What roles do the family and the community play?

Why is the family so important?

The family is the most basic and ancient unit of any society. It is where we are looked after when we are small, and where we first learn to share, to help and to care about others. The chapter asks two big questions: why is the family important, and what is a community and what does it do? Let us look at both.

Joint and nuclear families

There are many kinds of families in India today.

• A joint family has several generations living together: grandparents, parents, uncles and aunts, brothers, sisters and cousins.
• A nuclear family is a couple and their children, or sometimes one parent and children.

Look around your neighbourhood: which type do you see more often, and why might that be? Both types have their strengths. A joint family has more people to share work, care and money, and children grow up with grandparents. A nuclear family can be easier when parents move to a new city for work, and it gives more privacy.

Roles and responsibilities

Family relationships rest on love, care, cooperation, which means working together, and interdependence, which means depending on each other. Every member has a role. Parents bring up their children to be happy and responsible members of society. As children grow older, they take on more work at home, such as helping a brother or sister, and they learn the traditions their family has followed for generations.

Values in action: two families

Doing one’s duty, or dharma, is an important principle of Indian culture, and the family is a kind of school for values such as ahimsa, dāna (giving), sevā (service) and tyāga (sacrifice).

• Shalini, Kerala. Shalini lives with her parents, her younger brother, her grandmother Acchamma, and her uncle, aunt and cousin. Before Onam, her uncle lost his job. Her parents bought new clothes for the whole family, so Shalini got a simple cotton dress instead of the silk one she hoped for. She did not mind: everyone had new clothes for the festival.
• Tenzing, Meghalaya. When Tenzing’s mother got busy in a handicraft cooperative, his father began cleaning the house, looking after the vegetable garden and helping to cook. His grandmother tells wise and funny stories, and his grandfather helps with homework and helps neighbours, for example by collecting money to repair a house damaged in a storm. His parents decide special expenses together and try to save for the future.

What makes a community?

Families are connected with other families and the people around them. A group of connected people like this is called a community. Its members come together to celebrate festivals, hold feasts and weddings, and in some villages to prepare the land, sow and harvest.

Many communities, especially tribal and village communities, agreed long ago on how to share water, grazing land and forest produce. Their rules were rarely written down, but they gave every family secure access, and every family had duties, so that the community could work smoothly.

Communities that help

• Halma in Jhabua. The Bhil community of Madhya Pradesh has a tradition called halma: coming together to help anyone in a crisis. Facing water shortages year after year, they planted thousands of trees and dug trenches to save rainwater, without pay, as a duty to their community and to Mother Earth.
• Chennai floods, 2015. When roads turned into rivers and shops closed, many groups cooked food and gave it to people in need.
• Kamal Parmar, Ahmedabad. A workshop owner began teaching children from the street every evening after work, and gave them dinner too. Soon 150 children were attending, and teachers and older students joined to help.

Rules and interdependence

New communities have grown in cities, such as Residents’ Welfare Associations, which make rules about waste, clean common areas and pets, with residents taking part. Yet no community stands alone: a housing society depends on traders for supplies and on municipal workers to handle waste. The word ‘community’ is flexible too. It can mean a jāti, the people of one religion, region or kind of work, or your class, sports team or school club. In every case, people do what they can to support each other.