A Brief History of the Indian Middle Class

In the United States of America, we have numerous rags to riches stories. Most of them are instances of extreme perseverance coupled with business acumen. In India, we rarely have rags to riches stories. This is because India, like most of South East Asia is riddled with corruption and bureaucracy. The bureaucratic mechanism coupled with corrupt politicians and administrators ensures that the rich can always get their way. The poor can never do this. So in countries like India, the Rich become richer and the poor stay poor.

A second generation rich Indian has to be extremely foolish, naïve or downright stupid to become poor. Squandering the ancestral/Parental wealth on habits and lifestyle related expenditure comes under the heading of stupid. Even an average intelligence can retain most of the wealth and lead a life of luxury by playing it safe with the inherited corpus.

The poor, on the other hand, have to become extremely violent or indulge in criminal activities before they can enter the ranks of the truly rich.

India also has a huge middle-class population. The middle class comes between the upper class or rich and the lower class or poor. Being India, the middle class itself is further stratified into Lower Middle Class (LMC) and Upper Middle Class (UMC). There must be Middle Middle Class but I wouldn’t be able to recognize one on sight.

The Middle Classes have always been a contented lot expecting no more than job security, a regular pay check and controlled inflation. They treasure a owned house and the usual wish list of the UMC is a owned house in the suburbs, a decent marriage for their daughter and a peaceful retired life. The value systems they have developed over the last 100 years are the basic value systems of the Indian Sub-Continent.

A few of the tenets of this Value System are

• Study hard, pass the right exams and the Government or Employer will thereafter take care of you.
• Work hard and stick on to your job.
• Use less of everything. Save whatever you can.
• Don’t take risk.
• Don’t express emotions openly.

These are the result of the Indian attitude of fatalism coupled with British education. The letters to the editor sent to many English Dailies are the voices of the middle class protesting against any disturbance of the status quo.

The first generation of this middle class was born before Independence. They grew older in Independent India; struggled hard; gave their children the only thing they thought had any value—college education. Their children flooded the IITs and RECs or became Chartered Accountants and Doctors.

This second generation Middle Class quickly realized the potential in working abroad. The Middle East was their first target followed by Australia and Africa. These when they returned had slowly created a new tier among the rich. The newly returned Indians (NRI?) had a deep longing to do something for India but lacked the ability to make a lasting impact.

The third generation eschewed Middle East and made USA their land of hopes and dreams. In this they resembled many other races that saw America as the land of life and liberty. This generation is the truly lost generation—Indians by birth and in their hearts but Americans by domicile and conditioning.

The middle class value systems imbibed in their youth has made this group an ideal work force—intelligent, honest, unquestioning and flexible. Since they still retain their Middle Class Mentality they save a lot and hence are always a bit away from the mainstream American ethos and culture that says earn, spend and move on.

India’s ability to grow with sustainability and provide a quality life to its people is essentially in the hands of the fourth generation of this middle class who are currently in schools and colleges. Will they too leave for working in foreign countries? Or will theyt stay. Will they dream of becoming Americans or will they strive to make India better than America?