Abstract
Contemporary conceptions within academia, policy makers and the popular imagination seem to be preoccupied with the dichotomy of the rural–urban divide. The ‘urban’ is further delimited in its metropolitan vision as evidenced by the current focus on Smart Cities mission, or the recently concluded Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM), apart from various state-level initiatives for infrastructural planning in existing urban areas. This vision is in sync with most developing countries that mirror similar planning initiatives and research that is focused on metropolitan growth. While these initiatives to revive and sustain urban growth took shape in the last decade, there was another unnoticed transformation of the ‘urban’ in India alongside China and South America. The 2011 census recorded a growth of census towns from 1,352 to 2,894 in its decadal analysis; this indicates a growth of 2,774 statutory and census towns in the first decade of the twenty-first century as opposed to a growth of 500 towns in the previous decade. This monumental, yet unchronicled growth is the genesis for the SUBURBIN project and this book, which shifts the focus of discussion from large metropolitan agglomerations to the ‘small towns and large villages’ of India.
Subaltern Urbanization
The editors and the authors use census data along with spatial analysis to locate these loci of urban growth. While there is obvious significant urban growth in peri-urban areas, and in locations proximate to or with adequate connectivity to urban locations, these account for barely half of the recorded growth; in the other cases, there is a significant randomness in the locations of most towns, some of which the book covers. The book challenges this connectivity and proximity determination of the New Economic Geography (NEG), and makes a case for urbanization that does not stem from migration or urban-dependent growth, suggesting that various local dynamics shape the urbanizing process. While most contemporary academic assumptions suggest a decline of small towns stemming from migration to large cities, the book suggests otherwise, projecting a consistent urban growth of these small towns in the future.
While studies of the census like that of Kanhu Pradhan (Chapter 2) and others have highlighted this growth, it still lies in a grey area as far as state administrations are concerned. While the census identification of ‘town’ exists, most of these new towns have not been administratively recognized as urban. The editors argue that this negation of recognition as ‘urban’ of large villages that meet administrative criteria can be understood as denied urbanization or invisible urbanization. This leads them to pose a methodological question regarding the demarcation of urban and rural in India—How are we to recognize these dense agglomerations as urban?
This lack of determination, compounded with the short-sightedness regarding the longevity of these towns, is what the book addresses through its various case studies. It suggests that these sites are urbanizing through specific local and global social, economic and political processes. It identifies the changing nature of economic activities that not only mark the shift from agrarian processes to industrial and commercial ones, but also how capital flows, local investments, land relations, seasonal migration and local entrepreneurship influence this unparalleled growth. Similarly, the book through its case studies highlights the various ways in which social transformation in seemingly stagnant or backward rural regions is nuanced by mobility, aspirations, lifestyle changes and changing power relations.
The book, therefore, makes a large argument suggesting that these new agglomerations are as complex, dynamic and even cosmopolitan as large cities, and it is important to study the processes of urbanization ‘from below’ of what were heretofore considered as ordinary towns. Furthermore, it makes a case for a balanced and inclusive imagination of urban development that incorporates these subaltern agglomerations.
The Dynamics
The book charts out the dynamics of subaltern urbanization through four distinct, yet interdependent parts. The studies in each part combine multiple disciplines that use macro analysis along with field work across 17 towns in 9 states.
The chapters in Part I largely use macroeconomic analysis to define the larger context of urban growth in the past decade. The notable work of Pradhan (Chapter 2) bears anchor to the entire volume by locating the subaltern urban growth. It traces origins of these towns, demarcates their economic characteristics, gauges their contribution to urban growth and focuses on the contribution and patterns of migration. Importantly, the chapter makes a spatial analysis of the locations in order to evaluate effects of urban proximity among other factors. The other chapters in this section buttress the arguments for distinctly conceptualizing subaltern urbanization. These include locating the significant demographic share of small towns in India’s urban network, correlating income of individual states and their patterns of urbanization, and identifying the role that transition from agricultural dependence to rural non-farm employment in such growth. Two chapters (Milan Punia et al. and Eric Denis and Zarin Ahmad) are more focused in their analysis of towns in Haryana, Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu. While the former enhances Pradhan’s point for growth in urban sprawl and longevity, the latter showcases a small town reformulating its economy activity towards a global market. This case study is a synecdoche for other latter chapters which suggest that small town sites are geared towards becoming parts of transnational economic networks through their constant economic innovations.
Part II focuses on change in land relations and migration patterns in two northern and two southern sites as important contributors to this growth through ethnographic and historical studies. Most chapters in this section identify how religion, caste, region or indigeneity play a role in ensuring a process of capital accumulation and wealth distribution—largely by maintaining control over ownership and use of land—which is necessary to facilitate urban growth. Whether one considers the nativism in the case study of Himachal, or the agglomerations that benefit from the economic activities of temple towns, both follow the same pattern of internal migration that can be sustained by local economic activities. The chapter by Raman demonstrates how infrastructural growth such as highways or Special Economic Zones in the proximity of small towns brings about a change from agrarian use to residential and commercial use of land. Using the case study of Tamil Nadu, it suggests that despite the trickle-down suggestions of NEG, local actors like investors, developers and entrepreneurs that work within intra-community relations and negotiate with caste-dynamics characterize subaltern growth.
Part III focuses on multiple administrative questions: one chapter focuses on the question of centralized planning, one suggests state-wise analysis is important to understand policy decisions, while another looks at the role of local administration. In her chapter, Saba Khan suggests the centralized distribution of equity for development to challenge the current unequal distribution of resource. The argument is made by suggesting that growth in population and economic activities in conventional urban demography is matched in these regions and, therefore, there is no reason for administration to hold back on the resources. Partha Mukhopadhyay, on the other hand, suggests that administrative recognition may not always matter for some small towns; growth is not necessarily dependent on this recognition, and urban amenities and shifts to non-farm work are being noticed in multiple census towns. But this merits state-level analysis to evaluate characteristics of agglomerations which are able to make these shifts. Zérah focuses on how local leaders are negotiating with changing power relations, capture of land resources and undeveloped administrative skills, while traditional social dynamics and new economic activities shape the growth in Haryana. Aditi Surie and Zérah’s chapter on women’s participation in governance of small towns is a refreshing inclusion. Through case studies of women councillors in Haryana, they suggest that despite the persistence of inhibiting cultural structures, certain councillors are able to practice their agency and articulate political capital albeit in limited capacities.
As identified above, the volume indicates that many of the identified small towns exhibit a dynamic economy that is innovative and geared towards the global market. Part IV takes case studies from diverse geographies and economic activities. Rémi de Bercegol and Shankare Gowda use the case study of Kartarpur in Punjab where a community of local carpenters have transformed a traditional industry into a modern craft market that uses local and regional resources in labour to create export goods. They argue that local informal networks and organization among the community brings considerable wealth to the town despite not having infrastructural benefits of an urban classification. Similarly, the other chapters cover dynamics of caste, labour relations, transport availability and access to resources within specific cases of small towns to highlight innovative economic activity that is the driving force for the growth in these locations. The macroeconomic study of Elfie Swerts and Denis paints a detailed picture regarding the nature of economic activity; most of the small towns cater to their rural surroundings which continue to be primarily dependent on agriculture. However, these towns are also marked by their largely male workforce and an economy that is gradually diversifying away from the agrarian sector, a ‘privileged space’ of transformation that is marked by underemployment and poverty as well.
The chapters across different parts of the book constantly reflect the larger paradigm posited by the editors. Recurrent patterns are visible in the data tables of the macro studies, in the spatial analysis of locations and in individual ethnographic accounts. At the same time, the arguments of social transformations, political capital, migration, economic innovations and the perplexing nature of administration and policy are echoed across different chapters of the volume. The significance of the methodological repositioning defined by the editors at the beginning of the volume is not lost in the individual cases, significantly challenging contemporary approaches to understanding urbanization. The tome—both in its editorial tone and in the different cases across India—constantly asks state and central policy makers to take cognisance of this subaltern growth to make urban planning more inclusive. Through its exhaustive introduction, macroeconomic studies and field-based analysis of specific locations, the book manages to make a strong case for reshaping academic approaches to the study of small towns in India.