UGC NET Sociology Rural and Urban Transformations Flashcards

24 sample cards from the Rural and Urban Transformations deck

Sampled from the end of the deck, so these are different cards from the ones shown on the syllabus page.

1. According to Ashutosh Varshney, what variable best explains why some Indian cities avoid communal violence?

   The presence of inter-communal civic engagement—especially associational forms of civic life (integrated business associations, trade unions, NGOs) that build inter-religious networks and contain rumours/tension.

2. What is 'ghettoization' in the context of changing inter-community relations in Indian cities?

   The increasing residential segregation of religious minorities (e.g., Muslims) into separate, often marginalised enclaves due to discrimination in housing, insecurity after riots, and the search for safety—reducing inter-community contact.

3. Distinguish the concepts 'urbanism', 'urbanity' and 'urbanization'.

   Urbanization is the process of population concentration in cities/growth of urban areas; urbanism (Louis Wirth) is the distinctive way of life characteristic of cities; urbanity refers to the refined manners, sophistication and civility associated with city living.

4. Summarise Louis Wirth's 'Urbanism as a Way of Life' (1938).

   Wirth defined the city by size, density and heterogeneity of population, which produce impersonal, superficial, transitory secondary relationships, anonymity, social segmentation, and weakened primary ties—an 'urban' way of life.

5. What is Georg Simmel's key argument in 'The Metropolis and Mental Life'?

   Simmel argued the intense nervous stimulation of the metropolis produces a 'blasé attitude' and reserve; city dwellers respond with intellectuality and a calculating, money-based rationality to protect against overstimulation.

6. What is the demographic definition of an 'urban area' as per the Census of India?

   A place qualifies as urban if it is a statutory town (municipality/corporation/cantonment) OR a census town meeting all three criteria: population of at least 5,000; density of at least 400 persons per sq km; and at least 75% of the male working population in non-agricultural pursuits.

7. How does the Census of India define a 'million-plus city' and a 'mega-city'?

   A million-plus city has a population of one million (10 lakh) or more; a mega-city is conventionally an urban agglomeration with a population of 10 million or more.

8. What is an 'urban agglomeration' in Indian census terminology?

   A continuous urban spread constituting a town and its adjoining outgrowths (or two or more physically contiguous towns) functioning together as a single urban unit, e.g., Greater Mumbai UA.

9. What is meant by 'over-urbanization' and 'pseudo-urbanization'?

   Over-urbanization is urban population growth exceeding the pace of industrialization/economic capacity, straining infrastructure; pseudo-urbanization (push-driven) is migration to cities due to rural distress rather than urban industrial pull, producing slums without adequate jobs.

10. What are the three sectors of the economy, and which dominates India's GDP today?

    Primary (agriculture/extraction), secondary (industry/manufacturing), and tertiary (services); the tertiary/service sector dominates India's GDP, a feature of its 'services-led' growth path.

11. Define the 'informal sector' and note its scale in urban India.

    The informal/unorganized sector comprises unregulated, low-capital enterprises and casual labour without social security or job protection; it employs the vast majority (over 80-90%) of India's workforce and absorbs most urban migrants.

12. What is the 'service-led growth' debate in Indian development?

    India is unusual for moving from agriculture largely to services, bypassing a strong manufacturing phase; critics argue this fails to generate enough mass low-skill employment, leaving 'jobless growth' and a large informal workforce.

13. Define a 'slum' as per the Census of India.

    A slum is a residential area unfit for human habitation—overcrowded, with poor sanitation, inadequate ventilation, lack of basic amenities (water, sewerage)—classified by Census as notified, recognized, or identified slums.

14. What did Jan Breman contribute to the study of urban informal labour?

    Breman documented the 'footloose labour'—circulating, casual, unprotected migrant workers exploited in the informal economy—showing how capitalism in India relies on insecure, mobile labour rather than a stable proletariat.

15. What is an 'ethnic enclave' in urban sociology?

    A neighbourhood with a spatial concentration of an ethnic/religious/regional group that sustains its own institutions, networks and economy—offering social support and security but potentially reinforcing segregation.

16. How did Herbert Gans's 'urban villagers' challenge Wirth's thesis?

    Gans showed that ethnic inner-city neighbourhoods sustained close-knit primary group ties and community ('urban villagers'), demonstrating that city life does not necessarily destroy intimate social bonds.

17. What is 'gentrification'?

    Gentrification is the process by which higher-income residents and capital move into and renovate a previously low-income/working-class urban neighbourhood, raising property values and rents and displacing the original poorer inhabitants.

18. What is a 'gated community' and what does it signify sociologically?

    A gated community is a residential enclave physically secured by walls/gates and private security, restricting access; it signifies the rise of the urban middle/upper class, privatization of security and services, and growing socio-spatial segregation in cities.

19. How is the 'new Indian middle class' characterised in post-liberalization sociology?

    It is described (e.g., by Leela Fernandes) as a consumption-oriented, professionally employed, globally aspirational class produced by post-1991 liberalization, whose lifestyles and politics increasingly shape urban space and public discourse.

20. What is 'bourgeois environmentalism' (Amita Baviskar)?

    It denotes middle-class environmental and aesthetic concerns—demands for clean, green, orderly cities—that lead to the removal of slums, hawkers and the poor from public spaces in the name of beautification and order.

21. What is the Chipko movement and is it rural or urban in character?

    Chipko (1973, Uttarakhand, led by Sunderlal Bahuguna and Chandi Prasad Bhatt) was a rural/forest-based ecological movement where villagers hugged trees to prevent commercial felling—an example of agrarian/environmental, not urban, mobilisation.

22. Give two examples of urban social movements in India and what they demanded.

    The Narmada Bachao Andolan involved urban-supported anti-displacement struggle; slum-dweller mobilisations (e.g., by SPARC/NSDF) and pavement-dweller movements demand housing rights and resist eviction—classic urban movements over rights to the city.

23. Whose concept is the 'right to the city', and what does it mean?

    Coined by Henri Lefebvre (later developed by David Harvey), it is the collective right of urban inhabitants to access, shape and transform the city—against exclusion, displacement, and the privatization of urban space.

24. What sociological pattern is illustrated by the 1992-93 Bombay riots in terms of urban violence?

    They illustrate how communal mobilisation, residential segregation, and organized political networks can convert a metropolis into a site of large-scale inter-community violence, deepening ghettoization and minority insecurity in the city.

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