33 Middle class and globalisation

1. Introduction

The module attempts to understand and analyze the character and contour of the Indian middle class since the 1990s, that is, in the context of globalization that entails the dual processes of economic liberalization and the privatization of public resources. There are scholarly debates about the contemporary middle class, such as, about their identity formation, actual size, consumption patterns, political and ideological inclinations, role in neoliberal development, and about their global aspirations. Through these debates and discussions, this module seeks to bring forth the “centrality” as well as ambivalence attached to the Indian middle class in the context of globalization, which otherwise suffered from a scant scholarly attention in the pre-1990s era. Though, the module primarily focuses on the globally mobile urban middle class, it also deliberates on the changing nature of the rural middle class in the wake of globalization. The module provides a brief historical sketch of the formation of the middle class in the colonial and post-independence period and then it introduces the theoretical discussions about the nature of contemporary middle class in India. Further, the module broaches specific areas: economic, political, cultural and spatial to understand the attitude, aspirations, and desires of the emerging middle class in India.

2. Modernity, Economic Development the Formation of the Middle Classes in India

It is useful to begin with Nehru’s famous “Tryst with Destiny” speech, given on the eve of India’s independence. Pawan Varma’s The Great Indian Middle Class (2007) asks an interesting question: Why did Nehru choose to speak in English when the majority of the people of the newly independent country did not understand the English language? The answer lies in the power of colonial modernity and modern education that sought to create a native elite population, who were “Indian in blood and color, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect.” During the early colonial period, a segment of traditional elite acquired new professional skills, including proficiency in the English language, to gain employment in the rungs of the colonial state apparatus, as bureaucrats and administrators, while others chose to be doctors and lawyers. This led to the creation of a social and cultural gulf between the newly formed modernist elite living under British patronage, serving the colonial state, and the vernacular speaking illiterate masses. However, in the early twentieth century the two developments – one, the middle class’ realization of limited opportunities in occupational mobility in serving their colonial masters and two, the concomitant rise of Indian nationalism seeking freedom under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi – politicized the middle class. As a result, the middle and upper strata of this professional class was involved in many leadership positions, particularly in the Indian National Congress.

In the newly constituted nation, the middle class emerged as a legitimate heir, lording over the state and civil machinery: administration, bureaucracy, judiciary, army, and education. Independent India continued with these inherited state apparatuses, a relic from British rule, resulting in continuity with the colonial order rather than a significant departure from it, both in form and substance. In this context, Aijaz Ahmad (1996) asserted that the middle class, being the upholder of this colonial legacy, pushed not only for the capitalist development but also sought to go beyond its intermediate status to reproduce itself as a dominant class over the other classes. Scholars such as Sudipta Kaviraj (1988) and Pranab Bardan (1989) reached a slightly different conclusion when they argued that the elite fraction of the middle class was part of the ruling alliance along with the agrarian and industrial capitalist classes in the post- independence period. One of the main functions of this middle was to articulate the hegemony of the ruling bloc. Such articulation was possible since the middle class not only controlled the state institutions, such as bureaucracy, but also sincerely believed in the ideology of capitalist development which remained “socialist” only at the level of rhetoric. In sum, during the Nehruvian developmental regime, the middle class was the part of a dominant class coalition, both as managers of the ruling bloc and facilitators of developmental projects for the dominant classes (Deshpande 2003). Further, as Deshpande suggests, if the elite segment of the middle classes was part of the dominant coalition and supporter of the modernization projects, its mass faction – government employee, salaried workers, lower level professionals – remained engaged in the “consumption of ideology” produced by the elite segment.

Apart from the urban middle classes, there was also a rural/town middle class in India. Some called this class as “regional capital,” whereas others called it “auxiliary classes.” Michael Kalecki (1967) called this class “intermediate classes” which comprised of “small landowners, rich and middle class peasants, merchants of rural and semi-rural townships, small-scale manufactures and retailers.” What happened to the intermediate class in the post-liberalization era? Has this class disappeared as India progressed on neo-liberal lines? Let’s engage with these questions later.

3. Contemporary Middle Classes: The Problem of Definition and Quantification

In this section, we will learn about criteria that are used to define the contemporary middle class and the problems faced in estimating the size of this class. Scholars writing on the middle class agree that since the beginning of the 1980s, but especially since the 1990s, the size of the middle class in India has grown exponentially. However, this agreement soon turns into a big disagreement regarding the actual size of the rising middle class. Is it 10 crores or 20 crores or 30 crores or more? Different scholars reach different numbers which in turn depend upon what criteria and methods they use to enumerate the size of the middle class. At this point, one should remember that unlike advanced capitalist countries where the middle class emerged systematically as a middle income group in -between the tiny elite and poor, the story of the middle class in India is slightly different. As we do not have a reliable methodology, yet, to estimate the magnitude of this class, one needs to deliberate on this point more deeply.

One of the most widely used criteria for defining the middle class and estimating its size is income and wealth. Unfortunately, India does not have a comprehensive list of people’s income and wealth and this makes it difficult to determine the size of this class at the national and regional levels. Can we use the filed income tax return to assess its size? Even today, only a minority in India file income tax returns which might give some sense of the urban middle class but it still leaves out a vast majority who are exempted from the taxes both in urban and rural areas. Some scholars argue that instead of income, the consumption pattern and expenditure is a better indicator of defining the middle class. Hence, they use the consumption expenditure data collected by NSSO (National Sample Survey Organization). Consumption expenditure could be an alternative to income to define the size of the middle class, but it has its own share of problems. The problem precisely is this: some middle income groups, especially the lower strata, may use their entire earnings on buying necessary consumer items and may live on credit; while upper strata of the middle class may save income either to accumulate it or to use it in the contingent future. Therefore, relying merely on the consumption expenditure of the middle class may not provide the correct estimate of the size of middle class. What this discussion helps us understand is that use of the economic terms – income, wealth and consumption – in defining the middle class has its limitation and one should be aware of the ambiguity that attaches to these concepts when deliberating about the contemporary middle class in India. In this sense, fixing and delimiting the contemporary middle class from the other classes is fuzzy and as Deshpande (2003) puts it, the Indian “middle class is more of a symbolic than actual description”. Hence, before accepting this everyday term – middle class- one must inquire about the underlying assumptions that scholars use to define this class. If there is so much ambiguity attached to the middle class then how do we proceed to explain this class; who and what does middle class represent and what implications one can think of in the Indian context as a majority of the population seeks to identify with the emerging middle class.

4. Conceptualizing Emerging Middle Class

We learned that the Nehruvian middle class played a vital role in maintaining and articulating the hegemony of the ruling class (Deshpande 2003). Also, the elite faction of the middle class produced ideologies related to development while the mass faction of it legitimatized and consumed those ideologies without much resistance. To what extent is such a theoretical understanding useful to evaluate the “new” emerging middle class in India? Two contextual changes need to register: One, the developmental state has reincarnated into a neo-liberal state and thus the question is: does the middle class still articulate the hegemony, if yes, then how? Two, the different factions of the middle class have evolved differently in the era of globalization and thus the question is: what has been the implication of globalization on the different segments of the middle class?

Deshpande (2003) argues that the middle class transition from development to globalization has been seamless. It also means, as Deshpande suggests and implies, that one can take three separate hypothetical routes to explore, explain and understand the “new” middle class in the era of globalization: 1) by examining the way contemporary middle class’ play a hegemonic role, 2) by discovering different segments and layers of the middle classes, and 3) by expanding the economic aspects of defining the middle class to incorporate cultural dimensions , that is, middle class as consumers and accumulators of cultural capital.

Let’s take the question of the middle class and the hegemony. In order to analyze the relationship between the middle class and its hegemonic role, Partha Chatterjee (2004) introduces two related conceptual apparatuses: civil society and political society. Chatterjee perceives civil society as institutions and practices which is inhabited and controlled by a few culturally equipped elite members; it is an arena in which most of the inhabitants of India do not qualify for proper membership, even though ideally all Indians are citizens and bearers of constitutional rights. It does not mean, Chatterjee argues, that non- members of civil society are outside or excluded from the politics of the state. A major thrust of his argument is that this population – outsider to the civil society but insider to the domain of politics- needs to be governed, managed and controlled by the state and this situation puts this (subaltern) population into a different political relationship with the state. To understand this political process and relationship between state and managed population Chatterjee proposes the notion of “political society.” But, what has middle class got to do with civil society and political society? It is argued that in the era of globalization the new emerging and globally mobile middle class has hegemonic control over the institutions of civil society – schools, college, university, urban citizen groups, religious places, market, and media – and thus it dominates and articulates the agenda of neo-liberal development and Hinduvta ideology whose implications we will discuss shortly.

Another useful concept to understand the new emerging Indian middle class is Bourdieu’s cultural capital which is an invisible non-tangible property. In the Indian context, Deshpande (2003) argues that cultural capital may consist of identities (caste, community, and region) or competences (educational qualifications, linguistic and other skills) which carry three attributes to property – 1) tangibility and psychological benefits, 2) they can be privatized and 3) they can be handed over to newer generations. No wonder, in a globalized India both the elite and mass faction of the middle class attempt to advance through professional credentials or through accumulated cultural capital. The relationship between the middle class and cultural capital brings forth the merit, efficiency, and reservation debate in the domain of private sector employment which we will discuss below. Finally, the new rising middle class in India needs to be seen as lifestyle consumers whose expensive consumer choices are an antithesis to the idea of renunciation and exhibition of materialist tendencies prevalent in thoughts of Gandhi and his disciples. In sum, the new middle class in India has to be explored and assessed in terms of the following possible theses: the new middle class is a socially and politically distinct class which 1) attempts to articulate hegemony and reproduces its privileges by 2) accumulating cultural capital and 3) by being a consumerist class that aspires to live in “world class” cities.

5. Globalization and the Middle Class

Let’s look at a few scholarly works which attempt to give us insights on above mentioned theses. In this section, we will also discuss a few other dimensions and aspects of the emerging middle class in globalized India.

5.1 Neo-liberal Economic Development and the “New” Middle Class

The sustained economic growth after the opening up of the Indian economy in 1991 has reincarnated the economic, political and cultural image of the middle class. Supporters of economic liberalization see a significant relationship between economic growth and economic successes of the middle class. They argue that India’s 30 crore strong middle class is a sizeable market for foreign investment and the introduction of new commodities and opportunities for consumers will further benefit not only this class but also India as a whole. Being the prime recipients of the benefits of economic liberalization and privatization, this class strongly supports neo-liberal development and casts eyes full of contempt while discussing the pre-1990s era of “license-raj” and “socialist” development. On the other hand, detractors of liberalization have cautioned against the excessive consumerist attitude of the middle class and have raised questions regarding middle class’ fading social and moral responsibility towards the poor and the nation.

Though, the relationship between economic liberalization and middle class is generally asserted as a process that has benefitted the latter; one should avoid treating the liberalized middle class as one homogeneous group. One should seek out new research on this theme that may separately analyze the middle classes based in metropolitan areas, towns, and in rural areas. Furthermore, one should remember that any analysis of the relationship between economic liberalization and the middle class will further be complicated by existing social hierarchies of caste, gender, region, religion, and language. We will cover some of these complexities in the sections below but to sum up this section, a good starting point to think about the rising “new” middle class in India is this: First, a majority of them are the proponents of economic liberalization and reaps the benefits of this process. Second, their newness lies not in the social basis, since structural components of the old and the new middle class remains the same; rather, their newness and distinctiveness lies in the social, cultural, and political attitudes and aspirations, in lifestyle and pattern of consumption, in a “growing amnesia” about the marginalized sections of the society that reflects in their “politics of forgetting” (Fenandes 2006).

5.2 Middle Class Politics, Democracy and Hinduvta

Alam (2004) in Who Wants Democracy raises a point regarding the limited participation of the middle class in electoral politics. The middle class disenchantment with democratic politics is not surprising since it perceives that the democratic model of India serves only the marginal and the poor. Nonetheless, the middle class perception that Indian democracy is ill-suited to their progress and achievement does not mean that the middle class in not politically inclined. Scholars who have worked on the political economy of India in the last two decades have suggested that the rising middle class have transformed from a politically marginal voice to an assertive central voice in Indian politics supporting not only economic liberalization but also Hindu nationalism (Corbridge and Harriss 2000) . For example, the arguments surrounding the Ram Janambhoomi issue and the demolition of the Babri Masjid in 1992 resulted in communal riots in many parts of India. The middle class may have disapproved the act of the violence but many of them helped create the conditions of communal tensions – especially by believing in the theory of ‘minority appeasement’-that led to the demolition of the Babri Masjid in the first place and ensuing communal violence. Pankaj Mishra in Butter Chicken in Ludhiana found that the rising middle class in small towns and cities had not only internalized communal sentiments but also actively supported that cause of the BJP anti-secular political programme. In other words, it is the new middle class that supports privatization, advocates cutting subsidies for the poor, and vocally expresses dissatisfactions with parliamentary democracy. Or if they favor democracy, then it gets articulated in a new political language of the middle class that promotes exclusionary forms of citizenship, that is, a democracy without the demands from the poor, dalits, tribal goups, and religious minorities Reading the recent trends in Indian politics, it appears that in the last two decades, the BJP and its NDA allies have captured a political space where they have gained allegiance from the middle class and their political aspirations and choices; a middle class that long ago abandoned the political programme of the declining Left and the beleaguered Congress party.

Urban politics and planning is another arena where the new middle class raises its concern vehemently through civil society institutions. Being a strong political voice in shaping the urban planning in globalized India, the political attitude of the middle class has already started altering the dynamics of urban politics. It is evident in the following observation made by the activist and architect from Mumbai P.K. Das (2003:208). He notes:

Outfits of “citizen groups” (representing small and exclusive groups of middle and upper classes) are now intervening in the housing sector. Their strategy is to oppose those policies of government relating to the campaign to the right to housing, upgradation of slums and protection against eviction. These groups and leadership influence the media too; they campaign in the press against the interests of the slum dwellers. In the recent past, many such groups have organized campaigns in the press to oppose government policy to recognize the residential rights of the slum-dwellers and the right to rehabilitation of those who are evicted by the development programmes of the state.”

Similarly, new scholarship has noticed active citizenry groups of the middle class that not only use the press/media but also file petitions in courts against slum dwellers. Scholars have highlighted, in a large number of cases, how the judiciary has ruled in the favor of the middle class who sees slums as an unhygienic obstacle in the process of “beautification” and urban development (Dupont2008).

5.3 Cultural Aspiration, Attitude and the Consumerist Middle Class

Can we say the attitude of the middle class is one of a “siege mentality,” especially where their engagement with civic activities in limited? This is what Varma (2007) concludes after Mishra’s reading of the rising middle class in Butter Chicken in Ludhiana. He writes, the middle class is escapist and nurtures its sense of siege mentality: “if the unwashed masses seem to be climbing up the garden wall, raise the height of the wall; if there is not enough supply of water, dig a tube well, or add a water tank, or best of all, siphon off the supply with a pump on the municipal line itself, irrespective of the consequences to the others; if the electricity is deficient, install a generator, or illegally increase the sanctioned load by bribing to the local electrical sub-station. The emphasis was on finding a short-cut, a quick-fix solution, which had to be efficacious even if unethical.” This observation sums up the middle class attitude towards the civic responsibility in smaller towns and cities. Is the middle class attitude and aspiration different in the metropolitan cities?

Unlike the provincial middle class, the aspiring and ambitious metropolitan middle class is analyzed not only as a social group that bought the ideas of the “neoliberal ethic of intense possessive individualism” but also who perceives lifestyle and quality of urban life as one of the commodities in the urban market that can be acquired to enhance their social status. In the cities, the aspiring and globally mobile middle class prefers to live in gated communities and private villas and it seeks to justify the spatial planning of the low density, green, luxurious gated community by invoking issue of general insecurity, unhygienic conditions, and as a means to replicate the lifestyle of advanced capitalist countries (Chatterjee 2004 and King 2005). It is this social group which is a main consumer of the new urban culture built around shopping malls, theme parks, restaurants, and multiplexes. Scholars have argued that the erstwhile plural and internally differentiated middle classes in the metropolitan area have been gradually transforming into a singular and homogenous middle class group primarily identified in terms of their consumption habits. It is this social group that defies Gandhism and the strong anti-consumerist rhetoric in India (Jaffrelot and Veer 2008).

Some scholars have extended the argument to show that urban consumption habits of the new urban middle class in a globalized India have become a way to reproduce their cultural capital and earn symbolic capital. This has had an implication on re-strategizing the inner city redevelopment by real estate companies. These companies have vigorously used cultural means (art galleries, shopping malls, residence, restaurants etc.), “aestheticization of commodities” and employ creative “culture industries” to attract the middle class to produce a gentrified inner city. For example, in Mumbai, the now defunct, but centrally located cotton textile mills, the Phoenix Mills of 1905, has now transformed into one of Asia’s largest shopping malls: the Phoenix Mall.

5.4 Caste and the “New” Middle Class Values

If the 1990s marked the period of economic liberalization, the rise of the new middle class in India, the Hindu nationalism (discussed above), then Mandalization of India politics complemented the new emerging image of India. The implementation of Mandal Commission report in 1990 entitled the OBCs (Other Backward Classes) to reservation of seats in public sector employment which was hitherto dominated by the upper caste groups. The new legal provision of reservations for the OBCs facilitated the entrance of the lower/middle caste into a middle class status, however with one marked difference from the earlier period. If earlier lower castes “sanskritized” their lifestyle to achieve perceived upper caste status, then now the entry to the middle class status required an imitation and reproduction of the middle class lifestyle based primarily on economic and cultural capital. D.L Sheth (1999) argues that this process of “classisation” of caste was crucial to the formation of the new middle class in India which involved

a) de-ritualization of caste,

b) acquisition of a new middle class identity (consumption based), and

c) economic interest and lifestyle choice more akin to the middle class than to the fellow non-middle class caste person. He further argues that the “secularization of caste” has led to the formation of the new middle class but still caste identity has not faded; rather it operates in combination with the newly acquired middle class identity.

How caste and class identity work in conjunction can be seen in contemporary private sector jobs. Since the 1990s, the emerging middle class has sought these relatively well paying employment opportunities in the private sector (such as IT professionals). One of the core values that this class publicly upholds is “merit” and “efficiency” along with the rejection of caste reservation since for them such provision dilutes the merit and efficiency of jobs. This secular modern language (merit and efficiency) of the new middle class is interesting to observe since no middle class working professional would readily admit the legitimacy of caste hierarchy, even though it is this caste hierarchy that gave middle class (mostly belonging to the upper caste) historical advantage to earn economic, social, and cultural capital. Upadhya’s (2007) empirical research on the IT industry in Bengaluru breaks the myth of representation in which IT companies are shown to be providing job opportunities to wider sections of the society. Rather, she argues that majority of the workforce in IT is homogeneous and belongs to urban, middle class, and high/middle caste. Further, she argues that the ideology of merit is a prevalent practice in recruitment for IT jobs and thus becomes a ground for exclusion for people from disadvantaged social and economic background.

5.5 Middle Class Women

In the context of globalization, middle class families are going through a transitory period. Feminist scholars have examined and documented the role of urban middle class women in such families; however, the observable trends still need to be theorized, especially around marriage and gender roles. The neo-liberal economic model and concomitant privatization have ushered the educated middle class women to join the workforce as it provided them with much needed economic independence. This is a much changed gender structure, particularly from the pre-1990s era, and dual earnings (both by men and women) in many urban nuclear families have put the traditional family and gender norms under stress. Working middle class women are found to be engaging in the “second shift” at home after the day’s work at the office or at least they have to make sure that the home is in order with the help of domestic help. The increasing frustration and resentment among middle class women due to this new family situation –which still largely remains patriarchal- is leading to tensions and a possible implosion of traditional marriages as we knew it, where working wives refuse to perform the traditional gender roles.

5.6 Rural Middle Class

Have Kalecki’s “intermediate classes” declined, disappeared or fragmented in the midst of globalization and economic liberalization? Harriss-White (2003) argues that the intermediate classes in small towns and villages are still structurally powerful “local capital” who have a large stake in the capitalist development project; however, they exercise their power primarily, not through political parties, but rather “collusively, in overlapping organizations of diverse kinds: cultural, co-operative and philanthropic, as well as trade associations.” Harriss-White reaches a tentative conclusion about the future of intermediate classes. She surmises that the upper section of the intermediate classes may develop interest in regional stock exchanges, in agro-food industries and may use its cultural and political influence to compete with monopoly capital, while the rest may support Swadeshi (against FDIs) and Hindutva to suit their interest. While it is clear that intermediate classes have not yet shown signs of significant decline in the era of globalization, what remains inconclusive is whether they would be able to slow down the neoliberal onslaught on local economies and whether they would be completely transformed into a new class with new class interests. This remains to be seen and further research exploring the relationship between globalization, urbanization, and consumer values of the rural middle class can provide a way to assess the future of this class.

Summary

In the neo-liberal reinvention of India after the 1990s, the new middle class has not only claimed but also achieved a bigger stake in the affairs of India’s political and economic development. This class is devoted to the idea of economic liberalization, privatization and is receptive to the idea of Hindu nationalism. In this sense the rising middle class becomes the part of “elite revolt” by discarding the Nehruvian vision of a democratic, secular and plural India. The political conservatism of the new middle class is only one side of the story. The other side of the story frames the globally mobile middle class as a consumerist class which has long abandoned the idea of austerity for relentless material pursuits. It is this class which aspires for a “world class” lifestyle and not only chooses to live in luxurious gated communities but also wishes Indian cities to be like Shanghai and Singapore without realizing the implications of such thought on the marginalized sections of society. One should remember that the new middle class is not structurally new, which means that like earlier times this class is still dominated by the middle and upper caste groups, what makes them new is their economic, political, and cultural attitudes and aspirations. For example, if the old middle class sought public sector bank jobs and civil service positions, the new middle class aspires towards jobs in multinationals; if the old middle class believed in the “idea of India” with hegemonic aspirations, the new middle class political attitude is to revolt against the Nehruvian idea of India and create a new hegemony; if the old middle class, especially its mass faction, lived in austerity, the new middle class identity and status are marked by their consumerist inclination. Finally, the rural middle class comprising of many intermediate classes has not yet transformed totally, rather it has shown resilience against the processes of economic liberalization.

Web links

1. http://www.kas.de/wf/doc/kas_29624-544-2-30.pdf?111205131841 (Surinder Jodhka and Aseem Prakash, “The Indian Middle Class: Emerging Cultures of Politics and Economics” KAS International Report, Dec 2011)
2. http://india.blogs.nytimes.com/category/indias-middle-class/ (Sambuddha Mitra Mustafi, New York Times Blog “India Ink” on India’s Middle Class, Collection of 5 Interesting Articles, May 2013)
3. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/feb/19/indian-middle-class-india-consumer (Priya Virmani on the Dark Side of the Indian Dream, Middle Class, Report from Kolkata, The Guardian, Feb 2011)
4. http://www.hinduonnet.com/2001/02/05/stories/05052523.htm (Andre Beteille on “The Indian Middle Class,” The Hindu, Feb 2001)

References:

1. Ahmad, A (1996) “Class, Nation and State: Intermediate Classes in Peripheral Societies,” i Aijaz Ahmad Lineages of the Present: Political Essays, New Delhi: Tulika
2. Alam, J (2004) Who Wants Democracy? Hyderabad: Orient Longma
3. Bardhan, P (1989) “The Dominant Class,” Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 24 (3), pp. 155-56
4. Chatterjee, P (2004) The Politics of the Governed, New Delhi: Permanent Black
5. Corbridge and Harriss (2000) Reinventing India: Liberalization, Hindu Nationalism and Popular Democracy, Cambridge: Polity Press
6. Deshpande, S (2003) Contemporary India: A Sociological View, New Delhi: Penguin
7. Das, P.K (2003) “Slums: The Continuing Struggle for Housing,” in Patel and Masselos(eds.) Bombay and Mumbai: The City in Transition, New Delhi: Oxford University Press
8. Dupont, V (2008) “Slum Demolition in Delhi since the 1990s: An Appraisal,” Economic and Political Weekly, 43, 28, 79-87
9. Fernandes, L (2006) India’s New Middle Class, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press
10. Harriss-White, B (2003) “Indian Development and the Intermediate Classes” in Harriss-White Indian Working: Essays on Society and Economy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
11. Jaffrelot and Veer (2008) “Introduction” in Jaffrelot and Veer Patterns of Middle Class Consumption in India and China, New Delhi: Sage
12. Kalecki, M (1967) “Observations on Social and Economic Aspects of Intermediate Regimes,” in Kalecki Essays on Developing Economies, Hassocks: The Harvester Press
13. Kaviraj, S (1988) “A Critique of Passive Revolution,” Economic and Political Weekly, Vol.23 (45-47), pp. 2429-44
14. King, A (2005) Spaces of Global Culture: Architecture, Urbanism, Identity, New York: Routledge
15. Mishra, P (1995) Butter Chicken in Ludhiana, New Delhi: Penguin
16. Sheth, D L (1999) “Secularisation of Caste and Making of Middle Class,” Economic and Political Weekly, 21 Aug, pp
17. Upadhya, C (2007) “Employment, Exclusion and Merit in Indian IT Industry,” Economic and Political Weekly, 19 May, pp. 1863-68
18. Varma, P (2007) The Great Indian Middle Class, New Delhi: Penguin