Thursday, March 1, 2007
The great Indain midlle class tamasha
What to say about the great Indian middle class and it's orientations! where is the ever burgeoning middle class and its ever increasing consumerist attitude, heading toward? It looks as if we are reliving the past!! the middle class of India was born during the coclonial period but it seems it could never come out of the role that it was expected to play during those times - the role of an "assisting class"! but one cannot blatantly repudiate the fact that there was a time when the middle class used to be a bit more human and sensitive. there was a time when people used to think that how could they live in luxury when the majority of the people are living in misery!! there was a period of sensitivity; there was a epriod of humanity! What has happened to it?? what are todays people eating that such people are not produced anymore. It sounds quite hilarious though. The new Indian middle class is definitely growing quantitatively but there are major doubts about it's qualitative growth!! it seems to be still living upto it's image of the assisting class. It's orienatations are also embedded in quantity rather than quality. There was a time when the middle class used to be responsible for bringing anout changes in the society. now there seems a stark contrast- now the new middle class just sees the happenings in the society silently and passively. It hurts when one has to describe the new Indian middle class as just the money making class and not the thinker creating class; it hurts when one realises that the new middle class is the biggest perpetrator of the "culture of silence"!! IT HURTS, IT HURTS, IT HURTS!!!
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1 comment:
nice piece indeed when people esp. the middle class-the revolutionary of yesteryears- has sunk deep into the cesspool of blind consumerism. but a few things need to b reminded: 1. the historical role of the middle class has not ben justly dealt with. indeed the middle class was created in the image of an "assisting class", but was created in the image of the whiteman. actually wat happened with it was that positively, in so far as it was enlightened with the ideas of the west. and negatively, it became a class white but not quite white and as anil seal says mostly and in majority remainedmodern only on the skin. but even though that the great thinkers and social activists that it produced, thugh small heralded athe indian renaissance.
what has changed since then is that the number of such thinkers is on a proggressive decline. but still it is the middle class only which forms the backbone of the country and which runs it. say for example our respected pm and the president both being leading men belong to it; the social activists like medha patkar and others too belong to it.
but yes u too r right on account of the majority being only "consumers" and producers of wealth but nothing constructive otherwise.
but c, todays times do not provide the new entrants to this calss with the leisure of easy entry and easy access to the status and the priviledge of the sitution wen there were more jobs and less of educated ones; even if later in the middle of the colonial times wen new classes and castes and religions got access to education and rat race started, competition was nopt asw stark and acute as it is now...mbas and engineers working in the night call centres in desperation is an attestation of this...and increasing commercialisation is a naked fact which has both merits and demerits... on the one hand it provides employment avenues and a measure and a ladder of social mobility while on the other hand it kills the spirit of humanism...i think u r not wrong but boh the perspectives need to be seen in the light of all the pros and cons...
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