https://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Addictions/middle-class-is-an-aspirational-identity-people-want-other-identities-not-as-closely-linked-with-their-ascriptive-identity/
‘Middle class is an aspirational identity … people want other identities not as closely linked with their ascriptive identity’ March 26, 2018, 2:00 AM IST Avijit Ghosh in Addictions | Edit Page, India, Q&A, World | TOI US-based political scientist Devesh Kapur’s work spans myriad topics, including the rise of Dalit entrepreneurs and the state of American Indians. Ahead of his move in July to the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University, he spoke to Avijit Ghosh about his research on the Indian middle class: How has the Indian middle class evolved over time? Prior to Independence, the Indian middle class was more like the way they were in 19th century Europe. The class was rooted in urbanisation and the professions: lawyer, doctor, teacher, engineer. They were not landed elite, peasantry or the industrial worker. It was the professions and higher education – both embedded in urban settings – that created the foundations of this middle class. At the time of Independence the middle class in India was tiny. Its subsequent expansion was largely in the public sector. The main growth of the middle class happened with the expansion of the public sector from 1950s to 1980s. The bureaucracy and defence sectors were the other organs of growth in government employment. This expansion was underpinned by the growth of higher education in government colleges and a gradual growth of urban India. Since early 1990s, public sector employment has been stagnant. Since then, growth of the middle class has been largely located in broader growth of incomes in the population and is coming more from the private sector. The vast majority of these are what one might call the lower middle class whose parents were likely to have been poor. This group has a greater anxiety both because of lower incomes and because their employment is often not in the formal sector which comes with additional protections such as healthcare and pension. They know their hard-won gains are precarious and they can easily slip down. What are the main features of the study on middle class that you carried out in 2014? The study was jointly carried out with Milan Vaishnav and Neelanjan Sircar. The earlier debates on the middle class in India revolved around its size and measure. The number varied according to cut-off criteria. We decided that instead of imposing our own criteria, why don’t we ask the people. Do people think they are middle class? The study was about self-perception or self-identification. Is it an aspirational category? We were surprised by the number of people who self-identified themselves as middle class though objectively if we look at their assets, they would be categorised as poor. It showed that middle class is clearly an aspirational identity. What are the policy implications of this? Most political parties insist on imposing a social identity on their vote banks. But it seems people want other identities as well, or at least be associated with it – probably a more neutral identity which is not as closely linked with their ascriptive identity. They would like a class identity, not in the old Marxian sense, but instead an aspirational middle class identity, even though of course what that means would differ widely. These aspirations have come largely through broader income growth, media exposure, and through what you see others are doing. People can argue that they suffer from false consciousness, they are poor and don’t know what they are talking about. But that view is patronising. People are quite aware of who they are and what they want. Both Indian politics and society would be better served if we could move our discourse more towards identities like this and what can be done to bring more people into that rather than be fixated around supposedly immutable ascriptive identities. Do you think government’s policies are benefiting the middle class, especially in the context of demonetisation? Rapid growth would benefit the middle class. We know that growth dipped. Demonetisation had two narratives: a strike against corruption, which had a positive resonance among the middle class. The other narrative was that any group that depended on cash income was badly hit, which was more the poor and those in rural India. The middle class in the organised sector was largely protected. But the lower middle class was hurt because most of them are not in the organised sector. The secure middle class of the organised sector has not grown much. To that extent, the lower middle class voter is a more volatile voter. Their incomes are more volatile. There’s a risk that if you cannot appeal to this fairly substantial group on their economic interests, we might again see political parties re-emphasising social identities and stoking resentments. This will take away the advantages of moving towards a society and polity where a middle class discourse begins to matter. Do you think middle class would be happy with Modi government’s performance? If you judge it as per the promises made, it is underwhelming. If you take the last 15 years, at least on the economic front it is not out of line whether on the positive or the negative. DISCLAIMER : Views expressed above are the author's own. -- Peace Is Doable -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Green Youth Movement" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send an email to [email protected]. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/greenyouth. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
