Shiptown. Ann Grodzins Gold
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towns in the region, Jahazpur struck me as endowed with many quality-of-life pluses. Its geophysical landscape and its architecture both possessed attractive features. I found the social ambiance equally pleasant—a comfortable union of urban “mind your own business” with provincial courteousness.
Yet it soon became clear that the town had a collectively professed inferiority complex. Many residents told me they were hoping to leave or planning to send their children elsewhere to study and maybe to work. Rarely if ever did anyone mention the lovely view from the fort, the vital charms of the markets, the religious diversity and abundance of temples, shrines, and saints’ tombs. In short, all that made Jahazpur picturesque to my foreigner’s eyes was unexceptional to them. Their big complaint: the town had made “no *progress.”7
Equally perplexing to me were the frequent invidious comparisons I heard made with nearby Devli. Jahazpur, people said, was stagnant while Devli was advancing. In my view, Devli lacked everything that I liked about Jahazpur: gorgeous vistas, deep history, dramatic geography. Devli was a product of colonialism, grown up around a British army camp. It is still the site of a military base, to which many attribute its superior progress, both economic and social. I never properly explored Devli, though I put in plenty of restless time at the bus stand there. Initially a few strolls around the Devli bus stand did not yield an elevated view of greater amenities. However, when I had to wait there at night, I began to see distinguishing features. For example, around 8 P.M. at one of the tea stalls I observed a huge vat of milk at the boil; what would they be doing with so much milk at that time of night, I wondered out loud. To my surprise, I learned that the tea shop stays open all night. Come to think of it, why was I so often pacing at the Devli bus stand? Because, of course, Devli is a transportation hub and buses come and go from larger cities (Jaipur, Kota, Udaipur, Delhi, Gwalior) twenty-four hours a day. Jahazpur’s bus stand, by stark contrast, would be dark and shut down well before midnight.
Chetan Prakash Mochi’s family fled Pakistan in 1947, landing in Jahazpur not many years thereafter. They now have a pleasant home and lovingly tended garden in Santosh Nagar colony—the recently settled suburb of Jahazpur where I too lived. “Mochi” means “shoemaker,” but Chetan and his wife Vimla, probably now in their fifties, have successfully changed professions. Both are tailors, sewing for gents and ladies, respectively. On my first of many visits to their home (for Vimla sewed all my salvar suits that were not ready-made), I was served assorted delicious delicacies and given a tour of the house. I noted in one back bedroom a framed portrait of Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, the revered twentieth-century leader of oppressed communities in their struggles for rights and dignity. Mochis, I realized with a start, of course would be SC or “Scheduled Caste”—formerly untouchable as are all groups dealing with leather. But it wasn’t until I saw the picture of Ambedkar that it dawned on me that this family, hard-working but living a comfortable suburban life, might embrace the shared identity of downtrodden communities or Dalits. No Regars or Cha-mars (Rajasthan’s two most populous leather worker castes) lived in Santosh Nagar, to my knowledge—certainly not at this end of the colony where Brahmins and Jats predominated with a sprinkling of Gujars, Vaishnavs, Rajputs, Baniyas.8
Ann: Tell me about Jahazpur. What is it? It seems it is neither a village nor a city.
Chetan: It is a qasba!
Ann: So, if you had to compare a qasba with a village or a city what would you say?
Chetan: In the city there is education, there are hospitals, and in the village you don’t have these things, and if you get sick you have to go to the city. Well, in Jahazpur there is a hospital, but it doesn’t have facilities (suvidha). It isn’t even a good place to go for *delivery [of babies]—not even *normal delivery.
Ann: Where do you go that is near?
Chetan: Devli!
Suvidha might be the word that recurred most often when I asked for a simple town versus village contrast. Suvidha encompasses all kinds of comforts, amenities, conveniences. These include indoor latrine facilities, a reliable, plentiful nal (running water connection), electric power at least somewhat more regular than in rural areas and all that it brings, from basic lighting to fridges, ceiling fans, and the ability to watch your favorite TV serial uninterrupted. Often people used suvidha to cover diverse positive attributes of town versus village. Here, however, Chetan uses it against Jahazpur. Suvidha may stretch beyond domestic comfort to encompass transportation facilities, high-class shopping options, access to competent medical care, and educational choices beyond the basic government school. It is on that second level that Devli particularly outstripped Jahazpur in people’s estimations.9
Madan Lohar moved from his village birthplace to Jahazpur in pursuit of a good living and a good market for his fine craftsmanship in metal. His well-made and attractive metal storage cupboards were objects of desire. He had been operating a highly successful business manufacturing and selling metal furnishings for about two decades in Jahazpur, and his large family lived in a spacious home they had built adjacent to his shop on the Santosh Nagar road. But Madan told us he had already laid plans to move to Devli.
Bhoju Ram, my research collaborator, asked Madan what change he had seen in Jahazpur in the twenty-some years he had lived here, and he answered, “There is no special change! Jahazpur is a village-like town (gaom jaisa qasba), but Devli!—their way of life (rehen sahan), their clothes, in all things they have made progress, in Devli!” A successful Brahmin shopkeeper we called “Lovely,” whose English nickname derived from the name of his store, also posed an extreme contrast between Jahazpur and Devli with an emphasis on Devli’s rapid development. He told us, “When I studied in Devli, there was zero there, but now Devli is ten times better than Jahazpur!”
Many theories were advanced on the reasons for Devli’s rapid progress, which is rooted both in historical and economic circumstances. One is the proximity of military camps and industrial enterprises.
In my conversation with the tailor Chetan Prakash, I said, “I’ve heard that Devli is smaller than Jahazpur, so why is there greater development in Devli?” He explained:
When India wasn’t free, there was an English army camp in Devli, and conveniences (suvidha) were created for the camp at that time; even now there is still a military base and training center there, so that development has continued into the present.
And today there are also other nearby enterprises like the Bisalpur Dam … factories, mines, and highways. Jahazpur, on the other hand, is completely isolated, and that is why it isn’t developed.
At this juncture our conversation took a turn to reveal some advantages to Jahazpur after all. I admit to provoking this shift with a leading question:
Ann: But I’ve heard that Jahazpur is a more peaceful place.
Chetan: Yes there is peace here, but nothing more! Here there is no looting, no theft. In Devli, if you don’t put a lock on your house when you go out, even in the day or just for a few hours, you could get robbed.
Suddenly Devli looks less appealing, and we glimpse at least a tinge of civic pride beneath the rhetoric of self-disparagement.
Neelam Pandita, a young Brahmin woman studying for her nursing degree, had recently moved to the “suburb” of Santosh Nagar with her parents and brother, leaving behind a crowded and unharmonious joint family household “inside the walls.” By nature cheerful, positive, and friendly, Neelam had mostly good things to say about Jahazpur. However, she did critique the availability of educational supplies, telling us emphatically, “You can’t get books in Jahazpur—not any of the books you need to study for the competitive exams, and you absolutely can’t get any books on nursing; I order them from Bhilwara or Ajmer.” Neelam considered space the key causal factor in Jahazpur’s lack of progress, perhaps because a crowded house presented difficulties for her own family that were still fresh in her memory.
When I asked Neelam to speculate on the reasons for the sluggish development of Jahazpur, she explained, “Jahazpur is a small, congested area, and the population has increased. But they are all gathered into a small place. So that is why there is