Palanpur, Moradabad
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India’s most researched village?
Ruchika Uniyal & Priyangi Agarwal , July 20, 2019: The Times of India
Photo: Rakesh Kashyap, The Times of India's
From: Ruchika Uniyal & Priyangi Agarwal , July 20, 2019: The Times of India
Palanpur/Delhi: Palanpur’s poverty is apparent as one walks along its muddy pathways with brick houses. Toilets have been built in most homes in the recent past. Other than that, life has continued quietly in this tiny UP village, unperturbed by the fact that it’s the subject of several books and is an iconic name in academic circles.
Some 200km from Delhi in UP’s Moradabad district, Palanpur is perhaps the “most studied village” in India; waves of researchers have gathered data on aspects of life here since the 1950s. Residents are so used to seeing experts from across the globe that the presence of a TOI team was mistaken for one.
Palanpur has been surveyed every decade since Independence; it’s now a “goldmine” of data. There are tomes on its land, credit, tenancy shares, wages, caste structure, individual households. A book released in 1982 by economists C J Bliss and Nicholas Stern focused on green revolution, tenancy and wages. Another by Peter Lanjouw and Stern in 1998 talked about income. A third, by Himanshu, Lanjouw and Stern, in 2018 draws on seven decades of data to describe evolution of Palanpur’s economy and society.
“We were interested in studying change, including that ushered by the green revolution,” Stern, IG Patel professor of economics and government at London School of Economics, told TOI from London. “The village had to fall in an area touched by green revolution, and wheat farming had to be present since green revolution focused on wheat. We also wanted a place that had been studied before. Palanpur had been studied by Agricultural Economics Research Centre of the University of Delhi in the 1950s, so existing dataset was good.”
Stern added: “The place had to be easily accessible from Delhi and had to be ordinary. We didn’t want anywhere particularly unusual. The combination of these factors took us to Palanpur in 1974.”
But what is it about Palanpur that has caught the eye of so many researchers? Stern toured several villages in Punjab, Haryana and Western UP. Palanpur was one of them. And it checked all the boxes.
After 1974, Stern made several rounds of Palanpur. Between 2008 and 2010, he and Himanshu, associate professor at JNU, were among researchers who frequently visited Palanpur.
Several researchers took up long residencies here. Noted economist Jean Dreze is said to have stayed for 15 months in the 1980s. “It became an ordinary affair to see researchers here,” said 38-year-old farmer Uday Bhan Singh.
The nearest hotels from Palanpur are in Moradabad — 32 km away— but many researchers preferred to stay in the village. Resident Munni Devi said, “A research scholar from France and her translator from Bengaluru stayed at my house for three months last year. She loved the food I cooked.”
What’s ironical, though, is that education hasn’t been a priority in the village, a fact that surprises Stern. Palanpur has two government schools. Shadab Hasan is the only teacher at the upper primary school with 56 students. Dropout rate has remained high. Chhatrapal Maurya, Palanpur village chief, said most kids drop out to help their family. Those who do continue have to walk or cycle 3 km to the government secondary school in Akhroli or a private secondary school in Amarpur Kashi.
Why village is economists’ delight
LSE’s Nicholas Stern says researchers wanted to study what change the green revolution brought. Palanpur checked all the boxes
Fell in the green revolution belt Easily accessible from Delhi Tenancy was present Had been studied in 1950s so existing data was good
Researchers from France have also flocked to Palanpur over the years
