mobility

Mobility in India had traditionally been bestowed with a coveted status and was intrinsically linked to material well-being. Contrary to popular belief that Indians are a ‘rooted’ lot; higher esteem has always been accorded to mobility. From the recurring Bollywood theme of the village boy moving to big town and changing his life almost as a rule, to the entire phenomenon called ‘brain-drain’ or the obsessions of certain communities to migrate to the UK or Canada – the potent power of mobility can be witnessed in many aspects of the Indian life. we try to understand the codes of mobility in more details, we will find that it’s intrinsically linked to the social structure of India. Our society is marked by a linear hierarchy and that invariably produces a desire to move up the hierarchy ladder. This desire is the driving force of mobility. In India, there’s nothing called spatial mobility – our mobility is fundamentally social mobility. Nobody wants to move from North Delhi to South Delhi for geographical reasons.