Malabar and Kerala Studies.NET
Dr. Neelamana Madhavan Nampoothiri's Personal site dedicated to Toponomy & Village Studies in Kerala with special reference to Malabar

Vaniyamkulam Gazatteer - A Model Study on Villages in State

The Vaniyam­kulam Panchayat Gazetteer, pre­pared under the People's Plan campaign, combined with the Vil­lage Gazetteer Programme of State Gazetteers Department, in collaboration with the ongoing UGC research project on Nila Riv­er Valley's "cultural geography and habitat", is a model mega work for village studies in Kerala.

The first Panchayat Gazetteer of Kerala, probably first of its kind in the countJ:y, ready for release, is a collective effort of the people of the village, researchers, the Uni­versity Grant Commission, the Project Nila and the People's Plan campaign for the last four years.

The vice-president ofVaniyam­kulam Panchayat, Mr. Krishnan­kutty, said that this is the ticst time such a massive field work was undertaken and implement­ed with the full participation of people of a panchayat.

The study had started in 1997 as a major programme of the pan­chayat under the People's Plan campaign

He said that the panchayat had collected information from the el­ders under the age group 60 to 90 years of the villages - 'the Group of Elders - Karanavarkuttam'.

A history box (Charithrapetty) was kept in the panchayat office for gathering information about the village from the people.

The village folklore - Nattarivu - was also collected. The data was collected by the field workers and in each ward more than 100 field workers were deployed. All these information were checked again with the people's participation and,a people's editing was done for the preparation of the gazet­teer.

First, the panchayat set up a well-knit infrastructure to carry out the work and collected oral traditions exhaustively. The materials were analysed by re­searchers like Dr. C. R. Rajagopal (Oral Traditions), Mr. K. K. Nair (Water Resources), Dr. Raghuna­danan (Biodiversity) and many others. There were geopolitical studies and studies on land, wa­ter, resources, growth of settle­ments, urbanisation, modern history, recent history etc.

He said that the present study being published as a book was the first stage. Another detailed study of at least five years was required for preparing the detailed village study. ]n this study every aspect will be taken up.

According to Dr. N. M. Nam­poothiry, the chief investigator of the Gazetteer, this pioneering work was a case study to incorpo­rate the problems tackled in the work on another pioneering venture taken up as Nila Valley Stud­ies under the UGc. The methodology, evolved out of Onomastic studies in Kozhi­kode area on 200 villages in 1977­1987, was analysed in 1997 through a national seminar on Kerala culture, with special refer­ence to the theme 'Legacy of Ni­la'.

The major aims put forward were promotion of inter- disci­plinary studies, area (micro-re­gion) studies, research literacy, research culture and community participation in research. All these aims had now been successfully carried out at Vani­yamkuJam by handing over the whole working model to the peo­ple of the panchayat.

The panchayat was now trying to restructure its planning, under which a new educational, job sec­toral and even development of market ideas to suit the needs of the people will be taken up.

The study on Vartiyamkulam Panchayat, consisting of 12 reve­nue villages, was done using the Kosambic method of intensive study of Indian history. It also used the Gundert's method of de­tailed study of Kerala villages.

Thus, the first Vaniyamkulam Panchayat Gazetteer will become a model work for village studies in Kerala for the years to come.