1. Everybody Knows Which Indian
Class Should NOT Be Ignored By
Politicians
By Ojha Jai Prakash

2. Something in common
• What did the Anna Hazare agitation for the enactment of a
stringent anti corruption law and the street protests in Delhi
and parts of urban India over the brutal gang rape of a 23 year
old, had in common?
• Both of them witnessed unprecedented participation of
middle class and catapulted it to the mainstream national
discourse.
• For years after independence, the middle class was the
favourite whipping boys of the politicians and often despised,
due to its proclivity to remain aloof from elections and
alleged apathy towards the poor.
• For the politicians, enmeshed in vote-bank politics, rural India
with its vast population and ignorant voters offered more
hope.

3. The elites
• As far as elites were concerned, they had to be pampered and
a sort of quid pro-quo existed between them and the political
class.
• The rules of engagement were crystal clear—the elites were
to provide funds to parties and the parties were supposed to
take care of their business or other interests while legislating.
• The country is already witnessing the gradual withdrawal of
the state from the realm of economic activities on the pretext
of deepening economic liberalization and in the process.
• Not contending with this, the state has not hesitated to
collude with the private, capitalist interests in the plunder of
national resources like land, mines and spectrum, revealing
the predatory face of neo-capitalism.

4. The future
• But now, all of a sudden, the politicians are scurrying for
cover as the middle class rage and frustration have come out
from the comforts of the drawing rooms and spilled over the
streets of urban India.
• The Congress, at its Jaipur Chintan Shivir, realized the
exigency of connecting with the aspirations of the urban
middle class and decided to broaden the ambit of its ‘Aam
Aadmi’ to include the middle class also.
• The question that naturally springs up is why there is a new
found focus on the middle class and has this class got the
mettle to draw the contours of our future polity?

5. The middle class
• The ushering in of liberalization post-1990 created
opportunities and gave wings to the aspirations of the middle
classes to swim with the global tide.
• The Mandalisation of polity also empowered the
marginalized backward communities enabling them to
synchronize their aspirations with the middle classes.
• The middle class has virtually exploded in numbers from 25
million in 1996 to 160 million currently and if the present
trend continues, by 2020, it will touch 300 million.
• Out of 542 Lok Sabha constituencies, 200 fall in urban zones
where the role of urban middle class will be crucial in deciding
the electoral fortunes of candidates.

6. They Protest and thy are heard
• The rapid strides made in information communication
technologies (ICT) have also facilitated the emergence of
middle class as a potent force in democratic India.
• Middle class protests do not need leaders or grand organizers
to gain visibility as mutual exchange of ideas can be done by
the mere click of a mouse.
• Social media, internet and Facebook have provided the
platform for the middle class to engage with each other on
matters that concern them.
• The middle class upsurge has caught the administration on
the wrong foot on several occasions because of the
phenomenon of flash mobs and unpredictability.

7. The game is changing and so are the
rules
• In this age of connect and galloping urbanization, urban-rural
fringe zones have proliferated and today, even the rural areas
are hardly untouched by the prevailing national mood.
• Rural India has witnessed a gradual attitudinal
transformation and it will not be surprising if the urban
middle class sentiments have a trickledown effect in the
villages.
• The rules of the political game are changing and in the
coming years, urban middle class may become a much
sought after constituency.

8. The trust deficit widening
• The new middle class has no qualms against taking on the
state because they are not products of
the Nehruvian socialism and their fates are not tied to state
employment and pensions.
• Our much hyped democracy has failed to provide answers to
the various ills that are plaguing our system with the political
class evading responsibility and accountability.
• The trust deficit between the ruling class and the middle class
is widening by every passing day.
• Politics based on narrow identity markers like caste, religion,
language and ethnicity has torn the social fabric of the nation
and holding back the forward march of the nation.

9. The middle rises
• Armed with information and better education, the middle
class can easily see through the nefarious designs of our vote-
bank obsessed politicians.
• Nepotism, kinship, preferential treatment to favoured
groups, bazaar canteen model of economy and feudality that
characterize our country are not compatible with the free
ethos of a market economy.
• Naturally, the middle class is exasperated and the feeling that
nothing can be achieved by being a mere passive onlooker
has gained ground.

10. • The middle class comprises a substantial youth population
who are not bogged down by past, tend to look ahead and
desire active participation with the state on matters that
concern them.
• The surfacing of civil society, the proactive role of media and
the recrudescence of judicial activism have led to the gradual
expansion of our basic fundamental rights with innovative
judicial interpretations, the coming into effect of RTI &
Citizen’s Charter, e-governance etc have had far reaching
repercussions.

11. The face of the nation
• The political class may blame the middle class as
representative of the upper castes only but the fact remains
that this class has a considerable sprinkling in it of the upward
mobile sections of the dalits and the backwards.
• The issues that middle class raises are mostly secular and
affect the day to day life of most of the people.
• The consolidation of this class as a vote-bank may sound a
death knell to politics of caste & religion and check the
growth of undesirable subaltern movements that lack an all
inclusive secular façade.

12. • Read more on Youth Ki Awaaz at http://bit.ly/ZFM90e