Sociology Optional Paper 2 by Smriti Rao

Model Answer

Question #1. As India's population growth is said to peak in the coming decades, the challenges of population density and urban decay become a cause of immediate concern. Comment.

According to World Population Prospects 2022, India is projected to surpass China as the world’s most populous country in 2023.  Also, the urban population of India had already crossed the 285 million mark by 2001. By 2030, more than 50 per cent of India’s population is expected to live in urban areas.

The sheer magnitude of the urban population poses the threat of urban decay. It is naturally expected that cities having a large size of population squeezed in a small space must suffer from overcrowding.

For example,

• Mumbai has one-sixth of an acre of open space per thousand populations though four acre is suggested standard by the Master Plan of Greater Mumbai.
• Delhi has a population density of 10,000 persons per sq km as against the national average of ‘382’ national average.(Census 2011).

Challenges due to population density and urban decay:

• Proliferation of slums:

Shortage of developed land for housing, resulting in the proliferation of slums which are unregulated, have congested conditions, are positioned near open sewers, and restricted to geographically dangerous areas such as hillsides, riverbanks, and water basins subject to landslides, flooding, or industrial hazards.

• Sewerage Problems:

The majority of cities lack adequate systems for handling sewage waste, and it is discharged into nearby rivers or the ocean, damaging the water sources.

Additionally due to haphazard urbanisation, sewer and water lines frequently cross paths in Indian cities. Any leak causes groundwater to become contaminated, which allows a number of water-borne diseases to penetrate.

• Trash Disposal:

Most cites do not have proper arrangements for garbage disposal and the existing landfills are full to the brim. These landfills are hotbeds of disease and release a plethora of chemicals into their surroundings.

Furthermore, wastes putrefy in the open inviting disease carrying flies and rats and a filthy, poisonous liquid, called leachate, which leaks out from below and contaminates groundwater which acts as an epicenter for several diseases like dysentery, typhoid.

• Rising Pollution:

Another significant consequence of increasing urban population is pollution. According to the World Health Organization, indoor and outdoor air pollution caused 6.5 million deaths worldwide (11.6 percent of all fatalities), and approximately 90% of these deaths occurred in low- and middle-income nations.

• Transportation Constraints:

The impact of inner city transportation, such as heavy traffic, lack of parking facilities and narrowness of the streets leads to slow movement of vehicles, fuel wastage, environmental pollution and loss of precious time.

When large numbers of people congregate in cities, many problems result, particularly for the poor. The problems faced by the poor spill over to other city dwellers. As the trend continues, this spillover effect increases and takes on a global dimension as more and more of the world’s populations are affected

These have direct impacts on individual quality of life, while straining public health systems and resources.

Question #2. Using the Marxian perspective, analyze Indian nationalism.

The Marxist paradigm of the national movement was based on an understanding of the role of economic factors, modes of production and classes.

In his book India in Transition (1922), Marxist historian M.N. Roy opined that India was moving towards capitalism and had already come within the ambit of global capitalism. Therefore, the bourgeoisie rather than feudal lords were the dominating classes in India.

According to historian Rajat Ray;

“For M.N. Roy, Indian national movement represented the political ideology and aspiration of a youthful bourgeoisie”.

About 25 years later, R.P. Dutt formulated the most influential Marxist interpretation of Indian nationalism in his famous book India Today.

• He argues that in the initial years, Indian nationalism represented ‘only big bourgeoisie – the progressive elements among the landowners, the new industrial bourgeoisie and the well-to-do intellectual elements’. Later, in the years preceding the First World War, the urban petty bourgeois class became more influential. After the War, the Indian masses – peasantry and the industrial working classes – made their presence felt.
• He is particularly harsh on Gandhi whom he castigates as the ‘the mascot of the bourgeoisie’.
•  He asserts that the Non-cooperation Movement and Civil Disobedience Movement was withdrawn because the masses were becoming too militant and a threat to the propertied classes within and outside the Congress.

Dutt’s book was followed by A.R. Desai’s ‘Social Background of Indian Nationalism’.

According to Desai, the Indian national movement developed through five phases. Each phase was based on particular social classes which supported and sustained it.

1. In the first phase, the intelligentsia, who were the offspring of the contemporary English educational system, were primarily responsible for the inception and backing of the Indian national movement. The likes of Ram Mohan Roy and their supporters started this period, which lasted until 1885, the year the Indian National Congress was established.

2. [1905 - Swadeshi Movement]:-

The national movement represented the interests of the new bourgeoisie that had begun to emerge in India, albeit it was still in its infancy.

Thus, in its new phase, Indian national movement took up ‘the demands of the educated classes and the trading bourgeoisie such as the Indianisation of Services, the association of the Indians with the administrative machinery of the state, the stoppage of economic drain, and others formulated in the resolutions of the Indian National Congress’.

3. [Swadeshi Movement – 1918]:-

The national movement covered a relatively broader social base which included ‘sections of the lower-middle class’.

4. [Rowlatt Satyagraha - end of the Civil Disobedience Movement in 1934]:-

The movement, which up until this point had primarily been restricted to the upper and middle classes, began to encompass certain segments of the general populace. However, the leadership of the Congress remained in the hands of those who were under the strong influence of the Indian capitalist class.

5. [1934-39]:-

 There was a growing disenchantment with the Gandhian ideology within the Congress and the rise of the Congress Socialists who represented the petty bourgeois elements.

Outside the Congress, movements of the peasants, workers, depressed classes and various linguistic nationalities had developed. However, all these stirrings were not of much consequence and the mainstream was still solidly occupied by the Gandhian Congress which represented the interests of the dominant classes.

Hence, Marxist scholars maintained that despite the national movement being a manifestation of the basic antagonism between the Indian people and the imperialist rulers, it was either directly or indirectly controlled by the bourgeoisie and worked to advance capitalism.