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Unit 2: Major Segments of Indian Society

Urbanism is a way of life, characterised by transiency (short-time relations), superficiality (impersonal Notes
and formal relations with limited number of people), anonymity (not knowing names and lacking
intimacy), and individualism (people giving more importance to one’s vested interests). Louis
Wirth (1938:124) has given four characteristics of urban system or urbanism: heterogeneity of
population, specialisation of function, anonymity and impersonality, and standardisation of
behaviour.

Rural-Urban Differences: Demographic and Socio-Cultural Characteristics
The term ‘community’ is used by sociologists to describe a quality of relationship which produces a
strong sense of shared identity among persons living in a fixed geographical area. They describe
‘rural’ as a community and ‘urban’ as a society. When sociologists hold that a society moves from
traditional to modern, they in fact contrast pre-industrial, largely rural, traditional society with
industrial, largely urban, modern society. While American sociologist Louis Wirth had used the
terms ‘rural and urban’ for contrasting communities, German sociologist Ferdinand Toennies
used the terms ‘gemeinschaft and gessellschaft’, M. Durkheim ‘mechanical and organic’ solidarity,
and Talcott Parsons ‘traditional and modern’ societies. Wirth (1938) distinguishing urban from
rural society, defined city in terms of three fundamental features: population size, density, and
heterogeneity. These characteristics meant that though the city-dweller would experience more
human contacts than the rural inhabitant, he would also feel more isolated because of their (contacts)
‘emotionally empty’ nature. According to Wirth, social interactions, typical of city, are impersonal,
segmental (narrow in scope), superficial, transitory, and usually of a purely practical or
‘instrumental’ kind. He describes these as ‘secondary’ contacts which are totally different from
‘primary’ contacts in rural areas. According to Max Weber, the most fundamental feature of a city
is that it functions as a market-place and it displays a relative pre-dominance of trading-commercial
relations.
Rural and urban communities may be distinguished from each other on the basis of several
criteria like occupation, size, and density of population, environment, homogeneity-heterogeneity,
social stratification, mobility and system of interaction: (1) The main occupation of people in rural
community is agriculture though a few people are engaged in non-agricultural pursuits also.
People in urban community are mainly engaged in non-agricultural pursuits like manufacturing,
trade and commerce, service and professions. (2) Rural communities are of small size while urban
communities are of larger size. In India, according to the 1991 census figures, of the 74.27 per cent
population living in villages, 36.57 per cent villages have population of less than 2,000, 21.37 per
cent between 2,000 and 5,000, and 13.33 per cent more than 5,000. On the other hand, of the 25.73
per cent population in urban areas, 0.72 per cent urban areas have less than 10,000 population,
5.27 per cent between 10,000 and 50,000, 2.75 per cent between 50,000 and one lakh, and 16.4 per
cent above 1 lakh (These figures exclude population of Assam and Jammu and Kashmir). (Manpower
Profile, India, 1998: 23-24). The average size of a household in rural areas in 1991 was 4.9 and in
urban areas it was 4.4 members. (3) Density of population in rural community is low (200 to 1,000
persons per square mile) while in urban community, it is high (more than 1,000 persons per
square mile). (4) People in rural areas are close to nature while people in urban areas are surrounded
more by man-made environment and are isolated from nature. (5) Rural communities are more
homogeneous while urban communities are more heterogeneous. (6) While rural communities are
stratified more on caste and less on class basis, urban communities are stratified more on class
basis. (7) Mobility in rural areas is more from villages to villages and villages to cities, while
mobility in urban areas is more from one city to an other city. In 1991, of the 225 million migrants
in the country, 17.7 per cent had migrated from rural to urban areas, 11.8 per cent from urban to
urban areas, 64.5 per cent from rural to rural areas, and 6 per cent from urban to rural areas
(Manpower Profile, India, 1998: 26). (8) Relations amongst people in rural areas are predominantly
personal and relatively durable while in urban areas, relations are more secondary, impersonal,
casual and short-lived. (9) The infant mortality rate in rural areas is one and a half time more than
the rate found in urban areas (80: 49) ratio. (10) Labour force participation rate in rural areas is
more than three times than that found in urban areas. In 1993-94, it was 294 million in rural areas
against 85.7 million in urban areas. Among males, it is little less than three times (189. 3: 67.3

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