The Village Context: Changes over Three Decades

This chapter describes the rural setting in which the study village, Gove, is situated. It is located in the Deccan plateau of Maharashtra State, on the north bank of the Krishna River about 14 km north east of Satara city (Figure 2.1). Driving from Pune to Satara on the four-lane Mumbai-Bangalore expressway, the turn off to the village is about ten km before Satara. Taking a deteriorated but mainly paved road for about four km to the village of Limb, and continuing a short distance to the river, Gove can be seen on the opposite bank. In 1975 the road from Limb to Gove was motorable for about five months in the dry season. During the monsoon the river had to be crossed by boat and the road to Limb became a quagmire of slippery, knee-deep mud. A daily bus service from Koregaon to Wai cut through the village during the dry summer months, and there were three buses daily from Limb to Satara. Now, by contrast, the village is in constant communication with the outside world, thanks to the building of a bridge across the river, completed in 1982. Buses, auto rickshaws, trucks, and other motor vehicles share the pot-holed road with bicycles, ox carts, and pedestrians, plying not only from the main highway to Gove, but also to communities further inland.