20 Urban Middle Class and Aspirations

Surya Prakash Upadhyay

I. Introduction

We often hear people refer themselves common man, aam aadmi, madhyamvargiya, moddhobitto and so on. There are similar terms in other regional languages that resonate the same idea and social location. What do these terms indicate? All these varied, vernacular, popular and regional terms are synonymous with what we call middle class in social sciences. Middle class as a term and social category is so widespread that academicians, politicians, media houses, activists and people use in their everyday conversation without any special aid. It seems we have inherited this idea, believe in its pre-givenness, and accept these terms as self-explanatory. What is the location of this social category in the social structure? In common sensical notion, middle class means an “average” category whose members are “in between” i.e. neither rich nor poor; neither orthodox nor liberal; neither traditional nor modern. They are not owners of industries and factories but are better off than poor and those who live below the poverty line. Therefore, middle class is a social category whose members do not have “enough” resources to live extravagant life but do not live

hand-to-mouth as well. In a sense, it is a residual category or the left-outs who are excluded from both, rich and the poor. We simply assert that salaried people employed as managers, clerks, teachers, lawyers, doctors belong to the middle class. We hear a bureaucrat locates itself in middle class category. But we also come across people who own grocery shops, involve in petty business refer and locate themselves in middle class. In common-sensical definitions and classifications, people with varied socio-economic positions, preferences, lifestyles are considered to comprise a uniform and homogeneous category. However, lifestyles, possession of consumer durables, tastes, aspirations, and accessibilities to different amenities as well as income of these people varies a lot. Therefore, to make our job simpler, we classify and divide this differentiated and heterogenous group as: upper-middle class, middle-middle class, lower-middle class. Such common sense ideas cannot answer internal differences that exists within this social category. We can ask: What and who are middle class? Is the idea as well as category of middle class in India a myth? Are parameters used by non-specialists sufficient to explain middle class? Is household income a sufficient variable to understand middle class and its activism, preferences, lifestyles and so on? When we talk about middle class which middle class do we talk about? Why do people prefer to locate themselves in middle class? Who are included and excluded in the middle class? Is middle class an economic category or something larger than economic class? When middle class itself is a heterogeneous category, then what commonalities do the members share?

This module, away from common sense ideas and categorisation of middle class, draws attention towards academic discussions about middle class. First, the module locates middle class in the theories of class. Economic determination, estimation and discussion often fails to forward adequate explanation of the role of middle class in capitalist economies. A cultural approach has been found adequate in understanding middle class that how cultural practices trigger self-presentation and self-cultivation among the middle class. Therefore, the module focuses on cultural practices and class reproduction and draws attention towards colonial, postcolonial and post-liberalisation formation of middle class in India. Since the early 1980s, scholars, almost abandoned class as an analytical tool, and took up several new themes such as cultural identity, nationalism, consumption, gendered practices in understanding the middle class in India and elsewhere. In this short essay, it is impossible to bring all the themes together in the discussion.

We elaborate on the idea of ‘capacity to aspire’ (Appadurai) and discuss how cultural practices help in class reproduction, self-cultivation and self-presentation among middle class. Lastly, we discuss how urban aspirations of middle class are embedded in larger structural changes in economy, polity and culture and how it influences governance, urban structuring and urban culture.

II. Class and Middle Class

One may not find a detailed discussion about middle class in classical social theories. It is from the middle of the twentieth century that we start getting some discussion about middle class and their role in capitalist societies. Importantly, middle class did not form core subject for classical theorists but certain ideas have definitely been found useful to understand middle class, their role in capitalist society, lifestyle preferences, aspirations, desires and tastes. In particular, Marxian and Weberian ideas of class have contributed a lot in understanding middle class. However, one has to be careful while transporting those ideas in order to discuss middle class.

The idea of class might have resonated in the writings of Aristotle, Rousseau and others but it was Karl Marx who adds importance to this idea. Marx’s idea of class is a postulation of class struggle. Unlike Functionalists, class, for Marxists, is a disintegrative quality of social structure, a determinant of unequal property relations which divides people in categories of unequal rewards, accessibilities and social position. Marx does not define class. He uses ‘class’ in terms of possession of means of production and location of person in the system of production. For him, every society, except primitive communism and ‘future’ communism (that he asks working class to establish after overthrowing capitalist society), divides people in unequal positions of: master and slave; landlord and serf; bourgeoisie and proletariate. As Deshpande (2003) writes, “what we inherit from the Marxist corpus is an entirely historical rather than a theoretical discussion of class” (2003:126). Even if Marx rejects income and occupation as criteria, class for him is an economic category that triggers class consciousness and class solidarity. For him, economic, social and political institutions overlap but it is the economy that forms the base and determines social position of people and their political consciousness. In Marx’s scheme, we find discussion about two polar groups who have conflicting interests. What we miss in his analytical framework is the absence ‘intermediate classes’ that are important category in capitalist societies.

One may ask: what is the position of non-polar (i.e. intermediate) groups in social structure and what role do they perform in society?

To some extent, economic basis of class constitution helps us in understanding domination of the ruling class but it does not illustrate, apart from economic and political domination, how cultural domination of the ruling class or how ruling class ideologies are regulated, conformed, and internalised by the ruled as well as other classes. The early Marxist theorists were averse of the middle class and saw them an impediment in revolutionary program of the great proletariat class. Deshpande (2003) notes, it is Antonio Gramsci who provides a careful and constructive analysis of the middle class and their role in modern capitalist societies. Gramsci’s idea of cultural hegemony is an important contribution towards understanding the role of middle class in capitalist societies. Moving beyond Marx’s historical materialism, Gramsci draws attention

towards production of cultural values and how it serves the end of the bourgeoisie. The ruling class creates values, ideas, institutions that are projected as natural which ultimately serves social and economic positions of the ruling class. Gramsci argues that cultures, beliefs and values of dominant class is imposed on others, restrict space for alternative (here working class) cultures and thus the hegemony of dominant class is created, maintained and perpetuated in the society.

Max Weber, like Marx, also considers ownership of property an important criteria in determination of class. But he suggests that there are several other factors, such as market value of skill, that are significant in creating difference in economic return and thus sufficient in the formation of classes. He might not have elaborated the idea of middle class but his ideas of class, status group and parties offer important clue to understand middle class formation and cultural values. Weber does not suggest inevitability of formation of antagonising bipolar classes. Rather in his scheme we find elaborated class constitution: the propertied upper class; the propertyless white-collar workers (middle class); the petty bourgeoisie; and the manual working class. Weber  defines a class as “a group of individuals who share a similar economic position in a market economy and by virtue of that fact receive similar economic rewards” (Haralambos 2004:44). For Weber, a person’s ‘class situation’ is also his ‘market situation’ and member of the same class also share similar ‘status situation’. Weber also differentiates class with status group whose members share similar social honour and prestige and are conscious about their social position. The members of status group also put restrictions on the entry of members from other status groups. Weber suggests that caste and sub-caste in India are status groups whose members share similar social prestige. This is an important clue to understand middle class formation and how caste and class have merged together in urban India.

Pierre Bourdieu understands class purely in terms of occupation and division of labour. Bourdieu confronts with Weber and argues that the subtle difference between class and status which Weber considers as real are rather nominal unities. In his book Distinction, Bourdieu argues that the difference between class and status group is not only economic (material) but symbolic as well. Bourdieu maintains that status (lifestyle) and thereby difference among different classes are simply manifestation of class difference. In Distinction, he develops two crucial ideas— habitus and field— that has been used extensively to understand differences among classes, class

practices and cultural capital. Dealing with compartmentalisation of structure and agency, evident in theoretical renditions of early thinkers, Bourdieu argues that habitus (akin to agency) and field (equivalent to structure) are dialectically related. While field, for Bourdieu are institutions and rules that influence status, position, authority and reward. Habitus are cognitive structures that shape class condition and thereby shape the way people look at their

belongingness to their class. “The field conditions the habitus, and the habitus constitutes the field. Thus, there is a dialectical relationship between habitus and field” (Ritzer 2011:225). For him, habitus is “dialectic of the internalisation of externality and the externalisation of internality” (Bourdieu 1977:72 quoted in Ritzer 2011:531).

The middle class occupies a curious location in capitalist societies. Of late, it has been recognised that middle class plays an important role in expansion and maintenance of capitalist ideologies. Scholars have elaborated the idea of middle class around the themes such as class antagonism, class consciousness, cultural capital and hegemony, consumer preferences and lifestyles, idea of merit, and so on. However, the idea of class as a theoretical construct and analytical theme has suffered a setback sine the early 1980s. In particular, class as a theoretical construct does not accommodate many of the middle class practices. Also, several other themes, such as consumption, gender practices, nationalism, were considered important to look at middle class practices. In the next section, we would discuss the trajectory of scholarship that developed around the middle class in India.

Indian Middle Class: Differences and Continuations

As discussed earlier, class has, particularly in Marxian and Weberian writings, been understood in economic terms. As mentioned by Weber and later elaborated by Gramsci and Bourdieu, culture forms an important dimension of middle class identity, self-imagination, self-description and so on. Culture, when talked in this context, does not simply refer to rituals and beliefs but practices and orientations as well. Along this line, Appadurai’s idea of ‘capacity to aspire’ may  allow us to discuss practices that shape middle class identity, values, consumption, mobility, segregation and distinction, and their imaginations of family, neighbourhood, city, nation and the world. Appadurai uses ‘capacity to aspire’ in order to draw attention towards poor and poverty but it can be used to understand practices of self-cultivation and self-presentation among other classes. Appadurai also uses “the concept of aspiration to point to the ideational character of many of the processes that affect cityscapes and urban movement” (van der Veer 2014:3-4). We often connect culture with the past but the implications of one’s values, morals and beliefs are also future-oriented which anthropologists have been ignoring for a long time. Therefore, Appadurai argues that ‘capacity to aspire’ is a cultural capacity and orientated towards the future

as well. Often, there is an economic determinism in experiences and practices. This is particularly argued by Marx and later on affirmed by many others that what you are shapes what you experience which ultimately determines what you do (Deshpande 2003: 126). There is no denying the fact that ones material possession, consumption, power, dignity, class position and practices are often determined by their economic strength. However, “the capacity to aspire, like any complex cultural capacity, thrives and survives on practice, repetition, exploration, conjectures, and refutation” (Appadurai 2004:68). The idea of aspiration also direct our attention towards other dimensions of class.

For Gramsci, the middle class cultural practices are instrumental in deepening the ruling class hegemony while Weber and Bourdieu, among other ideas, direct attention towards middle class practices and their attitude towards self-fashioning, self-cultivation and self-presentation. In post-Independent India, the middle class (due of its cultural practices, exposure and imagination) along with the intelligentsia, politicians, bureaucrats became harbinger of constructing anarrative of self-dependent India. Along with this ‘responsibility’ the middle class also became a

natural representative of the masses who speak and represent the poor and the illiterate. The dominant ideologies were translated and transmitted through the channels of middle class practices, ideologies and imaginations. Therefore, the postcolonial middle class is located at the cross-section of representing the masses as well as self-perpetuation.

Since the colonial times in India, as we will discuss later in this section, the middle class has offered an ambivalent character. As discussed, in Independent India, the middle class took on a role to represent Indian masses, became locus of social change, and also became focus of State policies (though it largely remained unspoken). On one hand, they construct new values and new morals while on the other hand they cling to traditions that buttress inequalities, segregations and deprivations. In both cases, these practices are directed towards enlarging the sphere of greater control over institutions and people. They may appropriate visions of capitalist class and thus contribute in extending hegemony of the ruling class. But they may also confront ruling class ideas where there is clash of interest or which restricts their ambit of authority/power. In such cases, they may even appropriate proletarian values. The middle class, thus, aspires to have the best of everything available in the world. They imagine and appropriate narratives of the world, the nation, the family, the market, the religion and everything else that buttresses their class  position and enlarge their ambit of ‘authority/power’. The India middle class has played an interesting role in constructing the narrative of nationalism, maintaining “traditional” values, accepting and furthering modern ideas and values, gendered practices, segregation and so on.

In this short essay, we would touch upon a few important themes that have been incorporated in the analysis of middle class in India. It has now been established that there is a new middle class in India that is the product of policies of economic liberalisation (Fernandes 2004; 2006) and

often been compared with “new rich as a social group that is the prime beneficiary of globalisation in contemporary Asia” (Beng-Huat 2000; Robison and Goodman 1996). The ‘new’ middle class is also differentiated from the ‘old’ middle class that emerged during colonial period (Chatterjee 1989; Joshi 2001; Misra 1961). “This new middle class sets the terms of reference of Indian society, not only because of its development, but also because it is the darling of the official discourse and policy makers” (Jaffrelot and van der Veer 2008: 19 quoted in Mathur 2010: 212).

The middle class in India emerged during colonial times particularly with the introduction of English education and opening of opportunities in British administration. They were considered an important segment who would serve in British administration as well as help in modernising India. Similar arguments could also be put forth for the emerging new middle class in contemporary India who are seen to serve the purposes of market economy and global capitalism. During the last couple of decades, scholarship around middle class has grown phenomenally taking up issues of conspicuous consumption, social and cultural identity, social mobility, lifestyle preferences, taste, distinction, segregation practices and ideas of merit and reservation (Beteille 2003; Brackenridge 1995; Brosius 2010; Conroy 2003; Donner 2011; Fernandes 2000, 2004; Mathur 2010; Mazzarella 2003; Saavala 2010; Tarlo 1996). It has also been recognised that middle class in India, since the colonial times (Joshi 2001), does not form a homogenous group rather it is differentiated around caste, region, language and so on.

Though middle class started growing during colonial times, there was hardly any full-length study conducted on the subject before B.B.Misra in 1961. Before Misra’s detailed study, we find  preliminary reflection’s about middle class in D.D.Koshambi’s and D.P. Mukerjee’s analytical papers where they also look at the character of middle class in pre-Independent India. However, in an interesting introduction, Misra (1983) writes, “the term middle class is frequently used and  since most of us, without the aid of a specialist, understand what we mean when we use it in our everyday conversation” (1983:1). Misra does not provide any precise definition but he looks at  features of middle class and broadly traces the growth of middle class which, according to him, is largely “a consequence of Western education and modern capitalist enterprise, of improved

communications and commercial progress, of land reforms and legal administration” (Misra 1983:1). Lord Macaulay’s claim that with English education, a class will develop who will be “Indian in blood and colour, but English in tastes, in opinions, in morals and intellect” (Torri 1991: 18) seems to had developed among the middle class which Misra also affirms. Misra argues that the middle class in India did not develop internally rather they were implanted in Indian society without developments in economy and social institutions. For Misra, the middle class were not the originators of new values rather imitators of English counterparts. He also argues that colonial middle class, mainly upper caste Hindu, did not take initiatives for mass education or economic development. Rather they were more concerned with their own growth, remained engaged in consolidation of their position in administration and civil service. In contrast, Partha Chatterjee (1999) argues that middle class i.e. bhadralok (meaning respectable folk) in Calcutta, as elsewhere, played an instrumental role in creating the dominant forms of nationalist culture and social institutions in Bengal. “It was this class that constructed through a modern vernacular the new forms of public discourse, laid down new criteria of social respectability, set new aesthetic and moral standards of judgement, and, suffused with its spirit of nationalism, fashioned the new forms of political mobilisation that were to have such a decisive impact on the political history of the province in the twentieth century” (Chatterjee 1999:36).

Thus, since the colonial times, middle class has been seen as well as engaged in ambivalent practices of creating distinction vis-a-vis creating new morals and values that are very often considered as template of cultural practices to be followed by people at large. The old middle class composed of English speaking and property owning people as well as employed as civilservants, university teachers and lawyers and so on but mainly composed of “upper-caste Hindus and Muslim elites” (Donner 2011). As Joshi (2001) discusses the old middle class remainedinternally plural, heterogeneous, and divided on the lines of caste, religion and region. In wake of the formation of Indian National Congress, which mainly had Western educated and Anglophone  members, Lord Dufferin claimed middle class as “a microscopic minority” (quoted in Joshi 2010:3) did not represent voices of socially, economically, culturally and religiously divided population. Interestingly, the middle class was considered an important segment which also emphasised itself an important agent in reforming as well as reviving cultural traditions in colonial India and modernising India.

The same may be true for the middle class who after Independence began carving out structures that would create India a modern state suffused with traditional values. To a large extent, the middle class lives within the frame of maintaining a balance between modernity and tradition (Ganguly-Scrase and Scrase 2009; Warrier 2005). As Partha Chatterjee has also noted that there was a different type of orientation towards modernity and tradition among the middle class. The difference between material as “outer” and spiritual as “inner” which provided material forboosting the self in colonial times was carried forward in post-Independence era as well.

However, this module is not focused on drawing a contrast between old and new middle class. Rather, it focuses on the section of urbanites who refer themselves as middle class in contemporary India. For the last couple of decades more and more people have started recognising themselves as belonging to middle class. The policies of economic liberalisation have certainly created a band of people who now have disposable income owing to their employment in multinational companies, IT services, management firms, succinctly, employed in service sector in India. However, apart from policies of liberalisation and greater participation of market economy, by virtue of which the new middle is expanding, there are other government policies, such as affirmative actions and the ratification of the recommendations of the 6th Central Pay Commission, that could be said to have brought more people and communities that now reckon themselves as belonging to middle class (Upadhyay 2016). One coordinate that could be said to play a major role in portraying themselves as middle class is the distinction they create with upper class and people who hardly own resources— social and economic. It is the

recognition that they do not have enough resources to be included in the upper class but at the same time they also know that they are better-off than people living in slums and working as peon in the offices, driving auto rickshaw or owns a pan (betel) and cigarette shop or grocery store. Another reason that could be placed for the expansion of the middle class is the increase of working members in families. While earlier it was only one member of the family who earned the living for entire family. Now, their children who earn technical or business degrees get a job in booming service sector and become a helping hand in family earnings. This brings confidence, triggers consumption and aspires them to follow practices that ensures distinction with people who belong to low socio-economic status and allows if not upward mobility then ensure their position in the middle class.

Various estimates try to account the income level of this class. For example, “The NationalCouncil of Applied Economic Research (2005) reports that in the reference year 2001-2002, the middle class in India within the annual income bracket of Rs 2,00,000— 10,00,000 comprised 10.7 million households, just 5.7 per cent of the total number of households” (NCAER 2005 quoted in Mathur 2010:212). Further, NCAER (2005) mentions, “in 1995-1996, 80 percent of Indian families earned less than Rs 90,000 per annum (NCAER 2005 quoted in Mathur 2010:228). Again in the year 2007-2008, NCAER survey says that India more than 120 million households who spend in the range of 3,830—22970 US dollars (Shukla and Purusothaman 2008) which itself is a very wide range. In contrast to this, Derné (2008) argues that those

generally included in the academic literature as the middle class only refer to a very few Indians. Less than one half of one percent of Indian households has an annual income of more than Rs one million (2008: 44) and only about 2.9 percent of households earned more than Rs. 96, 000 in 1996. Thus, he defines a class that he terms the “ordinary, non-elite middle-class” (2008: 45).

   This class earns about Rs. 45000-96000 annually and constitutes about 16 per cent of Indian households and about 40 per cent of urban ones. Similarly, Kannan and Raveendran (2011) suggest that the middle class in India constitutes around 19% of the total Indian population.

It is highly difficult to ascertain, especially in the post-liberalisation period, middle class as a very coherent social category. If anything could be said confidently about this class that this is a social marker, a way of describing one’s social category, and a “social connotation” (Deshpande

2003). Dipankar Gupta (2009) argues to an extent and argues that there is no middle class in India. He compares and contrasts Indian middle class with their counterparts in the West and argues that political economic efforts to reduce inequality and gap between rich and the poor through social and economic policy was never taken into consideration in India. According to him, what we describe middle class in India does not satisfy various parameters on which middle class needs to be understood.

What is interesting to note that new middle class in India remains a very heterogeneous category and people from different caste, religion, region and linguistic category are divided not only in economic resources but also possess different sets of values, status, tastes, lifestyles and consumption patterns (Donner 2011). If one wishes to delineate Indian middle class, there are, at least, two sets of middle class one can discern. One, the elite, English speaking people travelling abroad, eats in high-end restaurants, shopping in the malls, driving automobiles and working in the service sector. This category of people is mainly comprised of IT professionals, people working at managerial level in the MNCs, and top officers in the government offices. While there is another category that has also developed alongside is non-elite, ordinary, non-English speaking people. People belonging to this category work as clerks, police officers, teachers, government transportation worker and the likes. They may not purchase too many global products and may not eat in the high-end restaurants but would be able to afford a television, a scooter/motorbike and refrigerator and would send their children to private English-language schools, even if not those of the best quality. This group definitely sees itself as middle-class. They are below the great people who travel to foreign places or drive automobiles, but are also above those who have to live in slums or travel miles by cycle to work or live on daily wages.

This non-elite middle-class defined by pukka (made of concrete, cement and bricks) housing, relatively secure occupations and income and attributes such as cleanliness, hygiene and reasonable job prospects for their children are quite different from the elite group of journalists, academics and other professionals that academicians have understood as middle-class. However, it is begin suggested that the restricted notion of middle class comprising of people working at high echelons may not tell the aspirations of a class that is also exposed to the processes of economic and cultural globalisation. The idea of aam aadmi (common man), that remains in the air (Mathur 2010) could be extended to include people from non-elite, ordinary and non-English speaking category to understand the contemporary nature of Indian society and social, economic and cultural changes.

The era of liberalisation and privatisation played an instrumental role in the transformation of society and various institutions in it. The choices available to these groups are different, their options differ, their life-styles are not similar but they are exposed to the processes of economic globalisation and of cultural change that are spreading, especially through the media. Moreover, both groups consider themselves as middle-class and even, to an extent, modern. The second group has less access to globalisation, especially economic globalisation and may not have the kind of transnational connections that the first group does. Nevertheless, it could be argued thateven those with less access to globalisation can be influenced by it. As Derné (2008) argues that while economic and cultural globalisation has transformed India’s media landscape, as elsewhere, this transformation has been mediated by local interests, sensibilities, and resistance (Derné 2008: 33). This is a class that is locally-oriented (Derné 2008: 44) but affected nonetheless by the effects of globalisation on their families, cultural orientations and understandings of class, gender and even nationalism.

The new forms of communication technologies made available by globalisation appear to have brought about a transformation in almost all aspects of social life. The impact of the media and the flow of new cultural elements have redesigned ways in which people live and imagine themselves living. The new middle-class is transnational because it occupies a world which is constituted by the rapid flows of capital, technology, persons and information across the globe. This transnationalism is fed by the economic liberalisation of the 1990s which allowed the free- flow of foreign consumer items and created a global media through the television and satellite networks. The middle-class is inserted within these economic and cultural flows, as Appadurai would argue. This movement is accelerated by the modern telecommunication networks and feeds globalising consumption patterns and lifestyle choices.

This new Indian middle class is also characterised by a considerable increase in consumption practices and aspirations for privileged lifestyles, strengthening and reinvigorating its social and class identity through conspicuous consumer culture, unseen in the country earlier (Conroy 1998 quoted in Mathur 2010). The economic as well as the cultural market has been expanding and the alternatives of Western-style, international brands of clothes, accessories and consumer products are available to the non-elite middle class. Certainly, it triggers their consumption pattern. If there is a steep rise in income of people and that affects the consumption patterns, then there is also a lot of innovations in the market that satisfies the consumption habit and aspirations of non-elite middle class and helps in securing upward social mobility and social status. However, if on the one hand, global cities provide avenues for upward mobility and fulfilment of aspirations; on the other hand, there are certain insecurities as well. Most of the times, academic renderings are highly occupied with the issues of social and political identity, consumption habits and lifestyles of the middle class. There is a complete negligence of urban experiences of living, working and survival in the globalising market oriented society. In contemporary writings also, we find such characterisations of middle class who are more concerned about their personal growth. As Fernandes (2000, 2004) and others have argued that the middle class supports beautification and gentrification programs of city administrations and believes in the displacement of poor to the outskirts or peripheral areas. The poor, for the middle class are considered threat to security and hygiene.

The contemporary society in India sees living in a global city a challenge. The increasing role of market and backtrack of welfare programs of the Indian government pose insecurities of living in a city, especially for the non-elite middle class. The worsening conditions of hospitals, health care centres, and shrinking of government employment pose a threat to the middle class. Simultaneously, it is also being realised that to survive in a competitive, market led economic society one needs to cover up oneself and create potential to excel. The threat of being displaced from the middle class and the aspirations to move on to other, competition to secure more stable career, and health issues such as stress, strain that are clearly urban in nature do create a component of insecurity among the middle class. These urban insecurities combined with the lack of social security, stress of working in multinational companies, hope for excellence in job, and stability in family create vulnerable situation. They look for alternative support system and create their own values, tastes and practices. In a nut shell, the middle class in contemporary India is also involved in practices that strengthen their position in competitive urban environment.

Conclusion

During colonial administration and later the India State were the sites and agencies for the reproduction of middle class. Whereas after liberalisation, it is the market and antecedent consumption of global products take on the role for production of the new middle class. The middle class, since colonial times, has been a fragmented group organised around primordial loyalties of caste, linguistic region, religion. Simultaneously, it is oriented towards liberal-secular ideas such as democratic government, voting rights and so on. However, the internal differentiation within the middle class kept growing since the emergence of this class during British rule in India. At its inception, it was mainly upper caste Hindus and elite Muslims who formed middle class mainly due it their exposure to Western education, administrative positions, and professions such as law, medicine, journalism and so on. After Independence, the composition of middle class further diversified and people from erstwhile marginalised communities such as Scheduled Caste and Tribes began joining this group. This was partly due to affirmative actions propounded by the Indian State. The differentiation between colonial and postcolonial middle class and further the division within the postcolonial middle class remained pronounced even though they supposed to compose somewhat uniform category. As said in the beginning, the middle class in India has played a crucial role in defining the character of Indian nationalism and domestic practices. One of the most pivotal contribution of the middle class, through out its history, has been invention of leadership, not only political but also social. The old aristocratic and landed class were either displaced by the middle class or “…the traditional leadership had to reinvent itself as middle class to stay in positions of influence” (Jodhka and Prakash 2011:57).

Towards the end, it need to recognised that the middle class remain a contested sociological issue and scholars have been trying to figure out size, composition, scope, aspirations, hopes, desires, politics, consumption patterns of the middle class. On one hand, middle class is internally fragmented and divided along primordial identities while on the other they display common features and engage in discursive practices that enhances greater control over people and resources. Economic estimation is an important criteria to understand the middle class but cultural practices and cultural politics of the middle class offer interesting vantage point to understand social structure, political-economy of the State and larger social relationship among different sections of population.

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