• Good roads have changed the transport system from the use of bullock carts, horse carts to the introduction of bicycles, motorbikes, buses and other
Why do people from villages migrate to towns and cities?
From last year’ s theme article on“ Changes over 40 years in the Samaj”, I quote----- Migration of people or a community has been a natural phenomenon since the beginning from one environmental condition to another. One may ask the reason for it. There can be many. However, there has always been an urge to“ develop”, to“ improve”, to“ raise one’ s status” and so on at an individual, family or community level; thus, bringing“ changes” in the mode and style of living, social and cultural thinking and behaviour. Some of the factors which have contributed to the movement are:
Emigration from India
The migration of people from villages to towns and cities has been a common phenomenon in the history of the world. However, more adventurous and farsighted people have taken the risk of leaving their countries in search of better pastures far and wide.
Think of the Silk Road or the Silk Route, the ancient network of trade routes( sources of valuable goods such as spices and silk). For centuries were used through the regions of Asian continent, connecting East and West from China to the Mediterranean Sea. However, due automobiles
• Electricity and Gas is starting to reach most Indian villages and villagers are enjoying modern technological advancements
• Basic amenities like 24 hour electricity, good roads and water supply are still far away in most of the areas in both rural and urban India
• Rural areas being mostly agricultural based, there is slow development of local markets where farmers can get better rates for their production. This happens due to improper Supply Chain and Distribution System. As a result of this, many farmers are selling their land and moving to cities in hope of a better life
• Lack of good education has become a hindrance for the development of the villages
• Under the principle of eminent domain, the state as the ultimate
to the decline of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire in 1450s, the land route to Asia became dangerous.
Hence, sea routes to Asia were explored by the Portuguese- sailing around Africa and also westwards. Bartholomew Diaz reached a part of South Africa naming it the Cape of Storms in 1488 and Vasco da Gama, naming it the Cape of Good Hope, went around and came to the present day Kenyan seaport of Mombasa( Mvita) and from Malindi, by the help of an Indian, reached Calicut( India) in 1498. Meanwhile, considering sailing westwards to be a quicker
• Some villages have disappeared, but other villages have grown and merged and often form hubs within the general mass of suburbia
owner of land and natural resources, acquire land for public purposes for‘ development’. This causes the involuntary migration of people from their places of original residence. The Narmada Valley Project, India’ s largest valley project, submerged hundreds of villages and hundreds of hectares of land including forest areas, thus displacing their place of residence
• The introduction of several industries made the villagers move to urban areas. They joined different industrial organisations as workers or labourers and found alternate occupation other than farming
• Caste and communal riots have affected the life style and displaced the residence status
way, Christopher Columbus, an Italian explorer, not knowing the vastness of the Atlantic Ocean, sailed west and reached the Indies, the present day West Indies.
These initial voyages opened up the trading routes as well as the process of colonisation from Europe. The colonial era in India began in 1502, when Portuguese Empire established the first European trading centre in Kerala. This was followed by the Dutch East India Company and then British East India Company. The British East India Company eventually came to rule large areas of India with its own private armies,
1820: First Indian immigrants arrive in the US
1825: First massive immigration of Indian workers from Madras is to the islands of Reunion and Mauritius brought in to work in the sugar estates
1835: Mauritius receives 19,000 immigrants indentured labourers( contracted for a fixed period of time) from India 1837: Britain formalises emigration of Indian indentured labourers to supply cheap labour 1838: British Guyana receives its first 250 Indian labourers
1860: S. S. Truro and S. S. Belvedere dock in Durban, S. Africa, carrying first indentured servants( from Madras and Calcutta) to work in sugar plantations. With contracts of five years and up, thousands emigrate over next 51 years
1879: The“ Leonidas,” first emigrant ship to Fiji, adds 498 Indian indentured labourers to the nearly 340,000 already working in other British Empire colonies
56 vol. 41 | Prajapati Sandesh 2016