Page 60 - DSOC201_SOCIAL_STRUCTURE_AND_SOCIAL_CHANGE_ENGLISH

Unit 2: Major Segments of Indian Society

occupants by wealth, privileges and power. We find similar social differences among people of Notes
different classes who come to live in newly developed colonies in big cities. Their residences may
not be secluded but socially they live distinct lives. The rich people living there do not consider
themselves to be ‘part of the local community’. Members of upper class know each other but
others only know of them. Sometime, middle class people buy property in previously working
class areas in the city. This process is referred to as ‘gentrification’. It affects the quality of the
social patterns of residents.
Problems of Urban Society
Urban problems are endless. To name the more important among them are: pollution, corruption,
unemployment, crime and juvenile delinquency, overcrowding and slums, drug addiction and
alcoholism, and begging. We analyse here some of the more crucial problems.
Housing and Slums
Housing people in a city or abolishing ‘houselessness’ is a serious problem. Government,
industrialists, capitalists, enterpreneurs, contractors, and landlords have been unable to keep pace
with the housing needs of the poor and the middle class people. According to the 1988 UNI report
(The Hindustan Times, 9 May, 1988), between one-fourth and half of the urban population in India’s
largest cities lives in makeshift shelters and slums. Millions of people are required to pay excessive
rent, that is, one which is beyond their means. In our profit-oriented economy, private landlords
and colonizers find little profit in building houses in cities for the poor and the lower middle-class
people; rather they consider it gainful to concentrate instead on meeting the housing needs of the
rich and the upper-middle class. The result has been higher rents and a scramble for the few
available houses. Almost half of the population are either ill-housed or pay more than 20 per cent
of their income on rent. In some states, Housing Boards and City Development Authorities have
tried to remedy the city housing problem with active financial support from the Life Insurance
Corporation, HUDCO and such other agencies. They even charge the total housing cost in monthly
instalments on interest varying between 9 per cent and 11 per cent. Thus, housing in cities even
today continues to be a gigantic problem next only to food and clothing. The estimated shortage
of houses at the beginning of the Eighth Plan was about 30 million units, out of which about 8
million were required for urban areas. By 1998, the shortage was expected to grow to 13 million
units in urban areas. In Delhi alone, which has seen a population increase from 6.2 to 9.3 million
between 1981 and 1991, there is an addition of 60,000 people each year who need to be provided
with new housing. Almost 70 per cent of Delhi’s population, according to a UNI report, lives in
sub-standard conditions. With the country’s slum population of 1991 standing at nearly 40 million,
slum dwellers form 44 per cent of population in Delhi, 45 per cent in Mumbai, 42 per cent in
Calcutta, and 39 per cent in Chennai. The situation is no better in eight other metropolises of
Banglore, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Kanpur, Pune, Nagpur, Lucknow and Jaipur. Slum population,
governmental efforts notwithstanding, is expected to show a sizable increase by 2010 aggravating
the housing existing problem and squalor conditions. Living conditions in slum areas are
characterised by overcrowding, poor environmental conditions, scarcity of health and family welfare
services, and total absence of minimum level of residential accommodation. As a result, conditions
of people living in slums is far more pathetic than in rural areas.
Crowding and Depersonalisation
Crowding (density of population) and people’s apathy to other persons’ problems (including their
neighbours’ problems) is another problem growing out of city life. Some homes are so overcrowded
that five to six persons live in one room. Some city neighbourhoods are extremely over-crowded.
Overcrowding has very deleterious effects. It encourages deviant behaviour, spreads diseases,
and creates conditions for mental illness, alcoholism, and riots. One effect of dense urban living is
people’s apathy and indifference. City-dwellers do not want to ‘get involved’ in other people’s
affairs. Some people do take interest in accidents and in cases of molestations, assaults and even
murders but most people choose to be mere onlookers.

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