(Q1)

(A)Explain the following statements with the help of an example:

(B) ‘The uncontrolled and limitless concentration of people in city area is related to several
infrastructure related problems that require solutions. State one such problem and solution/s
to resolve it.

Answer

i.

Social control is the study of the mechanisms, in the form of patterns of pressure, through
which society maintains social order and cohesion. These mechanisms establish and enforce a
standard of behavior for members of a society and include a variety of components, such as
shame, coercion, force, restraint, and persuasion social control is simply put 'what keeps us in
the social order?'. Let’s take the law example. Law is an example of a social order that guides
individual’s lives (there's laws against stealing, there's laws for property etc). but the social
control is what makes us follow these laws. Why do we stop at traffic lights? Why do we not
just steal when we feel like it. There’re two forms of social control according to most
theorists; formal and informal control. Informal is the internalized norms and values of the
social order ('stealing is wrong') and formal is the external sanctioning or rewarding of social
order ('I will be fined if I steal'). Informal sanctions may include shame, ridicule, sarcasm,
criticism, and disapproval, which can cause an individual to conform to the social norms of
the society. In extreme cases, sanctions may include social discrimination, exclusion, and
violence. Informal social control has the potential to have a greater impact on an individual
than formal control. When social values become internalized, they become an aspect of an
individual’s personality.
Informal sanctions check ‘deviant’ behavior. Like a society would outcast a person who
would commit heinous crimes like Murder and rape and this is a form of control the society
exerts on the person.
In comparison to urban societies, the rural societies are more tightly governed by the informal
means of social control. The reason behind this change could be traced to the industrial
revolution around the world which brought a sense of individualism and the slowly fading
away of communitarianism. With the states focus shifting on urban areas for maximum
industrial productivity and output in the form of infrastructure and welfare for its citizen, the
rural areas were neglected. In India, this stark difference could be witnessed in any state,
more stark difference in the hindi belt region. The economic disparity between the urban and
rural areas led to the informal means of social control to have a more tightened control over
its subject. Since the states have brought less welfare, people are dependent more among each
other for their survival and livelihood. A tightly knit community would eventually help each
other out during stress. However, with more dependency among each other leads to the
informal means of social control to have a heightened impact. The line drawn for informal
control supersedes in major areas. Like in Haryana, the local ‘Khap Panchayat’ have an
increased role in people’s life which supports orthodoxy in the form of shunning intercaste
and inter religious marriages and steps against modernization especially against women. The
people in the villages had to conform to these archaic norms since going against it would lead
to a social boycott, shame and loss of their earnings. This is also a reason why the cases of
rape and sexual exploitation often go unreported cause of the ridicule and social boycotting
attached to it.

ii.
Migration is broadly understood as a permanent or semi-permanent change of residence. In
other words, migration may be defined as a form of relocation diffusion (the spread of
people, ideas, innovations, behavior’s, from one place to another), involving permanent
moves to new locations. The reasons that people migrate are determined by push and pull
factors, which are forces that either induce people to move to a new location or oblige them
to leave old residences. These could be economic, political, cultural, and environmental.
Push factors are conditions that can force people to leave their homes and are related to the
country from which a person migrates. Push factors include non-availability of enough
livelihood opportunities, poverty, rapid population growth that surpasses available resources,
"Primitive" or “poor” living conditions, desertification, famines/droughts, fear of political
persecution, poor healthcare, loss of wealth, and natural disasters.
Pull factors are exactly the opposite of push factors—they attract people to a certain location.
Typical examples of pull factors of a place are more job opportunities and better living
conditions; easy availability of land for settling and agriculture, political and/or religious
freedom, superior education and welfare systems, better transportation and communication
facilities, better healthcare system and stress-free environment attractive, and security.
Everett Lee’s “Push-Pull theory” states that Everett Lee has conceptualized the factors
associated with the decision to migrate and the process of migration into the following four
categories:
(1) Factors associated with the area of origin;
(2) Factors associated with the area of destination;
(3) Intervening obstacles; and
(4) Personal factors.
Lee elaborates all these four categories by pointing out that, in each area, there are numerous
factors which act to drive away the people from the area, or to hold the people in the area or
to attract the people to it. In this respect, there are significant differences between the factors
associated with the area of origin and those associated with the area of destination. Migration
may take place after both these are properly weighed.
In India, urbanization has propelled the rate of migration intra state and interstate. Internal
migration in India is very closely linked to urban transitions, with such migration helping
reduce poverty or prevent households from slipping into it. About 377 million people from
India’s total population of 1.21 billion are urban dwellers, the data from Economic Survey
says. The major link between migration and urbanization in India is the lack of economic
opportunities in rural areas and better living conditions. This is often excarbated by the lack
of urban centres, as there are only a few urban centres in India that promise better prospects
than most cities and towns — leading to much more pressure on their infrastructure and
housing — and resulting in disordered urbanisation. This is reflected in almost 65.5 million
Indians who, according to the country’s 2011 Census, live in urban slums and sprawls.
The migration in the metropolitan centres of Mumbai and Delhi could be explained by the
urbanization these cities have seen in the past two three decades post the economic
liberalization seen in 1991. Migrants from Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh and Madhya
Pradesh constitutes a major chunk of it cause of the industrial works it offers and a better pay
scale in comparison to their native place. In recent years, with the decline of construction
works in urban cities, the migrants have resorted to gig works like of delivery agents and cab
drivers with tech industries leaping and employing a large chunk of people. Another example
could be of the Iron and steel work plants of Orissa. It promised a more urban facilities and
better private welfare in the form of private schools and hospitals and townships for its
workers but after the steel prices crashed around 2012 with major steel plants going out of
business, people had to remigrate to urban areas where they still could get employed.

B
India is urbanizing at a rapid pace with urban population rising at a much faster rate than its
total population. The level of urbanization has increased from 17 per cent in 1951 to 31 per
cent in 2011. The urban population in India, which was nearly 377 million in 2011, is poised
to grow to 600 million by 2031. Urban areas contribute 62-63 per cent of India's gross
domestic product (GDP), which is estimated to reach 75 per cent by 2030. According to the
UN 2018 Revision of World Urbanization Prospects, India’s urbanization will reach 37-38
per cent in 2025 and the urban sector will start superseding the rural sector from 2045-46
onwards.
However, the urbanization has led to a crippling burden or a ticking time bomb, ready to
burst at any point. The uncontrolled and limitless concentration of people in the urban areas
have exposed the flaws in the governance and often cuts deep to the heart of the city. One
such issue is the rises of Slums in the urban areas or the ghettoization which could term the
cities as urban hells. Dharavi, an urban slum in Mumbai, houses a population of 1 million in a
mere area of 520 acres. In comparison, IIT Kharagpur, the premiere engineering college in
Kharagpur is sprawled across 900 acres and hosts around ten thousand people. With a
population density of over 277,136/km2, Dharavi is one of the most densely populated areas
in the world. Similar slum areas have mushroomed across major urban centers and sadly do
not attract the same level of government attention as the other more affluent areas of the city
receives. With terrible living conditions like the lack of fresh water, adequate spacing for
living, prone to diseases should receive more planning and attention from the state.
A major solution for tackling the rising number of slum dwellers would be government
investment in free and affordable housing in urban center’s. A major reason why government
could not solve the migration issues across states with its housing plans in rural areas was the
lack of jobs. Agriculture doesn’t attract the same amount of money and the income could not
sustain a family with the rising inflation. With industrialization and urbanization and the
employment getting shifted to major urban sprawls, the migration was bound to happen
despite the government efforts in rural areas. Housing solution should be looked in urban
areas although the issue could not be tackle in isolation. Migration and ultimately the slums
have a deeper connection with the economic disparity and the capitalism which the
governments have advocated. With corporates making sky high profits and filling the pockets
of the corporate high heads, the profits haven’t trickled down to its workers. In the last three
decades, the world has seen increasing work hours and reduced wages with states reducing
welfare support. A relook in the labour rights is needed to save the workers amidst the
corporate kleptocracy.
Another solution would be to have new and better planned cities in India. India has seen
cities which have been unplanned and no efforts have been made to change the look of it.
Cities were created without any vision of increasing population and migration in the future
and as a result, it has resulted in a lot of issues like pollution, crippling traffics, other than the
issue of slums. The government should invest more in new urban centres with a longer vision
which could amass a lot of people and also solve other issues. The urban transit systems like
Metros in Delhi, Jaipur, Kolkata should be implemented and expanded to reduce the
dependance of private ownership of vehicles which would ultimately reduced the traffic
monster the streets of Mumbai and Bengaluru are witnessing. In the same way more open
space and parks with more green areas could tackle the pollution issue and would save the
cities from becoming a gas chamber like Delhi witnesses.
The private sector can play a big role in affordable housing, most notably in terms of
providing technological solutions, project financing, and delivery. Disruptive innovations on
these fronts, with a specific focus on affordable housing, are the need of the hour. We need
imaginative, workable solutions to reduce the cost of construction in the face of rising input
costs. As construction costs account for a significant portion of the selling price of affordable
housing units, savings accrued on the back of such innovations can immensely benefit the
occupier.