How does Andre Beteille justify 'middle class in India?. (UPSC CSE Mains 2020 - Sociology, Paper 2)
There is no single criterion for defining the middle class says Beteille. Occupational functions and employment status are the two most significant criteria although education and income are also widely used. The new middle class, according to Beteille is not only defined by occupation but also by education. In India, the origins of the middle class derive not so much from an industrial revolution or a democratic revolution as from colonial rule. In the last 50 years, the middle class has grown steadily.
A new middle class began to emerge in India in the middle of the 19th century in the womb of an ancient hierarchical society. The society within which it began to take shape was not one of classes, but of castes and communities. Even though it has grown enormously in size and importance in the last 150 years, its growth has not led to the disappearance of the multitudinous castes and communities inherited from the past. The peculiarity of the Indian middle class arises not so much from its intrinsic character as a class as from the social environment within which it has to operate.
Andre Beteille remarking on a survey by the Institute of Economic Growth (which said in 1981 that by 2020 MC would be 80% of Indian population) said that economists have highly romanticised the MC without looking into the diversity of structural composition.
- Upper MC. Top ranking administrators, established politicians, big executives in corporations, etc. Determine the destiny of their organisation and life course of the people at large.
- Middle MC. Professors, technocrats, bankers, petty traders, etc. They don’t initiate revolution in search of social transformation. Generally status quo-ist, they follow family centric lives.
- Lower MC. Supervisory staff, school teachers, clerical staff in government, etc. They are more concerned about upward mobility than a proletarian revolution.
Andre Beteille holds that rise of MC can never explain the decline of poverty. MC is a house divided.
Consequences of the rise of MC can be stated as:
- Stabilization of democracy with centrist politics.
- Secularization of world view.
- Growth of consumerism leading to economic modernisation.
- Growth of existential crisis leading to religious revivalism.
- Increasing demands on the state.
Andre Beteille writes that the middle class is not only very large but also highly differentiated internally to such an extent that it may be more appropriate to speak of the middle classes than of the middle class in India, stresses upon the heterogeneous nature of its social composition. The recent shifts in the economic policy in favour of privatisation, liberalisation and globalisation have generated a wide interest in the middle class, its size, composition and its social values. Andre Beteille views middle class in India as part of a relatively new social formation based on religion, caste and kinship. In Beteille’s opinion, middle class values in India are difficult to characterise because they are still in the process of formation and have still not acquired a stable form. As such, they are marked by deep and pervasive antinomies meaning contradictions, oppositions and tensions inherent in a set of norms and values.
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