Page 316 - DSOC201_SOCIAL_STRUCTURE_AND_SOCIAL_CHANGE_ENGLISH

Unit 14: Social Change in Contemporary India

This is in contrast to the primary contacts of people in villages who share personal, face-to-face, Notes
intimate, longstanding relationships with each other.
Rationality
With the impersonal nature of urban relationships, the urban orientations tend to be utilitarian. That
is, people then enter into relationships, after calculating potential gains from these associations rather
than for the intrinsic satisfaction of association. Here relationships are generally of contractual kind
where profit and loss are carefully evaluated. Once the contract is over, the relationship between the
people tends to end, as for example, in having the services of a trained nurse for a sick person, or
entering into a contract with an agency to advertise your product, etc. This should however not give
you an impression that all relationships between individuals in urban areas are only utilitarian.
Always, there exists a wide range of variety in individual relationships.
Secularism

Heterogeneity of physical such as racial, social and cultural elements in urban life results in routine
exposure to divergent life styles and values. People become more tolerant of differences as they
become accustomed to seeing others very different from themselves. This rational and tolerant attitude
produces secular orientations in life. Even though it is very difficult to measure concepts such as
rationality and secularism, it is assumed that secular as opposed to religious orientations have often
been thought to be associated with urban social structure. However this feature is not always present
since we do find communal riots taking place in Indian cities more often than in rural areas.
Increased Specialisation and Division of Labour

Population growth leads to a higher ratio of people to land, called ‘material density’ by Emile
Durkheim. He differentiated two types of density, namely
(i) material density, that is, simple ratio of people to land
(ii) dynamic or moral density, that is, the rate of interaction, or communication within a population.
In his theory of social development, Durkheim viewed tribes or families as the basic social units
in pre-industrial or pre-urban societies. When they grow in size both their material and dynamic
densities also increase simultaneously. This results in greater interaction between formerly
separated social units. Trade and commerce between units serve as stimulus. In other words,
when similar but separated social units are fused by increased interaction into a larger and
denser settlement, the new and larger units exhibit more specialisation in terms of the division
of labour, than that found in some of the previously separate units.
Decline in the Functions of Family
Many of the educational, recreational and other functions, performed within a rural joint family
context, are taken over by other institutions such as schools, clubs and other voluntary organisations
in the urban social context. In urban society there is generally a clear demarcation between the home
and place of work, which is not always found in rural society. Correspondingly, at a psychological
level urban dwellers’ identities are not necessarily bound with their family roles. And also because of
greater geographical mobility, regular contact between kin is often difficult if not impossible in these
families. This however does not suggest that families are not vital in urban societies.
Self-Assessment

1. Fill in the blanks:
(i) The percentage or urban population has been doubled from 10.8% in 1901 to ............... in 1981.
(ii) The rapid growth of urban population during 1941-52 has been mostly due to ............... of the
country.
(iii) Only 1,430 towns out of total 1,914 town existing in 1901 survived till ............... .

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