Read the following passage and answer questions that follow.
Considered from an urban point of view, the rapid growth in urbanization shows that the town or city has been acting as a magnet for the rural population. Those who cannot find work (or sufficient work) in the rural areas go to the city in search of work. This flow of rural-to-urban migration has also been accelerated by the continuous decline of common property resources like ponds, forests and grazing lands. These common resources enabled poor people to survive in the villages although they owned little or no land. Now, these resources have been turned into private property, or they are exhausted. (Ponds may run dry or no longer provide enough fish; forests may have been cut down and have vanished...). If people no longer have access to these resources, but on the other hand have to buy many things in the market that they used to get free (like fuel, fodder or supplementary food items), then their hardship increases. The hardship is worsened by the fact that opportunities for earning cash income are limited in the villages.
Urbanization is not just impacting the number of people migrating to urban areas but also impacts.
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 3
The correct answer is Option (3) → Decline in the socio-economic significance of agrarian way of life.
Option (3) Decline in the socio-economic significance of agrarian way of life. — Correct. The share of the urban population has grown steadily, but it is not a question of numbers alone. Processes of modern development ensure that the economic and social significance of the agrarian-rural way of life declines relative to the industrial-urban way of life. This has been true all over the world, and it is true in India as well.
NCERT (2025-26): “2.6 Rural-Urban Differences … However, as Table 5 shows, the urban population has been increasing its share steadily, from about 11% at the beginning of the twentieth century to about 28% at the beginning of the twenty-first century, an increase of about two-and-a-half times. It is not a question of numbers alone; processes of modern development ensure that the economic and social significance of the agrarian-rural way of life declines relative to the significance of the industrial-urban way of life. This has been broadly true all over the world, and it is true in India as well.” |