THE RESOURCE FLOW
E. Ideological Logic
Ideology can also be taken as one of the mediating factors in the distribution of resources. Ideology operates in the evaluation of resources and this evaluation is reflected in the distribution. We have examined certain elements of ideology all of which are interconnected status, norms, values and life-styles.
We have taken status as the way people in Dhankura look at each and rank occupations and life-styles. People are valued in terms of a scale. The factors in this scale in Dhankura include:
wealth (especially inherited), family, education, character (moral and religious), links, treatment of others, origins. The four areas given the most weightage in Dhankura are: what people inherit (family and land), economic status, internal origins (i.e. insider versus outsider), and external links (political, commercial, and employment).
Jalaluddin, although only a marginal farmer, is ranked fairly high in that he is educated in Arabic, a ritual practitioner, wellbehaved, and has two educated sons. Kashem Ali has a mixed ranking. Although his geneaology is fairly good (his grandfather was a renowed kin leader) Kashem Ali himself is considered an outsider to the village, And although he is religious and a teacher, both high rated attributes, his behaviour as a teacher (marriage to a student) has lowered his standing. And although his wealth is high, he has not fully outlived the label of being a collaborator during the Liberation War.
Occupations are also ranked. Those associated with the land are ranked highest. And, broadly put, those outside land are good if they are perceived to be open to all and not disadvantageous to others, Landowners are ranked high as they provide work to others. Employment, as it is more or less open to all, is valued
highly if legitimately obtained. Education, in that is open to all, is highly valued. The services of ritual practitioners and products of craftsmen are seen as supportive to the society. Those in trading are, generally, given a low rating as people are seen to be in their clutches. Business is not open to all and is, therefore, not highly valued. Moreover although business is marked up for wealth it is marked down for the means in which wealth is achieved.
Businessmen are caricatured as rapacious and exploiting the predicaments of others. Within the various lines of business some are ranked higher than others. Paddy-husking based on family labour is rated low, whereas stock which takes savings but no labour is rated higher.
We have taken norms to be the operation of status in day to day activities, and values the explanations behind these norms.
Sets of norms and values centre around critical areas of Dhankura society : land, kinship, neighbours, wealth. Many of the norms and values concerning around land and kinship overlap. Land, if one is forced to sell, should be sold to kin. Work on the land should be provided to kin. The kinship value system prescribes that kin live together and rally together in the face of an emergency or an affront. Of course, in day to day interactions, conflicts between kin surface. But other kins put pressure between the contesting kin to settle disputes, certainly before any ceremony or occasion. One set of norms and values operate around wealth : Dhankura society does not value sudden wealth or the unscrupulous businessman. People with wealth are expected to behave in a certain way, expend on certain items. Good neighbours exchange small reciprocities and services. Different sets of values, reflecting the different classes of household, regulate roles within the household. Kashem Ali is criticised because his wife and children have a higher life style than those of his brothers.
An individual's life-style reflects that individual's reaction to the norms in his attempt to attain status. Essentially each individual aspires to increase his income and his status or power. Often these two goals are mutually exclusive. Choice for the individual comes both when he chooses the avenue of income and the investment of his savings or surplus. Some may choose to spend
their surplus on immediately unrenumerative commodities : that is, in status and power. Others may choose to directly reinvest their surplus to guarantee increased income.
Actual and aspired levels of income and status regulate lifestyle changes. Those with some income, but no land, can attain some status quickly by changing life-styles. This is most often done by those at the bottom in land-holding who have some employment. Those at the bottom with some education and outside employment come into contact with towns-people, their aspirations for status increase so they often find it necessary to change their life-styles. For them economic mobility proves slower. Zafar Ali took a different course. He started in small-scale trade and made a series of economic reinvestments. He has modified his life-style only recently; he now sports a kurta, gamcha (shawl) over his shoulder, and shoes.
Status operates in a society's evaluation of life-styles. Often the evaluation remains unarticulated, But Shafiqur Rahman elaborated explicitly the following order in life-style conversions;
changes in dress; increased social exchange (e.g. markets in the evening; attendance at Juma prayers) hiring of additional labour;
improved housing and sanitation (e.g. building a latrine); and improved food habits. He has been quoted as saying "that a household is known to have raised its status it anyone from the household carries a dula and milk carrier to the market to bring back fish and milk".
Life-style conversions are directly reflected, that is, in expenditure patterns : especially on food, clothing, and education.
The expenditure patterns are more closely related to income than land-holding and therefore cut across land-holding classes. The average villager's view holds that those earning such and such not those owning so much land should spend so much.
It is interesting in this regard to describe the life-style of the surplus in Dhankura. None of the surplus have been surplus for very long. Whereas with the 'typical" rich it is expected their consumption would be high and their use to family labour low, we
do not see quite this behaviour in the surplus of Dhankura. Rather the continued acquisition of wealth and income appears more important to them than a demonstration of its effect. They have struck a compromise between refraining from working on the land, working on it fully, tilt between expenditure on immediately unremunerative and remunerative commodities. We have classified their style, therefore, as "modified rich".
Some of the rich, even though they have come to the position by way of trade, do consume more and save less. And some in the marginal and landless categories accumulate savings slowly because life-style, as a set of values, operates for them. The point of maximum savings appears to come before those who are improving themselves through trade, stabilise themselves and start investing in life-style and not economic, conversions. Two medium farmers, Hafizuddin and Jamaluddin, compete in life style with the surplus. Hafizuddin is known to have married his son to a low status but high resource girl in the interest of maintaining a high standard of life.
We have seen through this discussion that the ideological system of norms, values, and status interacts with the resource system. Normative as well as economic explanation must be offered when describing resource flow and distribution. It should be kept in mind that the interaction of the ideological factors themselves and with the resource system is circular. Status evaluation reflects values. Norms are the operation of status in day to day activities. Values offer explanations for norms.
Resources help determine the ideological system and are, in turn, regulated by ideology.
The particular ideological system which operates Dhankura is tied in with the income base of Dhankura. The ideology generally values land and the man who inherits land. The implications from this land-based valuation are: if your wealth is inherited you have not done anything detrimental to the interests of others, and if your wealth is inherited you must let others benefit through your labour and credit patronage.
Incomes from business are still seen as income that unsettle the resource system of Dhankura. Businessmen are seen to appropriate for themselves what should be distributed throughout the society. The businessman's income is seen to he derived at the expense of others, and his wealth no guarantee to benefits for a large number. With his surplus the businessman buys land and products at a cheap price for sale elsewhere. The current ideology in Dhankura about business will change only when the numbers of businessmen increase; when benefits from business begin to trickle in and when money from business begin to trickle down, and when money from business no longer remains in the hands of a few people.