ecocol

Economist Column
New Urban economics of West Bengal, some thoughful analysis

Political Column
Defeat of BJP was never in doubt, the question was only the extent of drubbing

Ringside View
Depleteing fortunes for the BJP

Socioeconomic development possesses a complexity seen more clearly in India than elsewhere. Elements of that complexity are woven into the socioeconomic history of Bengal, both because of close association of the province with the successive ascendancy of Mughal and British power, and the birth of the new entrepreneurial society. Nevertheless, from an enviable reputation as the world’s only large scale producer and exporter of fine textiles and as the bread basket to the country which attracted EIC interest in the 17^thcentury, the shift of tenures to Permanent Settlement, and to back the cash cropping and the industrial models of colonial rule destroyed the production base of the provincial economy reducing it to recurrent major famines between 1770 and 1943. The agricultural impasse in Bengal continued well past Partition and has been documented in the analysis of shortfall in agricultural growth rates compared to the spurt of transferred population.

Accompanying this trajectory was a process of urban concentration that saw minor settlements being abandoned for major ones in a wave of migrations to city areas, the dominant movements occurring in the present century. Two major theories of urbanisation in the global South which can be tested against this experience are the ‘income responsive’ model and the Latin American ‘fugitive’ theories. Even though opposed in several of their conjectures, both groups of theory would concur that a spurt to urbanisation based on migration from villages comes from apparent destitution in countryside.

In the face of this long drawn process came the watershed of tenurial reforms in the mid-1970s, which have altered that historical course. While several evaluations of the post-1977 institutional reforms with the recording of tenancy and the revivification of local government processes in rural West Bengal have dwelt on the short-term consequences that have accelerated agricultural growth rates in the state. Many commentators have pointed out that decentralisation and devolution in the state has had pervasive and profound non-market impact. Although invisible in short run analysis this impact is understood by internal diversification and growth of regional trade and commerce. Steady growth in the agricultural sector in the state holds several macro auguries for future development policy in the state.

Unprecedented opportunity for study of the change in the urbanisation processes in the state of West Bengal is provided by 1991 Census papers because of the new convention of separately listing urban settlements under agglomerated or isolated towns across each block and district in India. What is more important is the inclusion of ‘outgrowth’ towns of settlements in rural areas with distinctly urban characteristics under the urban classification Inspite of their falling outside the normal statutory definition of ‘towns’. This allows witnessing the formation of towns at an earlier stage and strengthens inter-censal urban studies. Thus the point can be made that ouside Greater Calcutta and the Ondal- Asansol belt, the economics of rural urban migration in the state has been largely reversed by decentralisation of the urbanisation process.

It can be established in a disaggregated block-level analysis that there is remarkable similarity between the nature of decentralised urbanisation between dissimilar and disparate blocks, widely separated by geographical distance---indicating that it is a policy variable rather than a local factor which is at work. This is coinciding with the experience that the precipitous decline evident in the country over successive censuses in the number of workers in household industry and in the ratio of cultivators vis-à-vis agricultural labourers has been missing from West Bengal. The corresponding ratios here maintain stability despite the overwhelming increase in population numbers and density. This stability has been reached between 1971 and 1991 Censuses.

The urban biases to development had sparked the growth of the mega-city in West Bengal and that still spur urban accretion through most parts of India. The new urbanisation process ( also known as the ‘rurbanisation’ process) has provided relief from migration pressures and stability to the Bengal countryside in a way not seen perhaps the 18th century.