The Structure of Indian Society by A.M. Shah

Author:A.M. Shah [Shah, A.M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780367193195
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2019-04-09T00:00:00+00:00

Hereditarily Urban Population

The above discussion of caste in rural and urban areas indicates that Indian society always included a section of population that was hereditarily urban — groups which lived from generation to generation in urban centres. These groups were the carriers of an urban culture, with a distinctive style of life, customs, institutions, and possibly also modes of thought and perceptions. Urban society included many people who were born and brought up in urban centres, spent all their life there, and were involved in such occupations that they had hardly anything to do with rural people — who were, one might even say, alienated from the rural people. The modern alienation of a large section of the urban population from the rural masses has deep roots in the past. Moreover, the traditional urban population covered a wide economic spectrum: the rich, the poor, the not so rich, and the not so poor. To think, as is frequently done, that the urban poor of today are entirely a creation of modern industrialization and urbanization would be incorrect.

The hereditarily urban population used to migrate from one town to another whenever necessary. In this context, it would be worth knowing if during pre-industrial times there was urbanization in the demographers’ sense of the term, i.e., whether there were periods of rural-to-urban migration. We know for certain that individual towns and cities grew and declined, some even completely disintegrated (like Vijayanagara in Karnataka and Champaner in Gujarat), but I wonder if historians can tell whether there was net addition to urban population in the country as a whole at different periods of time by migration from rural areas. Asish Bose (1965) shows, on the basis of a detailed study of census data from 1881 onwards, how the rate of urbanization was more or less constant up until 1911. This suggests that individual towns and cities grew and declined mainly due to inter-urban rather than rural–urban migration up until 1911. Frequently population from foreign lands came to settle in urban centres in India, as when Muslim traders from West Asia and then European traders settled in towns all along the West coast, including Gujarat. Similarly, the urban population from one region of India migrated to another region of India. For example, Gujarati traders, artisans and craftsmen migrated to towns in other parts of India. Many Gujarati silk-weavers migrated to towns in Tamil Nadu, most probably via Maharashtra and Karnataka (see Ramaswamy 1985). The Kayasthas of north India went to several parts of India, including Hyderabad (see Leonard 1978). There was also a great deal of inter-urban migration within Gujarat. The ancient port of Broach declined and Cambay grew, then Cambay declined and Surat grew, then Surat declined and Mumbai grew. Similarly in the inland area, the capital city of Patan declined and Ahmedabad grew, and when Champaner disintegrated its population migrated to several nearby towns such as Baroda and Godhra.

The point is that inter-urban migration meant migration of the hereditarily urban population. Their migration

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