U rbanisation in I ndependent I ndia You would be more than aware of increasing urbanisation in India. Recent years of globalisation have led to enormous expansion and change of cities. In the st century, India will be witnessing fast pace of urbanisation with the ambitious scheme of ‘Smart City’ initiated by the Government of India. We shall be dealing with that later in Chapter .
Here, we draw from a sociological account of the different kinds of urbanisation in India. Writing on the different kinds of urbanisation witnesses in the first two decades after independence sociologist M.S.A. Rao argued that in India many villages all over India are becoming increasingly subject to the impact of urban influences. But the nature of urban impact varies according to the kind of relations a village has with a city or town.
He describes three different situations of urban impact as mentioned in the box. Firstly, there are villages in which a sizeable number of people have sought employment in far-off cities. They live there leaving behind the members of their families in their natal villages. In Madhopur, a village in north central India, out of households have migrants, and a little less than half of all the migrants work in two cities of Bombay and Calcutta.
About percent of the total migrants send money regularly, and per cent visit the village from four to five times a year to once in two years... A considerable number of emigrants reside not only in Indian cities but also in overseas towns. For instance, there are many overseas migrants from Gujarat villages living in African and British towns. They have built fashionable houses in their natal villages, invested money on land and industry, and have donated literally to the establishment of educational institutions and trusts...
The second kind of urban impact is to be seen in villages which are situated near an industrial town...When an industrial town like Bhilai comes up in the midst of villages, some villages are totally uprooted while the lands of others are partially acquired. The latter are found to receive an influx of immigrant workers, which not only stimulates a demand for houses and a market inside the village but creates problems of ordering relationships between the native residents and the immigrants... ...The growth of metropolitan cities accounts for the third type of urban impact on the surrounding villages...While a few villages are totally absorbed in the process of expansion, only the land of many others, excluding the inhabited area, is used for urban development... (Rao : – )