Lecture: The Centrality of the Middle, Contemporary India: A Sociological View, Satish Deshpande, 2003
Keywords: Caste and Class Relation, Class and Government Job, Define Middle Class, Globalization and Middle Class, Middle Class as Consumer, What is Middle Class, Who are Middle Class
University of Delhi
Bachelor of Arts
Sociology of India
Reading to be covered: Deshpande, Satish., 2003, Contemporary India: A Sociological View, New Delhi: Viking/ Penguin India Books. Chapter: Six: The Centrality of the Middle Class, pp. 125-150
Course Structure
Important points to be kept in mind while studying the article
Expected outcome
Lecture in detail with comment and clarification
Introduction
The Social Significance of the Middle Class
Defining the Middle Class
The Middle Class as ‘Consumer Class’
The three Hypothetical Definitions of the Middle Class
Middleness in the Social History of the Indian Middle Class(es)
The Middle Class and the Ideology and Processes of Development
Development and Middle Class
The Differentiation of the Middle Class
Globalization and the New Middle Classes
Important Points to be Kept in Mind While Study the Article/ Study Material
Students try to understand the meaning of the class in Marxist and non-Marxist tradition.
What is the basic parameter which is determining the class?
How social, economic and political variables are determining and shaping the class.
How the concept and class itself have significance in society.
How the ideas of the class have shaped theoretically and ideologically?
Expected Outcome
Students will be able to understand the significance of the class.
How it is formed and what are the responsible factors for farming the class in society.
They will be able to understand the theoretical and ideological perspective f the class, including the concept of class in Indian society.
ARTICLE IS NOT RELATING AND EXPECTING FROM THE STUDENTS that they should be able to relate the concept of the class from Max Weber’s perspectives. THIS ARTICLE HAS ALSO NOT MENTION ANYWHERE MAX WEBER which is very unfortunate. HOWEVER, THIS IS EXPECTED OUT OF COLLEGE STUDENT that they must read this article from Max Weber’s perspective also.
Introduction
The term class is a social term. It was very popular during the 1970s and 1980s.
After the collapse of socialism and the broader disarray of Marxism as a political philosophy and a social scientific perspective-have made the riches-to-rages story of class seem so self-evident that it tends to be taken for granted.
Earlier we had many movements that were called a class movement however these days the ‘new social movement’ organizes around non-traditional issues, like the environment movement, gender movement, etc.
The new movement spared the various types of identity politics. [125]
An author arguing that this is well known; despite its centrality to his theoretical framework class is one concept hat Karl Marx himself did not develop adequately. Marx discussed it on the basis of capital which is further based on historical, not on a theoretical basis.
Karl Marx developed his theory of class historically in his writing (1) ‘Communist Manifesto’, (2) Essay on French political history ‘The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon’, and (3) The Class Struggle in France.’
Theoretically, the concept of class is located at the confluence of economy, society and policy. Thus, ‘class’ in Marxism is the theoretical principle by which society may be divided into a distinct group that: (a) are identified by their economic role or position, which, (b) shapes the social world they inhabit and the culture they fashion, which, in turn, (c) mould their political consciousness and inspires their actions. It seems that all three are integrated here but they have unequal relations but are also of unequal importance – causal priority is accorded to the economy, or level (a), which is privileged over the other two levels of society and culture, (b) and political (c), with not much of a distance being made among the latter two.
In short, the concept of the class is the centrepiece of the core causal sequence proposed by Marxist theory wherein what you are (at the economic level) shapes what you experience (at the social level) which ultimately determines what you do (at the political level). [126]
For deterring the class the material condition of the past and present, as well as the social and political position, is playing an important role in the society. The economic class to has a distinct culture and a specific politics. [127]
The Social Significance of the Middle Class
In the Marxian tradition, the middle class is called as ‘petit bourgeoisie’ and according to the author, Marx had little regard about these middle class. However Marx gave more attention to the bourgeoisie and proletariat, which were considered to be great classes with a historic mission, the intermediate classes were seen as impediments to the progressive march of history. We can also find this in the Communist Manifesto. However, Italian thinker Antonio Francesco Gramsci (1891 to 1937) has described the middle class more carefully and their role in modern societies. [128]
DEAR STUDENTS, PLEASE REMEMBER I had told you the meaning of bourgeoisie class and petit-bourgeois in the class during the teaching of ‘On Some Aspects of the Historiography of Colonial India’ by Ranjit Guha.
The preliminary reason for the significance of the middle is their disproportionate influence in ideological matters. This is the reason that in academics we have the desire to study about the middle class. Not only in the academics in real life in the field of politics, business, economics too have keen to study the middle class. [129]
From the economic point of view the middle class is neither poor nor the rich, they are neither too conservative not too progressive.
The famous cartoonist R. K. Laxman has made many cartoons in the middle class. His cartoon is reflecting the true face of the middle class in India.
The middle class is important because they are inflated into a larger sense of legitimate representativeness the middle-class whole of society. This is the reason that everyone wants to study in the middle class.
The middle class is also important because according to Ehrenreich this is the claim that it is ‘’the class that is everywhere represented as representing everyone’. [130]
This claim had been a more or less legitimate one in most Western countries. In the western countries, only a small proportion could be classified as upper class, and the ranks of the poor and even the traditional working class, and the ranks of the poor and even the traditional working-class thinned out by a combination of rising income and economic restriction which a relocation jobs in the tertiary or service sector.
Defining the Middle Class
How we define the middle class or any things is depends on what we wish to do with the concept.
For example, the three components of the Marxist definition of class discuss earlier – (1) the economic, (2) the social, and (3) the political.
(1) The economic definition aims to identify groups with shared economic characteristics.
(2) The social definition attempts to demarcate groups that share the same lifestyle, patterns of consumption, or social attitudes.
(3) The political definition tries to different groups according to the political agendas or parties they support, or the leaders they identify with. [131]
We have the various agencies that measure and control the economic activities. They also provide various economic data which is available in public. By using these data we can classify the population according on the basis of economic condition. [132]
These data are helping us to understand the society that which kind of population is living there. [133]
The economic condition is determining all the three variable to determining the class that is economic, social and political. The combination and nexus of these three are determining the class position of the individual.
The Middle Class as ‘Consumer Class’
The simple definition of the middle class is based purely on the economic term. This is decided ion the bass of specific income and consumer segment. The Indian consumer class has developed after opening the Indian market for the global player starting from the 1990s. Now around 30% of the Indian population come under the consumer class. This middle class are excluding the very rich and very poor person. This is defined by the level or types of consumption. [134]
DEAR STUDENTS, please refer the income graph on Page No. 135. However, this is very old data from 1999to 2000 by National Sample Survey Organization (NSSO). You may use the latest data. [134]
DEAR STUDENTS please also refer the graph on page No. 137. This graph is showing Consumer Durable in Indian Household. This is the old date from 1998 but it will help you to understand.
The data is showing different income groups. However, there are no universal criteria to define the middle class in terms of income or consumption. This very forms society to society depends on the total and average income and consumption group. This also includes the lifestyle, income level, attitudes and other criteria.
Therefore we can say that term middle class is more symbolic than a factual description. Because we cannot define the middle class in absolute form rather it is relative and differs from society to society. [136-7]
Defining on the basis of the per capita income is easily understood but defining middle class on the basis of consumer goods are not easy. Indian middle class considered as a class of consumer, even when the level of consumption is not specified. However, there is also no universal criteria to define middle class on the basis of per capita income too. Therefore either on the basis of per capita income or as a consumer the middle class is defined by on the basis of average income in the particular society. [136-7]
The middle class too have the ideology and they are found in the certain social and economic location. The author is giving the example of cartoonist R. K. Laxma’s cartoon ‘the common man’ that his common man is representing the middle class who is consisting only 10 to 15 per cent of the population, which is clearly visible on next day of the budget. It means that one can see that R. K. Laxman’s cartoon is representing the minority in the name of a common man, who portraits himself/ herself as majority and representative of the society. 138
Alternative Theoretical Definition of the Middle Class
Dear students this section is dealing with the THREE HYPOTHETICAL DEFINITION of the middle class. PLEASE GO with the text for detail description. [139]
The three Hypothetical Definitions of the Middle Class
FIRST: The middle class is the class that articulates the hegemony of the ruling bloc. They are in the ruling class by translating the relations of domination into the language of legitimization and mediate the relationship between classes within the ruling bloc.
The middle class is responsible for managing the discourse of legitimization. They also help to manage the relations between industrial-financial and agrarian capital within the ruling bloc and mediate the relations between the ruling block and the rest of society. [139]
SECOND: The middle class is the class that most depends on cultural capital and on the mechanism for the reproduction of such capital.
The cultural capital is playing an important role in India for shaping the middle class in India. This is giving a particular type of identity to the Indian middle class. These cultural capitals fulfil at least three attributes of property (a) they confer tangible and psychological benefits, (b) they can be privatized that is, other can be excluded from enjoying their benefits, and (c) finally they can be transmitted across generations. In this parameter we can that the Indian middle class depends on social-cultural capital of caste, community, and religion. [141]
However, the mode of its reproduction, transmission or inheritance is unique identity or skill cannot simply be handed over from person to person (as another economic asset can), but has to be learned afresh.
Member of the middle-class are, as a rule, owners of cultural capital, they may also possess innate talents, be hardworking, disciplined and so on. The important question is whether cultural capital can be treated on as per with other forms of capital (e.g. land, wealth, and so on) and be subjected to social regulations in the same way. To what extend can society tolerate, encourage or redress disparities in this form of capital? These are critical issues not only for the middle class but also for the rest of society.
THREE: As an increasingly differentiated class, the middle class specializes in the production and dissemination of ideology; its elite fraction specializes in the production of ideologies, and its mass fraction engages in the exemplary consumption of these ideologies, thus investigating them with social legitimacy. [141]
Middleness in the Social History of the Indian Middle Class(es)
Three main reasons have been offered for the special salience of the middle classes in colonial contexts: STUDENTS ARE ADVISED to read the last paragraph of Page No. 142
The article is saying that the Indian nationalism and national movement was initiated imitated by the Indian middle class, especially those who were western educated and westernize. They were also dominated in the Indian National Congress.
The members of the emergent Indian middle class 0 urban professional, white-collar workers in government and industry, and the intelligentsia – self consciously invoked this model based on a moral privileging of the middle class. Perhaps the main function of the middle class was to build hegemony. [143]
The post-independence form of the moral privileging took the form of ‘development’- the middle class itself as continuing the nationalist project managing the development process on behalf of the nation.
The Middle Class and the Ideology and Processes of Development
Most of the middle-class elite leaders are coming from the law background. [144]
Only after independence middle class emerged from those who were not substantial property owner, and who were dependent on educational and cultural capital and the professional careers that these promised.
These middle class were the product of the development regime.
Development and Middle Class
[From Page No. 145 3rd Paragraph]
The author says that the development ideas are no longer in domination and development-as-ideology no longer resonates with the changed ideological context at the national and global levels.
(Personally I do not agree with the above statement. Even this was not true during the writing of this article, i.e. 2003. However, students are free to accept or reject the argument by Satish Deshpande. This should be also noted that Satish Deshpande did not give any argument or fact in support of his statement.)
Nehruvian secular-socialism had helped to grow this nation and that remains in the public discourse. [146]
Apart from the other parameters and variables, the caste is also one of the most important factors for being in the middle class or to be out of the middle class.
Because data shows that those who are higher caste have more average income and those who are lower in caste rank have less amount of average income. And these income factors enabling or disabling them be to be or not be in the middle class, therefore we can say that there are link and relation between caste and income, hence the caste and class.
CLARIFICATION: The term ‘upper’ and ‘lower’ caste are not used for labelling them their social and mental capacity rather as it is described in the Hindu texts, and Hindi Verna Social Order. Neither any caste is upper and/or lower in it, nor is this attached with the social and mental capacity. - Anil
The Differentiation of the Middle Class
There was a relationship between the development and the middle class. The Nehru era emphasized the scientific and technical manpower this was responsible for the emergence of the middle class.
PLEASE NOTE: Satish Deshpande agrees that during Nehru era there was a relationship between development middle class, but he is saying that now the idea of development is no more a dominant idea. [146]
Globalization and the New Middle Classes
The author is emphasizing on the relation between new ideologies and the middle class. He emphasized on the ‘adjustment’ and ‘globalization.’ By ‘adjustment’ he means ‘structural adjustment’.
Structural Adjustment means the new economic reform with the structural reform of financial institutions, government and economic policies, including liberalization and privatization.
The structural adjustment and the globalization both are have transformed the society in large scale. It also affects the ideologues, organizations, and identities.
Know here more about structural adjustment
https://www.globalissues.org/article/3/structural-adjustment-a-major-cause-of-poverty
PLEASE NOTE: The terminology structural adjustment is mainly used neither for the African countries nor for India. However, the practical effects are the same; therefore the use of terminology is absolutely fine. Even then you should aware of the use of the terminology. [149]
The author goes with the popular concept that this is middle class, especially the upper-middle class are mainly benefited by the globalization. However, this has never been proved by the data.
PLEASE READ the last paragraph of page number 150 this is important. Middle class thinking that they themselves are the nation. [150]
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