Migration, Urbanization and Urban Social Movements in Twentieth Century India and South Africa

Abstract

This article compares patterns of urbanization and the forms assumed by urban social movements in twentieth-century India and South Africa. It highlights the prevalence and persistence of single male labour migration to and from the major industrial centres in both countries and seeks to identify their respective compulsions. It emphasises the importance of the white settler political project of segregation in South Africa in shaping patterns of migrancy as well as ways of urban living. In addition, and critically, it pinpoints often neglected social and cultural factors as influencing the forms and dynamics of labour migrancy in both countries, drawing attention to relatively unstable patterns of urbanization along with gender and generation ruptures and conflict in South Africa, as contrasted to the greater family and generational stability in cities in India. Finally, it compares the emergence of ethnic and communal identities in both places.