Human

Geography - II
GEOGRAPHY

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Human Geography - II
Migration
 The Census of India contains information about migration in the country.

 Migration was recorded beginning from the first Census of India conducted in 1881.

 This data was recorded on the basis of place of birth.

 However, the first major modification was introduced in the 1961 Census by bringing in two additional
components namely, place of birth i.e. village or town and duration of residence (if born elsewhere).

 Further in 1971, additional information on place of last residence and duration of stay at the place of
enumeration were incorporated.

 Information on reasons for migration were incorporated in the 1981 Census and modified in consecutive
censuses.

 In the Census of India, migration is enumerated on two bases :

1. Place of birth, if the place of birth is different from the place of enumeration (known as life-time
migrant); Place of residence, if the place of last residence is different from the place of
enumeration (known as migrant by place of last residence).

 As per 2011 census, out of 1,210 million people in the country, 455.8 million (about 37%) were reported as
migrants of place of last residence.

In the Census the following questions are asked on migration :

 Is the person born in this village or town? If no, then further information is taken on rural/urban status
of the place of birth, name of district and state and if outside India then name of the country of birth.

 Has the person come to this village or town from elsewhere? If yes, then further questions are asked
about the status (rural/urban) of previous place of residence, name of district and state and if outside
India then name of the country.

In addition, reasons for migration from the place of last residence and duration of residence in place of
enumeration are also asked.

 A few facts pertaining to the internal migration (within the country) and international migration (out of the
country and into the country from other countries) are presented here.

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 Under the internal migration, four streams are identified:

 Rural to Rural (R-R)

 Rural to Urban (R-U)

 Urban to Urban (U-U)

 Urban to Rural (U-R)

 In India, during 2011, out of 455.0 million migrants, enumerated on the basis of the last residence, 141.9
million had changed their place of residence in the last ten years. Out of these, 118.7 million were intra-
state migrants.

 The stream was dominated by female migrants. Most of these were migrants related to marriage. It is
clearly evident that females predominate the streams of short distance rural to rural migration in both
types of migration.

 Contrary to this, men predominate the rural to urban stream of inter-state migration due to economic
reasons.

 Apart from these streams of internal migration, India also experiences immigration from and emigration to
the neighbouring countries.

 Indian Census 2011 has recorded that more than 5 million people have migrated to India from other
countries. Out of these, about 88.9 percent came from the neighbouring countries of Bangladesh followed
by Nepal and Pakistan.

Spatial Variation in Migration

 Some states like Maharashtra, Delhi, Gujarat and Haryana attract migrants from other states such as Uttar
Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan, etc.

 Maharashtra occupied first place in migrants, followed by Delhi, Gujarat and Haryana.

 On the other hand, Uttar Pradesh had the largest number of net out-migrants from the state.

Causes of Migration
 People, generally, are emotionally attached to their place of birth. But millions of people leave their places
of birth and residence. There could be a variety of reasons.

 These reasons can be put into two broad categories :

 Push factors: these cause people to leave their place of residence or origin

 Pull factors: which attract the people from different places.

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Source : Down to Earth

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 In India people migrate from rural to urban areas mainly due to poverty, high population pressure on the
land, lack of basic infrastructural facilities like health care, education, etc.

 Apart from these factors, natural disasters such as, flood, drought, cyclonic storms, earthquake, tsunami,
wars and local conflicts also give extra push to migrate.

 On the other hand, there are pull factors which attract people from rural areas to cities.

 The most important pull factor for a majority of the rural migrants to urban areas is the better
opportunities, availability of regular work and relatively higher wages.

 Better opportunities for education, better health facilities and sources of entertainment, etc., are also
quite important pull factors.

 On the basis of the figures, it can be seen that the reasons for migration of males and females are
different.

 For example, work and employment have remained the main cause for male migration (26 per cent) while
it is only 2.3 per cent for the females.

 Contrary to this, about 67 percent of females move out from their parental houses following their
marriage.

 This is the most important cause in the rural areas of India except in Meghalaya where reverse is the case.

Consequences of Migration
 Migration is a response to the uneven distribution of opportunities over space. People tend to move from
places of low opportunity and low safety to places of higher opportunity and better safety.

 This, in turn, creates both benefits and problems for the areas people migrate from and migrate to.
Consequences can be observed in economic, social, cultural, political and demographic terms.

Economic Consequences

 A major benefit for the source region is the remittance sent by migrants. Remittances from international
migrants are one of the major sources of foreign exchange.

 Punjab, Kerala and Tamil Nadu receive a very significant amount from their international migrants.

 The amount of remittances sent by the internal migrants is very meagre as compared to international
migrants, but it plays an important role in the growth of the economy of the source area.

 Remittances are mainly used for food, repayment of debts, treatment, marriages, children’s education,
agricultural inputs, construction of houses, etc.

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 For thousands of the poor villages of Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, etc.
remittance works as life blood for their economy.

 Migration from rural areas of Eastern Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Odisha to the rural areas
of Punjab, Haryana, Western Uttar Pradesh accounted for the success of their green revolution strategy for
agricultural development.

 Besides this, unregulated migration to the metropolitan cities of India has caused overcrowding.

 Development of slums in industrially developed states such as Maharashtra, Gujarat, Karnataka, Tamil
Nadu and Delhi is a negative consequence of unregulated migration within the country.

Demographic Consequences

 Migration leads to the redistribution of the population within a country.

 Rural urban migration is one of the important factors contributing to the population growth of cities.

 Age and skill selective out-migration from the rural area have adverse effects on the rural demographic
structure.

 However, high out-migration from Uttarakhand, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Eastern Maharashtra
have brought serious imbalances in age and sex composition in these states.

 Similar imbalances are also brought in the recipient states.

Social Consequences

 Migrants act as agents of social change.

 The new ideas related to new technologies, family planning, girl’s education, etc. get diffused from urban
to rural areas through them.

 Migration leads to intermixing of people from diverse cultures.

 It has positive contributions such as evolution of composite culture and breaking through the narrow
considerations and widens up the mental horizon of the people at large.

 But it also has serious negative consequences such as anonymity, which creates a social vacuum and sense
of dejection among individuals.

 Continued feelings of dejection may motivate people to fall into the trap of anti-social activities like crime
and drug abuse.

Environmental Consequences

 Overcrowding of people due to rural-urban migration has put pressure on the existing social and physical
infrastructure in the urban areas.
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 This ultimately leads to unplanned growth of urban settlement and formation of slums shanty colonies.

 Apart from this, due to over-exploitation of natural resources, cities are facing the acute problem of
depletion of groundwater, air pollution, disposal of sewage and management of solid wastes.

Others

 Migration (even excluding the marriage migration) affects the status of women directly or indirectly.

 In the rural areas, male selective out-migration leaving their wives behind puts extra physical as well
mental pressure on the women.

 Migration of women either for education or employment enhances their autonomy and role in the
economy.

 If remittances are the major benefits of migration from the point of view of the source region, the loss of
human resources, particularly highly skilled people is the most serious cost.

 The market for advanced skills has become truly a global market and the most dynamic industrial
economies are admitting and recruiting significant proportions of highly trained professionals from poor
regions.

 Consequently, the existing underdevelopment in the source region gets reinforced.

Importance of Census
 Utility in Administration and Policy:
The population census provides the basic data for administrative purposes. One of the most basic of the
administrative uses of census data is in the demarcation of constituencies and the allocation of
representation on governing bodies. Detailed information on the geographic distribution of the population
is indispensable for this purpose. The Census also gives information on the demographic and economic
characteristics of the population at the district level.

 Utility of Census data for Research Purposes:

The population census provides indispensable data for scientific analysis and appraisal of the composition,
distribution and past and prospective growth of the population.

 Utility of Census data in Business and Industry:

The census data has many important uses for individuals and institutions in business and industry. It is very
difficult to make a full assessment of the multiplicity of ways in which trade and business make use of the
census data.

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 Census as frame for Sample Surveys:

The rapidity of current changes in the size and other characteristics of populations and the demand for
additional detailed data on social and economic characteristics which are not appropriate for collection in
a full-scale census, have brought about the need for continuing programmes of intercensal sample surveys
to collect current and detailed information on many topics which are usually investigated at ten-year
intervals in the population censuses.

 Utility of Census data in Planning:

The census data is indispensable for social and economic planning of the country. The Planning
Commission utilises the Census data on the distribution of population by age, sex classified by rural and
urban regions, cities, town areas and social groups to analyse the growth of consumer demand and savings
in the process of development.

 Utility of Population Census to Electoral Rolls:

Some countries have taken advantage of the enumeration for a population census to collect, at the same
time, information needed for the establishment of electoral rolls. This procedure is not generally advisable
because of the deleterious effect the secondary purpose might have on the quality of the census results.

 Utility of Population Census to other types of Censuses:

Certain information collected as part of a population census, or incidental to it, can be most useful in
conducting and/or utilizing the results of housing, agricultural or establishment censuses taken at about
the same time or near about as the population census.

 Utility of population census to civil registration and vital statistics:

Census data serve as denominators for the computation of vital rates, especially rates specific for
characteristics normally investigated only at the time of the census.

Human Settlements
 A human settlement is defined as a place inhabited more or less permanently. The houses may be
designed or redesigned, buildings may be altered, functions may change but settlement continues in time
and space.

 There may be some settlements which are temporary and are occupied for short periods, may be a season.

 The study of human settlements is basic to human geography because the form of settlement in any
particular region reflects human relationship with the environment.

Types of Rural Settlements:

 Four types of rural settlement exist in India. They are:

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i. Compact Settlements:

 If the number of villages equals the number of hamlets in an area unit, the settlement is designated as
compact.

 Such settlements are found throughout the plateau region of Malwa, in the Narmada Valley, Nimar
upland, large parts of Rajasthan, paddy lands in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Vindhyan Plateau and several other
cultivated parts of India.

 In such villages all the dwellings are concentrated in one central site.

 The inhabitants of the village live together and enjoy the benefits of community life.

 Such settlements range from a cluster of about thirty to hundreds of dwellings of different forms, sizes and
functions.

 Their size varies from 500 to 2,500 persons in sparsely populated parts like Rajasthan to more than 10,000
in the Ganga plain.

ii. Semi-compact Settlements:

 If the number of villages equals more than half of the hamlets, it is a semi-compact settlement.

 These are found both in plains and plateaus depending upon the environmental conditions prevailing
there.

 The dwellings in such settlements are not very closely knitted and are huddled together at one common
site.

 It covers more area than the compact settlements and the hamlets occupy new sites near the periphery of
the village boundary.

iii. Hamleted settlements:

 If the number of villages is equal to half of the hamlet number, it is a hamlet settlement.

 The hamlets are spread over the area with intervening fields and the main or central settlement is either
absent or has feeble influence upon others.

 Often the original site is not easily distinguishable and the morphological diversity is rarely noticed.

 Such settlements are found in West Bengal, eastern Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and coastal plains.

iv. Dispersed or Scattered-type settlements:

 If the number of villages is less than half the number of hamlets, the settlement is regarded as dispersed.

 The inhabitants of dispersed settlements live in isolated dwellings scattered in the cultivated fields.

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 Individualism, sentiments of living freely, custom of marriage relations are conducive to such settlements.

 However, these dwellings are deprived of neighbourhood, communal interdependence and social
interaction.

 Dispersed settlements are found in tribal areas covering central part of India, eastern and southern
Rajasthan, Himalayan slopes and land with dissected and uneven topography.

 Homesteads or farmsteads of wheat producing areas in Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh also
belong to this category.

Types of Urban Settlements:

 Depending on the size and the services available and functions rendered, urban centres are designated as
town, city, million city, conurbation, megalopolis.

Town

 The concept of ‘town’ can best be understood with reference to ‘village’.

 Population size is not the only criterion.

 Functional contrasts between towns and villages may not always be clear cut, but specific functions such
as manufacturing, retail and wholesale trade, and professional services exist in towns.

City

 A city may be regarded as a leading town, which has outstripped its local or regional rivals.

 In the words of Lewis Mumford, “the city is in fact the physical form of the highest and most complex type
of associative life”.

 Cities are much larger than towns and have a greater number of economic functions.

 They tend to have transport terminals, major financial institutions and regional administrative offices.

Conurbation

 The term conurbation was coined by Patrick Geddes in 1915 and applied to a large area of urban
development that resulted from the merging of originally separate towns or cities.

 Greater London, Manchester, Chicago and Tokyo are examples.

Megalopolis

 This Greek word meaning “great city”, was popularised by Jean Gottman (1957) and signifies ‘super-
metropolitan’ region extending as a union of conurbations.

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 The urban landscape stretching from Boston in the north to south of Washington in the U.S.A. is the best
known example of a megalopolis.

Million City

 When the population crosses the one million mark it is designated as a million city.

 The number of million cities in the world has been increasing as never before.

 London reached the million mark in 1800, followed by Paris in 1850, New York in 1860, and by 1950 there
were around 80 such cities.

 The rate of increase in the number of million cities has been three-fold in every three decades – around
160 in 1975 to around 438 in 2005.

Theories of Human Population

1. Malthusian Theory of Population
Thomas Robert Malthus was the key figure to analyse the population statistics. His formulation on population
was a landmark in the history of population theories. He generalized the relationship between population
factors and social change.

i. Population increases in geometrical progression and if

unchecked, doubles itself every 25 years. Thus starting from
1, the population in successive periods of 25 years will be 1,
2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256 (after 200 years).

ii. On the other hand, the food supply increases in a slow

arithmetical progression due to the operation of the law of
diminishing returns based on the supposition that the
supply of land is constant. Thus the food supply in successive
similar periods will be 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9 (after 200
years).
Source : economicdiscussions.net
iii. Since population increases in geometrical progression and the
food supply in arithmetic progression, population tends to outrun food supply. Thus an imbalance
is created which leads to over-population. This is depicted in the figure below:

 The food supply in arithmetical progression is measured on the horizontal axis and the
population in geometrical progression on the vertical axis.

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 The curve M is the Malthusian population curve which shows the relation between
population growth and increase in food supply. It rises upward swiftly.

iv. To control over-population resulting from the imbalance between population and food supply, Malthus
suggested preventive checks and positive checks.

 The preventive checks are applied by a man to control the birth rate. They are foresight,
late marriage, celibacy, moral restraint, etc.

 If people fail to check growth of population by the adoption of preventive checks, positive
checks operate in the form of vice, misery, famine, war, disease, pestilence, floods and
other natural calamities which tend to reduce population and thereby bring a balance
with food supply.

According to Malthus, preventive checks are always in operation in a civilized society, for positive checks are
crude. Malthus appealed to his countrymen to adopt preventive checks in order to avoid vice or misery
resulting from the positive checks.

2. Marxian Theory of Population

 Karl Marx argued that starvation was caused by the unequal distribution of wealth and its accumulation by
capitalists. It has nothing to do with the population.

 Population is dependent on economic and social organization. The problems of overpopulation and limits
to resources, as enunciated by Malthus, are inherent and inevitable features associated with the capitalist
system of production.

 Marx’s contention that food production could not increase rapidly was also debated when new technology
began to give farmers much greater yields.

 French sociologist E. Dupreel (1977) argued that an increasing population would spur rapid innovation and
development to solve problems, whereas a stable population would be complacent and less likely to
progress.

 During the depression of the 1930s, the debate changed somewhat because the birth rate fell sharply in
industrial (western) nations. Some predicted that human species would die out.

 Schemes were proposed to encourage families to have more children by giving them allowances for each
child born.

 The birth rate rose sharply after World War II, especially in the underdeveloped nations like India, Africa
and Bangladesh.

 Birth control programmes were instituted to control the population so as to eliminate starvation.

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3. Theory of Demographic Transition

 The theory of demographic transition is based on the actual population trends of advanced countries of
the world.

 According to this theory, every country passes through three different stages of population growth.

 In the figure, the time for different stages is taken on the horizontal axis and annual birth and death rates
per thousand on the vertical axis.

Source : economicdiscussions.net

 In the first stage, the birth rate and the death rate are high and the growth rate of population is low.

a. In this stage, the country is backward. People mostly live in rural areas and their main occupation is
agriculture which is in a state of backwardness. There are a few simple, light and small consumer
goods industries.

b. The tertiary sector consisting of transport, commerce, banking and insurance is underdeveloped.
All these factors are responsible for low incomes and poverty of the masses.

c. Large family is regarded as a necessity to augment the low family income. Children are an asset to
society and parents.

d. Along with high birth rate, the death rate is also high due to non-nutritional food with a low caloric
value, and lack of medical facilities and of any sense of cleanliness. As a result, people are disease
-ridden and the absence of proper medical care results in large deaths.

2. In the second stage, the birth rate remains stable but the death rate falls rapidly. As a result, the growth
rate of population increases very swiftly.

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a. In the second stage, the economy enters the phase of economic growth. Agricultural and industrial
productivity increases and the means of transport develop. There is greater mobility of labour.
Education expands. Incomes increase.

b. People get more and better quality food products. Medical and health facilities are expanded.
Modern drugs are used by the people. All these factors bring down the death rate. But the birth
rate is almost stable.

c. People do not have any inclination to reduce the birth of children because with economic growth
employment opportunities increase and children are able to add more to the family income.

d. With improvements in the standard of living and the dietary habits of the people, the life
expectancy also increases.

3. In the last stage, the birth rate starts falling and tends to equal the death rate. The growth rate of
population is very slow.

a. In this stage, the fertility rate declines and tends to equal the death rate so that the growth rate of
population declines. As growth gains momentum and people cross the subsistence level of income,
their standard of living rises.

b. The leading growth sectors expand and lead to an expansion in output in other sectors through
technical transformations. Education expands and permeates the entire society. Popular education
leads to popular enlightenment and opens the way to knowledge. It creates self-discipline, power
to think rationally and to probe into the future.

c. Men and women prefer to marry late. The desire to have more children to supplement parental
income declines. Moreover, increased specialisation following rising income levels and the
consequent social and economic mobility make it costly and inconvenient to rear a large number of
children.

d. All this tends to reduce the birth rate which along with an already low death rate brings a decline in
the growth rate of population. The advanced countries of the world are passing through this last
stage and the population is increasing at a slow pace in them.

Human Development
 “Development is freedom” which is often associated with modernisation, leisure, comfort and affluence.

 In the present context, computerisation, industrialisation, efficient transport and communication network,
large education system, advanced and modern medical facilities, safety and security of individuals, etc. are
considered as the symbols of development.

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 Every individual, community and government measures its performance or levels of development in
relation to the availability and access to some of these things.

 But, this may be a partial and one-sided view of development. It is often called the western or euro-centric
view of development.

 For a postcolonial country like India, colonisation, marginalisation, social discrimination and regional
disparity, etc. show the other face of development.

 Thus, for India, development is a mixed bag of opportunities as well as neglect and deprivations.

 There are a few areas like the metropolitan centres and other developed enclaves that have all the
modern facilities available to a small section of its population.

 At the other extreme of it, there are large rural areas and the slums in the urban areas that do not have
basic amenities like potable water, education and health infrastructure available to the majority of this
population.

 The situation is more alarming if one looks at the distribution of the development opportunities among
different sections of our society.

 It is a well-established fact that the majority of the scheduled castes, scheduled tribes, landless agricultural
labourers, poor farmers and slums dwellers, etc. are the most marginalised lot.

 A large segment of the female population is the worst sufferers among all. It is also equally true that the
relative as well as absolute conditions of the majority of these marginalised sections have worsened with
the development happening over the years.

 Consequently, a vast majority of people are compelled to live under abject poverty and subhuman
conditions.

 There is yet another inter-related aspect of development that has direct bearings on the deteriorating
human conditions.

 It pertains to the environmental pollution leading to ecological crisis. Air, soil, water and noise pollution
have not only led to the ‘tragedy of commons’ but these have also threatened the existence of our
society.

 Consequently, the poor are being subjected to three inter-related processes of declining capabilities:

1. Social capabilities – due to displacement and weakening social ties (social capital),

2. Environmental capabilities – due to pollution and,

3. Personal capabilities – due to increasing incidence of diseases and accidents.

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 This, in turn, has adverse effects on their quality of life and human development.

 Based on the above experiences, it can be said that the present development has not been able to address
the issues of social injustice, regional imbalances and environmental degradation.

 On the contrary, it is being widely considered as the prime cause of the social distributive injustices,
deterioration in the quality of life and human development, ecological crisis and social unrest.

 Thus, it was thought to take up human development as a separate issue against the prevalent western
views of development which considers development as the remedy to all the ills including human
development, regional disparities and environmental crisis.

 Concerted efforts were made to look at development critically at various times in the past.

 But, the most systematic effort towards this was the publication of the First Human Development Report
by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in 1990.

 Since then, this organisation has been bringing out the World Human Development Report every year.

 This report does not only define human development, make amendments and changes its indicators but
also ranks all the countries of the world based on the calculated scores.

 According to the Human Development Report 1993, “progressive democratisation and increasing
empowerment of people are seen as the minimum conditions for human development”.

 Moreover, it also mentions that “development must be woven around people, not the people around
development” as was the case previously.

What is Human Development?

“Human development is a process of enlarging the range of people’s choices, increasing their opportunities
for education, health care, income and empowerment and covering the full range of human choices from a
sound physical environment to economic, social and political freedom.” Thus, enlarging the range of
people’s choices is the most significant aspect of human development. People’s choices may involve a host
of other issues, but, living a long and healthy life, being educated and having access to resources needed for
a decent standard of living including political freedom, guaranteed human rights and personal self-respect,
etc. are considered some of the non-negotiable aspects of human development.

Human Development in India

 India with a population of over 1.20 billion is ranked 130 among 189 countries of the world in terms of the
Human Development Index (HDI).

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 With the composite HDI value of 0.640 India finds herself grouped with countries showing medium human
development.

 Low scores in the HDI is a matter of serious concern but some reservations have been expressed about the
approach as well as indicators selected to calculate the index values and ranking of the states/countries.

 Lack of sensitivity to the historical factors like colonisation, imperialism and neo-imperialism, socio-
cultural factors like human rights violation, social discrimination on the basis of race, religion, gender and
caste, social problems like crimes, terrorism, and war and political factors like nature of the state, forms of
the government (democracy or dictatorship) level of empowerment are some factors that are very crucial
in determining the nature of human development.

 These aspects have special significance in the case of India and many other developing countries.

 Using the indicators selected by the UNDP, the Planning Commission of India also prepared the Human
Development Report for India.

Source : Times of India

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 It used states and the Union Territories as the units of analysis. Subsequently, each state government also
started preparing the state level Human Development Reports, using districts as the units of analysis.

 Although, the final HDI by the Planning Commission of India has been calculated by taking the three
indicators, yet, this report also discussed other indicators like economic attainment, social empowerment,
social distributive justice, accessibility, hygiene and various welfare measures undertaken by the state.
Some of the important indicators have been discussed in the following pages.

Indicators of Economic Attainments

 Rich resource base and access to these resources by all, particularly the poor, downtrodden and the
marginalised is the key to productivity, well-being and human development.

 Gross National Product (GNP) and its per capita availability are taken as measures to assess the resource
base/ endowment of any country.

 Economic attainment and the well-being of individuals depend on economic growth, employment
opportunities and access to assets.

 Over the years the per capita income and consumption expenditure in India has increased.

 As a result there has been a consistent decline in the proportion of population living below the poverty
line.

 The percentage of persons below the poverty line in 2011-12 has been estimated as 25.7% in rural areas,
13.7% in urban areas and 21.9% for the country as a whole.

 The data of poverty for the states show that there are States like Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Manipur,
Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Manipur and Odisha, Dadra and Nagar
Haveli which have recorded more than 30 percent of their population living below the poverty line.

 Other states like Gujarat, Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir, Maharashtra, Meghalaya, Nagaland Rajasthan,
Tamil Nadu, Tripura, Uttarakhand and West-Bengal have recorded between 10 to 20 percent of their
population below poverty line.

 Andhra Pradesh, Delhi, Goa, Himachal Pradesh, Kerala, Punjab, Sikkim, Puducherry, Andaman and Nicobar
Islands, Daman and Diu, Lakshadweep have below 10 percent of their population living below poverty line.

 Poverty is a state of deprivation. In absolute terms it reflects the inability of an individual to satisfy
certain basic needs for a sustained, healthy and reasonably productive living.

 The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of a country does not fully reflect the quality of life of a country.

 There are other factors like housing, access to public transport, air, quality and access to drinking water
which also determine the standard of living.

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 Jobless growth and rampant unemployment are some of the important reasons for higher incidences of
poverty in India.

Indicators of a Healthy Life

 Life free from illness and ailment and living a reasonably long life span are indicative of a healthy life.

 Availability of pre and post natal healthcare facilities in order to reduce infant mortality and post delivery
deaths among mothers, old age health care, adequate nutrition and safety of individuals are some
important measures of a healthy and reasonably long life.

 India has done reasonably well in some of the health indicators like decline in death rate from 25.1 per
thousand in 1951 to 6.5 per thousand in 2015 and infant mortality from 148 per thousand to 37 during
the same period.

 Similarly, it also succeeded in increasing life expectancy at birth from 37.1 years to 66.9 years for males
and 36.2 to 70 years for females from 1951 to 2015.

 Though these are great achievements, a lot needs to be done.

 Similarly, it has also done reasonably well in bringing down birth rate from 40.8 to 20.8 during the same
years, but it still is much higher than many developed countries.

 The situation is more alarming when seen in the context of gender specific and rural and urban health
indicators. India has recorded declining female sex ratio.

 The findings of 2011 Census of India are very disturbing particularly in case of child sex ratio in the age
group of 0-6 years.

 The other significant features of the report are, with the exception of Kerala, the child sex ratio has
declined in all the states and it is the most alarming in the developed state of Haryana and Punjab where
it is below 850 female children per thousand male children.

Indicators of Social Empowerment

 “Development is freedom”. Freedom from hunger, poverty, servitude, bondage, ignorance, illiteracy and
any other forms of domination is the key to human development.

 Freedom in the real sense of the term is possible only with the empowerment and participation of the
people in the exercise of their capabilities and choices in the society.

 Access to knowledge about the society and environment are fundamental to freedom.

 Literacy is the beginning of access to such a world of knowledge and freedom.

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 Overall literacy in India is approximately 74.04 per cent (2011). while female literacy is 65.46 per cent.

 Total literacy as well as female literacy is higher than the national average in most of the states from south
India.

 There are wide regional disparities in literacy rate across the states of India.

 There is a state like Bihar which has very low (63.82 per cent) literacy and there are states like Kerala and
Mizoram which have literacy rates of 93.91 and 91.58 per cent respectively.

 Apart from the spatial variations, the percentage of literates in the rural areas and among the marginalised
sections of our society such as females, scheduled castes, scheduled tribes, agricultural labourers, etc. is
very low.

 It is worth mentioning here that though, there has been improvement in the percentage of literates
among the marginalised section yet the gap between the richer and the marginalised sections of the
population has increased over the years.

Human Development Index in India

 In the backdrop of the above-mentioned important indicators the Planning Commission calculated the
human development index by taking states and union territories as the unit of analysis.

 India has been placed among the countries showing medium human development.

 Kerala with the composite index value of 0.790 is placed at the top rank followed by Delhi, Himachal
Pradesh, Goa and Punjab.

 States like Bihar, Odisha and Chhattisgarh are at the bottom among the 23 major states in India.

 There are several socio-political, economic and historical reasons for such a state of affairs.

 Kerala is able to record the highest value in the HDI largely due to its impressive performance in
achieving near hundred percent literacy.

 In a different scenario the states like Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Assam and Uttar Pradesh have very
low literacy.

 States showing higher total literacy rates have less gaps between the male and female literacy rates.

 Apart from the educational attainment, the levels of economic development too play significant impacts
on HDI.

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 Economically developed states like Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Punjab and Haryana have higher value of
HDI as compared to states like Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, etc.

 Regional distortions and social disparities which developed during the colonial period continue to play an
important role in the Indian economy, polity and society.

 The Government of India has made concerted efforts to institutionalise balanced development with its
main focus on social distributive justice through planned development.

 It has made significant achievements in most of the fields but these are still below the desired level.

Population, Environment and Development

 Development in general and human development in particular is a complex concept used in social
sciences.

 It is complex because for ages it was thought that development is a substantive concept and once it is
achieved it will address all the socio-cultural and environmental ills of the society.

 Though, development has brought in significant improvement in the quality of life in more than one way
but increasing regional disparities, social inequalities, discriminations, deprivations, displacement of
people, abuse of human rights and undermining human values and environmental degradation have also
increased.

 Considering the gravity and sensitivity of the issues involved, the UNDP in its Human Development Report
1993, tried to amend some of the implicit biases and prejudices which were entrenched in the concept of
development.

 People’s participation and their security were the major issues in the Human Development Report of
1993.

 It also emphasised on progressive democratisation and increasing empowerment of people as minimum

conditions for human development.

 The report recognised the greater constructive role of ‘Civil Societies’ in bringing about peace and human
development.

 The civil society should work towards building up opinion for reduction in the military expenditure,
demobilisation of armed forces, transition from defence to production of basic goods and services and
particularly disarmament and reduction in nuclear warheads by the developed countries.

 In a nuclearised world, peace and well-being are major global concerns.

 At the other extreme of this approach lie the views expressed by the Neo-Malthusians, environmentalists
and radical ecologists.

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 They believe that for a happy and peaceful social life proper balance between population and resources is
a necessary condition.

 According to these thinkers, the gap between the resources and population has widened after the
eighteenth century.

 There has been marginal expansion in the resources of the world in the last three hundred years but there
has been phenomenal growth in the human population.

 Development has only contributed in increasing the multiple uses of the limited resources of the world
while there has been enormous increase in the demand for these resources.

 Therefore, the prime task before any development activity is to maintain parity between population and
resources.

 Scholars like Sir Robert Malthus was the first one to voice his concern about the growing scarcity of
resources as compared to the human population.

 Apparently this argument looks logical and convincing, but a critical look will reveal certain intrinsic flaws
such as resources are not a neutral category.

 It is not the availability of resources that is as important as their social distribution. Resources everywhere
are unevenly distributed.

 Rich countries and people have access to large resource baskets while the poor find their resources
shrinking.

 Moreover, unending pursuit for the control of more and more resources by the powerful and use of the
same for exhibiting one's prowess is the prime cause of conflicts as well as the apparent contradictions
between population resource and development.

 Indian culture and civilization have been very sensitive to the issues of population, resource and
development for a long time.

 It would not be incorrect to say that the ancient scriptures were essentially concerned about the balance
and harmony among the elements of nature.

 Mahatma Gandhi in recent times advocated the reinforcement of the harmony and balance between the
two.

 He was quite apprehensive about the on-going development particularly the way industrialisation has
institutionalised the loss of morality, spirituality, self-reliance, non-violence and mutual co-operation and
environment.

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 In his opinion, austerity for individuals, trusteeship of social wealth and nonviolence are the key to attain
higher goals in the life of an individual as well as that of a nation.

 His views were also re-echoed in the Club of Rome Report “Limits to Growth” (1972), Schumacher’s book
“Small is Beautiful” (1974), Brundtland Commission’s Report “Our Common Future” (1987) and finally in
the “Agenda-21 Report of the Rio Conference” (1993).

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