Book Description

India is undergoing accelerated change with industrialisation as a goal widely shared by India’s planners. Domestic industry is being partially replaced by a more efficient factory system and clearly India has committed herself to modernisation. To understand the phenomenon of modernisation and its social consequences, we need dialectic of social knowledge concerning the phenomenon and its impact on people. The research of this book is intended to be a contribution to such knowledge. Specifically, this is a study of industrial workers in two privately owned factories in North India. These two factories are located in small towns and draw a large share of their labour force from surrounding rural areas and villages. To measure the impact of industrial employment, the sample of industrial workers is compared to a controlled sample of agricultural workers. Our basic goal in attempting to understand the process of modernisation was to explore (a) the underlying reasons why men shift from farm to factory work, and (b) the subsequent changes, which come about in their attitudes and values.