Question

Explain how British rule caused deurbanisation in India

Explain in words​

Answer 1

Answer:

During early years of British occupation, the Britishers came up with many alternatives which gained huge popularity in the market due to which the native products demand got reduced and many industries and small scale business people were deprived of job and they move backed to the rural areas.

Answer 2

Answer:

In the late eighteenth century, Calcutta, Bombay and Madras rose in importance as Presidency cities. They became the centres of British power in the different regions of India. At the same time, a host of smaller cities declined. Many towns manufacturing specialised goods declined due to a drop in the demand for what they produced. Old trading centres and ports could not survive when the flow of trade moved to new centres. Similarly, earlier centres of regional power collapsed when local rulers were defeated by the British and new centres of administration emerged. This process is often described as de-urbanisation. Cities such as Machlipatnam, Surat and Seringapatam were de-urbanised during the nineteenth century. By the early twentieth century, only 11 per cent of Indians were living in cities.

In cities (as in Ludhiana, Kolkata, Mumbai, Indore, Bhilwara, etc.) the area around the business centre is in­habited by low income groups and beset by social problems. In addition, advanced technology and large scale industry make craft industries and other small-scale production units obsolete and uncompetitive.

Much new economic development, notably in the service sector occurs outside the old, inner urban industrial areas. People, therefore, migrate to other areas. Those who remain in the inner city are drawn disproportionately from the old, socially disadvantaged, unskilled and semi-skilled workers.

They are joined by immigrants who are prepared to do unskilled and semi-skilled work in the inner city. This process of economic decline of urban areas and of population movement out of them are referred to col­lectively as ‘de-urbanisation’.

On the other hand, ‘urbanisation’ of many suburban rural areas also occurs. Of course, not all urban areas decline. It is mainly the ‘old’ industrial cities that experience de-urbanisation. Many industrial towns undergo a parallel increase in population. Nor is the process of de-urbanisation irreversible.

Explanation: