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.
"Mr A committed a small mistake and felt that his family and neighbours pointed fingers at him most of the time." He has made up his mind to move to a big city quietly. What does city offer?
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 3
The correct answer is Option (3) → He can live an anonymous life and make new friends who don’t know his past.
Option (1) He can live with his old friends in the city. — Incorrect. Old friends already know his past. Living with them would carry the village’s judgement with him, while what he wants is to be among people who do not know him.
Option (2) He will find better job opportunity. — Incorrect. Many villagers do go to the city in search of work, but that is not Mr A’s reason. He is leaving because his family and neighbours point fingers at him, a social reason, not a search for work.
Option (3) He can live an anonymous life and make new friends who don’t know his past. — Correct. The city is sometimes preferred for social reasons, specially the relative anonymity it offers. Urban life involves interaction with strangers, which can protect a person from the daily humiliation of a village where everyone knows who he is. In a big city Mr A can start afresh among people who do not know of his mistake.
Option (4) He wants to be free to make more mistakes. — Incorrect. Nothing in the case says he wants to repeat his mistake; he wants to escape the judgement for the one he made.
NCERT (2025-26): “2.6 Rural-Urban Differences … Sometimes the city may also be preferred for social reasons, specially the relative anonymity it offers. The fact that urban life involves interaction with strangers can be an advantage for different reasons. For the socially oppressed groups like the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, this may offer some partial protection from the daily humiliation they may suffer in the village where everyone knows their caste identity. The anonymity of the city also allows the poorer sections of the socially dominant rural groups to engage in low status work that they would not be able to do in the village. All these reasons make the city an attractive destination for the villagers.…” |