Shadows of development: Rural-Urban interaction at the periphery of a planned city

Abstract

In the thesis, I document how the lives of people in the villages of Chilla and Manauli have transformed in the context of emerging urban infrastructure that surrounds the village. Much of this infrastructure has been built on what used to be rural agricultural land owned by Chilla and Manauli farmers. The objective is to study the ongoing changes in the land use pattern, socio-economic changes and demography in the region due to urban expansion. With the creation of new spaces in the rural hinterlands, villages have been put under stress in regards to sharing resources like land to accommodate the influx of new inhabitants. Often these new inhabitants are skilled migrants, who come to the city in search of better economic opportunities. The local inhabitants primarily engaged in agricultural activities are now forced to seek alternative opportunities elsewhere due to the acquisition of their agricultural lands. In this context, it becomes imperative to study this rural to urban transformation to check on inclusive development inflicted by Urban Development. In this regard, I am studying the Chilla and Manauli, villages in the S.A.S Nagar (Mohali) which share boundary with Union Territory of Chandigarh. The methodology adopted for this study is primarily ethnographic which includes interacting with the locals, observing and experiencing the field from the perspective of both insider and outsider. This study was conducted from August 2018 to February 2019.