Social Interaction and Status Groups in Bengal Villages (An Old And Rare Book) By Shyamalkanti Sengupta

The book has taken the present shape from the two separate field-work in two West Bengal villages, namely Kotaigarh and Benapur, located in the districts of Midnapur and Burdwan respectively. These two villages of two different geographical areas, offer the scopes of formulating the proposition on the caste-caste and the tribe-caste interactions in one hand and on the other, to examine the nature and conditions of the existing status groups in West Bengal villages.

The book is written in two parts. The first part exclusively deals with the caste-caste and the tribe-caste relations at Kotaigarh, emphasising the 'control factor of the interactive processes in concrete situation. The second part of the book on the contrary, unveils the nature and conditions of the status graups at Benapur, stressing on, the lines of demarcation among the groups.

The author started his field-work at Kotaigarh in the year 1965 when he was a Junior Research Fellow of the University Grants Commission and working among the scheduled tribe Mahalis. Since then occasionally and casually the author had been visiting the village with a view to pass his many holidays there; the villagers attracted him all the time for their deep feelings for him. The field-work at Kotaigarh during 1967-68 was carried out in order to gather data on the intercaste and intertribe relations as a whole. The trip successfully loaded the author with ample data on the topic. "The Social System of a Bengal Village", the first phase of his research, for the award of Premchand Roychand Research Studentship by the University of Calcutta was entirely based on this field-work