May 5, 2002

Achin Vanaik condemns in no uncertain terms the consumerism of the new middle class in India

ELITE Indian nationalism today is very different from what it was in the first two decades after Independence, when the involvement of this elite and middle class in the national movement with its progressive commitments and values was still a living memory and an influential legacy. Despite continuity with the attitudes of that later post-Independence generation, today’s elite is different in some important ways even from that of 15 years ago. Most notably, it is more thoroughly communalized and anti-democratic, more deeply contemptuous of the values of social concern and sympathy for the disadvantaged and poor than ever before.

There is no better indicator of the character of the Indian elite than its response to what can be considered the landmark and pivotal events of India’s post-Independence history — the establishment of Emergency rule during 1975-77; the V.P. Singh government’s partial implementation of the Mandal commission report’s recommendations in 1990; the destruction of Babri Masjid in December 1992; the crossing of the nuclear Rubicon in May 1998.

It is easy to forget, more than a quarter of a century later, that in its comfortable majority the urban middle class came around very quickly to supporting the Emergency, welcoming its claims to bringing about ‘discipline’, removing unsightly urban slums, banning strikes and other forms of civil disturbance. Even the ruthless programme of compulsory sterilization, which never touched the elite or middle classes, was justified since population growth was a ‘problem’ that needed to be tackled on a ‘war-footing’. The rapidity and ignominiousness with which the Emergency regime collapsed soon led this same middle class to condemn the Emergency once it was over and to declare that it was a political tragedy. But only those with short memories will take this middle class attempt at retrospective self-absolution at face value!

On the Mandal issue, the depth and scale of the hostility to the V.P. Singh government’s support for reservation in central government jobs to other backward classes (OBCs) in addition to the time-honoured reservations already existing for dalits and tribals had to be seen to be believed. Understood by all sides, the central issue was symbolic — political. As pointed out earlier, if it had been fully implemented, less than 50,000 jobs would have been affected. But the issue expressed, endorsed and therefore enhanced the already rising power of the OBCs. The upper castes/upper classes were virtually united in their opposition to Mandal but the shock troops of the anti-Mandal agitation were upper caste youth from the lower middle classes. Despite the intensity of these protests, the Mandalization of Indian politics is now a sullenly accepted fact by the upper castes and classes even as they remain uneasily watchful about further OBC encroachments.

On the destruction of the Babri Masjid, the Indian middle class has been more divided. Even among the large layer of ‘pale Saffronites’ there was considerable shock at the actual and symbolic violence displayed during this period, the openly contemptuous defiance of the constitution and the law, the contradiction between the public commitment of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to using only peaceful means to achieve its ends and the actual course of events. But while a section of the elite remains committed to liberal, secular values, a much larger section, while happy to accept and endorse a ‘soft Hindutva’, is worried that too strident an ideological-political orientation could cause major social turmoil and upheaval. This section may feel that Muslims and other religious minorities have been excessively ‘pampered’ and that the Sangh talks much sense, but do not want continuous or large-scale riots nor other forms of social and political backlash.

This middle class, whether secular-minded or ‘soft Hindutva’, has two shared characteristics. It respects ‘order’ and therefore is naturally inclined to follow power in its own self-interest. It also has a strong propensity to see moderation and rectitude whenever and wherever it can from dominant powers regardless of how weak the basis for such an assessment might actually be. In this respect there is the desire of the more secular-minded and democratically committed section of the middle class to believe that such moderate trends exist and are gaining ground within the BJP and the Sangh. The ‘soft Hindutva’ brigade, in its turn, wishes to see, and believes it is seeing, the dominant practices, behaviour and orientation of the BJP and Sangh as expressive of its own character and orientation.

This is wish-fulfilment with a vengeance. But such wish-fulfilment is integral to the nature of the middle classes whose dominant function in society is usually to be the ‘servitors of power’ and by being so achieving some small share in the exercise of that power. The middle class, however, is never the key locus of power in society. Today, almost a decade after the demolition of the Babri Masjid, the middle class for the most part has come to comfortable terms with the ideology and practice of Hindutva. Its only reservation is that there should be no ‘excesses’. Certainly, the BJP and the Sangh no longer face any serious ‘penalty’ for what they then did. On the bomb, the Indian media and most of the Indian middle class has not only accepted the new status but to greater or lesser extent gloried in it. It is seen as a desirable and necessary expression of the now more assertive India, a symbol of new-found pride as well as a means towards exercising greater global power and achieving more security. Unlike the other three landmark events — the Emergency, Mandalization, Hindutva and the attack on secularism — the nuclear bomb issue does not yet touch in any comparable way the lives of the vast majority of the population. There are no domestic ‘penalties’ to be paid or to worry about here if the middle class adopts an immoral and aggressively nationalist pro-bomb posture. For whatever else the acquisition of the bomb might or might not mean, like slavery, colonialism or apartheid, its endorsement cannot be defended on moral grounds.

The decision to cross the nuclear Rubicon was status-driven not threat-driven. It was changed self-perceptions, more specifically the changed character of elite Indian nationalism, not changed threat perceptions that explain why India went openly nuclear. It is not a coincidence that the only party (the BJP and its previous incarnations) which has been demanding an Indian bomb since the early 1950s should have taken this decision when it finally arrived in power. Its motivation was simple. The bomb is needed in order to fulfil the Hindutva mission of constructing a strong India by ‘uniting Hindus and militarizing Hinduism’.

Among sections of the elite, the response to the tests of 1998 was frenzied — a near-hysteria of self-congratulatory hype and hyperbole. India had finally ‘stood up’. It had acquired ‘megatonnes of prestige’, and so on. The nature of this response was extremely revealing. It bespoke not of a mature, relaxed or confident nationalism but of its opposite — an immature, tension-filled, insecure and belligerent nationalism desperate to find some source of self-pride and self-adulation and finding it in the acquisition of the bomb!

This search for self-esteem, for signs of an India ‘coming of age’ in a world where not enough ‘respect’ is shown to it has led to a curious side-effect — the NRI phenomenon. NRIs or non-resident Indians, especially the professionals of the United States (US), have become the exemplars of ‘success’. Most educated Indians after migration to the US are seen as having achieved great success, where this is measured by a combined criteria of high status position and money earnings. It is seen as evidence of what elite Indians can achieve if not hemmed in economically by archaic state controls and hostility to the inspirational ideal of wanting to become as rich as possible. Similarly, how much better things would be if only Indians were not hemmed in socially by the pressure from below of a claque of other forces, and therefore allowed to politically progress by making no concessions to populism.

This admiration for the NRI is a strange form of ‘nationalist’ adulation and role-modelling. What is most striking about the first-generation NRI professionals who migrate to the US is that they mostly come from the top five per cent of Indian society and would have remained a part of this elite had they stayed behind, enjoying high status and money incomes relative to other Indians far less fortunate. They have simply exchanged one elite position for another non-Indian one. They have done so primarily to earn more money, to have more material comforts, and to have higher international status. And they have been perfectly willing and happy to ‘defect’ from India on this score. That this very category of people should now have become envied role-models for the Indian elite left behind but ever keen to acquire the ‘green card’ for themselves and aspiring family members, speaks volumes about the self-serving character of this elite Indian nationalism. Equally interesting is that the deeds of successful members of the Indian diaspora abroad are ‘nationalized’, that is, become sources of pride for Indians at home. The obvious counterpart to this is that any kind of international achievement by Indians, no matter how trivial or superficial, also becomes a matter of nationalist glorification.

A revealing example of this absurd obsession is the way in which India has been repeatedly touted as a ‘beauty superpower’. Growing contempt for the inherent sexism of such contests and changing social mores in Europe (and even in the US) has made many more people, particularly women, dismissive of such ‘cattle market’ displays. Such international beauty contests no longer enjoy much respect or much of a market in the advanced democracies. The ‘growth area’ for their future expansion as spectacles and the expansion of markets for the various vested interests associated with the ‘glamour business’ are now in the developing world. But the mere fact of ‘success’ here far outweighs issues concerning the value and meaning of such endeavours. If such are the emerging, indeed dominant values of the Indian elite, why be surprised that other Western imports besides the ‘beauty business’ should have an even greater appeal in India than in their countries of origin?

That India remains a land of obscene contrast between rich and poor, the powerful and weak is to the Indian middle class disturbing, not in the sense that it impels social sensitivity and concern. It does not. It is disturbing only in that it is an international embarrassment and an irritating diversion of social focus from what might otherwise be a more concentrated preoccupation with the priorities and value-fulfilment of the IMC.

Such is the profile of today’s Indian middle class. No doubt it will strike many readers as unduly harsh and negative. But it is not and it is an assessment that carries a particular strategic-political message. The task of creating a better and more humane India in the coming period cannot be achieved through this IMC but against, and besides, it. What gives reason for some optimism about the country’s future is that India is still not like the Western advanced democracies. There, what has been called the ‘two-thirds’ or ‘one-third plus one-third’ society prevails. One-third of the population prospers, another third copes, and the remaining one-third is in a far worse state than it was during the West’s own period of mass prosperity, the Golden Age era of 1948-73.

India is closer to being an ‘iceberg’ society with one-eighth prospering and the remaining seven-eighths either coping (at the small upper echelon levels) or failing to do so. Perhaps, the ‘three-fourths society’ is the right term to describe India. At any rate, the main point is that the persistence of suffering and privation on a mass scale means the necessary (if not always sufficient) condition for provoking the eruption of progressive forms of social struggle is ever present. This always provides hope that things can and will change for the considerably better.

 

Excerpts from

Thinking social science in India: essays in honour of Alice Thorner

Edited by Sujata Patel, Jasodhara Bagchi and Krishna Raj

Sage Publications, M 32 Market, Greater Kailash 1, New Delhi-110 048

Email: marketing@indiasage.com 

ISBN 0-7619-9600-1 468pp. Indian Rs795

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