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Unit 14: Emergence of Middle Class System

Because of emphasis on industrialization industrial sector grew. With establishment of various Notes
industries there occured rapid urbanization. With growth in urbanization the demand of various
services increased that includes banking, insurance, hospital, hotel, press recreation centre, teaching
etc. So service sector also expanded.
After independence, the new political elite initiated the capitalist transformation of agriculture
through land reform and green revolution. Land reform conferred ownership right to twenty
million family in country side. Green revolution technology increased the productivity of land.
Such economic development in rural area motivated people to have higher aspirations. Thus it
created rural middle class. They are being mobilized by the politicians for the regional interests.
As a result of policy of protective discrimination and abolition of untouchability, people from the
Dalit caste groups could get education and employment in government jobs. Now these people
are forming a Dalit middle class.
The growing IT sector today is contributing in the expansion of service sector. People from different
socio-economic background are joining this, thus they are also today constituting the major portion
of middle class.

14.2 Emergence of Middle Class System

The emergence of the middle-class was facilitated by modern education and the consequent work
opportunities available in offices set-up for commercial, administrative and other purposes by the
colonial government. The conceptual and political boundaries of Indian middle-class rested on
mediation between the colonial rulers and colonial subjects. The relationship was premised on
subordination to colonial power but at the same time providing cultural leadership to the indigenous
people. In the post-colonial India, the middle-class were identified as ‘Nehruvian civil service-
oriented salariat, short on money but long on institutional perks’. In the contemporary period, the
‘new’ middle class, as a social group, is depicted as negotiating India’s new relationship with the
global economy in both cultural (socio symbolic practices of commodity consumption) and economic
terms (the beneficiaries of the material benefits of jobs and business in India’s new liberalised
economy)
Emergence of Middle Class during British Rule
The advent of British rule witnessed the emergence of a new elite. The British rule brought
significant changes in the economy and polity of our country. OwnerShip right on land was
introduced by the Britishers, so land could become a private property. They introduced different
land revenue systems and adopted, policies like Zamindari system. Rayotwari and permanent
settlement system. This created the landed middle class i.e. self-cultivating Middle Class. B.B.
Mishra, famous historian pointed out that the middle classes emerged basically as a result of
economic and technological change and were mostly engaged in trade and industry in the west,
but in India, they emerged as a consequence of changes in the system of law and public
administration than in economic development and they mainly belonged to the learned profession.
Britishers introduced modern education which was secular, utilitarian and open to get educated
Indians as staff for their administrative institution. The intention was to create a native middle
class that would become the carrier of western culture in India and act as interpreter. With expansion
of education professional Middle Class emerged. They included doctors, lawyers, teachers,
journalists etc. Their size grew in late 19th and early 20th century. The western educated youth
brought the new liberal values of democracy, equality, liberty etc.
They started reforming Indian society. All those reform movements in 19th century were led by
these western educated middle class individuals. Britishers created institutional system for
emergence of new professionals by establishing new legal system, new judiciary, new administrative
system, revenue system, civil services, etc. This prepared the ground for the professional middle

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