Bách khoa toàn thư nền nông nghiệp thế giới - Vùng Nam Á - Vần O | 214 Okkaliga Okkaliga ETHNONYMS Gangadikara Okkalu the peasant caste Vokkaliga Wokkaliga The Okkaligas are the dominant landowning and cultivating caste in the multicaste population of southern Karnataka State in southwestern peninsular India. Among the hundreds of villages in which Okkaligas live is Rampura population 1 523 735 of whom are Okkaligas ca. 1955 which is the focus of this entry and which displays many of the features typical of Okkaliga villages in India. The village of Rampura is located on the Mysore-Hogur bus road about 32 kilometers from Mysore. The village is a cluster of houses and huts with thatched or tiled roofs narrow uneven winding streets running between the rows of houses. Surrounding the village are numerous plots owned by individual landowners. Rampura is an interdependent unit largely self-sufficient having its own village assembly panchayat watch ward officials and servants. In the multicaste village of Rampura the relationship of castes appears to be determined more by the economic positions of the various members than by tradition. As agriculture is the primary way of life the peasants are the dominant caste. The hereditary headman patel and hereditary accountant shanborg are both peasants. The headman s responsibility is to represent the village to the government and vice versa. The accountant keeps a register of how much land each head of a family or joint family has and the amount of tax on the land. The elders of the dominant caste are spokespersons for the village and owe their power not to legal rights derived from the state but to the dominant local position of their caste. The elders of the dominant peasant caste in Rampura administer justice not only to members of their own caste group but also to all persons of other castes who seek their intervention. Agriculture dominates village life. The cultivation of rice is the main activity in the village. Meticulous attention to and irrigation of the rice is necessary
