Electoral politics in Indian states: the impact of modernization

The studies in this volume examine the electoral consequences of two aspects of social change and modernization in India: urban growth and agricultural development. Both developments have accelerated since independence and both are likely to continue to be among the most important transformations experienced in India through the remainder of this century. The three studies reported here consider the impact of these changes on electoral turnout (politicization), electoral preferences (especially radicaliza tion) and electoral competitiveness (polarization).
In 1951, 62 million Indians, i.c., 17.3% of the population, lived in urban settlements. Twenty years later, 109 million Indians were living in towns or cities, i.e., about 20% of the population. The most rapid growth has been in cities of over one hundred thousand: 75 in 1951 and now numbering 147. While only 6.5% lived in such settlements in 1951, by 1971. the figure was up to 10.4%.
One out of every five Indians now lives in an urban area. One out of every eight lives in an urban constituency, that is, a town or city with more than 50,000 persons. Since the urban growth rate is now twice the rural growth rate, in the next fifteen years we can expect one out of every five and a half Indians to live in urban constituencies.
How have urban voters behaved? The chapter by Field and Weiner reviews twenty years of urban voting trends. In a sense, though, it provides a national view of electoral trends in India, for urban constituencies are compared with rural constituencies in an effort to explore how great the divergence is between rural and urban India.