What do you understand about the nature of weekly market, from the description of Dhorai?
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 1
The correct answer is Option (1) → It is a social institution that links different social groups on market days.
Option (1) It is a social institution that links different social groups on market days. — Correct. On ordinary days Dhorai hardly exists, but on market day it becomes a different place: tribals pour in with forest and field produce, Hindu vegetable sellers, potters, weavers and blacksmiths join them, and forest officials come to pay their labourers. The study shows the weekly market as a social institution, linking the local tribal economy with the outside and bringing different social groups together.
Option (3) It is a market based on barter system. — Incorrect. Money changes hands here: forest officials disburse payments to the tribal labourers, and since colonial times money and new kinds of goods have entered the local tribal economy.
NCERT (2025-26): “4.1 Sociological Perspectives on Markets … The weekly market as a social institution, the links between the local tribal economy and the outside, and the exploitative economic relationships between adivasis and others, are illustrated by a study of a weekly market in Bastar district. This district is populated mainly by Gonds, an adivasi group. At the weekly market, you find local people, including tribals and non-tribals (mostly Hindus), as well as outsiders – mainly Hindu traders of various castes. Forest officials also come to the market to conduct business with adivasis who work for the Forest Department, and the market attracts a variety of specialists selling their goods and services. The major goods that are exchanged in the market are manufactured goods (such as jewellery and trinkets, pots and knives), non-local foods (such as salt and haldi (turmeric)), local food and agricultural produce and manufactured items (such as bamboo baskets), and forest produce (such as tamarind and oil-seeds).…” “…In the market, the buyers are mostly adivasis while the sellers are mainly caste Hindus.…” |