Urbanization, Rural Mobility, and New Class Relations in Darjeeling, India

ABSTRACT

Throughout the developing world, rapid urbanization is leading to new social relations and new conflicts between urban and (formerly) rural populations. This paper examines this process of change through a detailed examination of changing rural–urban relations in the town of Darjeeling, in the Himalayan foothills in Eastern India. In Darjeeling, increased rural mobility, accelerated rural-to-urban migration and the increased participation of rural people in local politics have led to major changes in the town. We demonstrate that the upward trajectory of rural classes who were previously subordinate is leading the more established urban residents to feel threatened, resulting in a redrawing of local political issues along rural–urban lines and a reconfiguration of class consciousness and social relations. The urban middle class, whose opportunities in the town have stagnated or declined, see rural migrants as a source of competition for increasingly scarce resources and blame them for the overall decline in the quality of urban life. They mobilize their (predominantly cultural) capital to reinforce markers of cultural distinction between them and the rural migrants and to delegitimize the political gains they have made. We argue that rural–urban conflict is emerging as the chief source of tension in the town and that this tension is largely grounded in class issues.

Keywords:

• rural–urban relations
• rural mobility
• class consciousness
• middle class
• Darjeeling (India)

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Aaron Rai of DLR Prerna, Darjeeling, as well as Robert Shepherd and the three anonymous reviewers, whose detailed and insightful comments led to a greatly improved article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Trent Brown is an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Wollongong, Australia. His research concerns sustainable rural development and rural-urban migration in India.

Ruchira Ganguly-Scrase obtained her Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Melbourne. She is an ethnographer of South Asia and currently Adjunct Professor at the Centre for Global Research, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) University in Melbourne. Formerly, she was Professor of Anthropology, and National Course Director for International Studies at Australian Catholic University, Melbourne. Her most recent book is Rethinking Displacement: Asia Pacific Perspectives, Ashgate, London, 2012 (co-edited with Kuntala Lahiri-Dutt).

Timothy J. Scrase is an Honorary Professor in Development Sociology at Australian Catholic University (ACU), Melbourne. He is a former Associate Dean for Research and Professor of Sociology in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at ACU, and was previously Director of the Centre for Asia Pacific Social Transformation Studies (CAPSTRANS) at the University of Wollongong. His publications have concerned issues of globalization, social change and development within the South Asian context.

Notes

¹We recognise that, given the rapid industrialization of some Asian states, as well as their heterogeneity, continued use of the binary of “developed” and “developing” nations has become contentious. Nonetheless, we continue to use the terms, in recognition of the fact that development remains a high priority to both states and citizens of many countries in the region and guides both the policies of urbanization and personal strategies of mobility that form the focus of our article.

²Friedmann 2011.

³Jacka 2005.

⁴Harms 2011.

⁵Subba 1992. Approximately seventy per cent of Darjeeling’s population are Nepali, ten per cent Bengali, five per cent a mix of local and regional ethnic groups (Lepcha, Bhutia, Sikkimese, Bhutanese, and Tibetan) and fifteen per cent of “other” Indian. While this Nepali majority includes distinct caste and tribal communities, a shared experience of marginalization in India has led them to identify as a relatively cohesive ethnic group. Although the term “Gorkha” refers specifically to one ethnic Nepali community, it is often used as an umbrella term for Nepalese in India.

⁶Middleton 2013.

⁷Bunnel et al. 2012.

⁸Bunnel et al. 2012.

⁹Scrase et al. 2015.

¹⁰Sassen 2002.

¹¹For a useful critique, see Bunnell and Maringanti 2010.

¹²Kundu 2009.

¹³Bhagat 2011.

¹⁴Davis 2006.

¹⁵Bhagat 2011.

¹⁶Ahluwalia, Kanbur, and Mohanty 2014.

¹⁷Kaur 2012.

¹⁸Roy 2009.

¹⁹Tewari 2011.

²⁰Kundu and Saraswati 2012.

²¹Kundu 2009, 222.

²²Kundu and Saraswati 2012.

²³Kelly 2011.

²⁴Kelly 2011, 496.

²⁵Rigg and Salamanca 2011.

²⁶Lukasiewicz 2011.

²⁷Zeuthen 2012.

²⁸Varshney 1995.

²⁹This currently ranges between 161 and 251 Indian rupees per day, depending on the state.

³⁰Jeffrey and Doron 2011.

³¹Gupta and Sivaramakrishnan 2011; Daftary 2015.

³²Jaffrelot 1998, 2003; Gupta and Sivaramakrishnan 2011; Kohli 2012; Daftary 2014.

³³Ungpakorn 2009.

³⁴For a noteworthy exception, see Harms 2011.

³⁵Gayer 2007.

³⁶Bourdieu 1977.

³⁷Bourdieu 1984, 114.

³⁸Bourdieu 1984, 120.

³⁹Bourdieu 1984.

⁴⁰Fernandes 2006.

⁴¹The Municipality also has jurisdiction over several rural administrative units known as Community Development Blocks.

⁴²Griffiths 1967.

⁴³Sarkar 2010.

⁴⁴Subba 1985.

⁴⁵Subba 1985.

⁴⁶Das Gupta 1986.

⁴⁷Subba 1989.

⁴⁸Bhowmik 2005.

⁴⁹Tirkey and Nepal 2012.

⁵⁰Tirkey and Nepal 2012.

⁵¹Census of India 2001, 2011; Bhutia 2015.

⁵²Sarkar 2010.

⁵³Subba 1992 .

⁵⁴Middleton 2013.

⁵⁵Ganguly 2005.

⁵⁶Subba 1992.

⁵⁷Ganguly 2005.

⁵⁸Ghosh 2009; Middleton 2013.

⁵⁹Lacina 2009.

⁶⁰Brown 2015.

⁶¹Subba 1992 .

⁶²Sarkar 2010.

⁶³Sarkar 2010.

⁶⁴Subba 1992 .

⁶⁵Feroze, Roy, and Singh 2012.

⁶⁶The term bazaar refers to the market place. Bazaarey literally connotes one belonging to the marketplace.

⁶⁷Bhutia 2015.

⁶⁸Bihar is among the most economically underdeveloped states of India and a source of significant outmigration to other parts of the country.

⁶⁹Bannerjee 2000.

⁷⁰Chatterji 2007.

Additional information

Funding

This research was a result of an Australia Research Council funded project titled: “Contingent Development in Regional India: Ethnographies of Neoliberal Globalization in Gujarat and West Bengal” led by Professors Tim Scrase, Ruchira Ganguly-Scrase and Mario Rutten [grant number DP120101129].