Revision summary
Wirth’s urbanism is density, diversity and secondary ties. Indian cities add caste housing, informal labour and public ritual. Class splits gated colonies from slums. Migrants keep a village fallback. Urbanism here is recombination, not a clean modern break.
Model answer
Introduction
Urbanism as a way of life, after Louis Wirth, is density, diversity, and secondary relations. In India that style mixes with caste streets, jhuggis, and festival publics.
Body
Wirth in an Indian city
- Size and density produce anonymity in offices and metros. Kin and jati still organise housing and marriage, so the secondary world is incomplete.
- Ghurye already wrote on cities; the Indian urban is not a clean break from civilisation as village.
Indian pattern
- Informal work, slums, and gated colonies are one urbanism of class split, which Beteille would call disharmonic: civic equality, ranked space.
- Migrants live circular urbanism: the village remains a fallback, as COVID reverse flows showed.
- Public religion and caste associations thrive, so secularization is institutional, not a emptying of faith.
Way of life
- Speed, consumption, and digital networks are real.
- Honour, endogamy, and domestic patriarchy travel with the suitcase.
Flow diagram
flowchart TD W[Wirth density diversity] --> U[Indian urbanism] J[Jati kin informal] --> U M[Migrant circularity] --> U
Conclusion
Indian urbanism is a way of life of density and markets that still carries village kinship. It is Wirth plus jati, not Wirth instead of India.
Quick related
Students also ask
-
Has reduction of green cover affected ecological degradation leading to global warming? Elaborate your answer with illustration
Next question on this syllabus topic (2019 · Q6(c)). View answer →
-
Does the city kill caste?
It weakens some service ties. It rarely kills endogamy.
-
Is the village the opposite of urbanism?
In India the two are linked by labour and remittance.
PYQ trend
When UPSC asked this
Related PYQs from other years, newest first. Open a question to read it.
-
2019 · Q2(a) · Sociology GS 2 · 20 marks
Critically examine Dube's contributions to the study of Indian villages -
2019 · Q2(b) · Sociology GS 2 · 20 marks
What is caste politics? Substantiate your answer with examples of how identities are defined by caste dynamics -
2019 · Q3(c) · Sociology GS 2 · 10 marks
Give an account of Ranajit Guha's approach in studying 'subaltern class' -
2019 · Q4(c) · Sociology GS 2 · 10 marks
What do you understand by LGBTQ ? Comment on the issues concerning their marriage rights -
2019 · Q6(c) · Sociology GS 2 · 10 marks
Has reduction of green cover affected ecological degradation leading to global warming? Elaborate your answer with illustration -
2019 · Q7(b) · Sociology GS 2 · 20 marks
Discuss the implications of 'Swachha Bharat Abhiyaan'. Do you think that civil society has a role to play here ? Substantiate your answer with an example -
2019 · Q8(a) · Sociology GS 2 · 20 marks
Why has 'Active aging' become a glocal goal? Do you agree that the role of elderly care-giving is disproportionately gendered in developing countries? Why? -
2018 · Q1(a) · Sociology GS 2 · 10 marks
Write a note on G.S.Ghurye's Indological perspective of understanding Indian society.
More from this topic
Q7(b) · UPSC Mains 2025 · Sociology GS 2 · 20 marks
"Educational development is the only Panacea for country's all ills and evils." Critically examine the above statement with reference to NEP-2020
Perspectives on the study of Indian society
Education is necessary for mobility and anti-caste citizenship but not a solo panacea. NEP 2020 reforms structure, language, vocation and equity on paper. Without teachers, public finance and jobs, it becomes credentialism and a dual private-public system. Caste, land and informal labour reproduce ills that schooling alone cannot dissolve. Phule–Ambedkar were right to start with the school and wrong if we stop there.
Q7(a) · UPSC Mains 2025 · Sociology GS 2 · 20 marks
What are the Private and Public network and support systems operative in Indian society for the aged? Suggest measures to curb down the challenges before care givers of the aged
Perspectives on the study of Indian society
Private support for the aged is still mainly kin, plus a small paid-care market. Public support is pensions, NPHCE and the 2007 Maintenance Act, all thin relative to need. Nuclear residence and migration weaken the joint-family guarantee without ending dependence. Caregivers, mostly women, face time poverty and little respite. Measures must combine adequate pensions, home services and gender-equal family law.
Q5(b) · UPSC Mains 2025 · Sociology GS 2 · 10 marks
Bring out various factors responsible for declining of village Industries in India.
Perspectives on the study of Indian society
Village industries declined through colonial competition, forest enclosure and the collapse of patronage. Post-independence mill goods, power-looms and plastics continued the squeeze. Credit, GST, and migration now pull youth out of hereditary crafts. Some clusters brand and survive; most artisan households enter informal labour. The process reorders caste occupations, not only GDP shares.
Toppers' copies
Toppers' copies for this question will be uploaded soon.