. The village is dominated by the general category.

The village has 472 families with ward No. 7 having highest 83 families and ward No.6 lowest, 40 families. The ward-1 has population-351, ward 2—403, ward3—279, ward-4—375, ward-5—387, ward-6—252, and ward-7 has a population of 412 persons.

Figure: 2

The village is very small, but very interesting for communication studies. The news paper vendor at Dhusara who runs newspaper agency in the name of his wife, and a retired army medico, Mr.Pawan Kumar told the researcher that in 1976 he was a lone reader of newspaper in the village. He used to get a copy of Punjab-kesari from Sharma news agency Una owned by Sh. Satya Pal of Behdala village.

According to him at present he sells, 80-Punjab-kesari, 12 each of Divya Himachal and Amar Ujala, 5—Dainik Bhaskar (all Hindi dailies) and 9 copies of English daily in Dhusara ‘The Tribune’ in the village.

OCCUPATIONAL PATTERN

The village population in both the panchayats under investigation viz. Sohari and Dhusara has been classified into four categories, based on their occupation, as (1) agriculture (2) Non-agriculture (3) Service and (4) Business.

TABLE 1: Distribution of category-wise population of Dhusara

Name of Ward		SC		OBC		GEN.		TOTAL		G.Total
		M	F	M	F	M	F	M	F
Ward 1		54	48	57	45	75	72	186	165	351
Ward 2		0	0	41	37	174	151	215	188	403
Ward 3		0	0	39	36	113	111	152	147	299
Ward 4		163	142	0	0	37	33	200	175	375
Ward 5		29	20	1	2	173	162	203	184	387
Ward 6		0	0	48	42	87	75	135	117	252
Ward 7		28	12	188	175	5	4	221	191	412
Total		274	222	374	337	664	608	1312	1167	2479

The division of labour in the village is, to some extent, based on caste. Labour is absolutely related to occupation and occupation is determined by caste affiliation and is hereditary in character, but with the spread of education the barriers of caste are breaking. In the present era, a Brahmin can be found running a shoe store or doing business as against his traditional function of ritual performing and a scheduled caste may have been serving as a shastri in government education department. The villagers are mostly educated and are serving in the various departments of the state and centre government apart from private service.

TABLE 2: Newspapers sold in Dhusara village (as on 31.10.207)

Sr. No Name No of Copies

1. Punjab-Kesari 80

2. Divya-Himachal 12

3. Amar Ujala 12

4. Dainik Bhaskar 05

5. The Tribune 9

Total 128

RELIGIOUS LIFE

It is well known that the temple has not only functioned as a place of worship and prayer but has also served as the main centre of initiation of village activities. It plays a significant part in the village life even today[2].The villagers are following basically two religions in their usual life, Vedic and Islam. The followers of Sikhism are also there in this village. Some people are followers of the ‘Radhasoami’cult in this village. Every mohalla in this village has its own temple, having statues or idols of gods and goddesses. Villagers, particularly women, observe fast to please their deities on several religious days. At the time of birth, marriage and death, some ritual functions are performed by the purohit who presides over these functions. Muslims observe roza in the month of Ramzan.

There is a mosque, a gurudwara, and a radhasoami satsang bhawan in the village. The gurudwara has been built by Maha Raja Ranjit Singh and he stayed at this place while going to Nadaun during an expedition. It is believed that Guru Govind Singh, tenth guru, stayed for one day at this place. It is an important historic place of Sikhs. They visit this place on every ‘purnima.’

CULTURAL LIFE

Festivals and fairs are an important part of the cultural life of the people of this village. They have educational, social and a religious character. These serve the need of social communication not only for economic subsistence, but for cultural survival. Villagers celebrate some festivals such as diwali, dussehra, holi, and rakshabandhan. Womenfolk entertain themselves by singing and dancing at the occasion of births, marriages and other ritual functions performed by the villagers. ‘Dhaja’ and Swang are other traditional means of recreation of the people. Fairs, as a media of mass recreation, are very popular in this region. The ‘Baisakhi’ and, Panch bheesham’ fair are the prominent fairs held around the village. Baisakhi is the biggest fair held on the first of Baisakh (13^th April) every year. It is the fair of spring season. Wrestling fairs, locally called’Chhinj’are also very popular among the villagers. The five day fair at ‘Dera Baba Rudru’, concludes on the birthday of ‘Guru Nanak Dev’, is very famous in the region.

POLITICAL LIFE

The growth of political consciousness among the rural population and their increasing political activity seems to a striking feature in this modern age of science. The village population no longer lives in isolation but participate in the national and international economic and political life. A small government is functioning at the village level too, known as village panchayat, which consists of a Pradhan and seven ward members. The decision making power of the village panchayat is directly influenced by other institutions and organizations of the village. Villagers are now exposed to one or other political parties. The membership of political parties is increasing day by day. Matters related to village problems are among the state and national level politicians. However, villagers openly participate in political activities only during the time of elections—local. State or National. There are supporters of all the major mainstream political parties in the village.

AREAL DISTRIBUTION

The total area of the village Dhusara is 790 hectares[3] as per revenue records which is mainly agriculture sector. The village Dhusara has barren land in the form of small hillocks with bushes of ‘lantana’ locally called ‘Churel butty.’ In India it is 3.06 per cent. The ‘lantana’ bushes have eaten up almost all the old grasslands in the village and the villagers are fed up eradicating it with no permanent solution at their disposal. The forest cover in the village is shrinking with every passing year due increasing population. Different kinds of trees used for fuel, building construction and furniture such as banyan, eucalyptus, acacia and shisham are found in the village. The fruit trees like mango, guava, and citrus family fruits are also found grown in the village. The main crops are maize and wheat.

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[1] Records available from Assistant Secretary, Village Panchayat, Dhusara, 2005.

[2] A.R. Desai ,Rural Sociology in India, Popular Prakashan,Bombay,1969.61

[3] Records available from ‘Patwari’, Village Panchayat, Dhusara,2007