Son Lal

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Tan Dan's chelana 1948-2014

This is the fourth and last volume of the book Tan Dan’s Chelana. In the book Tan Dan tells about the life in his village with the help of his camera and his notebooks. The book has many anecdotes about changes in power, wealth and production at Chelana in the early stage of democracy from 1948 to 2014. Chelana is a fictive name of a semidesert village in Rajasthan, northwestern India. Tan Dan is the fictive name of a Rajasthani farmer, who lived from 1943 to 2021. Volume Four starts with Tan Dan’s narrations of the election campaign at Chelana in 1978. It occured in a period when more villagers wanted a say in the changing society. In those days the limestone economy grew in importance at Chelana. The village got richer, and those with money more powerful, but corrupt behaviour of the wealthy ones increased the difficulties for poor villagers. The Goverment of India tried to counterbalance that trend by introducing more schemes for protecting women and weak groups. As a result the village leadership changed in a direction, which few villagers would have dreamt of in the feudal period. Families of different background formed groups with incompatible ambitions, and some of their conflicting interests are described in Volume Four.