CityReads | India's Urbanization Paradox
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2025-01-17 21:18
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India’s Urbanization Paradox
“Single narratives have never been able to explain all of India.”
Rukmini, S. (2021). Whole numbers and half truths: What data can and cannot tell us about modern India. Chennai: Context.Rukmini S (2024), 'Population growth in India.' Published on Data for India. Retrieved from https://www.dataforindia.com/population-growth/ [Online Resource].Sources: https://www.dataforindia.com/https://econforeverybody.com/2022/04/26/reflections-on-whole-numbers-and-half-truths/A few days ago, I came across a new website called Data for India (https://www.dataforindia.com/). It aims to provide insights, charts, and data to create, expand, and share knowledge about understanding India. The website's design and purpose are somewhat similar to Data World, but its content mainly focuses on understanding India through data. It covers topics such as India's population, health, economy, living conditions, employment, and data measurement. I specifically checked out the website's team, and the creator is Rukmini S., who has worked as a data journalist reporting on India for many years and has also published a book.![]()
I suddenly remembered that a few years ago, I downloaded a book that uses data to tell the story of Indian society. When I found it, it turned out to be Whole Numbers and Half Truths: What Data Can and Cannot Tell Us About Modern India by Rukmini S. This website can be seen as an updated and expanded version of the book.Regarding India, Amartya Sen once quoted a famous remark by his teacher, Cambridge University economics professor Joan Robinson: "Whatever you can say about India, the opposite is also true."Indeed, all countries are complex and diverse, but India takes this complexity to dizzying heights.Rukmini S. also makes a similar argument in her book: "Single narratives have never been able to explain all of India." The book combines Rukmini’s two areas of expertise as a data journalist: telling stories through data.Throughout the book, two perspectives are intertwined. The first perspective is to look at India "through the lens of data." The chapters of the book cover multiple topics, primarily analyzing official statistical data (including some high-quality institutional survey data) on subjects such as crime, elections, voting, daily life, urbanization, healthcare, and more.The second perspective is to look at data "through the lens of India," telling the stories behind the data, explaining what the data collection includes and what it omits, providing a good account of the data sources, and pointing out why relying solely on data cannot give us the full picture.As Rukmini points out, " statistics alone don’t tell us everything. They need context, interpretation that’s free from ideological spin, and to be held up to the light." With over a decade of experience in data reporting in India, Rukmini understands how individuals and processes are aggregated into statistics, what the data means in real-life experience, and is also clear about what the data fails to capture or what truths it obscures, and how to bridge these gaps.On the one hand, data helps us understand modern India. For decades, data has told us the real stories of life in India, but not always at the right time, not always without controversy, and not always the complete story. But by using official and other sources of data, we can piece together the story so far. She writes, " Everyone should hear the stories numbers tell, and then make up their own minds about the country."On the other hand, data does not exist in a vacuum. The political and social forces in India and around the world inevitably affect the data. Official data alone sometimes cannot tell us the reasons behind these effects.Data can only tell half the truth, and this is the core message of the book. For example, if we rely solely on police statistics and media reports on police data to study crime, we will miss hidden facts, as many crimes are not reported or recorded, leading to a distorted understanding of crime in India. Reporting more crimes is actually a good thing.The book consists of ten chapters. The first chapter discusses how Indians interact with the police and courts; the second chapter explores Indian views and beliefs, including contemporary perspectives on caste; the third chapter examines how Indians vote and elect leaders; the fourth chapter covers daily life in India, including eating habits, religious practices, leisure activities, marriage, and love; the fifth chapter discusses income levels in India; the sixth chapter covers consumption patterns; the seventh chapter looks at work and employment in India; the eighth chapter addresses population growth and aging; the ninth chapter explores urbanization in India; and the tenth chapter looks at India’s healthcare system.For anyone looking to understand India, this book serves as an excellent introduction. It can be read alongside the website, as it provides updated data, and of course, more researchers and writers contribute to it. The book reveals data-based facts about India, many of which will likely surprise you.For instance, most Indians are not vegetarians. While India is often considered a vegetarian country, in reality, fewer than one-quarter or one-third of Indians are vegetarians.Another example is the low labor force participation rate of Indian women. Indeed, according to the latest data, the labor force participation rate for Indian women is only 40% (compared to 80% for Indian men). Women spend 84% of their time on unpaid labor, while men spend 80% of their time on paid labor. Compared to uneducated women, those with higher education are more likely to leave the labor force to take care of the household.Data from 2018 shows that 93% of married Indians have arranged marriages, only 3% have love marriages, and 2% have a combination of love and arranged marriages.When it comes to India, the first thing that must be mentioned is its population. In 2023, India (1.44 billion) surpassed China (1.42 billion) to become the most populous country in the world.Currently, India has a relatively young population, with the average age just over 28, while the global average age is above 30.India's population is expected to peak in the mid-2060s, reaching nearly 1.7 billion. By 2100, India is projected to remain the most populous country in the world.![]()
In the thirty years following India's independence in 1947, the population doubled. However, since the 1980s, India's population growth has started to slow down. By the early 2020s, India's population growth rate will fall below the global average, and the gap is expected to widen.The slowdown in population growth is occurring across India. However, the pace of population growth deceleration varies between regions. Since the 1980s, states in southern India have experienced much slower growth compared to states in the central, northern, and eastern regions.There are two main reasons for the slowdown in population growth in India: a decline in fertility rates and population aging (India's international migration scale is relatively small, with little impact on the total population).India's total fertility rate, after being relatively high in the first few decades following independence, has now rapidly declined. The current fertility rate in India is about 2, which is below the replacement level of 2.1 and also lower than the global average.Although fertility rates are declining across the country, there are significant differences in fertility rates between Indian states. In the southern and western states, fertility rates have already fallen below the replacement level. In urban areas of these regions, fertility rates are close to or even below those of developed countries. For example, the fertility rate in urban Maharashtra is lower than in Germany.![]()
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As a result, since the early 2000s, the number of births in India has started to decline. It is expected that by the mid-2060s, India will experience negative population growth.The Paradox of Urbanization in IndiaIn 1947, when Mahatma Gandhi famously said, " true India lies in its seven lakh villages," statistically, he was correct. In 1951, 83 out of every 100 Indians lived in rural areas; the typical Indian lived in a village.So, what is the situation in India today?The latest census data from India is from 2011 (the 2021 census has not yet been conducted). In 2011, India was still a predominantly rural society, with 69% of the population living in rural areas and an urbanization rate of 31%. Of this, 13% lived in villages with populations of less than 1,000; 40% lived in villages with populations between 1,000 and 5,000; 16% lived in villages with populations over 5,000; 22% lived in cities with populations over 100,000; and 9% lived in towns with populations under 100,000. Over 13.7 million people (more than 17% of India's urban population) lived in slums.In 1901, one-quarter of India's urban population lived in cities with populations of over 100,000. By 1947, this proportion had risen to 45% of the urban population. By 2011, more than 70% of India's urban population lived in large cities.![]()
India has 298 urban agglomerations and 170 towns with populations over 100,000. Among them, 52 are megacities with populations exceeding 1 million. The Mumbai Metropolitan Area is the largest city in India, with over 18 million people, followed by Delhi with 16 million, Kolkata with 14 million, Chennai with 8.7 million, and Bengaluru with 8.5 million. A total of 160.7 million people (42.6% of the urban population) live in these urban agglomerations and cities with populations over 1 million, which is 18 more than in the 2001 census. Of the approximately 8,000 towns officially listed in India, 6,166 are part of different urban agglomerations. Only 1,770 towns are independent towns.While many media outlets and think tanks often discuss India's "urban explosion," a perplexing question arises: why is India's actual level of urbanization so low? Especially in relation to its per capita income, why is India’s urbanization rate relatively low? Why, despite relatively high economic growth rates over the past four decades, has the pace of urbanization remained slow?From 1971 to 2011, India's urbanization rate increased from about 20% to 31%. During the same period, many Asian and African countries saw their urbanization rates more than double. For example, China's urbanization rate rose from 17.3% in 1971 to 51.3% in 2011.How can this paradox of urbanization in India be explained? Rukmini S explains it from three perspectives: natural population growth rates in urban and rural areas, the characteristics of domestic migration in India, and the criteria used by the Indian government to define urban areas.First, let's consider the natural population growth rate (birth rate minus death rate). Historian Chinmay Tumbe argues that 50% of the gap between India’s actual urbanization rate and the predicted urbanization rate based on income levels can be explained by the high fertility rate in rural areas.In the 1970s, the natural population growth rates of urban and rural areas were roughly the same, but after that, the rates began to diverge. The natural population growth rate in rural areas increased due to high fertility rates, while urban areas saw a decline in natural growth due to lower fertility rates.There are also significant regional differences in India: northern cities are growing faster than southern cities due to higher fertility rates, but the pace of urbanization in the north is slower because rural areas in the north are also growing faster. Since 1971-1981, the population growth rates in southern and western states have been declining. This change only began to affect the northern regions by 2001-2011: even in poorer northern, eastern, and central Indian states, the population growth rate has slowed each decade.Next, let’s look at migration. India’s domestic migration has several characteristics that prevent it from significantly increasing the urbanization rate.The Indian Census defines migrants as those who, at the time of the census, live in a place different from their “usual residence.” A total of 455 million people, or over a third of the population, can be classified as "migrants."Migration within India is primarily short-distance. Only 5% of Indians live outside their home state, while 63% live in the same place where they were born. Among those who have left their birthplace, 59% live within the same region. The typical migrant leaves a village but stays within the same area. Many migrants do not permanently leave their village, with short stays in urban areas.More importantly, migration in India is primarily rural-to-rural (accounting for nearly half in 2011), far outweighing rural-to-urban migration. From 1991 to 2011, the proportion of rural-to-urban migration actually decreased, while urban-to-urban migration increased.The reason that rural-to-rural migration dominates is that India’s migration population is primarily female—unlike most countries, where male migrants typically move for work. Women account for 68% of all migrants in India, with 66% migrating due to marriage. Indian marriages often follow endogamous customs within castes, meaning women marry men from other villages of the same caste. Additionally, female marriage migrants tend to migrate longer distances, with more women migrating across state boundaries than men.Only two states—Uttar Pradesh and Bihar—have more male migrants than female migrants, and these are mainly work-related migrations. However, work-related migration only accounts for a quarter of male migrants, with the rest migrating due to family relocation after birth.Furthermore, migration incurs costs, and migrants are not necessarily the poorest. The most impoverished populations are the least likely to migrate.Considering all of these factors, domestic migration in India has not led to a significant surge in urbanization levels. In fact, a more significant driver of urban growth in India is the reclassification of rural areas as “urban.” This process is known as “in situ urbanization” in China.There are two ways to become a town in India: statutory towns and census towns. Statutory towns refer to places with urban governance structures, such as municipalities, corporations, cantonment boards, or notified town area committees. Census towns, on the other hand, are former villages that must have at least 5,000 residents, at least 75% of male workers no longer engaged in agriculture, and a population density of at least 400 people per square kilometer.Between 2001 and 2011, India added only 242 statutory towns but 2,532 census towns.
1.“India is two countries…Every place on the map of India near the ocean is well-off. But the river brings darkness to India.”-Arvind Adiga, The White Tiger![]()
2.“It is not often realized that even the word ‘Mandarin’, standing as it does for a central concept in Chinese culture, is derived from a Sanskrit word, Mantrī, which went from India to China via Malaya.”― Amartya Sen, The Argumentative Indian: Writings on Indian History, Culture and Identity![]()
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