In this context, there are a few new concerns:
Growing size of slums, informal sector and its role in modernizing economy
Influence of kinship, caste, religion and region of origin on the migrants' adaptation to the new situation
The condition of urban poor and structural and cultural marginalization: income, savings and loan pattern organization, health, education, welfare and self reliance among the poor
Slum improvement programmes
Consequences of urban poverty for women and family
Identity and social stereotypes
Based on an ethnographic study in the steel town of Bhilai , Parry (2004) writes:
It is true that even forty years on, regional identities continue to be marked in terms, for example, of diet, dress, the worship of deities and the language of home. It is in the ‘home' rather than the ‘world' that the distinctions are most manifest, and the maintenance of them is significantly gendered. Even after years in Bhilai, the Hindi spoken by many south Indian women remains rudimentary. In the masculine space of the plant, regional ethnicity is the focus of legitimised joking; but outside the topic is more touchy and ethnic stereotyping has a harder edge. Malayalis are clever, cunning and clannish, and always get on; Telugus are feckless and often inebriated, and generally do not. Where there are Bengalis there is netagiri (political bos-ism), and where ‘Biharis', dadagiri (gangsterism). This last identity (which includes people from eastern Uttar Pradesh) is particularly strongly freighted and Bhilai's social problems are routinely laid at their door. |
