The turn of the middle class

The turn of the middle class


America leads the world in press freedom. From the clutch of dailies run by early press barons like William Randolph Hearst to the mass circulation weeklies like Time and Newsweek nowadays, The Americans set the agenda on global issues. Attitudes and opinions worldwide are subliminally governed by what the American journals decide to think and write.

The American Press has long assumed the role of a constitutional watch-dog, forever asserting the founding principles of liberty, equality and fraternity derived from the French. This high moral tone sustains through the entire gamut of media presentation, acting as a yardstick by which the global village is judged.

For a developing country like India, living with one foot in our feudal and caste stratified past, and the other placed tentatively in the democratic and republican present, it results in an inferiority complex. A complex that makes our pundits hector the masses as if to say, I know better but you don’t. You don’t, because you live in a feudal mind-set while I am a modern thinking internationalist.

The Americans, who are the arbiters, find it discordant that our intelligentsia won’t take responsibility for the state of affairs. We sound focussed and intelligent and yet cannot translate our perception into effective action. Excuse making is a national pastime at which we happen to be very good. Implementation, it is readily conceded, is faulty because the hoi-polloi don’t understand.

Everywhere in India, capable people glibly expound a doctrine of despair and cynicism. The underlying thrust of the commentary is that we are rapidly going from bad to worse. All talk of progress is hog-wash directed at the dumb masses to manipulate votes and make money willy-nilly.

The question is, who is responsible for the situation, assuming the cynical consensus to be true. With easy facility, each one of India’s intelligentsia feels sure that they themselves are not to blame. They don’t answer the next question that springs to mind- that is, if they are blameless, and there is much not working properly, why don’t they fix it? This is when the crowd thins rapidly as the cynical consensus breaks down. Everyone is too busy with his own life to change the country.

It is high time that the educated middle classes, now 250 million strong, come to terms with their ostrich-like mentality. High time they realised that the masses look to the “sahib” for direction, not contempt. Educated Indians are in charge of the country’s destiny. It is their duty to drive the country forward safely and with responsibility.

This sense of responsibility is the only way for us to shed our inferiority complex. The middle class may have an enormous task ahead, but the sooner they get started, the better. If inspiration is required, look back at history. In the first half of this century, less than 30,000 Brits, Viceroy and Tommy included, ran an Indian Empire stretching from Burma to the Arabian Gulf.

India Gandhi once expressed the opinion that corruption is found everywhere in the world, among rich nations and poor, and so we should look at the issue as a global social evil, rather than flagellate ourselves for being particularly venal. The truisms in this remark are quite obvious, but there is another important message buried in her attitude. She did not think we had anything to apologise for to the world, while readily conceding there was much to be done.

Self-regard is important for the middle class to form conviction, but this is not a clarion call to Swadeshi jingoism. India cannot be right in all seasons, but neither should its best and brightest form the opinion that it is beyond repair.

After nearly 50 years of self governance, we have taken a great many strides. Consider the swollen ranks of the middle class itself. This number of 250 million, up from a total population if 350 million at independence, has significant skills and impressive buying power, and is being targeted with great interest by most advanced economies. The middle class population in India is, after all, the entire population of the US.

This country now feeds itself, all 950 million people, with surpluses to export. A far cry from over 50 million famine deaths in British-ruled India in the 19th and first half of the 20th centuries.

The roads, railways, air travel, telecommunications, armed forces’ capabilities, technical and management abilities, distribution and marketing, planning and forecasting, music, art and entertainment, health and legal redress, have all undergone changes for the better.Consumerism has been unleashed, making us hungry for improvements and competition.

The intelligentsia sneer at all this, calling it names, comparing our inept handling of issues to the streamlined West. They point a finger at all the urinating in public, the dirtiness, the smell, the vandalising of public property, bureaucratic inertia, callousness, apathy, violence, lawlessness, instead-almost in counterpart. They imply nothing can save this country except some sort of pest control, themselves exempted of course!The fact is, this haw-hawism will not carry the middle class very far. To display more ennui than purpose is a good way to be over-run.

It is no use whining about the uppity Mandalisation of the polity if there is no will to lead. There is too much hollow posturing and abdication instead of responsibility and action. A facile adoption of Western ideas qualifies us as Wogs, no more no less. Uninvolved rejection of affirmative action programmes amount to dilettantism, and will lead to decline, even dismissal.

The Indian middle class needs a banner under which it can unite. This flag need not be a political party. It definitely does not need to be a religion. The unifying factor can be a change of attitude. This is a crucial juncture in India’s progress. It is the turn of the middle class to take charge. They need to apply all the things they know, in everyday life, and stop blaming everyone but themselves for the shortcomings of the nation.

(1003 words)

By Gautam Mukerji

First published in THE HINDUSTAN TIMES www.hindustantimes.com on Sunday February 25th, 1996 in the PERSPECTIVE column on the Edit page

P.S. Infosys Technologies, the greatest Indian middle class success story was not very well known in 1996... nor were most of the top twenty companies we see today. Eleven years can indeed be a very long time.