One would generally want to believe that the history of independent India is the history of the growth, fulfillment and advancement of its middle classes. They set the moral benchmarks, the socio-civic agenda, they provide the entrepreneurial incentive, and they lead the creation and propagation of knowledge. The middle class gave birth to and led our freedom struggle and took forward its momentum into building free India……..
Pause.
Where are they ?
They got left behind, elbowed out.
They exited, melted away.
They gave up.
Today, India’s political leadership is not middle class. It may never again be. Resolutely anti –middle class is how the political mood seems to be.
The rural poor, residual feudal elites, industrial magnates, trade unionists, co-operative bosses –They are many birds of varying plumage on the banyan tree but the middle class mynah is not to be seen
Therefore, it is amusing to see that almost a 100% of the erudite commentators, analysts and pollsters are from this absentee class. Their attitudes colour their comments. Their prejudices are as sharp as their accents. They all chirp away on Prime time cuckoo land.
Closer scrutiny will show you that the Hindi (as all vernacular) speaking middle and elite classes in the smaller towns in India are more accommodating of the pulls and pressures shaping their environment. They see along more dimensions and feel the texture better. It is evident if you pick up the Hindi dailies and read the comments on SP-BSP rivalry in UP for example. They are real in their assessment and not high brow at all.
This is unlike the ‘Gin Drinkers’ who talk to each other. Only to each other…….
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