Click to play videoNew Delhi: Would you define the middle-class in terms of income, or aspiration or values? Is it's character changing over the years?
Take for instance someone who’s at the forefront of umpteen causes, with the hair turned grey at a young age, the sari tightly-bound, waging a losing battle to let the river Narmada be.
And there are ‘them’ - dedicated to shopping malls, hedonist, self-absorbed, secure in their smug cocoons.
So does the middle-class suffer from multiple personality disorder? "The middle class to begin with was a small coterie of people inspired by the ideals of Nehru and Gandhi, inspired by revolutionary ideals. They were open to revolutionary thought but not to revolutionary action,” said Director-General, Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR), Pavan Verma.
The educated middle-class was in the forefront of the freedom struggle. There was Mahatma Gandhi, born in Porbundar, educated in London. Then there was Sardar Patel, the iron man, and Subhash Chandra Bose. The list is long but are things changing?
“It's only a small section of elite that have gotten activised. They are yet to make any linkages with people beyond their class,” said writer and activist, Madhu Kishwar.
Post-liberalisation, with money pouring in, the middle-class is increasingly retreating into its own private world: private security, private schools, private transport and private parties.
“In India, the ruling class calls itself the middle class. Everywhere in the world when the ruling class loses power, it has two options: either to redefine its role or to exit from the system. In India, unfortunately, the middle-class is exiting from the system," said Director of Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), Yogendra Yadav.
It's impossible to generalise on who exactly the middle-class is. It could be cocooned, and it also be activist, disparate voices, different lives, some idealistic, many self-centred.
Yet, India's middle-class perhaps defies stereotypes and cannot be defined by any one image.
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