Structural Change

Question
CBSEENSO12044288

Discuss the impact of industrialisation in Britain’s urbanisation. Give example of at least one urban area of England.

Solution

Britain Industrialisation’s Impact on Brtain’s Urbanisation:

(1) Industrialisation refers to the emergence of machine production, based on the use of inanimate power resources like steam or electricity.

(2) In most standard western textbook of sociology, we learn that even in the most advanced of traditional civilizations, most people were engaged in working on the land. The relatively low level of technological development did not permit more than a small minority to be freed from the chores of agricultural production.

(3) By contrast, prime feature of industrial societies today is that a large majority of the employed population work in factories, offices or shops rather than agriculture. Over 90 per cent of people in the west live in towns and cities, where most jobs are to be found and new job apportunities are created.

(4) Not surprisingly, therefore, we usually associate urbanisation with industrialisation. They often do occur together but not always so.

Example: For instance, in Britain the first society to undergo industrialisation, was also the earliest to move from being rural to a predominantly urban country.

(5) In 1800, well under 20 per cent of the population lived in towns or cities of more than 10,000 inhabitants. By 1900 this proportion had become 74 per cent. The capital city, London, was home to about 1.1 million people in 1800; it increased in size to a population of over 7 million by the start of the twentieth century.

(6) London was then by far the largest city ever seen in the world, a vast manufacturing, commercial and financial centre at the heart of a still expanding British empire.

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Some More Questions From Structural Change Chapter

Give a brief account of the impact of colonial forest policy in North-East India.

What is meant by structural change?

Why do we say that nation state have become the important political form after the first decade of the twentieth century. Briefly explain your answer.

Read the following passage and answer the both questions given at its end. (Passage).

Tea industry began in India in 1851. Most of the tea gardens were situated in Assam. In 1903, the industry employed 4,79,000 permanent and 93,000 temporary employees. Since Assam was sparsely populated and the tea plantations were often located on uninhabited hillsides, bulk of the sorely needed labour had to be imported from other provinces. But to bring thousands of people every year from their far-off homes into strange lands, possessing an unhealthy climate and infected with strange fevers, required the provision of financial and other incentives, which the tea-planters of Assam were unwilling to offer. Instead, they had recourse to fraud and coercion; and they persuaded the government to aid and abet them in this unholy task by passing penal laws. ...The recruitment of labourers for tea gardens of Assam was carried on for years mostly by contractors under the provisions of the Transport of Native Labourers Act (No. Ill) of 1863 of Bengal as amended in 1865, 1870 and 1873.

The labour system in Assam was essentially that of indenture by which the labourers went to Assam under contract for a number of years. The government helped the tea-planters by providing for penal sanction in case of non-fulfilment of the contract by the labourers.

This view is explicitly made by T. Raleigh, Law (Committee) Member, when speaking on the Assam Labour and Emigration Bill of 1901: “The labour-contract authorised by this Bill is a transaction by which, to put it rather bluntly, a man is often committed to Assam before he knows what he is doing, and is thereupon held to his promise for four years, with a threat of arrest and imprisonment if he fails to perform it. Conditions like these have no place in the ordinary law of master and servant. We made them part of the law of British India at the instance and for the benefit of the tea-planters of Assam... The fact remains that the motive power in this legislation is the interest of the planter, not the interest of the coolie”.


What are the effects of urbanisation?

Discuss differences between colonial and capitalist time rule of the British in India with the pre-British and pre-capitalist time rule in about 200-300 words.

“Colonialism in India introduced a wide array of changes in every sphere”. Explain this statement in about 300 words. Also give some example where you feel their need.

How has colonialism affected our lives? You can either focus on one aspact like culture or politics or treat them together.

Industrialisation and urbanisation are linked processes. Discuss.