The Tragic Indian Middle Class

Caught in a time warp with winds of change swirling around

The “Great Indian Middle Class”, a feel-good moniker really for the “tragic Indian middle class” has finally found something to feel good about itself. This poor (pun unintended) class of people who aspire for “page 3” or “noveau riche” status but have to make do with battered public transport, the tax burden and window shopping each day of their lives, have found their voice. Or so it seems. Two incidents which occurred in the recent past have seemed to lend credence to the theory that the middle classes are here to be heard. President Bush’s reference to them (albeit in passing) and their successful SMS petition through NDTV (who counts them as their ‘target audience’) to the President of India (reg. the miscarriage of justice in the Jessica Lal murder trail).

So what is it that has triggered the middle classes out of their lethargy? Sudden realization of the bad state of affairs all around and the desire to change things, through SMS’ at least to start with. Or is there something else to it.

As far as President Bush was concerned, I’m sure he was talking to shampoo, cold drink, burger, and toothpaste and shaving cream consumers – needs that American companies would look to fulfill. Apart from zillions of other things American of course in including accents, fake, acquired or painstakingly cultivated.

But as far as the Jessica case is concerned, is there another dimension to it? Of course there were others (Priyadarshini Mattoo comes to mind) before her who met an equally tragic and gruesome end but these people shrugged their shoulders and moved on. Jessica was photogenic. She was part of the ‘page 3 crowd’. She wasn’t one of us – the middle classes. She belonged to a class which we sneered upon publicly but wanted to be a part of. Then, when pictures of her family were splashed across television screens – the haggard old father beaten down by the weight of a 7 year old struggle for justice, very much middle class in appearance; the mother whose time ran out on her and she bid goodbye before she could be a party to this ‘freak show’; the despondent sister, not matching her sibling in glamour and very much a ‘nice middle class girl’ – the middle classes realized that injustice had been perpetrated on them by one that they loathe but secretly still want to be – the jet set, the Bina Ramanis, the Shayan Munshis et al. It became an “us vs. them” and the power of the cellphone prevailed (aided of course by breathless and frantic anchors on English news channels catering to those who have mastered or pretend to have mastered the language thus justifying their status). It is a peculiar set of people.

This peculiar class of people –

1) Which seldom votes but complains about the pathetic state of affairs of the country’s body politic

2) Which spits on the streets; Seeks out freshly painted walls and clean lifts to leave a beetle or pan-masala-stained mark of their presence and yet complains about filth on the streets

3) Which pushes a 50 rupee note @ the traffic constable upon being caught in the act of a traffic violation and cries foul when a politician is caught accepting a bribe

4) Which ogles at every woman with hungry eyes while letting his fertile imagination run wild and bays for the blood of a film star caught with his pants down

5) Which love talking about morals and ideals and flouts them at the first opportunity

6) Which resents being treated in a patronizing manner by the privileged class but does the same nonetheless to those less privileged; regularly trampling upon the self-esteem of the chaukidaars (security guards), the office boys/peons, the drivers and the kaamwaali bais (household help)

Much to say the middle classes are ‘India personified’. We have always been “like that only”. We needlessly have taken the “moral high ground” at the expense of our common sense, reasoning and logic. We have always looked upon ourselves as leaders (NAM, SAARC, Leader of the third world … blah-de-blah) while ignoring the filth, the famine, the floods, the poverty which continually ravage our country. Much to our chagrin and discomfort our purported followers never looked upon us as leaders because we have as many if not any lesser no of people scraping out a wretched existence.

But now that India is basking in new found confidence I hope the middle classes too will shed their baggage; they will not be the insecure lot that they have been; that they will demand their right and do their due; that they will take things as they come, confident in their own abilities and being comfortable in their skins – not looking for a scapegoat to heap their frustrations on.

The winds of change are all around. I just wait for the day when people would stand up and say “it begins at home”.