The Great
Indian
Middle Class
Sounds very much like the
Great Indian Rhino ! If such a comparison is attempted it will not be entirely
out of the world. Like the great Indian Rhino the Indian middle class has a
tough exterior but has a great inborn tendency towards extinction. The middle
class of yesteryears is already extinct. Anyone who has recorded the middle
class mass exodus to Uncle Sam's land as part of the 'geek' generation will
vouchsafe that. No longer are our middle class homes inhabited by lungi-clad,
newspaper-reading not-so-ambitious salary-earners. The middle
classes have all
but vanished; they have migrated to the new
rich classes having acquired the
greenbacks which have given them enormous amount of purchasing power. Of course
not all the new rich owe their prosperity to the American dollar. There is also
a powerful new generation of traders who have made it big without foreign
money.
Whatever may be the source of the newly-acquired money power the middle class
is no longer of the same character as it was some years ago. Understandably the
value system too has undergone a rapid change having lost some of the rigidity
of the earlier
values. The values are now more individual-centric than family
or community-centric. Coupled with dilution in ethical values there is this
dramatic reduction in the obsession with the ritual. It is not that the middle
classes have become less
religious or more materialistic. It is only that the
structural rigidity of the ritualistic behavior of the earlier generation has
slowly disappeared giving rise to 'nominalism' or a token adherence. A case in
point is the rituals still being followed in marriages. These rituals are still
a must for no parent would countenance a son's marriage without the customary 'satphera'.
Not that people understand and appreciate the significance of the elaborate
ritual prescribed in the shastras. But people still feel that the marriage is
incomplete without the Panditji chanting those sonorous mantras invoking the
gods. Their faith in the ritual is not one hundred percent but is merely an
allowance for the tradition.
Religious faith has not dimmed however in these classes. If the number of the
new rich people visiting the Tirumala is any indication it would appear that
faith continues to flourish although the methods of worship have also undergone
enough changes with the passage of time. Thus a devotee of yester-years would
have spent six hours of arduous wait to have a glimpse of the Lord. Today's new
rich would not shrink from spending a few thousand bucks as bribes to
short-circuit the queue. The middle classes who have graduated to the new rich
have evolved their own peculiar value system which enables them to marry
traditional faith with modern conveniences born out of newly acquired prosperity.
Even in the matter of
pursuit of material prosperity the middle classes have evolved their own
peculiar value system which is a curious admixture of practical morality
appropriate to the times and traditional values sanctioned by religion. The attitude
of the middle classes towards corruption is highly ambivalent. Their reluctance
to bribe stems not out of altruism but out of their perception of their own
intellectual superiority. When it comes to grabbing or cornering a few of the
benefits they are not averse to bribing themselves.
In the traditional Indian society there has always been a confusion between
social morality and what the religion sanctions. The manu smriti is
nothing but a body of sociological tenets dividing the social fabric on the
basis of castes. We have seen how the caste system has held sway for thousands
of years .This has become possible because although the manu smriti is a
purely sociological document a sort of religious sanction has been given to the
caste system which has been enunciated therein. Through centuries the Indian
society has been mixing up ren with ethics. Unlike in religions like the
Islam, Hinduism has been eclectic enough to incorporate in itself the frequent
changes in social morality taking
place in the wake of social upheavals.
Nowhere is this more apparent than in the sociological behavior of the middle
classes. In the constant confusion that takes place between religion and ethics
the middle classes have through centuries been trying to reconcile changing
social mores with immutable religious tenets. The dilution of the ethical
standards that one witnesses in the evolution of the modern day middle classes
is a result of this confusion. What is very apparent is the technical
compliance of the social tenets that one sees more particularly in the middle
classes achieved through implementation of the 'letter' and not the 'spirit' .
Lastly, the middle classes are of course becoming extinct. By the very
definition the middle classes are the middle-income groups who form the
commonest denomination in any civilized society. What we mean by the
disappearance of the middle classes is the slow vanishing of the earlier
middle-income groups. It is of course a truism to say that in place of the fast
disappearing old middle classes a new group of people from the low-income
groups will take their places. The only difference would be in the speed with
which the new middle classes will graduate to the rich. Such a change may
probably take place in the next generation .
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