Middle class in our country has undergone sea change since Globalisation processes were ushered in by the then finance minister Dr. Manmohan Singh in the early 90s. Suddenly middle class in India shot into prominence with its tremendous purchasing power due to high level of disposable income that was unimaginable earlier. They became the targets for the international brands of goods and services, due to their high disposable incomes. Almost all the best international labels and brands, be it cars or mo bikes, mobile phones, Italian marble for flooring or chimneys for kitchen, jeans and casual wears, formal wears, toys, alcoholic beverages, juice, biscuits, breakfast cereals, pickle and jam, mundane household goods and even small kitchen items like knives and what not, everything imaginable has made an entry to our homes. Swanky malls, airports, frequent air travels, five star restaurants and internationally popular fast food joints, global connectivity are all within the reach of middle class. Amidst all these India shining narrative, there are some who think we are caught in a catch 22 situation. In some sense, my generation of people -those born in 60s and early 70s and grew up through 70s and 80s, who are in between our fathers' generation and the new generation, are well positioned to view this change more holistically as they have ingrained Indian middle class value and adapted the new Indian Middle Class Dream American style. This is an account of my own very personal experience through this change.
Our generation has not so distant memories of austerity being a virtue in middle class families. Physical manifestation of a well to do urban middle class family, apart from the essentials, was limited to a few drawing room furniture made of teakwood and sometimes shisham, few artifacts, a set or two of bone china crockery one or two for special occasion guests, Godrej type amirah, a small refrigerator, a big radio set, handpicked bedsheets and curtains - mosly handloom- in a nutshell what mattered more was a well kept, impeccably clean homes attributable more to the time spent at home by our super moms than the furniture, fixtures and rare artefacts. The essentials were limited to two or three pairs of daily wearing clothes apart from two sets of school uniforms, and winter clothes for children and probably one or two pairs of special occasion dresses. Elders' wardrobes were a bit richer than the children as the size of their clothes did not change, and those underwent less of wear and tear and mothers off course would have their well kept wedding trousseau. All including children's clothes would neatly fit in two odd almirahs for clothes and two cloth racks which we called alnas in Bengali.
I have given this account based on my childhood experience of my parental home as well as those of my uncles, aunts and friends and neighbors. There was some form of equity seen our middle class lifestyles. The variations were seen in absence of the small refrigerator and addition of a radiogram or gramophone (based on income levels of families). My father bought a Phillips philletila radio set later, which remained a prized possession of my mother till recently when she gave it up for another Philips set. The Phillips two in one was a much later addition in 80s.
Contrast this with today’s' scenario with overflowing wardrobes - we have 4 for our small family with two below ten kids. I have lost count for how many and what dresses my daughters have in each of the different categories - party, casual, formals, winter-wear, daily types etc. I keenly read reviews of the latest in electronics and yet I will not be able to describe wholly the gadgets middle class families own these days. A colour TV of a good make is no more the yardstick, with LCDs and LEDs and Plasmas competing with each other to enter your drawing room or home theatre space, for people who can afford it -both its price and also have space at the basement or in the form of an additional study. Kitchen has food processors, sandwich makers, cooking range or electric grill, OTGs and micro oven. Chimney has become a necessity in our new home as my wife reminded me today while cleaning of the oil deposits from the rubber wood kitchen cabinets. We have close friends and relations, who change their bedroom and drawing room furniture fairly regularly though we are still who keep using and recycling the old ones.
An ambassador or a Premier Padmini and much later Maruti 800 car was a midlle class child dream, which I secretly nurture in my school and early college days, hoping my father will be convinced to buy one. But going back to the point on austerity, my father would always ask if we or he really needed a car. My father was a fairly successful lawyer and could have afforded it but he believed in wealth creation, which probably is no more seen as important by the new generation (we are the intermediate generation) thanks to the EMI culture.
Fast food joints were unheard off. But we had our favourite golgappawalas, known for their tasty golgappas which we called phuchka (still so in Ranchi) , dahi vadas and alu tikkis know as tikia in Bihari parlance. I grew up in Ranchi and there were just a handfull of eating out places where our parents would take us occasionally. We had our once in a while ice creams from Kwality stall, which had supplies from Kolkata through Jamshedpur depot. For some time Kwality vanished and gain reappeared later. More frequently in summer specially, we as children would have at our school recesses and breaks. Locally made ice-cream sticks artificially flavoured with different colour syrups of which milk bar and orange stick used to be our favorites. Later in Ranchi the Firayalal joint of softy became very popular. There were few of the goodies that were available and we were quite happy with them. Even in our college and management institute days, we were happy with simple chai from the canteen or thelas outside our college or institute gates, most of the times shared in the typical three out of four or even four out of two, and samosas (called singhara in Bihar and Bengal) and parathas if hungry. Occasionally we pooled money to visit some good restaurant. We enjoyed pure adda talking about latest movies, cricket, politics, career choices and the likes. I am not sure if the younger generation can have the same luxury sitting at Coffee Cafe Day or Dominos with people waiting for tables.
As a college student I had read a travelogue of a famous Bengali novelist whose name I can not readily remember at the moment about an Indian middle class boy who is settling down in USA after his education. He has furnished his flat fully and has a car. IS father gets a shock of his life when he gets to know all these are bought on hire purchase scheme. Indian society has come off age due to economic prosperity or a false notion of it? EMI culture has taken deep roots in our society. Work harder and harder to earn more and more, so that you can afford higher and higher EMIs to afford all that one needs to be happy and successful. This understanding of happiness, success and well being is deeply problematic, more as more and more people of our generation, and almost everyone of the new generation is falling into the trap of believing this to be true.
I thought this little bit of background weaving will help me to drive home my point, how far have these physical indicators attributed to our happiness and well being? It has made us materialistic and measures of austerity, simplicity and savings are no more seen as virtues. How have these gadgets changed our lives? We have cars that should have shortened our travelling time but today almost everyone owns a car so there is more traffic jams, which prolongs our travelling time anyways. We are also commuting long-distance everyday. Internet and mobile connectivity has certainly revolutioised our lives, but at the same time it has come for a heavy price. Whatever time is left, we like spending in front of our lqarge screen LCDs or LEDs or Plasmas, watching third rate soap opera. Off course these hi tech TVS have added to our thrill in watching sports or live events but it has also meant spending more time in front of these gadgets and less with our family. Has someone cared to do a cost benefit analysis of what we gained due to globaliasation culture and what have we lost. And in doing this we ask ourselves, do we really need all that the globaliation promises to give us or use it judicously so as not to lose on the essence of true meanings of our lives. In having the know how, we should not compromise the vison of creating a truly sustainable globalised society.
Mobile companies advertise in their own ways how their network have brought us closer to our friends and lovers and relations. But the fact is that husbands and wives today because of their busy lives, have to catch up with each other during lunch breaks, over mobile, making weekend or month end shopping list, attending to some urgent family matter or a long postponed weekend trip with the kids. The little time kids are left with after fixing their assignments, they prefer being glued to the TV sets at their homes. In our childhood and early youth days, everyone in the family seemed to have so much time for each other. We soiled our hands and feet while playing, and yet were probably happier as children than our children, who have a collection of toys, that would have shamed a toy shop of our time. Today our children have live opportunities almost comparable to western societies in studies, sports and extra-curricular activities and yet they are not as happy, healthy and cheerful as they should be. We elders are also eating most nutritious food as all of us have become health conscious and yet good health seems to be always eluding from us mostly because of the killer stress. The lifestyle itself creates a vicious cycle with no time to have a heart laugh and light talk. Focused life goals centred around career, has distanced us from what used to be a more holistic life style.
Another contrast that is not so difficult to notice is the fact that divide between the middle class and lower income group and poor people have increased manifold. While all these changes seem very natural to most of us, very little material change has happened in rural areas. Rural infrastructure and economy is in shambles inspite of huge allocations in some of the flagship schemes for poverty aleveiation and employment guarantee as these schemes have not been able to create a shared vision for development in these areas.This has acted as a big push factor increasing rapid migration to big cities. Although migration means a significant increase in income level for those migrants, the lives they havce in big cities, without basic housin, health and education infrastructure, no sanitation facility is precarious.
How the economic liberalisation would change the life prospects for millions of these people is not clear to me. Industrialisation and various economic opportunities are bound to increase manifold also acting a as a pull factor for cheap labour from rural areas in addition to the push factor mentioned above. However, it is not self evident that these low skilled low paying job will give them a dignified and respectful living even if we don’t raise sustainability issues. In any case by all projections, the majority population, not less than 65-70 per cent will remain in rural areas. Even for a moment if we believe in the great American Middle Class Style Dream Economy, where every family has job, home, car and access to modern amenities- aggregate of all Indians fulfilling their great Indian Middle Class Dreams looks scary to me with no space to drive, water scarcity, irreversible environmental pollution and depletion of natural resources, dependence on food import and all. This prospect is doubly disastrous as it would be achieved at the cost of almost uprooting bio-mass civilization. I can not help asking this question out of my naivety perhaps, why are we not paying sufficient attention to small holding agriculture, agribusiness and other rural businesses by facilitating pro-poor value chains to expand, forests that could genuinely strengthen food security and local livelihoods opportunities. In not paying sufficient attention to rural are we not heading towards a situation same as the USA and the prosperous societies of Western Europe? High teenage drug abuse, sex, gang wars, organised crime, racial fights and the likes?
It is high time we should seriously put our minds together to engage in real soul searching and through this will emerge our own vision of our development, not a borrowed one. We need to look at what we really need to lead healthy, happy and successful lives and not become greedy to have what we don't need and thus block the prospect for those who have less opportunities than we have, to have a good life. It is time to remember the idealism that was part of our middle class living. Gandhiji had said there is enough for everyone's need but not greed.
