by selling land?

Is he wise or stupid in
The Village in the City, selling land?
When most of the agricultural fields in
the City in the Village a village are acquired by the urban people,
they demand urban facilities: paved roads,
underground drainage, piped water,
A M SHAH regular electricity supply, security, etc.
Pressures build up on the municipal cor-
Many villages gradually get poration and on the state's politicians
included in cities and urban isation in India is that villages and bureaucrats to include the village
An isation located important
located outside in outside
India concomitant the
the is boundaries that of villages urban-of
boundaries of within the city. Often the government,
people also migrate to villages
a city get included in it over time. There anticipating this development, works out
transforming them into towns.
are more than 300 such villages within a town planning scheme. The net result is
Both phenomena require Delhi now and every other city I know has inclusion of the entire mauza in the city.
such villages in varying numbers. There is
intensive study, including an
no readily available count for the country Major Complication
examination of the defining
as a whole, but I am sure it would be large. However, there is a major complication.
criteria of a "town", and the
This phenomenon has been intensifying While the village lands get transferred
estimates of urban population.
since the 1950s and is sure to intensify and the urban style houses, shops, malls,
further. India is on the path of rapid urbani- cinema theatres, offices, and other build-
sation, and the urban development autho- ings are constructed on them, the resi-
rities of all cities are planning to draw dential settlement of the village remains
more and more villages into their nets. The intact: narrow, zigzag, dusty, muddy lanes,
causes and consequences of the pheno- little houses and huts, little shrines, the
menon therefore require careful analysis. village accountant's office, etc. The satel-
How a village gets included within a lite settlements, if any, also remain intact.
city is usually a long drawn process. It is The pasture land, water tanks and ponds,
necessary to recall that in most parts of wasteland, and such other public proper-
India a village is made up of, first, a resi- ties are transferred to the municipal cor-
dential settlement ( gaon-than or abadi poration, but their use and care is always
area) where houses and huts are hud- mired in controversies. The town planners
dled together,1 and second, agricultural prepare the physical plan of the landed
fields, pasture (gauchar ) land, water tanks area, but rarely, if ever, of the residential
and ponds, cart tracks, wasteland, and settlement. Welfare of the village in the
other open territory all around it.2 The city remains problematic. For example, a
two together constitute a territorial unit village included in Baroda (now Vadodara)
called the "revenue village" ( mauza in city in the 1950s, which I know well, con-
most parts of India) with fixed boundaries tinues to have more or less the same old
recognised for local administration.3 Often dusty and muddy lanes, just behind a row
it includes, besides the main settlement, of large and tall modern buildings.
one or more small subsidiary settlements, Many of these village enclaves continue
or "satellite villages", as M N Srinivas with many of their traditional collective
called them. On the other hand, a mauza activities and even acquire special statu-
may not have any residential settlement, in tory status within the city, such as that
which
This article is a revised version of the case it is called a "deserted village". of a village panchayat. For example, in
special
address, "Rural-Urban Network: Past and In the case of a village located on the my locality in Delhi, after the municipal
Present", delivered at the IDRC-TTI Workshop
periphery of a city, one piece of land after corporation constructed a footpath on
on Rural-Urban Linkage, at Institute of Rural
another gets sold to individuals, busi- its side of the road dividing the city from
Management, Anand, 21 August 2012.
ness firms, property agents, institutions, the village, the village panchayat refused
I thank IRMA for inviting me to the workshop,
and Donald Attwood, B S Baviskar, government establishments, and others in to allow the corporation to construct a
Lancy Lobo, P J Patel, Tulsi Patel, Jagan Shah Why the urban buyers buy this
the city.4 footpath on its side. Another issue is
and N R Sheth for comments on the draft of
land is more or less known. But why a whether the people in the village enclave
this article.
villager should sell his land is a matter of pay the same taxes as those paid by the
AM Shah (arvindmshahdse@yahoo.com) is
investigation. What are the motivations? people in the corporation. For example,
a former professor of sociology at the Delhi
What are the compulsions? What does until recently in rural areas in most of
School of Economics.
a villager do with the money he gets Gujarat, while land revenue was collected

Economic & Political weekly EEd December 29, 2012 vol xlvii no 52 17

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on agricultural land from the villagers, no exchanged giggles. The Chandrawal peas-towns, although this requires calculation
tax was collected on their house sites and ants never allowed us to lock our gates,of density only for the residential settle-
other properties in the village settlement. and threatened to kill our watchmen. ment of the village, main as well as subsidi-
These landed properties were not even The distinguished teachers and students
ary, and not for the mauza's entire territory.
measured and mapped, and their owners were experiencing the village in the city.
registered. Do these tax and other privi- The architectural, economic, social,Complicated Criterion
leges continue after a village is included cultural and political changes that take
Engagement in non-agricultural activity,
within the city? How are these privileges place in these village enclaves in cities
however, is a complicated criterion. First
of all, one wonders why women are as-
used for locating small workshops and should be a subject of research. It is easy
factories in the village enclave? There to dismiss them as slums, but that would
sumed as not engaged in non-agricultural
should be an all India survey of the stat- be shirking the responsibility of under-
activity, despite extensive evidence of their
utory status of these village enclaves. standing the nature of this increasingly
involvement in non-agricultural work in
both traditional and modern India. How
The impact of these village enclaves on important segment of urban society. More
city life should be studied intensively. I has this assumption survived despite the
generally, even after a village is included
may mention only one well-known impact. in the city, the problem of rural-urbanrobust growth of women's studies during
The village cows, buffaloes, donkeys, pigs linkage remains and makes the catego-
the last 50 years is also a question. Second,
and other animals roam around the city sociological as well as historical studies
ries "rural" and "urban" even more fuzzy
streets and even arterial roads. They cause than we have known them to be for long.of a number of villages in many parts of
traffic jams, and damage cars and other India have shown that every village in
vehicles. Their droppings and urine foul Transformation of Villages traditional India included, besides the
into Towns
the streets. They attack pedestrians, some- peasant castes, many castes engaged in
times resulting in serious injury and even non-agricultural
Just as the village gets included within the occupations. For example,
death. Recently a retired professor of city, the city people and their culture
in 1825,
also in a village with a population of
Baroda University died when a cow hit him migrate to the village and transform
720 in it
central Gujarat, at least 14 of the 24
castes were engaged in non-agricultural
and he collapsed on the road. A friend of into a town. This is a very complex process.
mine, who had set up a small research It is well known that a settlement occupations,
con- as artisans, craftsmen and
institute of urban anthropology in Ahmeda- sidered as a village at one census servicemen.
might They included carpenters,
bad, was killed by a bull near his home. become a town at a subsequent census.
blacksmiths, potters, weavers, tailors,
Such incidents are reported in newspapers Since the 1961 Census, a settlement is barbers, drummers, shoemakers,
traders,
and skinners (Shah 2002: 56-66). The
from time to time. The problem seems to normally considered a town if it satisfies
defy solution. Cows are sacred and get three criteria: (i) a population of 5,000 or of every non-agricultural caste
population
wasleast
fed by devout Hindus; they are overfed more, (ii) a population density of at small, some having just one or two
during festivals. They also eat all kinds of 400 per sq km, and (iii) at least 75% households,
of the but the population of all of
garbage, even waste paper and plastic these
male workers should be engaged in non-castes put together was substantial
sheets. The owners of these animals live - about
agricultural work (Sivaramakrishnan et alone-fifth of the total population
in the village enclave. They have become 2005: 8). If it receives the state govern-
of the village. In addition, several castes,
both high and low, included agricultural
a vote bank, and often behave arrogantly, ment's recognition it becomes a "statutory
sometimes even violently. They and their town"; otherwise the census of as
India
well as non-agricultural workers. The
animals cannot be removed. may recognise it as a "census town".
Indian village should not be assumed as
I may narrate in this context the expe- Sivaramakrishnan et al (ibid: passim entirely
) have a peasant community.
rience of the Delhi School of Economics discussed at length how these criteria How does the non-agricultural popu-
(dse) about the land on which it is located. have been applied differently in different
lation of a village increase to the extent
After this land, belonging to the nearbystates and at different censuses in the that it satisfies the criterion of being a
Chandrawal village, was acquired in 1950 same state, making comparisons overtown? In a number of villages I know in
or so, its tide was disputed. When I was thespace and time difficult. Recognition of Gujarat,
a the process is triggered by the
director of the dse in 1973-75, 1 used tovillage as a statutory town is, moreover,
increasing prosperity of the agricultural
receive summons about it from the court. a complex bureaucratic decision, often
population, due to the availability of
The peasants of Chandrawal also claimed influenced by local political forces. irrigation facilities, adoption of new crops
the grazing rights on this land. They Of the three criteria, that of a mini-- especially cash crops - application of new
used to bring their cattle for grazing evenmum population is the easiest to apply, if
technology and favourable prices for agri-
during the teaching hours. Their womenthe satellite villages are not ignored. The
cultural products. The prosperity of the
came to cut grass on the open spaces. Aftercriterion of population density should notagricultural population in a village leads to
a woman had bundled the cut grass, shealso pose much of a problem because inchanges in their lifestyle, which, in turn,
would ask one of our gardeners to lift any case most village settlements have
increase the demand for goods and serv-
ices supplied by the non-agricultural
the bundle and put it on to her head. Thehigh density and would have more or less
woman and the gardener, face to face, the same density when they become specialists living in villages, such that their

18 DECEMBER 29, 2012 vol XLVii no 52 E33ZJ Economic & Political weekly

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population increases. There are more
traders, more potters, more tailors, more
carpenters, more barbers, more priests
and so on, usually immigrants from other
villages. In modern times, a few new non-
agricultural occupations have developed
within the village, such as bicycle repairing,
electrical services, and flour-mill operat-
ing, and some villagers commute to towns
as industrial workers, peons, policemen,
clerks, truck drivers, bus conductors, etc.
As prosperity increases and the life-
style acquires many elements of urban
culture, the prosperous village attracts a
number of workers from nearby towns
and cities. In central Gujarat, this had
happened in a considerable number of
villages during the pre-industrial, pre-
modern times. While all categories of
non-agricultural workers found in vil-
lages were also found in cities, usually in
larger numbers, the cities had in addition
their own special categories of non-agri-
cultural workers: (a) a variety of business-
men, especially wholesale merchants,
bankers, and jewellers; (b) skilled arti-
sans and craftsmen, such as weavers of
high quality cotton textiles, silk weavers,
dyers, printers, gold and silver smiths,
braziers, bangle-makers, cutlers, masons,
lime-workers, wood-carvers, leather-
workers, saddle-makers, and oil-pressers;
(c) specialised service persons, such as
washermen, grain-parchers, rice-pounders,
florists, and betel-leaf sellers; (d) cultural
specialists, such as priests, preachers,
cities, both Hindu and Muslim, practisingPunjab and Bihar, that India's urban popu-
a variety of urban occupations. The latterlation has been underestimated to a very
was marked by a zone of bazaar streets.large extent, and this has led to unrealistic
Until recently, the dominant rural peoplepolicy decisions by the Planning Com-
did not allow their women to visit this mission. He has further argued that this
zone, and therefore many merchants,underestimation is due to the failure to
especially cloth merchants, jewellers andrecognise a number of villages as towns
goldsmiths, carried their goods to thedespite their having urban features.
rural people's homes for selling. During Apart from underestimation of the
the modern times, gradually, the peoplenumbers of small towns and their popula-
in the original village receive educationtion, there is also gross neglect of the study
and engage in new occupations. Usually,of small towns. Most villages have greater
such a composite settlement also becomesinteraction with nearby small towns than
an administrative centre, which leads towith a distant large city, and every small
the addition of people involved in admini-town is in turn a part of the larger urban
stration. The entire process leads to re-network. A deeper understanding of this
ducing the percentage of the agriculturalentire network is therefore necessary. Un-
population over time, and the settlementfortunately, the images of urban society in
receives the status of town.6 Thus, con-India are derived, mainly, if not exclusively,
trary to the general view that urbanisa-from the study of large cities. Consequendy,
tion involves migration of people from thethere are false images of the relation be-
village to the city, it also involves migra-tween the rural and the urban society
tion of people from the city to the village.and, in turn, of Indian society and culture
An understanding of this process re-in general. This needs to be corrected.
quires us to take into account the role
of the pre-industrial, premodern urban notes
1 This is called lai dora area in Delhi and the ad-
centres in modern urbanisation, includ- joining states.
ing transformation of villages into small2 There are also what sociologists call "dispersed
villages" in large tracts in various parts of
towns. This, in turn, requires us to reject India, where every dwelling is located on its own
the widely held view that India was a farm, and only a close inquiry would reveal
boundaries between one village and another.
land of villages. After all, India had a Such villages are not considered in this article.
number of urban centres, large and3 "Mauza" is an Arabic word introduced in village
administration in India during the medieval times.
small, throughout its history since the4 For a discussion on this "peri-urban" area at
time of the Indus Valley Civilisation, and some length, see Shaw (2005).
5 For an account of these urban workers, as well
they influenced rural society. as of traditional urbanism, see my 1988 essay
on rural-urban networks.

musicians, dancers, artists, and bards;
and (e) prostitutes, eunuchs and such
other marginal groups. These workers
were Hindus as well as non-Hindus.5
Estimate of Urban Population 6 A poor village might also become a small town
due to an exogenous factor, like the location of
This analysis of the transformation of a railway station near the village, which would
attract non-agricultural people from nearby
villages into towns has suggested certain
villages and towns to settle in the village.
factors that lead to underestimation of the

A prosperous village would attract number of towns and their population:REFERENCES

many of these urban workers to settle in (1) if the density of population for a villageAlagh, Yoginder K (2012): "Rural-Urban Continuums",
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rural and the urban in the same settle- revenue village (mauza) rather than for agement, Anand, 21 August, mimeo.
Shah, A M (1988): "The Rural-Urban Networks in
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Indian Society: Then and Now (Delhi: Routledge),
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such settlements existed in the region.tional (i e, pre-industrial, premodern) non-- (2002): Exploring India's Rural Past : A Gujarat
Village in the Early Nineteenth Century (Delhi:
One such settlement I know well had two agricultural occupations, in towns as well Oxford University Press).
clearly recognisable parts: (i) the originalas in villages, are ignored, the total numberShaw, Annapurna (2005): "Peri-urban Interface of
Indian Cities: Growth, Governance and Local
village with a predominantly agriculturalof non-agricultural workers will be low. Initiatives", Economic & Political Weekly, 8 Jan-
Y K Alagh (2012) has argued on the
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Sivaramakrishnan, K C, Amitabh Kundu and
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