A K Bhattacharya: The floundering middle class

NEW DELHI DIARY

The middle class in India appears to have arrived, if you go by the general trend in recent comments on the state of affairs in the country. The thesis being put out runs along the following lines. The middle class, which long felt disenfranchised and disempowered (because it was disenchanted with the political processes and therefore either hardly voted or did not have the requisite numbers to exercise its rights over political affairs), has now found in the judiciary and media a strong ally to get itself heard.

There are startling results of this transformation, according to this thesis, beginning with the much-hyped cases of Jessica Lall and Priyadarshini Mattoo, where the main accused had earlier gone scot-free and have now been convicted by higher courts of law. This, it is argued, was possible because of a reinvigorated middle class that is growing in number, is more empowered economically and now feels that it should get its due. And this is happening not with the help of politicians, but in spite of these politicians and with the active support of the media and judiciary.

This may be largely true. But it is important to note that the middle class that now seems to have got active is a different kind of middle class. It is necessary to identify the character of this middle class in order to understand the sociological transformation that is taking place in our society and assess how durable or sustainable this change can be.

The middle class that has used the media and judiciary to get itself heard has largely urban concerns. Jessica Lall and Priyadarshini Mattoo both belonged to Delhi and to the upper echelons of our society. The middle class reacted to such gross miscarriage of justice, most probably because the victims belonged to the "people like us" category. The moot point is: Would the middle class have reacted to similar miscarriage of justice if the victims belonged to the "people like them" category?

In fact, did the middle class react the same way when S A Geelani, a lecturer in Delhi University, was found guilty by a lower court of having conspired the attack against Parliament on December 13, 2001, and was later acquitted by the higher courts of law? Mr Geelani could arguably belong to the "people like us" category. And yet, neither the media nor the middle class thought it was necessary to highlight his case. If he saved himself from the gallows, it was because of some public-spirited lawyers who valiantly fought his case.

If one argues that Mr Geelani was after all accused of a crime against Parliament and hence the middle class looked at his case differently, consider how the same middle class reacted to the Dhananjoy Chatterjee case. Here was a person who was accused of having raped and killed a teenager school-going girl. But the middle class and the media took up cudgels on his behalf and put up a spirited fight to save him from the gallows, before he was finally hanged.

Equally disturbing is the manner in which the middle class chooses to remain quiet about the rampant misuse of land and unauthorised construction in the capital city of Delhi. The media may be highlighting the issue, but there seems to be no middle class anger or uprising over what are clearly complete violations of the existing laws of the land. Or for that matter, is the middle class exercised over the manner in which several farmers are being dispossessed of their land by state governments in the name of industrialisation? Once again, there is adequate media coverage of the rumbling of protests over such land acquisitions across the country, but no middle class anger or protests are in evidence.

What appears then is that the middle class that we now see is a narrowly focused opportunistic group of people, raising voice only to protect and promote its own interests. It has no desire to respond to the larger issues of injustice or wrong-doing. The media and judiciary have become important allies in this. In fact, the media is a perfect foil for the middle class, espousing the cause that the latter chooses to highlight. And because the executive, often led by inefficient and corrupt politicians, has failed to deliver, the judiciary has responded to such middle class anger and media campaigns with quick action.

But it would be naive to assume that the middle class of India today can marginalise the mainstream political processes or make them completely redundant, although that is precisely what many believe may soon be achieved.

The middle class movement today has many flaws including the absence of a consistent value system guiding it. But its biggest problem, with potentially dangerous consequences, is that it has chosen to bypass the political system. The middle class movement can sustain itself only if it can create space for itself within the present political system.

akb@business-standard.com