Prolonged Deprivation Profiles of three Groups: A study in a Border Village of Cooch Behar, West Bengal

Level of deprivation was examined in three individual groups in a border village namely, Kalmati in Dinhata Block-II, District Cooch Behar, West Bengal, which is situated in IndoBangladesh border. The village has three distinct geographical features – Group1) hamlets inside village kalmati, Group2) hamlets ahead of fence in Kalmati but situated before Bangladesh border and Group3) hamlets situated in erstwhile Bangladesh Chhitmahalsin side Kalmati. The sample consists of 346 subjects. Out of which, 123 samples belong to Group-1, 103 belong to Group-2 and rest i.e. 120 samples belong to Group3. The individuals fail to organise from adequate resources of physical, social, mental and emotional support from their immediate environment and society at large. Prolonged deprivation from the said facilities affects adversely physical growth as well as mental health of three individual groups. This was measured by Prolonged Deprivation Scale (PDS). The 15 areas of deprivation of PDS were analysed. The profiles differ significantly in some of the cases. Though the percentage of higher level of deprivation is similar in three groups, percentages of lower levels of deprivation differ among each other.

This may occur with reference to three inter-related sets of basic needs i.e., physical, psychological and social cultural. The concept of deprivation has been used frequently as an explanatory construct as well as empirical variable to account for a variety of behavioural characteristics observed under natural as well as laboratory setting (Mishra and Tripathi 1980). In laboratory animal, psychologists in their experiments have extensively used setting deprivation as a source of motivation. Deprivation of food, water and sex, etc., is used to motivate the animal of subsequent learning. In studies done in natural settings deprivation has come to acquire a variety of connotations. It is used interchangeably with other terms such as cultural deprivation (Riesseman 1962;Wight et al. 1970), social and cultural disadvantaged (Havighurst 1962), psychological deprivation (Langmeier 1972) and social deprivation (Tulkin 1972).
In India, a considerable section of the population fail to organise from adequate resources of physical, social, mental and emotional support from their immediate environment and society at large. Prolonged deprivation from said facilities affects adversely physical growth as well as mental health of young individuals. The evidence of wider gaps in income inequality between different family types, different economic status groups, different regions have been found in several studies (Walker and Walker, 1981;Berclay, 1995;Hills, 1995;Goodman et.al., 1997;Hills 1998a). Scientific study of prolonged deprivation of individuals assume special significance in the contemporary world as the prolonged deprivation ascribed for individuals are of the important conditions for socioeconomic development of the country. In this backdrop the extent of deprivation of three individual groups i.e. individuals of Kalmati village (inside the Indian fence), individuals of Kalmati village (ahead the fence i.e. in Bangladesh side) and individuals of erstwhile Chhitmahals inside the Kalmati village seems to be meaningful for study in this respect.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
Present study was conducted in village Kalmati, which is an international border village of Indo-Bangladesh Border. Kalmati is situated in Dinhata II Block of Cooch Behar district, West Bengal. For the sake of study three groups were made-Group-1:individuals from Kalmati village (inside the Indian fence), Group-2: individuals from Kalmati village (ahead the fence i.e. in Bangladesh border side) and Group-3: individuals from erstwhile Bangladesh Chhitmahals inside the Kalmati village.

Sample: A total of 346 subjects were examined. Break-up of which is as follows:
Individuals Male  Female  Total  Group-1  101  22  123  Group-2  83  20  103  Group-3  102  18  120 Prolonged Deprivation Scale (PDS) developed by Misra and Tripathi (1977) provides information regarding fifteen areas of physical, social and emotional deprivation levels of the respondents. A 15 point profile of deprivation is computed for each group. Technique of profile analysis has been implemented to examine the differences between patterns to profiles of deprivation of three individual groups of Kalmati village-inside the fence, ahead the fence and Bangladesh Chhitmahals.
The Bengali Version of PDS was used to measure the level of prolonged deprivation of three groups of individuals of Kalmati village. The inventory consists of 96 statements with Likert type responses with five alternative responses. The scale measures 15 areas of life situation and experimental domain where deprivation could occur. The areas of deprivation include-1) Housing conditions, 2) Home environment, 3) Economic sufficiency, 4) Food, 5) Clothing, 6) Formal education experience, 7) Childhood experience, 8) Rearing experience, 9) Characteristics of parents, 10) Interaction with parents, 11) Motivational experience 12) Emotional experience, 13) Travel and recreation, 14) Religious experience and 15) Socio-culture experience. The five alternative answers were assigned with score values of 1,2,3,4 and 5 respectively except the items, 70, 74, 75 and 77. For these items the score values were assigned inversely for the responses A B C Dand E. Total score was obtained by adding the scores of all 96 items. Higher score indicates higher level of deprivation and vice versa. On the basis of the obtained score by the subjects, individuals with a very high score with a value above 75th percentile was considered as highly deprived, while low scores with a value below 25th percentile was considered as individuals with low degree of deprivation. According to Misra and Tripathi (1977) the fifteen areas of life situation and experimental domain are as follows: .

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Average scores of PDS of three individual groups are furnished in Table 1 for 15 areas of deprivation. In the present study higher PDS is indicative of higher level of deprivation. Lowest mean score of deprivation is recorded in childhood experiences, whereas highest mean score is in motivational experiences, which is true for all the three groups.
Mean scores of deprivation areas ranges between 11.18 in childhood experiences and 37.12 in motivational experiences in group 1. Low level of mean scores is recorded in the areas of religious experiences (11.2), travel and recreation ( Other areas of deprivation in this group fall in between high and low level of mean scores (Table 1).
Average scores of PDS ranges between 8.53 in childhood experiences and 35.2 in motivational experiences in group 3. Low mean scores are recorded in the areas of religious experiences (10.17), travel and recreation (14.07), clothing (15.31) and interaction with parents (15.94). While, in parental characteristics (25.09), emotional experiences (26.83), economic sufficiency (28.68) and home environment (31.81)high mean scores are recorded (Table 1). For a clear view of the situation these results are shown in Figure 1.   Taking into consideration all these deprivation areas (variables) it is found from Table 2 that individuals of group 1 differ from group 2 in 1 out of 15 variables, whereas between group 2 and 3 significant differences have been noticed in 4 out of 15 variables. On the other hand group 1 differs significantly from group 3 in 7 out of 15 variables. Thus it appears that individuals of groups 1 and 3 express prolonged deprivation in higher level than that of the individuals of group 2. It can be mentioned in this context that though the individuals of group 2 are deprived of many basic amenities like electricity, health and educational infrastructure than their counterpart (group 1) they possess considerably higher agricultural land and their economic condition is better than the individuals of group 1. As a result PDS is recorded to be considerably lower in group 2 in all the deprivation areas excepting the area namely housing condition than group 1. On the other hand individuals of group 3 also show higher PDS in many areas like group 1.
Values of t-test corroborate with these findings. It reveals from Table 3 that one fourth of the individuals fall in highly deprived category, which is true for all the three groups. But low degree of deprivation is considerably higher in group 3 (26.67%) than that of the group 1 (17.89%) and group 2 (18.45%).