When speaking of movement of electors from rural to urban areas in developing countries in general and in India in particular four points have to be kept in m i n d .
firstly, in developing countries the proportion of population living in urban areas is small and the pace of urbanisation is yet slow. Past experience in the West showed that the pace of urbanization increases after picking up momentum. But research scholars who worked on urbanization in India suggest that there are no indications yet that the process of urbanization in India is following the pattern experienced by the Western countries (Bose 1970; Zachariach 1968). The level and pace of urbanization in the long run will
depend on several 'urban puli' and 'rural push' factors such as pace of industrial ization, creation of employment opportunities in urban areas, migration from
rural to urban areas for education, trade and commerce, increasing labour pressure on scarce land, mechanization of agriculture (ladejinsky 1969; Rudra 1969, 197l), and the movement of educated and trained rural youth into urban occupations.
Secondly, analysis of 1951 and 1961 census data shows that though the proportion of urban population is small (less than a fifth) about one fifth of the urban population in 1951 and about one-seventh of the urban population in 1961 represented net gains from rural areas. The sharp rise in the decennial growth rate of migrants from 9 per cent between 1941 and 1951 to 34 per cent between 1951 and 1961 was attributed to the rural push and urban pull factors mentioned above (Gupta and Sadasyuk 1968: 80-8l). Several urban socio-economic surveys conducted in different parts of India in cities such as Madras, Kanpur, Bhopal, Lucknow and Jamshedpur clearly suggest that a majority of the migrants to these cities had come from rural areas (Balakrishna 1961; Majumdar I960;
Malhotra 1964; Mukerjee and Singh 1961; Misra 1959)• It has to be remembered, however, that the level and pace of urbanization were not uniform all over India, as was shown by the 1961 census. The proportion of 'urban population in India as a whole was then 18 per cent; in states such as Maharastra, Madras, and Gujarat it was more than 25 per cent, while in states such as Orissa, Assam, and Bihar it was less than 10 per cent. The preliminary figures from the 1971 census indicate that the urban population in India was about 20 per cent of the total while in the states of Tamil Nadu, Maharastra, and Gujarat nearly a third of the population was living in urban areas.
Thirdly, as urbanization gathers momentum the present distribution of electors between rural and urban areas will gradually change. Even at the present pace of urbanization it is not unreasonable to assume that after five or six decades about half of the electors in states such as Maharastra, Tamil Nadu, and Gujarat will be living in urban areas. This process will be accentuated by another factor. A majority of migrants to urban areas are young males of working- age (20 to 45) so most of them are of voting age (21 and above).
finally, the political consequences of rural to urban movement of electors could be studied at several different points on the rural-urban
continuum. Depending on the rural push and urban pull pressures that operate people could migrate to nearby small and middle-size towns, to traditional cities which developed as centres of trade, commerce and administration, to old
industrial cities such as Bombay, Calcutta, Kanpur, and Ahmedabad, or to new industrial towns which grew up around newly constructed heavy industrial plants. When industrialization and urbanization pick up momentum migrants from rural
19
areas would move primarily to industrial towns because they would be the main sources of employment opportunities.
This thesis is primarily concerned with the movement of population from rirral areas to new industrial towns, with the consequences of occupational
mobility,^disintegration of old loyalties and the political resocialization of migrants. concerned with the rate or optimum level of urbanization, but with the political consequences of a major demographic trend that is likely to occur m almost all developing countries.1^ Hie selection of a new industrial town for field work was preferred for two reasons. firstly, industrial towns provide clues to the future patterns of political resocialization of industrial ization-fed rural-urban migrants. Secondly, migrants are available as groups in industrial towns. On the other hand, migrants constitute only a small proportion of the total population in traditional cities. It should also be remembered here that Bhilai was selected for field work primarily because it is a new heavy industrial town and is located close to the industrial belt of east India and not because a majority of the migrants in Bhilai were inter-state. Bor example, if the survey was done in Durgapur as planned originally the
proportion of intra-state migrants would have constituted a majority (see page 55). Re socialization
As urbanization increases and the rural people move into urban areas they find themselves in a new social and occupational environment. Hie occupations they seek in urban areas are not usually hereditary. Hie migrants may have a few friends who help them find jobs and settle down in the new area. But in the workplace, when commuting to the workplace, and in the residential neighbourhood, a migrant has to seek new friendships. According to his occupation he may have to join a labour union, a professional association or a traders T association. To satisfy his cultural interests he may have to join a state cultural association or a regional association on the basis of his mother tongue, and to pursue his hobbies he may join organizations such as sports clubs, dramatic associations and libraries. Most of the above associations cut across religious, caste and often state loyalties. Such associations may often be called upon to exert pressure on government in general and particularly on the political parties at election time, either
to protect their own occupational and professional interests, or to meet some special need of the occupational or interest group concerned. The migrants themselves may change their political attitudes and allegiance as their occupational status moves up or down. It is in this process that their primordial loyalties will gradually disintegrate or become irrelevant, and they will re-align their political affiliations on the bases of secular interests and associations.
Political Implications
The social characteristics and places of origin of migrants may also have immediate political implications. In India as in most other developing countries a great majority of migrants to urban areas are young males, with higher educational attainments on the average than those of the population from which they are drawn (Zachariah 1964). Election studies in the past revealed that electors of this type had no definite political loyalties,
MAP I. 1
INDIA
INTERNAL MIGRATION, 1951- 61 PAKISTAN GUJARAT m a d h y apradesn m ig r a n t s^^ / /intensityo fm ec h a n ic a lincrease/decrease
. /percentageincrease percentagedecrease
NET LOSS BV OUT MIGRATION
MADRAS .
Source: Census of India 1961, Census Atlas: Vol. I__ P.ar^ Delhi: The Manager of Publications 1970 P. 135.
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were highly emotional and easily swayed by temporary issues. A high proportion of these younger electors were thought to have been attracted to the non-Congress parties (Sheth 1970). This would suggest that rural to urban migration was likely to swell the non-Congress vote.
Between 1951 and 1961 'the pull of industrial and commercial magnets in urban areas' became increasingly important (Gupta and
Sadasyak 1968: 82). States which were relatively industrially developed and states such as Madhya Pradesh, Mysore and Assam in which new industries were coming up fast were the net gainers in inter-state migration. On the other hand the states of Kerala and Andhra Pradesh where Communism was fairly influential, and the states
of Tamil Nadu, Orissa and Punjab in which regional parties were fairly strong, and the states of Uttar Pradesh and Eihar in which the Jana Sangh was popular, were the principal states of origin of these inter-state migrants (see MAP l.l). Some scholars, such as Selig Harrison, have suggested that inter-state migrants of other language groups in Bombay worked as cliques within the leftist
parties (Harrison I960: 266). Others, like Norman Palmer, thought that these groups preferred to vote for a candidate of their own language or of their own region if one was available (Palmer 1963; Hart I960). Such conclusions suggest that inter-state migration if it happens on a sufficiently large scale would be likely to modify local party structures and party systems in the states that attracted migrants.
RESEARCH METHOD
Once the theme of the research investigation was thus pinpointed there were two obvious methodological options. The 1961 census of India collected and tabulated a wide variety of socio-economic and demographic data for all administrative units down to taluk level and for all places recognized as urban. The Election Commission of India collected and published election
21
statistics at constituency level while polling-booth voting details were available (up to 1969) at the district election offices.
Some scholars made a joint analysis of these census data and election statistics to make broad generalizations and inferences and provide explanations of the emerging electoral trends (Gopalkrishna 1964; Murthy and Rao 1968; Morris-Jones and Gupta 1970; Zagoria 1971). The degree of freedom with which a research worker can speak of individual voting prefer ences on the basis of aggregate voting trends is limited. Yet such an investigation could be highly useful in explaining some broad trends at the aggregate level, and help in generating some hypotheses that might be tested through a field survey. In our case such an analysis could be done for all new industrial towns and traditional cities with ease.
In India there are 113 traditional cities (including town-groups) with more than 100,000 population each and about 22 new industrial towns with more than 20,000 population each, spread out all over the country. One could undertake a field survey of some of these towns and collect primary data on socio-economic and occupational mobility patterns, associational activities, and political attitudes.
I decided to carry out an aggregate analysis for all traditional cities and industrial towns, to explain some major voting patterns and generate some hypotheses that could be tested by a field survey in one industrial town and one traditional city. Further interviews with the leaders in the towns surveyed would be helpful in understanding the local situations. So the strategy was to use a combination of both methods in the first project of its kind in the study of Indian politics.
The quantitative analyses for this thesis were based mostly on data derived from the census and election report,
polling-booth data, about 1200 cross-section interviews and dozens of interviews with local leaders. In developing the theme of the thesis and carrying on the discussion I had to be selective, and relied mostly on quantitative studies in India, but I did not
ignore relevant material from other types of studies. What follows in the later chapters are the findings of such an analysis.
FOOTNOTES
For detailed account of the role played by the Western-educated elites in the freedom struggle see T. McCulley, English Education and the Origins of Indian Nationalism. New York: Columbia University Press 1940; and A.R. Desai, Social Background of Indian Nationalism. Bombay: Popular Book Depot 1954. For a general understanding of the growth of the middle classes in India see B.B. Misra, Indian Middle Classes. London: Oxford University Press 1961.
The only native Indian princely states in which the Congress held its annual sessions before independence were Tripura in 1938 and Ramagarh in 1940. These calculations are based mainly on the information obtained from two volumes of Congress Presidential addresses published by G.A. Natesan and Company, Madras (1934 and 1935). The South Asia Historical Atlas Project is carrying out an investigation on similar lines on the presidents and places of meetings of the Congress.
An examination of the presidential addresses of the Congress at its annual sessions particularly during
the early period (1885 to 1900) makes this point obvious. The twin points which most of the Congress Presidents emphasised were that the Congress was representative of all religions, communities and regions and that all these representatives were determined to forge a single nation out of India. For an excellent summary of the pre-Independence constitutional system, its development and operation see W.H. Morris-Jones, Parliament in India. London: Longmans 1957. See especially his second chapter. The tables presented on pages 71 to 73 give a fairly clear picture of the composition of electorates in different periods.
For an early history of the reform acts of 1909, 1919 and 1935, see W.A.J. Archbald, Outlines of Indian Constitutional. History (British Period). London:
P.N. King and Son Ltd. 1926; R. Coupland, The
Constitutional Problem of India. Vol. I, The Indian Problem 1833-1935; Vol. II, Indian Politics 1936- 1942; Vol. Ill, The Future of India. London: Oxford University Press 1942, 1943 and 1944. As quoted in 'The Nature and Character of
23
graph prepared by the Research Policy Planning, and R e view Division, Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India (1968) for restricted cir culation. See page 30.
7. For recent studies on the role of caste and
community in electoral politics carried out under the supervision of M.N. Srinivas see Imtiaz Ahmed, General Elections of 1967 in a Rural Constituency. Economic and Political Weekly, VI, 1971 and
Khadija A. Gupta, General Elections of 1967 in a Small Town. Economic and Political Weekly VI, 1971.
8. The statistics of socio-economic and political background of members of Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha and Ministers of the Union Government are based on a comparison of data from different sources. For details see Lok Sabha Secretariat, Activities of First Lok Sabha in Brief 1952-1957. New Delhi: Lok Sabha Secretariat 1957; Lok Sabha Secretariat, Activities of the Second Lok Sabha (Statistics and Charts) 1957-1962. New Delhi: Lok Sabha Secretariat 1962; Lok Sabha Secretariat, Activities of the Third Lok Sabha 1962-1967 (Statistics and Charts). New Delhi: Lok Sabha Secretariat 1967; Ratna Dutta, The Party Representative in the Fourth Lok Sabha. Economic and Political Weekly IV, 1969. For the socio-economic background of Congress Members of Parliament see Stanley A. Kochanek,
The Relation Between Social Background and Attitudes of Indian Legislators. Journal of Commonwealth Political Studies VI, 1968.
9. Details on the socio-economic and political back ground of Union Ministers, their class origins and place of birth were obtained from S.N. Misras' work at Syracuse University.
10. Finally, when the Union Government made up its mind to impose agricultural wealth and income taxes it tried to persuade the state governments by a call for a ceiling on urban property and agricultural income and wealth taxes simultaneously. Presently such a proposal is being discussed both at the state and central levels. For a report of the Central Land Reforms Committee on ceilings on land holdings, see Times of India, 5 August 1971. The State Government of Bihar has already approved ordinances seeking ceilings on landholdings and urban property and at the same time assured that middle-size landholdings will not be affected by
24
11» Here one may agree with the argument of Kothari and his associates that in a country like India where eight in ten persons live in rural areas, it is the introduction of modern representative institutions, election politics, and voter participation that play a vital role in weakening the primordial
loyalties of the rural society. On the other hand, for the same reasons one may argue perhaps more effectively, that so long as the social and occu pational structures in the rural areas continue as they are today primordial loyalties will con tinue to be a key factor in politics in Indian rural areas. The working population in rural areas can be divided into three broad occupational categories: owner and tenant cultivators, agri cultural labourers, and artisans. Petty govern ment officials, school teachers and development officials are a distinct category of workers in rural areas but they are few. As primordial loyalties in rural areas are closely linked to agriculture based occupational interests and as occupations are unlikely to change as long as rural people remain in the rural areas, one can in fact speculate about an upper ceiling for the process of secularization of politics in rural areas. On the other hand, migration to urban areas will mean a complete change in the social and occu pational situation of a person. For an interesting article on the distance between the political
sophistication of different segments of Indian society see W.H. Morris-Jones, India's Political Idioms. In Philips (ed.), Politics and Society in India. London: George Allen and Unwin 1963.
12. For studies on urbanization in India see Roy Turner (ed.), India's Urban Future. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press 1.962; Gerald Breese (ed.), The City in Newly Developing Countries: Readings on Urbanism and Urbanization. Prentice Hall 1969.
MAP I I . 1
INDIA, S H O W IN G N E W T O W N S INCLUDED
25
AGGREGATE ANALYSIS1
PRINCIPLES FOR PICKING TOWNS
In selecting an appropriate control set of cities for aggre gate analysis, it was necessary to adopt different principles for the
2
new industrial towns and for the old 'traditional' cities, though in both cases the principles were simple and straightforward.
Industrial Towns
II
The census of 1961 recognized for the first time as urban units a total of 483 new towns, with an aggregate population of 4.5 millions. A majority of these towns (340) had a population of fewer than 10,000; 31 of them, with a combined population of 1.1 millions, had more than 25,000 people each.
First, all towns with a population of 20,000 or less were eliminated from the sample. There were two reasons for this. Most of the smaller 'new towns' as listed in the census were in fact old settle ments or outer suburbs of traditional towns with stable populations -- whereas this study is focussed on migrants to the new industrial areas. In addition, in the smaller towns there would be insufficient scope for significant political activity among the different types of migrants. In a town with under 20,000 population and about 8,000 electors, the
potential supporters of minority parties like the Communists or Socialists might number only a few hundred. In the Indian situation such numbers would be too small to organize a party branch or put up a candidate to
** 3
contest an assembly election; they could only become minor pressure