India’s New Middle Class and the Critical Activist Milieu

Abstract

One manifestation of India’s recent transformations and rapid economic growth has been the emergence of a new group referred to as the “new middle class.” The relatively recent and growing literature on this topic represents the new middle class as a relatively homogenous social group with specific lifestyles and politics. The main objective of this article is to critically engage with these homogenizing assumptions. Based on original research, I introduce presence of a group within the new middle class – critical activist milieu – who in their work and lifestyle are contentious and explicitly reject the bourgeoisie values and attitudes that are widely ascribed to the Indian new middle class.

Keywords

India liberalization new middle class NGOs

Introduction

Since the liberalization of the Indian economy in 1991, India has become more integrated in the structures of global capitalism, which reinforces new forms of control over economic, social, and cultural resources. This has, on the one hand, resulted in the emergence of new social groups. On the other hand, it has led to a change in the perception and position of some social groups in relation to institutions, other social groups, and structures of power. One manifestation of these recent transformations has been the emergence of a new intermediate stratum referred to as the “new middle class.”

The scholarly response to the new middle class has varied, and scholars have attempted to study this new social group in different ways. However, three major approaches prevail. A number of scholars focus on various empirical accounts of consumption patterns and its relation to cultural identities (Brosius, 2010; Donner, 2008; Mathur, 2010; Mazzarella, 2003; Ragagapol, 1999; Varma, 1998). A second group of scholars emphasizes production and reproduction of new middle classness through specific practices, and in particular sites such as educational institutions, economy, and within the home (Radhakrishnan, 2009; Ray & Qayum, 2009; Upadhya, 2011). Finally, a third group examines the new middle class in relation to the public sphere and citizenship (Anjaria, 2009; Chatterjee, 2004; Ghertner, 2012; Harriss, 2007; Varma, 1998).

Despite the emergence of a valuable body of empirical and conceptual studies about the new middle class in India, this scholarship has tended to portray its identity as relatively homogenous. The new middle class has been overwhelmingly characterized with reference to three main features: as a consumerist group (represented by the first group of scholars); with reference to production and reproduction of middle-class practices at sites such as workplace (represented by the second group of scholars); and as a group which is politically anti-poor or indifferent to marginalized social groups (represented by the third group of scholars). Fernandes (2006) has provided a more comprehensive analysis by focusing on the connections among classificatory practices, forms of capital, and structures of identity. However, her account also remains bounded within the aforementioned categories.

In this article, I present original research and introduce a group of non-governmental organization (NGO) leaders/workers as an example of a contentious sub-group within the new middle class. I refer to this sub-group as critical activist milieu. The critical activist milieu is neither consumerist nor indifferent to the marginalized. Furthermore, their work and/or home practices do not adhere to production or reproduction of attributed new middle-class anxieties and triumphs.

The critical activist milieu is comprised of a segment of the educated middle class of India who are either in leading positions or are active members of an NGO. They are an example of a new social group within the middle class because their activism and therefore their professions exist as a result of the new economic order of India which gave rise to numerous forms of social activism, from mass movements to professionals and semi-professionals working in NGOs. In other words, this group gained its identity because of certain economic restructuration of post-1991 and its consequences. This means their NGOs mostly emerged or expanded because of certain transformations in state–civil society relation and the availability of opportunities/funds since 1991. Moreover, their activities are a response to problems such as specific environmental issues, slum demolition, and issues related to water, health, housing, etc., that emerged in post-liberalization era. Their subjectivity as activists is shaped around a struggle to improve the life of marginalized social groups. Furthermore, they resist the social and cultural practices of liberalizing India and therefore, defy the production/reproduction of new middle classness. Indeed, these distinctions, which I have formulated as contentious politics and contentious lifestyles, have become the center of subjectivity and identity formation. This contrasts with the dominant anti-poor and consumerist image of those typically identified as members of the new middle class, despite similarities in economic well-being. Rather, one can say, the economic well-being of this group intersects with their contentiousness.

In the next section, I give an overview of the existing literature on the new middle class in India and show how it provides a homogenizing assumption of this group. In the following section, I locate the NGO-related activism of this group within the existing literature on Indian NGOs. In the section after that, I explain what I mean by the critical activist milieu and elaborate on what I have called contentious politics and lifestyle of this group. Finally, I demonstrate that in analysis of the Indian new middle class, existence of intersectionalities should be taken into account.

The New Middle Class in India: Consumption Patterns, Identities, and Sociopolitical Attitudes

There has been an agreement among scholars that a new middle class emerged in India after launch of economic reforms in 1991 (Brosius, 2010; Fernandes, 2006; Varma, 1998). The shift in India’s political economy accelerated the influence of the market in areas which had been previously controlled by the state, facilitated foreign direct investment and trade, created new forms of employment, and encouraged mass consumption. The main group of participants in this new economy has been the so-called new middle class which is portrayed as the beneficiary of liberalization and market-oriented policies. Since then, this shift has transformed the idea of middle classness in India (Fernandes, 2006).¹ As Baviskar and Ray (2011, pp. 2–3) explain:

At the center of these policies was the idea of a middle class unleashed from the chastity belt of Nehruvian socialism and Indira-era austerities, finally able to savor the fruits of its disciplined and diligent work. This middle class would be the producer as well as the consumer driving the engine of economic growth and prosperity.

Most of the scholars of Indian new middle class have based their argument on Pierre Bourdieu’s definition of class. In contrast to classical Marxian class analysis where one’s class position is linked to the relation to the means of production, according to Bourdieu (1984), one’s class position is not only dependent on economic capital but also on cultural and social capital which is accumulated and displayed in practices, skills, social connections, and networks. Moreover, Bourdieu argues that it is habitus, that is, a set of acquired dispositions, values, skills, tastes, sensitivities, and practices, which not only structures the lifestyle of a particular group or class fraction but also forms the conscious or unconscious unity of the class, and leads to production and reproduction of class positions.

Accordingly, the existing scholarship has specified certain habits for the new middle class and describes the process of production and reproduction of middle classness in relation to their consumption patterns and practices of social distinction at work, home, or schooling. For example, Mazzarella (2003) call the Indian new middle class “the Indian consumers” and Mathur (2010, p. 211) refers to them as “agents of consumption” which “jeopardizes long held ideals of self-sufficiency, self reliance and anti imperialism.” Upadhya (2011, p. 169) elaborates on the example of software outsourcing industry which “has played a pivotal role, both structurally and discursively, in the production of the ‘new middle class,’ the consolidation of its hegemony and the articulation of its new dominant ideology.” Radhakrishnan’s (2009) research emphasizes the importance of feminine professionalism, while Ray and Qayum (2009) highlight the importance of the institution of servitude in the production and reproduction of new middle classness.

Finally, another body of scholarship focuses on the existing tensions between the new middle class and the poor in public spaces and in relation to city governance and citizenship. It has been argued that in the decades following India’s economic liberalization, the new middle class has gained a new way of seeing themselves and others (Chatterjee, 2004; Mazzarella, 2003; Varma, 1998). It has been claimed that the members of this class have, therefore, been able to distance themselves from the poor (Baviskar, 2011; Chatterjee, 2004); have become indifferent to the public good and social commitment (Varma, 1998); and define citizenship and its ideas in particular ways which exclusively represent the elite (Ghertner, 2012; Harriss, 2007; Srivastava, 2011).

One of the most recent criticisms of the new middle-class activism was raised in response to the anti-corruption movement led by Anna Hazare which began in 2011. Arundhati Roy (2011), for example, has criticized the anti-corruption movement because it has been supported by “people who run a clutch of generously funded NGOs whose donors include Coca-Cola and the Lehman Brothers.” Harindranath and Khorana (2014) have referred to the anti-corruption movement as a movement of the “twittering classes” and Shah (2012) has criticized its urban middle-class base which did not engage with “older systemic forms of exclusion in the country.”

Accordingly, civil society activism, and especially NGO work, has been recognized as one of the central factors that has shaped the political identity of the new middle class through which they facilitate private sector involvement and development projects (Fernandes & Heller, 2006). Fernandes and Heller have referred to this as “class in practice” (ibid.). This identification becomes significant with Chatterjee’s recognition of a “civil” and a “political” society in India, where political society is identified as the sphere of actually existing democratic politics, whereas civil society is the realm where citizens participate in politics through associations (Chatterjee, 2004). For Chatterjee (2008, p. 57), civil society represents a sphere of urban middle-class activism and the domain of capitalist hegemony. Against civil society is the political society of those who “do not relate to the organs of the state in the same way the middle classes do, nor do governmental agencies treat them as proper citizens belonging to civil society.” According to this categorization, the consumerist, anti-poor new middle class is located in civil society which is the representation of a normative model of the bourgeois society.

Although there is no doubt that a new middle class has emerged which exhibits lifestyles centered around commodity consumption, distinctive practices of class production and reproduction at specific sites, and a politics that is anti-poor, there is less research on subjectivities which do not fit to the presented homogenous identity of the new middle class. By identifying the “critical activist milieu,” as an example of a group which is inconsistent with the dominant understandings of the new middle class, I seek to add to the complexity of new middle-class representation in India. The critical activist milieu pursues different politics, practices, and lifestyle from the constructed image of the new Indian middle class. In the following section, I situate the contentious politics of the critical activist milieu within the field of NGO work in India.

NGO Activism in India and the Critical Activist Milieu

History of India’s modern voluntary sector is long and goes back to late nineteenth century (Jenkins, 2010, p. 423). However, at the turn of the twentieth^{century, secularist voluntary movements were encouraged by M.K. Gandhi as the only path to development. In the early post-independence period until the late 1950s, India experienced an era of cooperation between the voluntary organizations and the state (Sen, 1999). The idea of participatory development became the dominant approach among development practitioners and planners during the 1970s and 1980s. This was because the benefits of centrally planned development strategies had not reached the poor and furthermore, by late 1970s and early 1980s, alternative approaches to top-down development had emerged (Ebrahimi, 2001, p. 86). Hence, NGOs became a source of hope for reinvention of democracy as a response to, and a solution for, the failure of a formal and party political process in India (Jenkins, 2010, p. 426). By the 1980s, oppositional voices emerged from those active in the broader scene of civil activism, which charged that NGOs were no longer radical and failed to mobilize people to participate in contentious politics (ibid., p. 427). However, it is worth mentioning that while most NGOs tend not to take a critical stance, there is a minority who are more oppositional. Sheth and Harsh’s (1991, p. 49) account of the “historical context” of the “NGO sector” summarizes the above-mentioned claims:}

The conversion of voluntarism into primarily a favored instrumentality for developmental intervention has changed what was once an organic part of civil society into merely a sector – an appendage of the developmental apparatus of the state. Further, this process of instrumental appropriation has resulted in these agencies of self-activity losing both their autonomy and political-transformative edge.

With the rise of the neoliberal economy after reforms in 1991, NGOs began to be integrated into the new economic order, and they gained a distinguished position as mediators of development. India’s launch of liberalization programs after 1991 led into two significant changes: the state rolled back many areas of social welfare; and it formed strong partnerships with civil society organizations (Sahoo, 2013, p. 262).

In the Eighth Five Year Plan (1992–1997), participation of NGOs in development was openly encouraged and welcomed. The government started allowing substantial amount of money for NGO funding, giving rise to existence of significant numbers of NGOs in India. Moreover, according to Voluntary Action Network India (VANI, 2000, p. 21), the financial aid received by NGOs doubled during the 1990s. Therefore, the number of NGOs registered with the Ministry of Home Affairs under the Foreign Contribution and Regulation Act increased to approximately 16,000 in 1992, up from approximately 5,000 in 1985 (Mohanty & Singh, 1996, p. 15).

Nevertheless, the cooperative relationship between the government and NGOs has prevented the NGOs from adopting a critical stance toward the state and its institutions. According to Jakimow (cf. Sahoo, 2013, p. 263), the rhetoric of empowerment and participation led many NGOs to discipline the members of the communities through different development projects and therefore, they facilitated the incorporation of them into the market. Thus, many NGOs have taken on an apolitical approach and have depoliticized development/the grass roots. Hence, they have been contributing to the overall depoliticization of civil society. As Jenkins (2010, p. 429) argues: “the NGO-ization of politics which casts NGOs as agents of depoliticization captures the current conventional wisdom – that NGOs are the non political face of civil society.” Hence, one could say that the Indian depoliticized NGO’s are attached to what Ferguson (1990) has called the “anti-politics” machine of development.²

In spite of the dominance of depoliticized NGOs in post-1991 India and the supremacy of the market, one should take into consideration that the field of NGO activism is heterogeneous and different groups with different social backgrounds, ideologies, and strategies are active within it. Townsend, Porter & Mawdsley (2004) have identified a set of NGOs in India, Ghana, and Mexico that reject the hegemonic development agenda. They have called these NGOS “independent thinking NGOs,” as opposed to “compliant NGOs” whose main priority is organizational survival. The “independent thinking NGOs,” despite being a minority, are concerned with making changes. While they also need to guarantee their own survival, this is the means rather than the end (ibid., p. 873). The critical activist milieu is composed of those active members and leaders/founders of these independent thinking NGOs which use their NGOs to create what Townsend et al. (ibid.) have called “spaces of resistance.” These NGOs are usually small and mostly on low budgets. They function with a very high level of voluntary time devoted to them by their leaders or active members.

Critical Activist Milieu: New and in the Middle but Contentious

The empirical research for this article was conducted in New Delhi in the course of three field visits between 2011 and 2013. Delhi was chosen as an empirical site for this research because it is a center of NGO activity. I conducted 25 in-depth semi-structured interviews with the founding members/leaders or active employees of NGOs working in the areas of environment, human rights, and women rights. The interviews focused on the interviewees’ life histories and current lifestyles, as well as their political opinions and their actual work in their NGOs. Moreover, due to my personal contacts with some of the respondents, I could triangulate their claims by participating in some of their NGO activities. Furthermore, I was invited to some of their homes where I could observe their lifestyles.

Pierre Bourdieu (1984) argued that human beings react to different and/or new situations based on a set of predispositions that he termed “habitus.” People with a similar habitus who have access to similar resources, bear resembling attitudes and behaviors and lead similar lives cohere into “social milieus.” My research about some of the NGO workers or leaders in Delhi confirms the existence of a distinct social milieu which I have called the “critical activist milieu.” This milieu is comprised of educated, urban middle-class residents who are professionally either in leadership of an NGO³ or are active member of it. Although the majority of these activists have middle-class backgrounds and come from educated families, a number of these activists have experienced upward mobility through education which became available to lower castes and classes after independence. In many cases, their professions are related to the newly established/expanded NGO sector in liberalizing India since post-1991. Therefore, the activism of its members in its current form is creation of the new economic order of India. Because of certain economic opportunities and transformed state–civil society relationship since the launch of Indian liberalization programs (as was discussed in the previous section), NGO work was encouraged and expanded. Hence, this group of people became involved in NGO sector or their NGOs were enlarged. Furthermore, their activities are centered on problems such as slum demolition and livelihood issues which intensified after the liberalization of the economy.

They are different from the middle-class NGO activists of post-independence India in that they are not framed by the ideals of Nehruvian statism, and therefore do not collaborate with the state. On the contrary, they should be identified with their opposition to the state. Moreover, unlike the middle-class NGO activists of post-independence, the critical activists are (semi)professionals whose NGO activism is indistinguishable from their professional survival, but it overlaps with their critical engagement.

Their habitus is being shaped by their struggle, participation in institutions and processes of social change, and their specific lifestyle which questions the advertised sociocultural practices of liberalizing India. Moreover, it is combined by the new opportunities that emerged through the greater economic resources for this group of activists. Thus, this new group distinguishes itself from the others through a sense of social consciousness and therefore, through their specific contentious habitus as critical activists.

However, the critical activist milieu is a rather fluid milieu which is shaped by different articulations of habitus on the local and global levels. On the local level, the family of origin, social background, education, and lifestyle contribute to their habitus. On the global level, access to global cultural capital such as English-language competency and international travels shapes their habitus. Furthermore, many of them, through this distinctive identity, negotiate their position in society. This negotiation, at times, goes hand in hand with social mobility and challenging hierarchies of caste, class, gender, and religion.⁴

Critical Activist Milieu and Contentious Politics

Critical activists, in many cases, have previously been active members of social movements or political parties, supporting social justice and equality. For example, many were active in leftist political parties, student organizations such as the All India Student Association (AISA), or in slum dweller movements or trade unionism. Their NGO activism is hence continuation of their previous activism. Furthermore, many of them claim to have linkages to the independence struggle (through their families or friends).

In most cases, the critical activists offer a serious critique of capitalism and neoliberal strategies. They consider capitalism as “fundamentally immoral” and “the source of all problems.” According to these activists, capitalism creates a system which leaves the marginalized defenseless and ignored. Moreover, on many occasions, critical activists are suspicious of the state and fundamentally oppose state power.⁵ For example, by emphasizing the dysfunctionality of the state in India, one activist articulated his dissent as follows: “India is a rich country. Why should a rich country have poor people unless the state policies are so upside down and anti poor?” One could say that most of them are proponents of a kind of socialism or are in search of alternatives.

Through their activism, the critical activists create spaces for the marginalized and build alternatives from existing material and social circumstances. In other words, they create a platform for political actions of the marginalized who are neglected and whose voices are not heard. One could say that they transform people’s needs into political demands and struggles. In other words, their activities are directed toward the creation of counter forces which are against the dominant development agendas of the state and the market. One human rights activist mentioned, “We try to help people by showing them what justice is and how they can protect themselves from violation of human rights,” while another stated that their collective action is directed toward working “with people who are being harassed on a daily base by the government agencies.”

Hence, their activities are focused toward what people demand. Therefore, they pursue bottom-up approaches. They help the marginalized and the poor assemble, communicate, and realize their disparities and rights. They work with the poor and marginalized groups such as waste pickers, women, Dalits, adivasis, the illiterate, and pavement dwellers. Their activities vary from writing petitions and organizing campaigns and targeted seminars, to mass mobilizations and street protests.

The politicization of depoliticized issues such as gender issues and environmental issues is a central mission of the critical activists. For example, a founder of one women’s right NGO mentions, “our democracy is not a democracy because it is leaving out women i.e. 50% of the population. Our main task is to highlight this issue. Through a process of collective act we try to help women understand their situation. We enable them move forward.”

Resistance to particular development projects or laws is another vital activity of this group. For example, one activist was first involved in a campaign related to relocation of more than 100,000 slum dwellers living in the Yamuna Valley in Delhi due to investment of a Japanese firm there. He later founded an NGO to have a platform to be able to officially defend the rights of slum dwellers and create awareness about their situation. He says: “My plan is to fight against the state and provide the people I am working with, with their fundamental rights like security and dignity. This is my goal in life.” He explains that it is working with poor people which gives him energy and that he is tired of market and state corruption: “Once a company offered me some money and they told me accept this and leave your struggle. I said no thank you I don’t need your money. I will continue with my struggle!”

These activities and strategies, however, go beyond giving voice and power to the marginalized, but through consciousness raising they integrate marginalized populations into social movements. Therefore, they are engaged in a civil society which does not aim at maintaining the status quo within the framework of liberalizing India.

However, at times, they are caught up in the demands and structures of the economy and society. Therefore, on some occasions, some have to find a balance between their contentious politics and acceptance of donors to safeguard their survival. Yet, they find informal ways to maneuver mobilization of people and confront the dominant structures.

Critical Activist Milieu and Contentious Lifestyles

Tugal (2001: 452) has argued that “daily conduct can be part and parcel of political struggles.” Following this principle, the critical activists incorporate a contentious lifestyle into their repertoires. By contentious lifestyle, I mean cultural and social practices such as consumption patterns, leisure-related activities, gender practices, and social relations which defy the advertised social and cultural practices of liberalizing India since1991. Insofar as contentious politics through NGO activism matters for the critical activists, their consumption patterns, leisure-related activities, gender practices, family and social relations are also scheduled differently. The critical activists not only target economic or political structures of liberalizing India through their NGO activism and collective action but at the same time, they target cultural and economic practices at the private and individual level. Their subjectivity is not only realized in relation to their NGO work but also in their private and personal (or quasi-personal) practices. Because, through their lifestyle, they add a different layer to their involvement in social struggle and change.

Hence, their contentious politics is integrated into their individual action by focusing on different aspects of lifestyle. The critical activists show little value for consumption of luxurious commodities. Therefore, they are not bothered to possess the most luxurious cars, televisions, and cell phones. By remaining simple in their material use, they reject consumption of the newly available commodities which are the primary symbols of the culture of liberalization. Moreover, they do not shop in malls and luxurious brand shops, and try to support locally made products as much as possible.

Fernandes (2006, p. 73) has noted that membership in the new middle class, apart from resting on purchase of specific commodities, also “rests on the creation of a distinctive lifestyle associated with broader set of social practices.” She considers leisure as one of those critical social spaces and argues that the diversification of leisure and entertainment enterprises has led to a significant part of their identity (Fernandes, 2006). Reading is the main activity of the critical activist’s leisure time. This can vary from reading novels and poetry (mostly Indian literature) to newspapers and sociopolitical journals such as Tehelka and Economic and Political Weekly. Moreover, through their rejection of “upmarket” clubs, shopping malls, and restaurants, they reject the expansion of what Fernandes (2004, p. 2420) has called “new urban aesthetics of class purity.”

Furthermore, central to the identity of critical activists is their unique perception of gender roles and family. They reject gendered representations of what counts as ideal new middle-class individual and family. Therefore, they do not embrace the idealized image of the affluent nuclear family and its symbolic status. For instance, they discard dominant discourses of the Indian family and ideologies of domesticity for women. Moreover, they reject the idea of “professional” or “respectable” femininity described by Radhakrishnan (2009). In most cases, they are also critical of practices of middle classness through institutions of domestic servitude as mentioned by Ray and Qayum (2009).

Finally, their social relations are shaped around a specific social group of people who pursue similar politics and lifestyles, or those who are “involved in the struggle against injustice and inequality” as one activist mentioned. Another activist refers to his so-called community as follows:

They are not happy with the world around them. They are not happy with the suffering they see. They are deeply unhappy with the inequality and injustice they see. They don’t want to lead a normal life, make a lot of money, buy a BMW, buy a house, and cheat everybody. They don’t want to do those kinds of things. They want to struggle for rights…they are angry with the world. They are angry with what they see. They are disappointed with governments. They have no faith in governments. They have a common distrust for ministers and capitalism. We want to build a new world. That’s what brings us together. (Personal communication, 2011)

Critical Activist Milieu and Intersectionalities

The previous sections elaborated on an example of a new sub-group within the new middle class which is contentious. Fernandes (2006, p. 90) argues that liberalization has created different responses among the Indian middle classes: while some have been marginalized, some have adapted and survived, the others have benefited from the new employment opportunities. The critical activist milieu is among the latter but pursues contentious politics and lifestyle. In other words, their economic well-being intersects with their contentiousness. This means, although they are the beneficiaries of the new economic order of India, they take the advantage of the new opportunities to support the marginalized. Therefore, with their commitment to fight inequality and injustice, the critical activist milieu transcends the symbolic and material boundaries of what is known as the new Indian middle class.

Wood (2012) has criticized Chatterjee’s concepts of civil society and political society by arguing that theorizing separate public spheres, that is, civil society and political society, is losing its relevance in India. She claims that “greater economic resources and better developed mobilizing structures enables middle class groups to take advantage of a political opportunity structure and a physical environment that enables contentious action” (ibid., p. 185).

The critical activist milieu provides support for Wood’s argument because critical activists do not represent the interests of the bourgeoisie although they are located within the civil society. Rather, they take advantage of their position in civil society to represent the disadvantaged and marginalized by engaging with contentious politics of marginalized actors of political society. In other words, they create intersecting spheres of civil and political society. This goal might also be pursued through occasional shaping of strategic alliances with elite and foreign agencies.

Moreover, liberalization of Indian economy has led to the “politicization of the self and daily life” (Taylor & Whittier, 1992, p. 117) and the emergence of what has been called life politics (Giddens, 1991) or lifestyle politics (Bennett, 1998). The critical activists have adopted a lifestyle which is in contrast with the lifestyles of the presented new middle class. They consciously reject these predominant cultural norms and, through politicization of daily life, they advocate a contentious lifestyle. Their contentious lifestyle, however, compliments their NGO activism and contentious politics. This means their individualized value-oriented lifestyle intersects with their performance in collective action. Hence, they foster social change through these two mechanisms.

In summary, the critical activists’ economic well-being intersects with their contentiousness. Moreover, their contentiousness is manifested in two intersecting ways. First, they seek to change the anti-marginalized and anti-poor political and economic structures through their NGO activism and contentious politics. Second, by adopting a contentious lifestyle, they defy the economic and cultural practices of liberalizing India. In the process, they create intersecting spheres of civil and political society. These recognitions provide evidence of the problematic imposition of a particular vision of the new middle class in India.

Conclusion

Class formation in liberalizing India has been a complex process. However, the represented image of the Indian new middle class in the existing literature provides a dominant notion of the new Indian middle class which expresses its social differences through the new lifestyles, practices, and politics. I do not intend to downplay these instances, but I argue that existence of different subjectivities should be given equal importance. I have aimed at complicating this literature by introducing an example about a group within the middle class which bears a contentious subjectivity and defies the advertised lifestyles, practices, and politics of post-economic reform era. This recognition enriches our understanding of India’s changing social structure since the liberalization of its economy and adds a layer to the complex dynamic of middle-class formation in liberalizing India which has rarely been taken into consideration.

Footnotes

Notes

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