Informal security mechanisms and population retention in rural India
Das Gupta, M.
Economic Development and Cultural Change 36(1): 101-120
1987
ISSN/ISBN: 0013-0079 DOI: 10.2307/1153994Document Number: 415445
Data from two Indian villages, Rampur, on the Delhi-Haryana border and a cluster of hamlets near Azamgar, eastern Uttar Pradesh, (one prosperous and the other poor), as well as from households in three shanty towns in Delhi, are used to illustrate the operation of some informal security mechanisms in the rural areas and their relative absence in the urban areas. The paper demonstrates the importance of traditional security mechanisms in raising the opportunity cost of rural-urban migration in rural India. The security takes the form of institutionalized access to community resources as well as to the personal property resources of those owning land. Over time there has been erosion in the access to these resources. While the flow of rural poor people into urban slums appears likely to accelerate, there are a number of rural development projects in operation that seek to generate income earning opportunities in the villages and which may succeed in keeping the rate of rural-urban migration low.