Differences between town and countryside in precolonial period were the following:

(i) Three presidency cities of India were originalIy fishing and weaving villages. They become important centers of trade due to the economic activities of the English East India Company, Company agents settled in Madras in 1639 and in Calcutta in 1690. Bombay was given to the Company in 1661 by the English king, who had it as part of his wife’s dowry from the king of Portugal. The Company established trading and administrative offices in each of these settlements. By the middle of the nineteenth century these settlements had become big cities from where the new rulers controlled the country.

(ii) Towns were often defined in opposition to rural areas. They came to represent specific forms of economic activities and cultures. In the countryside people subsisted by cultivating land, foraging in the forest, or rearing animals. Towns by contrast were peopled with art sans, traders, administrators and rulers.

(iii) The separation between town and countryside was fluid. Peasants travelled long distance on pilgrimage, passing through towns, they also flocked to towns during times of famine. Besides, there was a reverse flow of humans and goods from towns to villages. When towns were attacked, people often sought shelter in the countryside. Traders and pedlars took goods from the town to sell in the villages, extending markets and creating new patterns of consumption.