In the wake of what happened at New Delhi’s Ramlila grounds last month with Baburao Hazare leading the battle against corruption, the middle class in India has earned handsome praise in many quarters, particularly from some social scientists. According to this view, the participation of thousands of young and old ordinary people in Mr Hazare’s movement symbolises the rise of the middle class in India, auguring well for a change in the system that had admittedly become corrupt.
Even sections of the media went out of their way to support the so-called middle-class battle against corruption. A few high-profile news anchors of popular television channels became instant heroes for the Indian middle class. Appropriately enough, these anchors continued their battle for the middle class even after Mr Hazare retired to his village in Ralegan Siddhi in Maharashtra, after a brief stay at an air-conditioned hospital room to recuperate from the exhaustion caused by his 12-day fast.
Championing the cause of the middle class became the favourite vocation of these television news anchors. One day they would raise their voice against the rising interest rates for housing finance that in their view shattered the middle-class dream to buy a house. On another day, they would point out how the government-controlled oil marketing companies punched a big hole in the middle-class Indian’s pocket by raising petrol prices, and worse, planning to double the price of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG).
Since so much noise is being made in the name of the Indian middle class, it would be instructive to understand the nature of this new beast whose causes are now being championed not only by people like Mr Hazare, but also by sections of the media. Remember that many of those who waved the national flag and joined Mr Hazare’s protest movement against corruption in August belonged to the same middle class that benefitted from a sustained rate of six-to-eight per cent annual economic growth made possible largely by the reforms of the early 1990s.
It is the same animal spirit of the Indian entrepreneur these reforms had unleashed that spawned a new generation of Indians who were now asking for more from a government that did not realise that it was now paying the price for not taking reforms down to organisations responsible for delivering basic services to middle-class Indians. Manmohan Singh was paying the price for successive governments’ (including his own) half-hearted approach to reforms.
If governance reforms had followed quickly after economic policy liberalisation, the clamour for a Jan Lokpal Bill could not have gained such massive support from the middle class. Liberalising policies on trade, industry, the financial sector and the external economy fuelled growth and the emergence of a new class of economically prosperous Indians who in 20 years had become restless seeing no matching reforms in governance. In a way, the government became a victim of its own failure to carry reforms to their logical conclusion.
The absence of governance reforms also meant that the core values of the middle class had not internalised the basic virtues of reforms. Thus, if prices for primary services in health, education or infrastructure go up in the normal course, the same middle class raises its voice in protest. Similarly, the same middle class fails to internalise the logic of complying with rules, whether they pertain to paying taxes or following traffic signals. While tax norms have become simpler and rules more transparent, enforcement of the relevant laws leaves much to be desired.
The media that has taken up cudgels for this middle class seems equally confused. An increase in petrol prices seems a bad move to anchors who have become middle-class heroes, never mind the fact that global crude oil prices are also rising. Similarly, a move to reduce subsidies on LPG is presented as a proposal that implies a 100 per cent price hike, even though in reality the proposal is for a 66 per cent hike, coming after about more than a year. It is thus fuelling the middle-class Indians’ sense of disillusionment with everything around it, instead of helping them understand how the petroleum product pricing regime, for instance, can become more transparent.
Thus, the middle class remains oblivious to the hard realities it must face. To conclude that the Indian middle class has arrived as a harbinger of change is to live in a fool’s paradise. The Indian middle class is not the kind of middle class that in the past was at the forefront of any movement for change. The current middle class is a product of a reforms-led economic prosperity. It is used to the idea of high growth and its attendant gains, but is not fully aware of its duties as a citizen. It will take another burst of grass-roots-level reforms to change the outlook of the Indian middle class. Until then, it would be naive to expect much from the so-called rise of the Indian middle class.
