LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Contemporary Indian Women Writing in English and
the Problematics of the Indian Middle Class

Seema Rana, M.Phil.
Anup Beniwal

The Middle Class in India - Some Characteristics and Contradictions

The middle-class in India is a vast and diverse social group. It is a rising, consumer- driven class bent on living the good life. It always seeks mobility, security, luxury and choice. It is consumerist class and in a privileged position.

The middle-class has evolved its own peculiar value system which enables it to combine traditional faith with modern conveniences born out of newly acquired prosperity. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the highly ambivalent attitude of the typical middle-class patriarch who pays bribes and talks about the evil of corruption in the country.

A close examination of middle-class ideas reveals a number of contradictions. Middle-class in India simultaneously speaks of reason and sentiment, of the need to preserve tradition and initiate radical change, advocates liberty and authoritarianism, equality and hierarchy at the same time. All the public sphere projects of the middle-class are shot through with these inconsistencies and contradictions and these are constitutive of middle-class politics.

The middle-class responds to those issues which it co-relates to its own well being. There is almost complete inability of the well-to-do- middle-class citizens of Indian society to see or identify with anything beyond the narrowest definition of self-interest. Middle-class's criticism of the government for its inefficiencies and rampant corruption is certainly valid, but it does not occur to the average middle-class Indian that in a country where scores of millions do not have enough to eat, the government can have other priorities than only listening to their increasing demands. There is no obligation to think or act beyond the articulation of their requirements.

The Number of the Poor Going Up, Not Coming Down

In all these years after independence, the number of the poor has gone up, but, paradoxically and tragically, the middle-class's ability to notice them has gone down. It does not matter if there are so many middle-class ambitions and fantasies played out everyday, one third of the population has no access even to the basic amenities of life. Middle class lacks civic sensitivity.

Shift in the Values of the Middle Class

Pavan Varma in his book The Great Indian Middle Class laments at the fact that there is a shift in the values of the middle-class. The ideals of service gave way to individualism, austere ways of life came to be replaced by consumerism, and values of the middle-class, ironically came to resemble those reflected in the self-seeking actions of the politicians they so much despised.

On one hand, middle-class professes the greatest affinity to democracy, while on the other it has opted to remain, by and large, merely a critical onlooker to the increasing corruption in the democratic system. One reason, can be a sense of helplessness at the degree of corruption in politics, the other can be self-obsession in its own material pursuits so as to withdraw from anything that does not directly concern its immediate interests.

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