India experiences the most characteristic features of urbanization among developing countries. According to the 2011 Census, urbanization in India has increased at a faster rate than expected. This is an overturn of the declining trend of the level of urbanization observed during the 1980s and 1990s.
Another important aspect is that for the first time since independence the absolute increase in the urban population was higher than that in the rural population. This can be attributed to many fold increase in the number of towns and also the concentration of population residing in the urban areas.
The number of urban agglomerations/towns has grown from 1827 in 1901 to 7935 in 2011; while, the total population in urban areas has increased from 2.58 crores in 1901 to 37.71 crores in 2011. This data clearly shows that India is experiencing a gradual increase in the trend of urbanization.
These trends of urbanization as experienced by India are discussed in the next sections. But before that one needs to understand the concept of urbanization and urban areas as conversed in the next section.
Urbanization in India: A Colonial Legacy and in the Post-Independence Period
The story of urbanization in India needs to be studied in a historical context; a story of spatial and temporal discontinuities (Ramachandran, 1989). The earliest urban developments were confined to the Indus Valley and its adjoining regions. Other parts of the country were untouched by this process. In the early-historical period, it was experienced in the Middle Ganga plains and the southern parts of the Indian Peninsula.
A similar picture has been seen even in the historical period where large parts of the country were hardly affected by urbanization. In modern times these spatial discontinuities continue to be a dominant characteristic of urbanization in India.
The factors responsible for urbanization varied from time to time. In the pre-historic period, urbanization was synonymous with the origin and rise of civilization and thus can be termed a cultural process. From historical periods to the British regime, urbanization was related to the rise and fall of kingdoms, dynasties and empires; thus a political process.
In modern times, urbanization is perceived as a process which is closely related to economic development and industrialization; thus an economic process. Based on these temporal discontinuities in the process of urbanization in India, the urban history of India can be divided into five time periods. These are:
- The pre-historic period (2350-1800 BC)
- The early-historic period (600 BC to 500 AD)
- The medieval period (600 AD to 1800 AD)
- The British period (1800 to 1947)
- The post-Independence Period (after 1947)
Here, we will be concentrating only on the last two time periods, as to understand the process of urbanization in present times, it is important to consider the factors that lead to this lop-sided urbanization. The urbanization of post Independence is characterized by overburden on class I and metropolitan cities that is metropolization where the top has become heavy.
Urbanisation in the British Period (1800-1947)
The British had a negative impact on the Indian urban morphology as the pre-British cities were on the decline as they were hardly interested in the traditional industries of India. Moreover, the introduction of railways resulted in the diversion of trade routes into different channels as every railway station became a point of export of materials for its hinterland, thus depriving earlier trade centres of their monopoly. Whatever the reason may be in a nutshell it can be said that India’s urban landscape went through a transformation during the 150 years of British rule.
The main features of this period include:
a) The creation of the three metropolitan port cities which emerged as the leading colonial cities of the world. All the older cities which were prominent in the Mughal period were reduced to small towns. These three cities became the leading administrative, commercial and industrial cities. The entire cultural landscape of these cities was of British taste which was in sharp contrast to the urban designs of the Mughal period.
b) The creation of hill stations in the Himalayan foothills and South India along with the introduction of tea and coffee plantations resulted in the emergence of several smaller settlements with distinct urban characteristics. Between 1815 and 1870 over 80 hill stations were developed in four different regions of the country to serve the four metropolitan cities of Delhi, Calcutta, Bombay and Madras. These were – Shimla – Mussorie – Nainital near Delhi; Darjeeling – Shillong near Calcutta; Mahabaleshwar near Bombay and the Nilgiri – Kodaikanal area near Madras. The plantation settlements were another significant feature as although they were not large they had distinct urban features because of processing plants, residences of workers and associated commercial establishments.
c) The modification of the existing urban landscape through the introduction of civil lines and cantonments. These modifications were most noticed in the administrative centres of the British like the provincial capitals, the district headquarters and the tehsil-level urban administrative town. The ‘civil lines’ was a new addition which was made of administrative centres, courts and the residences of the officers. Cantonments were fewer in number; built exclusively for the British officers and the army men. These modifications segregated the city and the gap between rural and urban increased many-fold.
d) The introduction of the railways and modern industry which lead to the development of new industrial townships like Jamshedpur, Asansol and Dhanbad. The introduction of railways had an indirect influence on urbanization. Though it led to the emergence of metropolitan cities as the primary foci, it even brought unplanned urbanization as the city started growing in an unplanned manner towards the railway station. Industrial development as such during this period was very modest. Most of the industries were concentrated near the metropolitan cities with exceptions like Jamshedpur which emerged as a town after the establishment of the Iron and steel plant.
e) The improvements in urban amenities and administration during British rule were one of the major benefits that cities experienced during this time. The facilities like piped water supply, street lighting, domestic electrification, sewerage system, shopping areas, and green spaces in the form of parks and playing grounds were roped in; though these were restricted to the civil lines and the cantonment areas. Most of the cities were deprived of these facilities. Municipal bodies were set up in several cities in 1881 but again these were found only in areas where the British population was residing. This again brought segregation within the cities.
The above account depicts that cities became the primary foci during the British period. Even the centres of education were established in the form of schools, colleges and universities. As a result, an urban elite emerged which was soaked in westernization. This led to the widening of the gap between the rural and the urban which continues to plague the social and political system of India even today.
Urbanisation in the Post-Independence Period (after 1947)
The process of urbanization in the post-Independence period witnessed a new phase. In this period this process was characterized by rapid urbanization which was dominated by the mushrooming of one lakh and million plus cities. The major changes that India has witnessed during this period can be summarized as follows:
- The influx of refugees and their settlement in the urban areas of the northern part of the country
- The establishment of new planned administrative centres like Chandigarh and Bhubneshwar
- The construction of new industrial cities and new industrial townships near major cities.
- The stagnation and in some cases the decline of small towns
- The proliferation of slums and squatter settlements in the big cities and the emergence of urban-rural fringe
- The introduction of urban planning through Five Year Plans and the improvement in urban governance through the 74th Amendment Act.
The process of urbanization in India is not at all different from other developing countries of the world; it is also characterized by an uneven pattern of development of small towns and big cities within the system.
According to the 2011 Census, the urban population grew to 377 million showing a growth rate of 2.76% per annum during 2001- 2011. The level of urbanization in the country as a whole increased from 27.7% in 2001 to 31.1% in 2011 – an increase of 3.3 percentage points during 2001-2011 compared to an increase of 2.1 percentage points during 1991-2001.
It may be noted that the Indian economy has grown from about 6% per annum during the 1990s to about 8% during the first decade of the 2000s (Ahluwalia 2011). This reflects the power of economic growth in bringing about faster urbanization during 2001-2011. Thus in recent years urbanization in India has acted more as an economic process than a social or political one. The levels of urbanization and the pattern of urbanization is discussed in the next section.
Trends of Urbanization in India (1901-2011)
Urbanization in India has been relatively slow compared to many developing countries. The percentage of the annual exponential growth rate of the urban population reveals that in India, it grew at a faster pace from the decade 1921-31 to 1951. Thereafter it registered a sharp drop during the decade 1951-61. The decades 1961-71 and 1971- 81 showed a significant improvement in the growth rate (Table 1).
But 1981-1991 shows a decreasing trend which continued even in 1991-2001; in 2001-11 it shows a very small increase in overturn of the last two decades to the present rate (2.76%). The reason for the sharp drop in urban rate during 1951-61 was the declassification of a large number of towns during that decade.
When seen from the perspective of several towns the data reveals that the number of urban agglomerations/towns has grown from 1827 in 1901 to 7935 in 2011. This process of urbanization in India shows in Fig 1. It reflects that in India there is an increasing trend of urbanization depicting that India is at the stage of acceleration as the proportion of the population in urban areas has reached 31.16 per cent despite the growth rate showing the decline in the trend.
Process of Urbanization in India
| Census Years | No. of Urban Agglomerations / Towns | Urban Population In Per Cent | Annual exponential Growth rate of Urban Population |
| 1901 | 1827 | 10.84 | |
| 1911 | 1825 | 10.29 | 0.03 |
| 1921 | 1949 | 11.18 | 0.79 |
| 1931 | 2072 | 11.99 | 1.75 |
| 1941 | 2250 | 13.86 | 2.77 |
| 1951 | 2843 | 17.29 | 3.47 |
| 1961 | 2363 | 17.97 | 2.34 |
| 1971 | 2590 | 19.91 | 3.21 |
| 1981 | 3378 | 23.33 | 3.83 |
| 1991 | 3768 | 25.72 | 3.09 |
| 2001 | 5161 | 27.78 | 2.74 |
| 2011 | 7935 | 31.16 | 2.76 |
Before we proceed we have to know why there has been such a tremendous increase in the number of towns. This can be related to the definition used in India. Scholars are of the view that India’s definition of urban areas is not something out of the box rather it is restrictive when compared to countries like Australia, France, the Philippines and so on where the population limit is between 2000 and 3000. Even if the cut-off limit is reduced will it provide the solution? In my opinion no because relaxation either in the population figure or in the density figures would just increase the percentage to a higher amount but that cannot be counted as urban growth. This is because in India there are large numbers of towns which have a population of more than 5000, but they fail in other criteria.
Thus in India urbanization cannot be explained through definitions. The answer is in the colonial period when the urban process was restricted to port cities and administrative towns. The data clearly shows that till 1981 the trend was on the higher side but after that, it decreased; only to be increased fractionally in 2011. During this period the natural growth rate has shown declining trends. This means that the higher percentages are not the result of the growth of towns rather the push to urban areas is from other sources, i.e., rural-to-urban conversion and rural-urban migration.
An analysis of the distribution of urban population across different class-size urban areas reveals that urbanization in India has been top-heavy or tilted towards large cities. The percentage of the urban population in 5-million-plus or million-plus cities here is higher than in most other countries of the region and has gone up relatively faster in the last three decades (Kundu 2009).
An increasing concentration of urban population in Class I cities (those with a population above 100,000) can also be observed over the past several decades. The percentage share of the urban population in Class I cities has gone from 26.0 in 1901 to 68.7 in 2001 to nearly 70 per cent in 2011.
It is often said that this is the result of the faster growth rate experienced by these cities, but another reason that has been often ignored is that the number of class I cities in India has increased manyfold. In 1901, there were only 24 Class I cities, increasing to 465 in 2011. The concentration of urban population in metropolitan (or metro) cities – cities having a population of a million or more – is even greater. In 1901 there was just one city with over a million people with just 6 per cent of the total urban population. The number rose to 2 in 1911 and was so until 1941; though their percentage share in the urban population went up from 10.6 to 12.0 in 1941. In 1981, the share was 26.4 which has been continuously increasing to 32.5 in 1991; 37.8 in 2001 and 42.6 in 2011(53 million plus cities).
The scenario explained above can be explained through the dynamics that existed during the colonial period, essentially in response to the requirements of an imperialist regime. In the colonial period, the British established their economy based on strong commodity and population flows which were directed only towards either the port cities or the administrative headquarters.
This weakened the regional forces which were established during the medieval period through the inter-settlement linkages and bi-directional movement of goods and services between the core and periphery. The four major urban agglomerations (UAs) of Calcutta, Madras, Bombay and Karachi (presently in Pakistan) became focal points of economic activities. The pre-existing rural-urban interactions were gradually replaced by export-import oriented commodity flows.
Now, the movement of population and goods was only needed to sustain the new urban centres (and the plantation fields). Thus the Indian agglomerations were not a product of economic development like their counterparts in developed countries.
In 1947, after independence, our country witnessed structural changes both politically as well as economically. In the initial plans, especially the Second and Third Five Year Plans enormous public-sector investment was done which restricted the urban hierarchy.
However, regional disparities persisted, despite the public sector playing a major role in backing the development process in the backward areas through proper investments. This was because in these regions a viable system of urban settlements could not be created that left their hinterland virtually untouched.
The transformation of large cities from colonial to national capitals meant only an increasing concentration of low-productive manufacturing and service activities that could find a foothold more easily due to the changing political economy. The pace of urban growth was rapid during the first three decades after Independence, but that led to the formalisation of the urban economy and increasing deprivation in terms of basic amenities.
To sum up, the post-independence urban scenario is characterized by dualism. The economically developed states attracted population in urban areas due to industrialization and infrastructural investment but only in and around large cities and upcoming industrial centres.
An interesting feature which crops up is that even in the backward states urban growth was rapid, especially concerning small and medium towns. This was the result of government investment in the district and taluka headquarters, programmes of urban industrial dispersal, and transfer of funds from the states to urban local bodies through a needs-based or what is popularly known as “gap-filling‟ approach.
Another reason for the rural-urban migration into smaller towns from their rural hinterland in backward states can be explained in terms of push factors, owing to the lack of diversification in the agrarian economy.
The urbanization process in recent years has, thus, concentrated in developed regions and larger cities, with backward areas and smaller towns tending to stagnate. Large municipal bodies, particularly those located in developed states, tend to have a strong economic base, an advantage which manifests in their high economic and demographic growth.
The smaller towns in the backward states, on the other hand, have languished economically and reported low or negative demographic growth, many of them even failing to meet the criteria for classification as urban centres. Rapid income growth has occurred in developed regions as well as in and around Class I cities.
Understandably, poverty has become concentrated in remote regions and problem areas in terms of their socio-economic characteristics. While the developed regions have over time developed resistance to in-migration, the backward regions do not seem to have the capacity to export person-power with the skills required at the destination.
Given this macro scenario, a slowdown in the rate of urbanization and the concentration of urban growth in relatively developed states as well as around a few global centres seems to be the logical outcome.