PERSPECTIVES
The Importance of
Being ‘Rurban’
Tracking Changes in a Traditional Setting
Dipankar Gupta
A categorical distinction is facing
rough weather—that between
urban and rural. If we take just
agriculture, there is so much of
the outside world that comes in
not just as external markets but as
external inputs. Further, many of
our villages barely qualify as
rural if we were to take
occupation alone. So the earlier
line that separated the farmer
from the worker in towns is
slowly getting erased. By now
agriculturists are ready to accept
that their future lies elsewhere,
perhaps in cities and towns,
perhaps also in household and
informal industries. If they
cannot make it to those places, at
least their children should.
This is the text of my V K R V Rao lecture
delivered in May 2014 in Bengaluru. A
fellowship in Teen Murti Memorial Museum
and Library got me started on this subject. I
subsequently benefited from discussions with a
number of scholars at the National University
for Education Planning and Administration,
New Delhi, and Shiv Nadar University.
Dipankar Gupta (dipankargupta@hotmail.
com) teaches at the Shiv Nadar University,
Noida, Uttar Pradesh.
Economic & Political Weekly EPW june 13, 2015
Hard To Be Rural
I
ndia may not yet be quite urban, but
neither is it rural. Perhaps, the clumsy
term “rurban” might suffice for the
time being; for time being it is, given the
rapid transformation that is taking place
in Village India.
When India became independent,
almost 50% of the economy was rural;
the latest figures tell us it is barely 14%
now. The rate of growth in agriculture
hovers around 2.5% to 3.5% per annum.
This, as we can easily tell, is well below
the gross domestic product (GDP) growth
figures for the country as a whole. True,
big farmers are now a rare sight in vil-
lages, but this blight does not affect big
farms alone, but the agricultural sector
in general. This should be seen alongside
that the area leased in has fallen, accord-
ing to the 59th round of the National
Sample Survey (NSS 2006: Table 3.2).
Sharecropping is more or less a thing of
the past. Area under food crops came
down between 1950–51 and 2009–10 from
80.7% to 73.5% (Red Book 2008: 35).
Naturally, and it is almost predictable,
between 1994 and 2001, real investment
in agriculture declined by as much
as 20% (Acharya et al 2004: 216). That
this has been happening steadily over
the years does not reduce the effect of
its cumulative impact on agriculture.
Quantity does yield to quality sooner
rather than later.
Today, roughly 80% of landholdings
in India are below five acres, and about
66% below three acres. Some of this must
be credited to land reforms, for they
have made the acquisition of large hold-
ings legally suspect, but, in a great meas-
ure, one has to hand it to demography.
What the abolition of zamindari (big
landlords) set out to do was accomplished
vol l no 24
most comprehensively by population
growth and subdivision of holdings.
Where villages were once dominated by
powerful landlords, today they are home
to thousands of small, family farms.
Family farms, by definition, have very
little scope for hiring labour, except per-
haps during the peak harvesting season.
Large and medium farms are finding it
hard to survive on land, which is why
the ranks of small and marginal farmers
keep growing (DACNET 2013; Chand
et al 2011: 7; NSS 2006).
By now agriculturists are ready to
accept that their future lies elsewhere,
perhaps in cities and towns, perhaps
also in household and informal indus-
tries. If they cannot make it to those
places, at least their children should.
Thus, while cultivators, in general, con-
stitute about 44.0% of the rural popula-
tion, this number rises to 63.6% if we
take only those among them who are
over 60 years of age (IAMR 2008: 233).
Most small family farms are clearly be-
ing tended to by the older generation so
that their young can go out into the big,
wide world.
Agriculture is not outside market forces,
nor do farmers want it that way. This is
because almost all villagers are tied to
the market for their needs and are not
self-sufficient, as many peasant myths
go. Not only is there now an increased
dependence on cash crops, but also, as a
consequence, a greater reliance on
chemical inputs and pump sets. From
1981–82 to 2009–10, the percentage of
cropped area to cereals and millets went
down by more than 9%. The markets for
jowar (sorghum) and bajra (millet) are
nowhere near that for wheat or rice, and
hence they are not favoured by farmers,
who are looking for monetary returns.
When we come to non-food crops, a
similar trend is seen. Between 1955–56
and 2011–12, oilseed production went up
six times—cotton lint by about eight
times, and sugar cane by more than six
times. As with coarse cereals, jute, the
poor person’s cash crop, only doubled
in production in the same period. All
this tells us where the money lies (RBI
2012a, 2012b). This increase in cash
37
PERSPECTIVES
crop cultivation also meant a 25-time
hike in the use of fertilisers and a three-
fold increase in multiple cropping. The
number of pump sets went up from
2,00,000 to 25 million between 1960
and 2009, and so many of them are from
China (Biggs and Justice 2011: 6). And
why should they not?
It is for reasons such as these that
another categorical distinction is facing
rough weather—that between urban
and rural. If we take just agriculture,
there is so much of the outside world
that comes in, not just as external
markets, but as external inputs. This is
the biggest difference from the past.
Further, many of our villages would
barely qualify as rural if we were to take
occupation alone. All too often people
continue to live and work in villages but
are almost urban in terms of their work
profile. So the earlier line that separated
the farmer from the worker is slowly
getting erased. This is why a labourer will
seek work outside agriculture, for when
he returns home after a day’s toil, say as
a rickshaw puller, there will be money
jingling in his pocket. Small change, one
might say, but big money from the work-
er’s point of view. This is what prompts
the poor villager to leave every morning
for the bus stop or the village square in
the hope that he will catch a contractor’s
eye and his day will be made.
Rural Non-farm Income
As a result, there has been a tremendous
increase in rural non-farm employment
(RNFE) all over the country. What was
once a secondary occupation for most
villagers is often the primary one today.
The NSS shows that the percentage of
non-agricultural households increased
from a pre-existing high of 31.9% in
1993–94 to 42.5% in 2009–10.
In 2009–10 the contribution of non-
farm sector to the rural net domestic
product was 65% (Reddy et al 2014: 10;
Table 5; for an earlier estimate see
Chaddha 2003: 55). Nor is this a story of
the developed regions in India. The
more backward the districts, the higher
the proportion of men in household
industries. In Uttar Pradesh (UP), for
example, six times more men than women
work in these manufactories and in
38
Rajasthan the figure jumps to an unbe-
lievable 10 times (Census of India 2001).
When we examine the census data, we
find that factories and workshops have
quite a strong presence in rural areas.
They dominate rural regions in states as
disparate as Kerala, Punjab, Odisha, and
Gujarat (Census of India 2001: Table H-1).
A recent census of micro, small and me-
dium enterprises (MSME) confirms the
lively presence of enterprise in villages.
When it is about registered units, rural
India houses 45.2% of them, but in
unregistered ones, there are as many as
60.2% in the countryside (MSME Annual
Report 2012–13: statement 2.1; p 21).
This probably also explains why rural
to rural migration is quite active. This is
an area we do not pay sufficient attention
to because the move to cities is much more
dramatic in its outcome and numbers.
After all, figures show that 29% of rural
migrant households migrate from rural
India and that 55% of them do so for
economic reasons, with self-employment
playing a major role in this (Press Infor-
mation Bureau 2010). The rural rate of
migration too is a respectable 26%
(Press Information Bureau 2010), with
nearly 91% of the movement coming in
from other villages (NSS 2007–08 esti-
mates it at 70%). We might as well under-
line that these migrants primarily fill the
ranks of units that are categorised as
“self-employed,” and in which, on an
average, between two to five people
work (MSME Annual Report 2012–13:
statement 2.1, p 21). So, rural India is
not just agricultural anymore and caters
to the international as well as national
urban market in terms of manufactur-
ing. A large number of products—from
bric-a-brac to clothing, to gems and
jewellery, and now even to machine
parts—which have a rural provenance
are now available in urban households
and markets.
Thus, while we have family farms that
are proliferating in villages, we also
have the rapid multiplication of self-
employed enterprises. These outfits are
the closest one can come to family farms
in a non-agricultural setting. Therefore,
there is an urban aspect in the village,
much as there are rural aspects in cities,
brought about primarily by migration
june 13, 2015
from villages. We would be better off
with the term “rural–urban nexus,” rather
than “rural–urban continuum,” for one
penetrates the other in such a fashion
that a slide rule-like concept seems inad-
equate. Further, the very fact that there
is a rural–urban nexus forces us to see
the effect of the city on the village in
ways other than that of acquisition (tele-
phones, scooters, motor cars, coffee
shops, and so on), and also in terms of
the economy.
We cannot talk of rural India without
calling out to the urban world. In the
past, village field studies usually saw the
town and country relationship as a one-
dimensional phenomenon. For example,
even in the works of Epstein (1973), it is
the city that is influencing the village,
but there is no word of the movement
the other way. There are detailed de-
scriptions in accounts of this sort that
document how many motorcycles, TV sets,
and coffee shops are in villages. But what
they fail to point out is that villagers are
not sleeping at the switch. They too are
active agents who are keen to exchange
their mud huts for urban shanties.
Nor can we really think of energising
small farmers without radically address-
ing their felt needs and where they earn
their real incomes from. This is because
their economic and aspirational horizon
is no longer confined to the village
perimeter. As a result, there has been a
diminution in the status of agriculture
as an occupation. Family farms have,
consequently, lost some of their esteem
as a precious gift to be harvested in per-
petuity. As needs have escalated, as
scales of operations have increased, as
inputs are getting costlier, the family
farm is no longer what it was earlier cut
out to be.
In the fitness of things, should we then
not call the villager of today a “rurbanite”?
Such a person has left much of tradition
behind, though a fair amount is palpably
present in a number of interactions. This
makes the rurbanite a complex, multi-
faceted, ambitious, and yet somewhat
handicapped individual. There are a
number of features that express this
variegated term, but none better than
the desire to get educated (Desai et al
2010: 80–81) and leave agriculture, and
vol l no 24 EPW Economic & Political Weekly

if possible, the village altogether. This is
another reason why a greater number of
literates tend to migrate from country to
town (NSS 2008–09: H-ii). There has also
been a steady rise in the migration of
male workers from rural to urban India.
In less than 10 years, from 1999–2000 to
2007–08, the number went up from 36.5%
in 1999–2000 to 41.6% in 2007–08
(Kundu and Saraswati 2012: 221). In just
one year, between 1999 and 2000, the
proportion of people migrating for jobs
jumped by as much as 15% (IAMR 2005:
303, Table 6.12).
All this goes to show that we need to
check if the diacritics that once served so
well in separating town from country
are relevant any longer. It should not be
surprising that over five billion railway
tickets are sold every year in India. As
anyone who knows this country will
vouch, even this figure is an understate-
ment, for most people travel ticketless
on Indian Railways.
To understand the nature of rural
dynamics, one must perforce look at the
village as a part of a larger society. In
traditional sociology, for instance, there
was a great degree of attention to villages
and village studies, but they suffered, in
the main, from one serious flaw. For
most of the scholars who worked on this
subject it was their village that mattered
most and India was a distant reality.
There were, of course, many exceptions
to the rule, but that was the rule. Even
when some village experts looked at
change, the overall orientation was one
where the urban was impinging on
certain aspects of rural life and chang-
ing it in cosmetic ways. There were tea
shops, more motorcycles, more radios,
and so on, but the village itself seemed
more or less undisturbed. Fortunately,
scholars today see little purchase in
studying an isolated village—they would
rather examine villages around themes
that engage the country.
When examining this issue, it is
impossible to ignore three major aspects
that tumble out. The first is the emer-
gence of small towns, and with it the
enormous growth of the informal sector,
particularly in terms of its contribution
to the formal sector and to manufactur-
ing. Second, we need to look at the
Economic & Political Weekly EPW june 13, 2015
growth of education, which is a neces-
sary corollary to the first. Finally, an
issue that cannot be overlooked is
interesting changes that have taken
place in inter-caste relations that upset
most of our traditional views on the
Hindu hierarchical system. Put all these
together, stir it, and what you get is the
rurbanite in more than one dimension.
Small Towns and
the Informal Sector
That a large number of rural migrants
find jobs in urban India as unskilled
labour, working at things that many of
their counterparts do in rural units,
draws the village closer to the city in
pure economic terms. As a corollary, it
might be mentioned that small towns
are growing at a very fast rate because
real estate prices are lower there than in
large metropolitan centres. The rural
impact is very high in new million-plus
and yet-to-be-million-plus towns. So when
we talk about the nexus, we are really
highlighting the interpenetration of
rural and the urban, and not just a loose
chain of relations (Bhagat 2011).
If we take enterprises that employ less
than 10 workers, rural India follows close
on the heels of urban India (IAMR 2009:
167). These are also units that service
the export sector, both directly and
indirectly. So our shabby manufacturing
urban outposts with poor “rural” employ-
ees are actually integral parts of a global
economy. It should also be noted that it
is not as if only women work in such
units, and in places like Himachal Pradesh
and Rajasthan, the census records more
men than women in household indus-
tries (Census of India 2001).
Unlike what we see in old Bollywood
films, rural migrants generally do not
come alone. They have a network that
brings them to urban jobs and it is this
network that supports them in between
jobs. A network of this kind is nearly
always community or region specific,
which is why there are multiple net-
works criss-crossing one another in an
urban site. Villagers long to belong to
such networks, but I have also seen
villages that are bereft of these long-
distance ties. It is hard to explain why
some villages are well endowed with
vol l no 24
PERSPECTIVES
such connections and others lack them.
The distribution appears very idiosyn-
cratic for a lot depends on chance, and
chance alone.
In the last 20 years, a large number of
cities have joined the million-plus club.
In the Greater Mumbai urban agglomer-
ation (UA), the 2001 census recorded a
population increase of 30.47%, but it is
now down to 12.05%. Likewise, growth
in the Delhi UA slowed from 52.4% to
26.69%, and the Kolkata UA from 19.6%
to 6.87% during the same time. What is,
however, stunning is that between 2001
and 2011, small towns continued form-
ing and growing rapidly. This is a fact
that not many fully appreciate. The
Census of India shows that 18 new cities
with over a million people have emerged,
but that is just a tiny part of the story.
Besides the emergence of these big
urban centres, there are 72 new class I
towns and about 2,770 census towns
(Census of India 2011). The last might
look like a village at first sight, but has
already developed enduring urban traits
and that is where many rurbanites live.
Not only are the cities that have barely
touched the million mark, such as
Ludhiana, Varanasi, Bhopal and Kochi,
growing in number, they are also assum-
ing serious urban characteristics. In these
aspiring big cities, a proportionately
higher number of white-collar jobs are
coming up than in full-blown megalo-
polises. According to a Federation of
Indian Chambers of Commerce and
Industry (FICCI)–Confederation of Indian
Industry (CII) survey, in contrast to the
older established metros such as Delhi,
Mumbai, or Chennai, new managerial
positions are opening up in smaller
tier-2 cities. In Hoshiarpur and Meerut,
for example, the increase is 100% and
133.3% respectively (Nayyar and Jain
2012: 21) This is probably why more than
50% of rural graduates prefer small
towns to metros (Kundu and Mohanan:
13). This also explains why Surat, Patna,
Pune, Jaipur, and Indore have growth
rates exceeding 40%, much higher than
that of Kolkata, or even Mumbai.
Small towns also manufacture a
number of products that may not attract
the eyes of those who live in metros,
but these are serious money-spinners.
39
PERSPECTIVES

Ghari Detergents, for one, is an extre­
mely popular brand that few people
in Delhi or Mumbai might know
about. It is produced and packaged in a
factory not far from Kanpur and its
turnover is higher than all the Godrej
fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG),
including Cinthol, put together. Then
there is Sanjay Ghodawat, who runs
a Rs 1,000-crore empire in Manakpur,
which is a nondescript town about 160
kilometres from Kolhapur, another small
town. In this connection, how can we
overlook Tirupur in Tamil Nadu, which
is the hosiery capital of India and has
experienced enormous growth over the
last 20 years (TNUIFCL 2011: 10)? Like­
wise, Agra, Bhiwani, Panipat and a host
of other small towns are bustling centres
of manufacturing activity, but almost al­
ways on the back of informal labour.
Many of these small towns were
villages till yesterday and have broken
with their official status as “rural” only
recently. This makes a large number of
“rurbanites” autochthones and they are
joined by a large number of migrants
from villages. This is simply because
most growth is taking place there,
which can be gauged from the massive
increase in slums. In Pune, once a small
town that was even looked at as a kind
of “resort,” the slum population increased
six times between 1971 and 2011 (DNA
2011). Delhi, Nagpur, Kolkata and Chennai
have a lower percentage of slum dwellers
than either Meerut and Pune, which
have now taken second and third place
respectively after Mumbai (Times of India
2011; Ministry of Housing and Urban
Poverty Alleviation 2011). Ludhiana, for
example, has a slum population that
touches 50% (Bengal Chamber of Com­
merce and Industry 1993: 6.10). Many
small towns with a population of about
1,00,000 have beauty parlours and
gymnasiums, Pizza Hut outlets and ATM
machines. They also have a number of
English-medium schools and management
and technical institutes. As a matter of
fact, it is hard not to find them even
in slightly larger villages. This explains
why graduates from rural areas tend to
prefer small towns to the metros.
Is it surprising then that nearly 20% of
India’s billionaires live outside metros?
There are probably many reasons for
this shift to small towns. The most widely
acknowledged is that of lower real estate
costs. Equally important is that the
kind of enterprises that are coming up
there require low level skills, which
freshly recruited villagers and resident
rurbanites can easily muster. This explains
the continuation of informal labour in
our industrial workforce today, an issue
to which we shall soon return. Also
the smaller the urban area, the greater
the proportion of land given to industry
and mercantile activities. Cities with
over 1,00,000 people have about 1.8%
of its developed land devoted to com­
mercial use, whereas in smaller urban
areas, the proportion is almost 3.2%
(Venkateswaralu 1998: 23). When we
come to industrial use, we find again
that while 6.8% of all land is devoted to
that purpose in all states, it is only 5.1%
in metros but as high as 14% in towns
with populations between 5,00,000 and
1,000,000 (Venkateswaralu 1998: 23).

The Problem of Caste

Edited by

Satish Deshpande
Caste is one of the oldest concerns of the social sciences in India that continues to be relevant even today.
The general perception about caste is that it was an outdated concept until it was revived by colonial policies and
promoted by vested interests and electoral politics after independence. This hegemonic perception changed irrevocably
in the 1990s after the controversial reservations for the Other Backward Classes recommended by the Mandal Commission,
revealing it to be a belief of only a privileged upper caste minority – for the vast majority of Indians caste continued
to be a crucial determinant of life opportunities.
This volume collects significant writings spanning seven decades, three generations and several disciplines, and discusses
Pp xi + 425   Rs 595 established perspectives in relation to emergent concerns, disciplinary responses ranging from sociology to law, the
ISBN 978-81-250-5501-3 relationship between caste and class, the interplay between caste and politics, old and new challenges in law and policy,
2014 emergent research areas and post-Mandal innovations in caste studies.
Authors: Satish Deshpande • Irawati Karve • M N Srinivas • Dipankar Gupta • André Béteille • Rajni Kothari • Kumkum Roy • Sukhadeo Thorat
• Katherine S Newman • Marc Galanter • Sundar Sarukkai • Gopal Guru • D L Sheth • Anand Chakravarti • Carol Upadhya • Ashwini Deshpande
• Meena Gopal • Baldev Raj Nayar • Gail Omvedt • Mohan Ram • I P Desai • K Balagopal • Sudha Pai • Anand Teltumbde • Surinder S Jodhka
• Ghanshyam Shah • Susie Tharu • M Madhava Prasad • Rekha Pappu • K Satyanarayana • Padmanabh Samarendra • Mary E John • Uma Chakravarti
• Prem Chowdhry • V Geetha • Sharmila Rege • S Anandhi • J Jeyaranjan • Rajan Krishnan • Rekha Raj • Kancha Ilaiah • Aditya Nigam • M S S Pandian

Orient Blackswan Pvt Ltd

www.orientblackswan.com
Mumbai • Chennai • New Delhi • Kolkata • Bangalore • Bhubaneshwar • Ernakulam • Guwahati • Jaipur • Lucknow • Patna • Chandigarh • Hyderabad
Contact: info@orientblackswan.com
40 june 13, 2015  vol l no 24   EPW   Economic & Political Weekly

Take away a handful of companies in
information technology (IT), telecom-
munications, and financial services, and
it is hard to overlook that informal
labour comprises about 93% of our
workforce. This is a gold mine for small
investors, looking for quick returns,
with very little skill at both ends—man-
agement and labour. Not only is cheap
labour pouring out of every vein, there is
also no pressure to maintain proper
records—if this means paying off a labour
inspector, that is small change.
It is then to be expected that the
dependence of the formal sector on
informal/unorganised workers will grow
over time in India. In 1999–2000, it
was 37.8%, but it went up to 46.6% in
2004–05, and is still climbing (NCEUS
2007). When labour is ready to be hired
for a song, it is tempting for business
houses to rely on the informal sector.
Besides, as everybody else is doing just
that, it would be ruinous to play fair. If
truth be told, this scruffy underclass
contributes as much as 43% of our export
earnings (Planning Commission 2002;
Tata Services 2007: 35). Finally, consider
this: The vocationally trained labour
force is a stagnant 5% in India, but a
staggering 95% in South Korea.
Education-Seeking Rurbanite
However, an important and necessary
qualification for being a “rurbanite” is
education. Notwithstanding the general
ruination of the village economy, what
stands out is the emphasis rural people
place on education. That this is so strik-
ingly close to what urban people do
gives us another reason to classify the
bulk of those who live in Village India as
“rurbanites.” Whereas only 2% of Indian
children went to private schools in 1980,
today as many as 21% of rural children
go to such institutions (Desai et al 2010).
Clearly, the poor in the countryside are
spending way above what they can actu-
ally afford to make sure their children
get a better future.
True, rural literacy today is only 67.8%
compared to 84.1% in urban India. Yet if
one looks at the rate of growth of literacy, a
different picture emerges. Literacy shot
up in rural India at the rate of 14.75%
between 1991 and 2001. This is nearly
Economic & Political Weekly EPW june 13, 2015
double the figure for urban India. Given
the agrarian crisis that has lasted for
decades, villagers believe that one of
the most reliable ways of getting out of
their rural confines is to seek an alter-
native in cities.
Small towns are also establishing edu-
cational institutes and technical schools
and colleges. Obviously, there is a great
desire among those who live there
to better their lives. Moradabad has
many such institutions and among them
there is the Teerthankar Mahaveer Uni-
versity, the Moradabad Institute of
Technology, Wilsonia Degree College,
and English-medium schools such as
Delhi Public School and St Jude. Hanam-
konda in Andhra Pradesh has many
colleges too, as well as institutes that
specialise in pharmacy, technology, and
business. In Kazipet, there is a Mary
Convent School as well as a National
Institute of Technology. Kuppam, another
small Andhra town, is a kind of educa-
tional hub with engineering and medi-
cal colleges.
The above are only examples; almost
every small town has an English-medium
school as well as a technology and man-
agement institute of some kind. This is
significant as it demonstrates a strong
desire for upward mobility among
small-town residents. The question still
remains—is there a demand for skilled
labour yet? Second, how good is the
quality of these educational institutions?
There are two trends that should be
placed next to each other—the increase
in the literacy level of migrants and, at
the same time, the overwhelming num-
bers of unskilled labourers that come in
large numbers to cities in search of jobs.
Shaw found both these tendencies in the
making of Navi Mumbai. What was most
striking in her presentation is the sheer
number of unskilled labourers who were
flooding into the city, increasing the
density and number of unauthorised
settlements (Shaw 2004: 122).
Interestingly, all-India figures show
that a larger percentage (nearly 50%) of
rural graduates migrate to small and
medium-sized towns, but the total
migration of this category to all urban
centres is lower, at 44% (Kundu and
Mohanan 2009). That the rate of literacy
vol l no 24
PERSPECTIVES
is increasing faster in rural India than it
is in urban India indicates how serious
villagers are about getting educated and
leaving villages for urban jobs.
Once the ambition arises to leave the
village to seek a better life, its natural
cohort is the drive towards education.
This explains why so many children are
today going to private schools. When
the family is small, parents can think of
sending their children to more expen-
sive private schools. Consequently, their
dependence on government schools
declines. When a poor family sends its
children to private schools, it is a big
strain on its finances. But private educa-
tion in India has yet to reveal its hand
and demonstrate its efficacy in employ-
ment and industry. The promise is there
and a lot of hopes ride on it. So far the
results have not been very encouraging,
as even the organised sector is employ-
ing more informal labour than what it
did 10 years ago. Yet, one might make
allowances for all that and say it is still
early days and the good times are round
the corner.
New Caste Relations
Inter-caste relations too were bound to
be affected by the changes in the rural
economy. As big landlords are largely
creatures of the past, their sway over
village people has diminished almost
entirely. The village oligarchs of old who
ruled and terrorised the poor folk are not
to be seen. Instead, we find a mass of
small cultivators of nearly every caste,
including the Scheduled Castes (SCs).
As most agricultural holdings are
now really family farms, there is hardly
any scope to act as village patrons, or
as despots.
That being the case, the hierarchy
that dominated caste interactions had to
undergo a major modification. The most
important being that no caste today can
actually guarantee a vote bank, nor compel
other castes to do its bidding. While this
was possible in the past, it is not so
today. One can get a clear indication of
this from that the once subjugated
castes are no longer afraid of loudly
expressing their heritage and identities.
Doing this would have been dangerous
business a few decades ago, for it would
41
PERSPECTIVES
have brought physical humiliation by
rural oligarchs, and a denial of favours
and jobs. That the earlier poorer castes
are willing and able to express pride
in their heritage shows how far we
have come from traditional conceptions
of hierarchy.
Not only did Brahmins get under-
mined in villages—that was easy—but
also the traditional Kshatriya communi-
ties that dominated rural India. Now,
every peasant and many artisan castes
claim Kshatriya status and get away
with it. Naturally, this has had the
greatest effect at the political level,
even as caste considerations continue to
stay uppermost when people think of
marriages and rites of passage. In this
matter again, the rural Indian is think-
ing and acting much as an urban person
would. This once again justifies the
term “rurbanite,” and we now explain
at some length why such a case should
be considered.
Thinking beyond Caste
There are several reasons why a rurban-
ite is usually forced to think beyond just
caste. The principal reason why such a
person can act this way is because the
weight of rural oligarchy is off. It is now
possible for a villager to think politically
like an urban person would and act on
his or her own judgment. Just as in the
case of the fragmentation of landhold-
ing, demography plays an important
role, albeit from a different perspective.
Except for Maharashtra, where
Marathas, of one kind or another, consti-
tute about 33% of the population, nowhere
else in the country does any one caste
dominate any constituency. Many jour-
nalists, academics, and other assorted
experts go by popular impressions and
believe that Jats, or Gujjars, or whatever,
dominate certain regions of India. They
then link this preconceived notion to
electoral outcomes, which is why they
are, more often than not, proved wrong
when the votes are counted.
West UP, for example, is hastily
assumed to be a Jat stronghold, but this
caste only comprises between 8% and
10% of the population. Likewise, while
the Yadavs are said to dominate in the
rest of UP, their numbers barely cross
42
12% to 15% in most parliamentary con- who will do all the dirty work for their
stituencies. In Bihar’s Madhepura region, leaders—the walling, postering, and
which is supposed to be an impregnable bullying. It is this tie between caste and
Yadav bastion, only 23% to 25% of the political leaders that gets represented
people there are from this caste. Even most often by journalists and sundry
so, the refrain that caste numbers deter- academics because they spend most of
mine elections keeps surfacing. This is their time with the supposed newsmakers
probably because it is easy to comment, of the day. Naturally, they are quick
write, and appear knowledgeable if an to conclude that voting takes place
exotic explanatory variable is used. on caste lines, for this is how leaders
Castes as vote banks may have held at a operate. If they pay attention to the
time when some castes ruled over others empirical fact of caste numbers in elec-
as the nature of landholdings were tilted toral constituencies, they may not come
seriously in their favour. All of these are up with such an easy correlation.
things of the past and to talk of vote From a distance, especially from an
banks today belies a certain alienation urban perch, or from the courtyard of
from reality. a political bigwig, all SCs and Other
Under the existing demographic con- Backward Classes (OBCs) tend to look
ditions, where no caste has a clear and think alike, as if an organic bond
numerical advantage, most voters are compels them in that direction. This
forced to look at candidates outside their myth needs to be exposed. During the
castes. The big reason for this is that Marathwada riots in 1979, when the
nobody wants to waste a vote. In any Mahars were the object of Maratha
constituency there are usually two viable wrath but not other SCs, many Mang and
candidates, and about five to six castes leather workers chalked their caste names
of equal population strength. Even on their huts to escape Maratha raids.
die-hard casteists would find it difficult Mayawati is, by popular consent, a
to vote for a fellow caste politician leader of the Jatavs, but there are huge
because that contender may not be a tracts of UP such as Kanpur, Lucknow,
likely winner. Such people are often Allahabad, Gonda, Rae Bareilly, Pratap-
forced to opt for somebody who does not garh, and Sonbhadra where SCs, other
belong to their caste so that their vote than Jatavs, are numerically stronger.
does not go in vain. This is the logic of So it is not as if all SCs happily jostle
demographic numbers, and it has little together when they set out from their
to do with caste sentiments. homes to the polling booth. Only this
To complete this story, one must also can explain why in 2002 the Bahujan
add that political leaders are the ones Samaj Party (BSP) did not win a single
who think along caste lines most of seat in Sonbhadra district of UP, one of
the time. This is especially true when the districts where Jatavs are fewer in
distributing election tickets, appointing number. But then again, Mayawati won
their election agents, and firming up every seat there in 2007, only to lose half
their goon squads. These are the people of them in 2012. Therefore, even at the
Sameeksha Trust Books
Village Society
Edited by SURINDER S JODHKA
The village is an important idea in the history of post-Independence India. A collection
Pp x + 252 Rs 325
of articles that covers various features of village society: caste and community, land
ISBN 978-81-250-4603-5
and labour, migration, discrimination and use of common property resources. 2012
Orient Blackswan Pvt Ltd
www.orientblackswan.com
Mumbai • Chennai • New Delhi • Kolkata • Bangalore • Bhubaneshwar • Ernakulam • Guwahati • Jaipur • Lucknow
• Patna • Chandigarh • Hyderabad
Contact: info@orientblackswan.com
june 13, 2015 vol l no 24 EPW Economic & Political Weekly

level of SCs in UP, there is no clear caste
correlation (Gupta 2007: 3388–96).
The other factor that creates an optical
illusion, leading to the conclusion that
the relation between caste and politics is
unproblematic, is social capital. In West
UP, the Jats, and in East UP, the Yadavs,
had for long dominated in terms of being
the most literate, best connected, and
politically most active. This is why other
castes lined up in front of their doors for
favours, even for something as minor as
writing a petition to a government de-
partment. This naturally magnified the
presence of Jats and Yadavs, giving the
impression that they were everywhere,
but that was some time ago. Now most
peasant castes (the so-called OBCs) are
getting connected on their own to the
outside world, in more ways than one.
Consequently, other OBCs now have their
own virtuosos, their own literati, and
their own connections. They no longer
need a Jat or Yadav to forward their
demands and push for their claims. So,
if one were to visit UP and Bihar today, it
is not difficult to spot tensions between
OBCs up and down what was once a clear
hierarchy of power and privilege. They
are no longer the leading elite of the
peasant communities, which is why the
caste calculus falters even more when
we use it to understand elections (Gupta
2000: 148–76).
What holds for the OBCs applies to the
SCs as well. Over a period of time, just as
in the case of the peasant castes, individual
SCs have generated their own social
capital and produced their own clutch of
literati, schoolteachers, police inspectors,
businessmen, and so on. They do not
need the Mahars or the Jatavs to help
them through as they did earlier.
On account of this elite rivalry, or the
competition between social capital at
different levels, no caste can be said to
represent a broad swath of jatis (social
groups) in an area as big as a parlia-
mentary constituency. This has further
loosened the stranglehold of ritual hier-
archy in villages, allowing even ordi-
nary humble folk to aspire to “rurbanite”
status. This is clearly a transitory stage,
as even the term suggests. Even so,
by looking at transformations in India
through this optic, our resistance to
Economic & Political Weekly EPW june 13, 2015
accepting important social changes in
our country is lowered. At the same
time, certain myths, misconceptions,
and blind intellectual positions, whose
base has long since drifted away, come
under the scanner.
The “rurbanite” will yet teach the
urbanite a lesson or two in social change.
References
Acharya, Shankar, Robert Cassen and Kirsty McNay
(2004): “The Economy: Past and Future,” Twen-
ty First Century India: Population, Economy, Hu-
man Development and the Environment, Tim
Dyson, Robert Cassen and Leela Visaria (eds),
New York: Oxford University Press.
Bengal Chamber of Commerce and Industry
(1993): Eastern India: The Complete Data Base
1993, Calcutta: Bengal Chamber of Commerce
and Industry.
Bhagat, R B (2011): “Emerging Pattern of Urbanisa-
tion in India,” Economic & Political Weekly,
Vol 46, No 34, pp 10–12.
Biggs, Stephen and Scott Justice (2011): “Rural
Development and Energy Policy: Lessons for
Agricultural Mechanisation in South Asia,”
Occasional Research Paper No 9, Organizer
Research Foundation, New Delhi.
Census of India (various years): Office of the Regis-
trar General and Census Commissioner, Minis-
try of Home Affairs, New Delhi, http://cen-
susindia.gov.in/.
Chaddha, G K (2003): “Rural Non-farm Sector in
the Indian Economy: Growth, Challenges and
Future Direction,” Mimeo, Paper presented at the
joint Jawaharlal Nehru University and IFPRI
Workshop, “The Dragon and the Elephant: A
Comparative Study of Economic Reforms in
China and India,” New Delhi: India Habitat
Centre, 25–26 March.
Chand, Ramesh, P A Lakshmi Prasanna and
Aruna Singh (2011): “Farm Size and Producti-
vity: Understanding the Strength of Small
Holders and Improving their Livelihoods,”
Economic & Political Weekly, Vol 46, Nos 26-27,
pp 5–11.
Chandrashekhar, S (2005): “Growth of Slums,
Availability of Infrastructure and Demograph-
ic Outcomes in Slums: Evidence from India,”
Paper Submitted for the XXV International
Population Conference, http://iussp2005.prin-
ceton.edu/papers/52133.
DACNET (2013): “INTRADAC-G2 E e-Governance
Model for Department of Agriculture and Co-
operation,” Ministry of Information and Com-
munication Technology, New Delhi, http://
dacnet.nic.in.
Desai, Sonalde, Amaresh Dubey, Brij Lal Joshi, Mi-
tali Sen, Abusaleh Shariff and Reeve Vanne-
man (2010): Human Development in India, Del-
hi: Oxford University Press, http://ihds.umd.
edu/report.html.
DNA (2011): “Pune NGO Comes Up With Unique
Slum Atlas,” DNA, 19 Jan, www.dnaindia.com/
mumbai/report-pune-ngo-comes-up-with-
unique-slum-atlas-1496495.
Epstein, T Scarlett (1973): South India: Yesterday,
Today and Tomorrow, London: Macmillan.
Gupta, Dipankar (2000): Interrogating Caste: Under-
standing Hierarchy and Difference in Indian
Society, New Delhi: Penguin.
— (2007):“Explaining BSP’s Victory: When the
Caste Calculus Fails, Economic & Political
Weekly, Vol 42, pp 3388–96.
vol l no 24
PERSPECTIVES
— (2010): The Caged Phoenix: Can India Fly? Stan-
ford: Stanford University Press.
IAMR (various years): Manpower Profile, India Year
Book, New Delhi: Institute of Applied Manpow-
er Research.
IAMR (2005): Manpower Profile, India Year Book
2005, New Delhi: Institute of Applied Manpower
Research.
Kundu, Amitabh and P C Mohanan (2009): “Em-
ployment and Inequality Outcomes in India,”
New Delhi: Jawaharlal Nehru University/Indian
Statistical Service, http://www.oecd.org/em-
ployment/emp/42546020.pdf.
Kundu, Amitabh and Lopamudra Ray Saraswati
(2012): “Migration and Exclusionary Urbanisa-
tion in India,” Economic & Political Weekly,
Vol 47, No 26–27, pp 212–27.
Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation
(2011): Slums of India: A Statistical Compendi-
um 2011, New Delhi: Ministry of Housing and
Urban Poverty Alleviation.
MSME (2013): Annual Report of Ministry of Micro,
Small and Medium Enterprises, 2012–13, New
Delhi: Government of India.
National Commission for Enterprises in the Unor-
ganised Sector (2007): “Report on Conditions
of Work and Promotion of Livelihoods in the
Unorganised Sector,” New Delhi: NCEUS.
NSS (2006): Some Aspects of Operational Landhold-
ings in India, 2002-3, New Delhi: National
Sample Survey Organisation.
— (various years): National Sample Survey 2005–
06; 2007–08; 2008–09; 2009–2010.
Nayyar, Dhiraj and Shravya Jain (2012): “The Job
Squeeze,” India Today, 17 Sep, pp 20–23.
Planning Commission (2002): Tenth Five Year Plan
2002–2007, 3 Vols, New Delhi: Planning Com-
mission, http://planningcommission.nic.in/
plans/planrel/fiveyr/welcome.html.
Press Information Bureau (2010): “Migration in India,
2007–08,” Press release, Ministry of Statistics
and Programme Implementation, New Delhi,
pib.nic.in/newsite/erelease.aspx?relid=62559.
Red Book (2008): India Key Data 2007: Incorporat-
ing Budget Analysis, Mumbai: Kal Nimay,
Sumangal Press.
Reddy, D Narasimha, Amarendra Reddy, N Nagraj
and Cynthia Bantilan (2014): “Rural Non-Farm
Employment and Rural Transformation in
India,” Working Paper Series, 57; Telangana,
International Crop Research Institute for the
Semi Arid Tropics.
RBI (2012a): “Table 17: Agricultural Production—
Foodgrains,” 14 Sep, https://www.rbi.org.in/
scripts/PublicationsView.aspx?id=14373.
— (2012b): “Table 18 : Agricultural Production—
Major Commercial Crops,” 14 Sep, https://
www.rbi.org.in/scripts/PublicationsView.
aspx?id=14374.
Shaw, Annapurna (2004): The Making of Navi
Mumbai, New Delhi: Orient Blackswan.
Tamil Nadu Urban Infrastructure Financial Services
(TNUIFSL) (2007): “Business Plan, Tirrupur
Municipality: Final Report,” Wilbur Smith As-
sociates, http://old.cma.tn.gov.in/CDP/Corpo-
rations/Tiruppur.pdf.
Tata Services (2007): Statistical Outline of India
2006–07, Mumbai: Department of Economics
and Statistics, Tata Services.
Times of India (2011): “Urban Poor Make 50% of
City’s Population,” Times of India, 3 March,
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/pune/
Urban-poor-make-50-of-citys-population/arti-
cleshow/7615414.cms.
Venkateswarlu, Umakant (1998): Urbanization in
India: Problems and Prospects, New Delhi: New
Age Publishers.
43