Page 305 - DSOC202_SOCIAL_STRATIFICATION_ENGLISH

Social Stratification

Notes class in India. In early twentieth century, industrial middle class started developing earlier. British
government discouraged industrialization in India and kept it as a captive market deliberately.
But after First World War, it realized the need for some industries here. Emerging Indian bourgeoisie
also put pressure for setting industries here. Establishment of railway also facilitated for trade
mercantile activity. The Swadeshi Movement was started by the nationalist leaders to give a boost
to native industries. It was nothing but a demand for industrialization in India. All this led to the
emergence of industrial and mercantile Middle Class. Thus we can conclude that the emergence of
such a huge middle class in India was largely the unconscious contribution of the British rule.

When we try to understand ‘Middle Class’, it is found to be theoretically located at the
confluence of economy, society and polity. But the ‘class’ in Marxian sense is the theoretical
principle by which society may be divided into distinct groups. His two class scheme-
Bourgeoise or Capitalist and Proletariat or Working class may be a useful device for
model building in economic and political theory. But the ‘intermediate’ or middle classes
have been the most important non-polar classes.

When India embraked on a process of economic reform in 1991, the Indian middle class acquired
a new prominence as one of the world’s largest markets-urban India,’ concluded one survey, ‘is
itself the world’s third largest country.’ But, ‘what seemed to have been forgotten was that the
class in question was not conjured up overnight; it had a past and a history, which preceded its
had a past and a history, which preceded its great discouver as a consumerist predator.’
The urban middle classes now more than one hundred million people reaped most of the benefits
of the liberalisation and modernisation programmes and began to envisage their entry into the
brave new world of computers, electronics. In addition, the new economic policy also included
deregulation and privatisation of the public sector. Economic reforms are generating a 6-7 per cent
annual economic growth rate. Material comforts have begun to reach millions of homes for the
first time in Indian history and the process is certain to continue. It had not only provided
opportunities for more and more employment but in addition the emerging middle class is able to
have access to TV-sets, radios, video-equipment, foreign magazines, films, international satellite
and cable TV. Not only this, but the renewed power of the commercial channels and satellite
transmission has made the middle class man more informed about politics and about the world
around India, which has led him to establish his own status in India. Before market liberalisation,
Indian internal market was considered to be large enough to make international trade virtually
irrelevant and central planing was deemed superior to reliance on markets for economic
development. This market liberalisation policy has given new chances to the people, irrespective
of their caste and creed to avail the opportunities in liberalisation. In fact the government could
not help having the poor classes as well as other deprived sections of the society to be included in
this process because industrialisation required labour and people who could work.
India’s rapidly expanding economy has provided the basis for a fundamental change—the
emergence of what eminent journalist Suman Dubey calls a “new vanguard” increasingly dictating
India’s political and economic direction. This group is India’s new middle class—mobile, driven,
consumer-oriented, and, to some extent, forward-looking. Hard to define precisely, it is not a
single stratum of society, but straddles town and countryside, making its voice heard everywhere.
It encompasses prosperous farmers, white-collar workers, business people, military personnel,
and myriad others, all actively working toward a prosperous life. Ownership of cars, televisions,
and other consumer goods, reasonable earnings, substantial savings, and educated children (often

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