Abstract
This book is an exploration about what contemporary India is like, seen through the eyes of teenagers and their parents and teachers in the globalising city of Hyderabad, in southern India. Gilbertson undertakes an anthropological journey into middle class minds to argue for a consideration of ‘aspiration’ (a lá Sherry Ortner) and awareness of inequalities but legitimising them by ‘creative performance’ (p. 30). For her informants, to be modern is to be ‘progressive’, which she calls ‘cosmopolitanism’ (p. 35), a kind of cultural capital—from choosing schools, to colleges, to wearing clothes, to dating. Cosmopolitanism is not a strategy but a moral condition for being middle-class in present day Hyderabad. Gilbertson differs from Bourdieu here in that for her taste is not about aesthetics but about morality (p. 28). How do middle-class people legitimise their way of life in the midst of tremendous inequality? This is the central question this work is occupied with.
In Chapter 2, the author lays out what cosmopolitanism is for her informants. Students from two different schools, divergent in class backgrounds, facilitate a close examination of a ubiquitous label found all over Hyderabad suffixed to school names—‘International’. Essentially, the project is about acquiring communication skills and in English only. In addition, Gilbertson neatly demonstrates how schools sell the idea of cosmopolitanism through their board of education (CBSE/ICSE), fieldtrips to places outside the city, and emphasis on anti-rote learning. Education is seen in these schools as enabling students to understand fundamental ‘concepts’ rather than memorise and repeat. ‘Open-mindedness’ is another attribute these international schools are expected to imbue in their pupils, to take on the world, so to speak.
One of the puzzles of studying modernity or cosmopolitanism—or whatever the term may be in contemporary India—is that caste continues to hold relevance. Chapter 3 wades into this unavoidable through the discussion about merit. Gilbertson makes an important point about casteless-ness and how it enables the upper castes/classes to negate existing and apparent inequalities. Since caste is believed to matter only in politics, marriage, and villages (p. 108), the city allows for a discourse on its absence. Caste identity is discussed in terms of a kinship group, since all caste members are seen to be one big family. Considering how important kinship obligations are, one cannot therefore be faulted for helping one’s own kin, in politics or business. So goes the argument of the middle class.
Further examination of morality shows the ‘double burden’ carried by women, in Chapter 4. While girls’ education up to college level is taken as a given in middle-class households, what exactly a woman ought to do with her education is still a matter to be decided by the larger family. Women, therefore, are in constant tension with their efforts to be ‘progressive’ but not challenge ‘respectable Indian femininity’ (p. 159). More than what a woman learns at school or college, the real threat is supposed to reside in her ‘ego’ which is seen to destroy marriages and create dysfunctional families.
While Gilbertson is not entirely wrong in her analysis, a recent study of women migrants in the city of Hyderabad also shows that it is precisely the educational institutions in Hyderabad, along with job opportunities, that draw women from other states. So, whose views count? Gilberston’s informants are from the dominant castes, whose views on gender and caste differ from those of other communities peopling Hyderabad in the present.
Fashion is another interesting scape on which middle-class articulations of morality are inscribed. Gilbertson is at her best in Chapter 5, in paying close attention to such details that are charted out in the tables on pages 172–173. It is not so neat as laid out though. Women do a lot of ‘mix and match’ as it is called. Fashion is not just limited to attire here: Gilbertson’s informants also talked about ‘dating’ amongst young adults as a kind of fashion. This then allows her to track the change in marriage practices, and expectations from young people. Women do not wish to be seen as ‘backward’ which also translates as ‘rural’. They push their ‘limits’ to see how short or tight their clothes can be, and what is acceptable under which circumstances. Nakassis’s work on men’s ‘style’ in Tamil Nadu (2016) could add to Gilbertson’s discussion here, about what fashion actually comes to mean for the youth.
This work is ethnographically rich and very nuanced in capturing the small moments that make up big arguments about caste, class and gender. It could have been strengthened by a focus on history. We do not get a sense of what things were like before, and why it matters for the contemporary (see Gadihoke 2010 for a beautiful example of Lux soap’s journey in India). The state is also almost absent in the discussion on morality. While the author mentions media right up front (p. 30) as one of the influencers, it receives scant interest in a state/city where cinema plays a huge role, particularly for the youth. The discussion on share autos (p. 35) is a pointer to how difficult it can be studying urban India at present. Kukatpally is different from Nallagandla which is different from Miyapur. If you were in Nallagandla, you would take share-autos, middle or lower class. There is too much happening too soon all over the place.
Gilbertson has succeeded hugely, however, in dealing with this challenge. Morality is the lens through which the layers that cover the middle class in Hyderabad are peeled off, one by one. Their nearly apathetic attitude to inequality, notwithstanding a number of CSR (corporate social responsibility) activities, holding on to conservative ideas of family and gender, and yet not wanting to be seen as ‘backward’, eager to educate women but careful that they do not go too far, all of these are astutely described in Gilberston’s work. ‘Limit’ should now be added to the list of important themes that have to be explored if one is to make sense of what is going on in India today.