. The Model of Agrarian Classes in India D.N. DHANAGARE » > > The agrarian social structure varies from one region to another; the : relations among classes and social composition of groups that ‘occupy 7 specific class positions in relation to land-control and land-use in India are so diverse and complex that it is difficult to incorporate them all in ) ageneral scheme... - Here the attemptis to set ‘out a workable concep- tual model that would enable us to deal with, apparently diverse sets of ) social groups and compare them in order to arrive at broader empirical f some theoretical relevance. generalizations o! Despite the diversity of soc of India, Daniel Thomer has attempted t Tal categories on the basis of fined and precise sock criteria: — ¢ 1) [Link] income obtained fromthe soil: (ayrent (Limits of own cultivation, or _(c) wages. (2) The nature of rights: (@) roprietary Or ownership (b) tenancy with varying degree of tenurial security), “6 share-cropping rights, oF (@) no rights at all. (@) The extent of _fieldwork-actually performed: (ay absentee who does fo work at all (b) those who perfo jal-work.(c)total work done by actual culti- vator with family labour and-(d) where. work is done entirely for others nzamn_wages (Tomer 1956; Classes in India’, in Peasant 1983. 5 on land in different parts them into well-de- the three following ‘jal arrangement: 0 reduce D.N. Dhanagare, “The Model of Agrarian Excerpted from '50, Oxford University Press. Delhi, Movements in India, 1920-- wos GOUIE overs. The Mm sus tthing 80 thas AL A8?Arian Classes in India “HATIAN clasy ‘eria Thorner h; i ing model of 88 : las, wing m Men Structure tn Outlined the following Ne soit ana wro%® income is derived primarity from property High's While keeping’ ors, COMMON interest isto Loop the level of Tents uP “UD-terants and shor tee=!e¥el down. They collect rents from tenants. 8. Bi hare-croppers. eral vilagadlords, holding rights over large tracts extending over ae interest in tang peed, AE absentee owners/rentiers with absolutely F Rich re manegement or improvement. oe but Usually in ye Z2tRerS._ proprietors with considerable holdings in the ‘same village and although performing no fieldwork, tivation and taking personal interest in the manage- the improvement of land if necessary. rking peasants having property interest in the land but Whether legal or customary, inferior to those of the SUPervising cul Ment and also in Il. Kisans, wo: actual Tights, maliks, ay” Small landowners, having. holdings sufficient to support a fam- ily, Who cuttivate Tand with family labour and who do not either employ outside labour (except in harvest) or receive rent. b. Substantial tenants, tenants holding leases under either Ia or Tb; tenurial rights fairly secure; size of the holding usually above the suf- ficiency level: The rest is as Ia. III. Mazdaors, those eaming their livelihood primarily from work- ing on others lands/plots. a. Poor tenants, having tenancy rights but less secure; holdings too small to suffice fora family’s maintenance and income derived from Jand often less than that earned by wage labour. b. _Sharecroppers, either tenants-at-will, leases. without security; cultivating land for others on share-cropper basis, and having at least agricultural implements. [Link] labourers, Thorner’s three major categories, designated by the current Indian vemacular terms, are based on the relations of production or are in relation to the means of production and in this sense represent a Marxian model of agrarian classes, although Thomer himself does not specify the theoretical assumptions underly- ing the model. In defining the sub-categories, however, he takes into account ‘the kinds of rights and [Link] services’ which are in fact typical Weberian concems. Although Thomer’s sub-categories are nearer the realities of the Indian agrarian social structure, he does not relate the specificity of the internal differentiations within Indian agrarian society to broader and more widely used conceptual models » Gougle3 ~ ~~ ~ ” - > > > , > - 273 D.N. Dhanagaré f st OF in contemporary sociology. There js, therefore, 6 nee on npr i soup Thomer's sub-categories ins sucha bros only wed concepts easive model and redesignate them nore congch a model can Be beenteria. in the study of Peasant °°" iatty those relating t0 societies re- drawn from the worl analyses of agrarian ¢ spectively-! 1, Landlords: ——— TI. Rich peasants: ae IIL, Middle peasants: Sa TV. Poor peasants: Y. Landless labourers: ks of Lenin and Mao, y Tasses in the Russian and ( Chinese This class broadly subsumes Thomer's Thomer's Ib. , tenants who have substantial secured/occupancy nominal rent Tb. holdings. enjoy rights and have to pay & fo their landlords (Thorner does not recount for this class-sinuation atl) Ti. Landowners of medium size (.e. eefsufficiency) holdings (Thomer’s 1). lib. Tenants who have substantial hold- ings (although not as large as Tb) bu! have to pay higher rent than those paid by IIb. (This corresponds to Thomer's 1b category.) IVa, Landowners with holdiny not sufficient to maintain a family; therefore forced to rent others’ land. (Thomer does not account for this class gs that are and situation.) IVb. Tenants with small holdings but with some tenurial security (Thomer's + Illa). TVe. Tenants-at-will or share-croppers. (Thomer’s IIb). (Thomer’s IIc). While using this model of agrarian classes in the Indian context some caution is necessary. First, all the five class situations and their sub- categories are regionally specific. Secondly, more often ‘rich’ ‘middle’ and ‘poor’ peasant categories can be distinguished from each ) This model consisting of five class categori it 1960: 70-87) and Mao Tse-tung (678) ene esee, Google UNIVses in India grarian Clas ; Adjectives to 214 The Model of A: siner only in qualitative rather than in quanti + og ‘small’, that tative terms- of ‘medium’ f ed with P jandholdings, cannot De defined Wi ional like ‘substantial’, differentiate between and accuracy in variations and partly tn different regions of India i ifferent periods: t one COW sibly do is na into acco ility of relative resi 8 agrarian classes in different regional stu a eet i ically $€ * % es analytically SP rable overispPir between categories ro satisfactory way of resolving this problem, P2 level analysis. All that an analyst can oadly | situations from which came the leaders and principal P: tt movements in question. Obviously then there is some risk in using 2 ‘class aia sis of an agrarian social structure in a tradition society such a5 . But the risk must be taken if any meaningful histories tive sociology of peasant movements in India is 0 be attempt ‘When we discuss some specific peasant 5 ments that ‘occurred at different times in different region® settings, We ‘shall relate specific strata ofaregional agrarian hierarchy tothe general class catergories of our model. ass’ model ly- f these agrarian classes in terms of SPe- cific status-groups Tike castes, religious oT ethnic groups etc, is. far too complex in ‘ons of India to reduce jnto any simplistic different regi t formulae. Members of a status-grOUP ce often belonged to dif- ferent classes while those W! ;r relations to the means who, im terms of their TenanO™ fo the s: Jass-situation, came from different fonetheless, certain broad patterns ‘are descemible, and social groupings that are more likely to occupy certain class positions than others are generally identifiable. For example, Jandlords. and fe ee (including non-cultivating urban moneylenders/own- ers) castes such as Brahmin, Thakur, or Bania in ) belonged to the upper northern India. In Andhra the Kammas, Reddis and Raos, in Mysore the Okkaligas and Lingayats, the Patidars in the Gujarat regi Kunbi Maratthas and Deshmukhs in Maharashtra could be cited as more examples of the Jocally-dominant-landowning Castes. At the vil- lage level these Jandowning classes often only formed a small nucleus. The social composition 0! ot pl r Samus-groups. Ne jon while the - 2. fg wp @ maeesnseseehanaankRKnarD.N. Dhanagare 215 ‘The middle and poor peasant jostly debt-ridden, came primarily from the traditional castes of 103, artisans and so on. The landless Tal mostly to Untouchable castes, the Har- ijans, For example in Uttar Pradesh, the great bulk of agricultural workers was, andis even now, recruited from the Untouchable Cha- most populous caste there. All the same, members of a single caste or religious or tribal community could be found spread vertically, some owning patches of land here and there, others holding tenures, either permanent or year-to-year leases, and still others working as unattached farm labourers. This vertical spread was, however, more likely to appear in the upper than in the lower castes although it was not totally absent even in the case of some lower castes traditionally engaged in cultivation and craftsmanship. Such a vertical spread often ensured that peasant classes found a developed class awareness hard to come by. Thus, the co-existence of agrarian classes and status-groups of a non-economic nature is the most fundamental fact about the Indian agrarian social structure to be reckoned with. The status-groups bound men by an es~ sentially non-economic sentiment or identity, and frequently served to sustain subjugation and exploitation of those in the lower strata. In India these structural linkages and anchorages tended to maintain the to keep the simmering discontent and conflicting class “boiling point’ and to prevent the stru} ggle for eco- nomic and political power from assuming a revolutionary form, but not always, Whenever the exploited sections of the peasantry felt that they were being unjustly treated, deprived or oppressed, they did erupt and resist whenever conditions were favourable. This brings us to definitions and explications of the key terms and concepts used in this study, and also to spelling out the scope of the enquiry. status qu0, interests within the.. lll Uw UTS OE EF @ CHAPTER SIX The Centrality of the Middle Class & nce concept that has suffered the prestige during the Tast decade. ~ trast to the 1970s and 80s ,when it had inspired I sciences in India, particularly history and ollapse-of socialism and the. broader | philosophy_and’2 social scientific to=rags story of class seem so self- t intellectual evident that it tends to be taken for granted. The curren climate [Link] enc’ 1} examination of the reasons for ourage.a critical the marginalization of the class concePF- ‘These reasons. may b broad groups: the first ‘ e divided into two relates to the rise of ‘other concepts and categories that have takeover much of the explan: cory ground that class used to occUPY while the, second (and older) group concerns the i ternal inadequacies of class itself. Recent developments—like the 3 to prominence of categories: like gender, race, andethnicity; the salience of ‘new: social qiovements’ organized arou! 1 issues like s to be the social scie! Class. seem: popularity ani sharpest decline iri ‘This is in strong con and energized the sdcial economics, Since then, the c Marxism as a political disarray of perspective have made the riches nd non-traditional the environment OT peace; and the spread of ‘various types of “identity politics —seem to bear little or no direct relation to the changing fortunes ofthe concept of class. Butall of these have certainly deepened the crisis of the class concept and amplified the long-standing complaints about its . inadequacies. - - - : =? famquag. & fugitimetiou Guo 39) Of Cette CLASS 126 Contemporary India. re — Asis well known, despite its centrality to his theoretical framework, class is one concept that Marx himself did not develop adequately. indeed, the explicit theoretical discussion of class ini Capital is conitied *~ to the Famous one-and-a-half-page fragment at the end of the unfinished third volume.! Thus, what we inberit from the Marxist corpus is an almost entirely historical rather than a theoretical discussion, of class, as in the classic passages of the Communist Manifesto, and the famous essays on French political history, ‘The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon’ and “The Class Struggles in France’. Despite their brilliance, the brief examples of class analysis that Marx offers us cannot ensure that his concept is able to bear the enormous theoretical burden placed onit. Theoretically, the concept of class is located at the confluence of economy, society and polity. This is an absolutely vital location given that Marxism’s claims to distinctiveness rest precisely on its insistence that the three spheres are interpenetrating and hierarchically-ordered aspects of a single, seamless social world. Thus, ‘class’ in Marxism is thé theoretical principle by which society may be divided into distinct groups that: (a) are identified by their economicrole or position, which (b) shapes the social world they inhabit and the culture they fashion, which, in turn, (c) moulds their political consciousness and inspires their actions. It is in this sense that the three spheres are seen as interpenetrating and even integrated with one another. But though integrated, they are also of unequal importance—causal priority is accorded to the economy, or level (a), which is privileged over the other two levels of society/culture (b) and politics (c), with not much of adistinction being made ‘among the latter two. In short, the concept of cli is the centéepiece of the céf¢ causal sequence pioposed by Marxist theory wherein ‘[Link] (at the economic level) shapes what you experience (at the social level) which ultimately determines what you do (at the political level). ~ ‘The power and appeal of the schema are apparent even in such a shortand simplified account, History is no longer the will of the gods, - the deeds of kings and-quleens, or the genius of great men and women— Loud lord | = fpr LOWLY buiows wor Sura /pig \ourttug beac \ euapoutean dy imaciow. | 2 it Ape BYL vous B+ wkollt Chaty ?The Centrality of the Middle Class 127 nor is it simply meaningless; rather, its coherence is to be sought in the patterned material realities of everyday life. And though history is a moving, changing, open-ended process, it is also bound by the material circumstances of past and present. What you are sets limits on what you can do, but you still have the relative autonomy to act today in ways that could change what you are tomorrow. However, by the same token, itis also clear that far too much is _ being asked of a single concept. Imagine three separate mapping exercises: one to trace the boundaries of groups with distinct economic profiles; the second to identify groups with different socio-cultural ways of life; and the third to define groups with different political interests and agendas. Strictly speaking, the. Marxist concept of class is supposed to ensure that the boundaries of these three types of groups coincide exactly when superimposed-on each other—that each economic class also has a distinct culture and a specific politics. If this seems an excessively restrictive condition, its origins have to be sought in the fact that, at the theoretical level, Marx conceived of an essentially _ bipolar world with only two opposed classes, capitalists and workers? As social scientists have discovered in the century and a half since Marx, the two-class scheme is a very useful heuristic device, particularly for model building in economic and political theory: Butts limitations ~as.a tool for empirical social analysis—visible even in Marx's own time—have never been more obvious. The most serious of these limitations is the inability to accommodate classes and groupings other than the two ore classes of capital and labour. To the degree that such classes are socially and politically important, we need to go beyond ‘the inherited Marxist corpus for meaningful class analysis. The ‘intermediate’ or middle classes have arguably been the most important non-polar classes. Although this is generally true of both We cd iibii= Western Countries at least since the late nineteenth cing the are several reasons why the middle classes haye een particularly important in ex-colonial nations. However, jthis class segment has received relatively little scholarly attention ‘in either context. Pe =I @® .128 Contemporary India In the Indian context in particular, the mismatch between the contemporary importance of the middle class and the volume of reliable research on itis one of the more remarkable ariomalies in our social science literature. After D-P. Mukerjee’s pioneering reflections (Mukerjee 1948) comes B.B. Misra’s classic survey (Mista 1961). No _ Study of comparable breadth and authority has emerged since. Most of the recent work is either not of a scholarly nature, or it is restricted tothe colonial period and to specific regions, or more often cities such as Calcutta? This anomaly is partly explained by the fact that the middle class has been a traditional blind spot for both Marxist-left wing and liberal-mainstream social theory. The former has treated it asan acute theoretical ‘embarrassment’ (Wright 1985:13) ora ‘swamp’ of ambiguity (Lefebvre 1976:25), while the latter has tended to “naturalize’ it by uncritically adopting its world view. /A peculiarly Indian factor'may also have been at work: the middle class may. have seemed an“unworthy’ or self-indulgent topic for a generation of social scientists drawn from this class, who believed that their mandate was toact’on behalf of ‘the people’ who constituted the nation | 4 The Social Significance of the Middle Class As is well known{ the founders of Marxism had little regard for the, ‘middle classes, othe! ‘petit bourgeoisie’ in their terminology. Unlike - thé bourgeoisie and, of course, the proletariat, which were considered to be great classes with a historic mission, th termediate classes were seen as impediments to the progressive march of history.(Thisis “despite the explicit ackno n the C gementin the! Comnitiniist Manifesto; no less, that the leaders of the proletarian revolution would be recruited from its ranks. We havé to wait until the advent of Antonio Gramsci for a more careful and constructive Marxist analysis of the middle " classes and their role in modern capitalist societies. It is mainly to Gramsci that we are indebted for seminal insights into the general ~_ — importance of the-middle classes-in-creating-and-maintaining the —- eeThe Centrality of the Middle Class 129 dominant ideology that regulates the social structure. eS sais the preliminary reason for the significance of the middle clas: thee isproportionate influencsin ideological mat mostimmediate evidence of hiss tobe foundin the atrac ae of this class as a social location. Although itis rue that the midale classisanotoriously loose term itis striking thathardly naan’ a to decline membership and even those who ae ineligible wish tobe included in it. Why ig the middle class viewed as such a Gesrable social location? The answer has to be sought in the many meani attached to the ‘mniddleness’ of this class. “e __Inpopular conmmonsense—much of whichis produced byfin the middle class itself {the middle class i pipjected as an ‘average’ class *% that best represents the ie of society. it may be thatt | society. It may b ‘useful to borrow ‘some terms from Statistics to aderstaild the different strands of vneaning involved in this notion of the average. : . Descriptive statistics is all about ‘data reduction’—reducing, ° unmianageable amounts of information t9 manageable proportions — snd it depends heavily on-averages, beciuss average is’ single number that can ‘stand for or represent any’ groupofnumbers, however large. The three most common averages in statistics are € median and the m‘ de. The mean. (or Grithmetic mean) of 2 Set of jumbers is the sum_ total of their values divided by the number of membersin the s et; because ofits ‘mathematical properties, he mean ig considered the most ‘powerful’ average aindisby far the most eavity used. Ifall the numbers inaset are arranged in ascent ingot descending order, the median represents the midpointof thie set,itsmain eee 1 is that! (unlike the riean) itis avery stable average that is _ aise : by the presence of extreme values. The mode represents the value occurs most frequently in aset of numbers; unlike median which are artificial constructs, th c i an the set, the © actually existing value in Workingby analogy, we" unravel the various ee as thatare wove into the notion ofmiddlencss associa ass Themost obvIows isthe’ ‘peither-nor nowon class.130 Contemporary India associated with the median: the middle class is thought of (and more of society and polity importantly, thinks of itself) as the stable centre er impervious to extremes{Thus ‘the middle class is supposed. tobe ve, and soo poor nor rich, neither t66 conservative nor progr: : 3 Tamniliay Titiny that sees virtue in moderation and claims to ¢&% dy anisms that we still don’t ‘it. Somewhere along the way, through mech: gow enough about, this straightforward, median-like notion of middlleness also acquires (or claims) the mode-like quality of representing the most frequent or popular values in society._} Deferring a more detailed discussion, let me offer a quick jtlustration: ‘the common man’ is a familiar phrase used in the media and everyday discourse; itis also the name given to the iconic figure created by veterait cartoonist R:K. Laxman. By a remarkable feat of ideological condénsation, this phrase/figure manages t0 convey © "powerful sense of middle-class identity that claim _ both in the sense, of something that is shared as well as something “is widespread. Fuither along on its semantic journey, oti « middléness is inflated into a larger sense of legitimate repr the middle lass is projectedas the socal group thatis the be forepresent the whole of society (or be the most ‘rigorous the sense of the arithmetic mean). Thus, the reasons why ‘e would like to, bélong to the mi al ‘Kinds of desirability that are attacl the position ofa ‘centrist’ group’ avoi sense of representing the majority, legitimacy as the group most qual society. i “ oe _ The initial justification for the social si class is therefore directly linked to the claim everywhere > represented as representing everyone, Ehrenreich 1989:3). But this is a claim that needs to be evaluated?and here we cacounter the familiar problem of the ‘derivative’ or at least the late comer status of non-Western and specially colonial nations. The specific senses of middleness-discussed ab s to be ‘common’ that 9 jhed to its middleness, ding extremes, through the general toa full-blown assertion of moral lified to“act or speak on behalf of iff cance of the middle ig that itis ‘the classthatis fy AS ME CBee ove-have obviously been teThe Centrality of the Middle Class 131 influenced by the history of the emergence and subsequent development of the middle classes in Western nations, and this sometimes makes for anomalies in non-Western contexts, ‘The most striking example of this concerns the ‘modil’ claim of middleness, namely the claim that the middle classes represent the - major (or most numerous) section of society. This claim has been a more or less legitimate one in most Western countries, at least since around the middle of the twentieth century. The bout of unprecedented prosperity that followed World War II meafit that the middle classes (broadly defined) began to account for the largest plurality ifnot an actual majority of the population. Only a small proportion céuld be classified as upper class, and the ranks of the poor and even the traditional working class were thinned out by a combination of rising incomes and economic restructuring which relocated jobs in the tertiary or service sector. There is thus some justification—at least in purely numerical terms—for the representative claims of the Western. middle classes, ifdefined broadly as ‘middle income’ groups. Matters are starkly different in poor countries like India, and itis necessary to enter into questions of definition in order to understand these differences. DEFINING THE MIDDLE CLASS How we define the middle (or any other).class depends on what we wish to do with the concept. Take, for example, the three components.” ofthe Marxist definition of class discussed earlier—the economic, the ( n identify social and the political. The economic-definition aims “groiups with shared economic characteristics, suchas levels or sources of income, ownership of particular kinds of wealth or property, place in the economic structure, and so on. The social definition attempts to'demarcate groups that share the same lifestyles, patterns of or social attitudes. The political definition tries to litical agendas or parties they consumption, differentiate groups according to the p — support, or theteaders they identify with. Underlying: such theoretical (6) ae:132 Contemporary India : definitions i why being abl larger analytical strategy or logic, some set of reasons understand society igenety groups of a given type would help us Pree eee age eles definitions are y their logical clarity and rigour, and, ultimately, by the insights they promise. ' this Flowers, Sanus wo the level of empirical social analysis, pa ee eee gee to worry about translating our defin concrete, observable criteria. Compromises are inevitable here, for there is always a gap between what we can n the real conceptualize in theory and what we can see and measure ii world. Even the simplest of theoretical definitions runs into ‘complications at the empirical level. Take, for instance, the most based on levels of income s that also told us about, termine the ‘straightforward économic definition of class dso on: OF . and wealth. If there were a list of all citizeri | their income levels, we could ‘classify’, each person, de .size of each class at the national or regional levels, an course, there is no such list, so we have to. begin improvising. Sliail we use data from the Central Board of Direct Taxes that tells us how-many taxpayers there are, and their division by levels of population. jncome? But this tells us only about atiny minority of the es out the vast majority whose incomes are below the taxable limit; all those dependent on agricultural incomes (which are not taxed); and all those who are cither legally avoiding or e consumption expenditure illegally evading taxes. We could use th data collected by the National Sample Survey Organization (some of which was discussed in the last chapter). But if we do so, we are moving that pays, taxes—it leavi away from thé theoretical basis for our definition, namely income. Consumption expenditure'may bea good proxy for income, butitis a” proxy, and it involves compromises. For example, relying on consumption expenditure data tends to seriously underestimate the overstate that of the poor, because income of the rich and to (relatively) ion of income is spenton-consumption as we go up mulating income and “asmaller proporti the income scale. (The rich get rich by accu! wealth faster than they can spend it, whereas the poor may often be ——— CaThe Centrality of the Middle Class 133 spending their income faster than they can carn it, that is, they maybe living on credit.) All the difficulties discussed so far are conceptual and would apply even when the data collection Process is assumed to be perfect. This is never true, of cot urse, and we must also consider the Problems of errors, omissions and biases specific to particular data Sources (for example, in the case of the NSSO data, its under- Tepresentation of urban non-poor households, or its sensitivity to the reference period). Thus, empirical considerations may lead us away from the conceptual attributes decided upon in theory. The main point ofthis extended example i to illustrate the logic.” of definitions. All definitions are motivated. by a larger theoretical Purpose and are more or less arbitrary—they prompt us to use one set of criteria (rather than other possible ones) in the hope that this will * yield-useful insights, However, theoretical definitions can never be operationalized in their exact form because the available empirical indicators never match the definitional criteria perfectly—there is always some ‘slippage’ or gap between the two. It is not the existence of this gap, but its extent that is important in judging the worth ofa “definition. As long as it is empirically plausible, a good definition is one that is ‘good to think with’. Thus, contrary to what commonsense might suggest, defining class is less about correctly identifying a pre-existing social group, and ‘more about deciding what kind of social group itis useful to identify, Of course, ‘useful’ here means helpful for understanding society, so it is clear that only information on really existing groups is relevant. But the opposite is not true—just because a group exists, it does Rot follow that knowing about itwilhelp ws analyse or understand society better: eae : . 5 ‘This distinction has often got obscured in discussions about the Indian middle class in the media and in popular literature. For these . and other reasons, the conceptual rationale for particular definitions of the middle class, and the various kinds of slippage involved inis empirical identification have not received the careful attention they demand. _134 Contemporary India » fH he ‘ ‘THE MIDDLE CLASS AS ‘CONSUMER CLASS’ boa! ave been those that have segment of s'a specific = lew econo! i crs. During the early 1990s, whe: v of liberalization was getting underway, there was cons excitement among marketing experts about the hinge numbers O° potential consumers that this class might offer to global corporation ee eHaatthe Indian market for the first ime since Independence. SOO" Sich & far as to estimate the size of this ‘consuminy illiaii, of 30 percent of the Indian populati Geir that these overblown estimiates were the products of the deliberate hype stoked by vested interests. : ven if it is casy to conclude that 30'per cent is far too high @ number, we siill have to. determiné where to draw the lines that distinguish the middle class from other classes. Itseems obvious that the middle class’ should'exclude the rich and the poor, however We define tliese categories; but it is not so clear whether the middle class should include everyone who is non-rich arid non-poor. Is the middle _ class a purely negative and residual category, or should italso involve some positive characteristics? At this point, it becomes impossible to bers of avoid discussing absolute levels of income. 2 ‘able 1 (based on data'from the NSSO’s 55* Round survey) provides a summary statement of the distribution of the monthly per capita consumption expenditure in India during 1999-2000. Where on this spectruin’ would we locate ‘the middle class’, and for what reasons? . ; : a This starkand simple question helps us to pinpoint the sources of _ confusion in éven the simplest ‘consumer-segment’ definition of the middle class. Let us note, to begin with, that defining the middle class as merely a grouping of consumers does not involve any explicit stipulation of the levels or types of consumption. Nevertheless, it is clear that the ‘Below the Poverty Line’ category is not incontention for inclusion in the middle class because this category will not be ae 4 j_most niarket surveys) is. to The Centrality of the Middle Class 135 participating in formal markets in any significant way. All the Consumption of people in this category will be routed through = fnformal markets tied to employers and/or creditors of various types But everyone from the ‘Above the Poverty Line’ category upwards is” presumably participating in formal markets to & significant degree: Peo do we include and who do we exclude from the middle class? TABLE 1 Estimated Class Composition of the Indian Population Expenditure Data, NSSO; 1999-2000 Based on Monthly Percapita Consumption Rural India Description of Class. [Monthly Per Capita | Per cent Expenditure Class [of Pop "344 “Rs 458 or Less: Sapita Per cent] Monthly Per ‘of Popn | Expenditure Class Rs 329 or Less Below Poverty Line Population Above Poverty Line | Rs329 to Rs 470 33.8 Rs 458 to Rs 775, Next 4 classes Less Poor _~ +] “Rs 470 to Rs 775. 24.7 Rs 775 to Rs 1,500 Next 4 classes .. Non Poor Rs 775 or More 79 Rs 1,500 or more “Jop,2 classes poe _. | Ali Classes 100 Ml Classes estimates of the Rs 329 & Rs 458 were the official (Planning Commision) respectively, in 1999-2000. Source: NssO Note: al and Urban India, Poverty Line for Rur 55* Round that to speak of ‘the middle class’ as Ivis'amply evident at this stage ution (adopted by a single entity is not very helpful. The obvious:so! divide the spectrum of consumers into different levels or segments suchas ‘A, ‘B,C’ oF “upper, ‘middle’ and ‘lower-middle class’, and so on. Note, however, that jtmakes sense to continue to refer to these segments 3S belonging to a larger class called ‘the middle class’ only if they have more in common with each other than they have-swith groups outside the middle class. This is a matter forempirical investigation in each given context, but is often. forgotten or deliberately ignored. For example, a group thatis actually_ -136 Contémporary India Part of the upper class (in terms of lifestyle, income levels, gusicudes or other criteria) may prefer to conceal or play down this fact by poo is On calling itself the ‘upper-middle class’. On the other hand, a group that is actually part of the lower class may wish to pass itself off as ‘lowgr-middle‘class’, and so on. Cin short, the than" ial descripi connotations rather than itThe Centrality of the Middle Class 137 | be some truth to this, and so itis important to turn to other sources of nationwide data to see if this makes a difference to notions of the middle class. Table 2 presents data on possession of consumer durables from the Market Information Survey of Households (MISH), a huge annual nationwide survey conducted by the National Cotincil for Applied Economic Research. MISH has a sample size of 3,00,000 households which is much larger than the 1,20,000 for the NSSO big sample'surveys. Moreover, 70 per cent of the MISH sample is devoted to urban India because the survey is interested in consumption of manufactured goods. However, because of its large sample size, the absohtite sainple for rural areas in MISH is larger than the absolute size of the NSSO rural sample. It can thus be argued that MISH is a useful counterpoint to the NSSO survey reported in Table 1.5 : ‘TABLE2 Possession of Consumer Durables by Iadian Households Percentage of households [Link] the rélevant consumer durable item Consumer Durable [> Rural India Urban Indig ‘All India tem | 1985-85 1995-96 | 1985-36 1995-96 | 1985-86 1995-96 Bicycle [303-529 352. 486 317 S47 Scooter. 0.6 240] 61 15.9 24 6.0 Motorcycle 0.7 in 2.6 3.6 12 29 Pressure Cooker 34 13.0 325 563 3 233 Miker/Grinder 06 234 109 ° 301 34 108 Refrigerator» ~| 03 20 88°. 252 26 86 B&WTV Se. | 1.0 5° 1534 15.1 45.6 47. 240 Colour TV Set.- | . 0.1 26 40-212 i279 Washing Machine | - 0.0 |” 05 14-1090 fm 04 35 All figures in percentages, rounded to nearest decimal. Source: I. Natarajan (C4), India Market Demographics Repo 1998, National Council for Applied Exonomiec Research, Chapter 4. s ~ ‘Since the possession of consumer durables is acommon indicator of class status, Table 2 provides a useful Overview of the probable size of the middle class defined in different ways. oT138 Contemporary India je 1: Bible 2 also reiterates the sobering message of 73? He sale cls - little room for extravagant estimates of the size of sed a colour _ when less than 8 per cent of Indian households possess" 0 o - setin 1995-96; less than 9 per cent possessed a refrigera pan d by only per cent owned a scooter. Even a pressure cooker was 9" 7 f households. ; ible wee coronas with concrete data alerts us to the Peale biases that may be involved in statements made about & * middle class. Italso helps establish qyo general features of the In i els of class considered as a class of consumers, even when See consumption are not specified: on the one hand, in terms of a! ie numbers, this may be a very large class by world standards; on | other hand, it is a very small proportion of the Indian population, although its magnitude can vary somewhat according to the precise definition chosen. This is why the claim that the middle class represents ‘everyone’—though it is usually implied rather than explicitly stated—is so clearly untenable in India. ° Empirical exercises like this allow us to detect the ideological sleights of hand by which the middle class presents itself as a largé plurality representing everyone, although itis, in fact, a small minority that usually speaks for itself. When confronted with such claims to Tepresentation; it is always useful to’ examine the concrete sccial or economic location of the groups being spoken for or doing the speaking. - The next time you see an RK. Laxman cartoon or watch a post-budget. “television show, remind yourself that ‘the common man’ belongs to ” the top 10 or 15 per cent of the income you feel slightly odd; which is beyond commonsense. distribution. This may miake awelcomé-sign that you are lookingov The Centrality of the Middle Class 139 strength is always relevant. The more important point about the ‘consumer-segment’ definition of the middle class is that it is much too narrow to capture the critical, multidimensional, role of the middle class in post-colonial societies. ALTERNATIVE THEORETICAL DEFINITIONS OF THE MIDDLE CLASS Here are three hypothetical definitions of the middle class that may be ‘good to think with’. They aré theoretical definitions, and are prompted mainly by their promise in highlighting crucial aspects of post-colonial societies. However, their empirical plausibility must also 9 be examined, and possible sources of empirical evidence explored. 1. The middle class is the class-that articulates the hegemony of the ruling bloc; it both (a) expresses:this hegemony by translating the relations of domination into the lariguage of legitimization; and (b) mediates the relationship between classes within the ruling bloc, as well as between this bloc and other classes. : The term articulation is being used heré in the double sense of giving voice to, as well as linking or connecting in a flexible manner. As [Link] of the ruling bloc, the middle class‘is responsible for imanaging the discourse of legitimization; this includes both the process’of production of this discourse, as well as the subsidiary practices necessary to enistire'that it ‘takes hold’ as the common sense of everyday life. Secondly, this class helps to manage the relations .between ‘industrial-financial‘and agrarian capital within the ruling bloc,and to mediate the relations between the ruling bloc and the test of society. The importance of the middle class is greatly enhanced by the fact that coalition is the necessary form of the ruling bloc—in post-colonial India, no single class is ina position to build hegemony alone (Kaviraj +988). - The main axis around which hegemony is built—and which also explains the peculiar centrality of the middle class—is the developmental state. In the early years of independence, the transfer «ie Contemporary India i lass lea ige from the middle-cl Ens of the newly autonomous ns of colonial ders of legitimacy, power and moral pres of the freedom movement to the masters of the new! state was almost seamless. As is well known, conditions eee backwardness produced’ remarkably inclusive consensus 01 TE. for sate-led, industry-based investment programmes O" 8 Tr scale. The hegemony of the ruling bloc thus had to operate SWOT a se de a critically dependent on middle cla: need the dominant legitimizing functionaries. ‘patriotic production” Given that, during the Nehruvian era, i ks in the idiom o} : pe Stoeytaenae d the state apparatus that it (Deshpande 1993), the middle class (an : ' controls) adopts the posture of the ‘proxy’—of representing (acting on ry, the patriotic behalf of) the true protagonists of national histo! producers. The technicization of development, and the enormous prestige of scientific technology also provide the middle class with a significant measure of legitimacy, 2. The middle class is the class that is most dependent on cultural capital and on the mechanisms for the reproduction of such capital. Cultural capital is undoubtedly a form of property that remains under-researched both theoretically and specially empirically. Even the few available attempts to theorize it (suchas those of Alvin Gouldner or Pierre Bourdieu) need to be adapted and modified before they can speak to the Indian situation.’ But there can be little doubt that the middle-class more than any other is defined by its ownership and control of cultural capital. = sectesee “For the middle class, such cultural capital may consist of particular ~~” types of identities (caste, community, or region) and competences (educational credentials, linguistic and other social skills)? Such _forms of cultural capital fulfil at least three attributes of property: they confer tangible and psychological benefits: they can be privatized. thatis, others can be excluded from enjoying their benefits; vod, Galt ~ >they-can-betransmittedacr i easiand, finally, ak “ee ‘oss generations: However; the mede-ef its .-The Centrality of the Middle Class 141 unique: an identity or ansmission or inheritance is other reproduction, tr weit cannot simply be handed over from person to person (as ote cconemicassets can), but has to belearnt afresh. Atthe same time, this Jermiot mean that everyone has equal access to cultural capital—as ts play a decisive role. with other forms of capital, initial endowmen i Cultural capita isalso peculiar in thatitincludes characteristic patterns of consumption, as Bourdicu (1984) has shown. Such consumption is to be conceived in a broad sense, to include not ‘only the consumption ofcommodities and services but also of more abstract cultural entities such as ideologies, beliefs and stereotypes. : But the most complicating aspect of cultural. capital is that it is frequently invisible as property, butis socially misrecognized as innate ability, or ‘merit’. Members of the middle-class are, asa rule, owners of cultural capital; they may also possess innate talents, be hardworking, disciplined and so on: ‘But in the self-image-of the class, its achievements are solely due to innate ability, never to inherited cultural ” capital. The important question is whether cultural, capital can be treated on.a par with other forms of capital (e.g. land, wealth, [Link] on) and be subjected to social regulation in the same way. Isit to be treated as an ‘ascriptive’ or an ‘achieved’ attribute? ‘To what extent can society tolerate, encourage or redress disparities in this form of capital? These are critical issues not only for the middle class, butalso for the rest of society. 3. Asan increasingly differentiated class, the middle class specializes in, the production and dissemination of ideologies; its elite fraction. specializes in the production, of ideologies; and its mass fraction engages in the exemplary consumption of these ideologies, thus investing them with social legitimacy. . In concrete terms, the elite segment of the middle class can be thought of as including the ‘intelligentsia’ in‘the usual sense (Béteille 1989), with-a special emphasis on professional politicians top bureaucrats, media persons, intellectuals and other ‘specialists in ; legitimization’ as Gramsci puts it. The primary function of this ~142 Contemporary India . ith - « leostimizing ideologies along witl segment is to produce and transmit legitimizing area However, i i 4 ust - the peripheral social practices necessary to s social eat an elite fraction by itself docs not have te eae = weight—the moral volume and density that om pa Po ete i i F ife make these ideologies take root in the oe Se ren G The ‘mass’ segment of the middle class per! : : Ay lending enna apparent substance to these ideologies throug! force of example. By playing out their role as coulis aa sineste believers of the dominant ideologies, the mass seeeencny re mice class (what are commonly referred to as. the middle-mi paper the lower-middle classes) enables such ideologies to take 1 ‘stick? 5 . Although the above definitions are hypothetical ones suggested as food for thought, some indication of the ways in which they me be useful for understanding the Indian middle class can be [Link] the following historical account. Middleness in the social history of the Indian middle class(es) Three main reasons have been offered for the special salience of the middie classes in colonial contexts: (1) in peripheral societies characterized by ‘backward? capitalism mediated by colonial rule, the industrial bourgeoisie is a relatively weak class, and the intermediate classes: (specially the intelligentsia and the professional-technical- managerial elite) is correspondingly much stronger than in Western contexts; (2)-in such societies, the [Link] towards capitalist . development occurs after indepetidence undér the aegis of the developmental state, and the middle classes dominate the state apparatus; (3) partly because of the above two reasons and partly because they often’play a leading role in anti-colonial struggles, the intermediate or middle classes enjoy great political legitimacy which Prompts them to go beyond their ‘intermediate’ status and try to reproduce [Link] a dominant class (Ahmad 1996}.The Centrality of the Middle Class 143, In India (as in many ex-colonies), the contemporary importance ofthe middle class and its pos ere shaped by its in was po compelied by circumstance to allow oe this clags. The imperial p 85 to educate and Westernize 1eIF so that it Ou Fi SouTd Supply she ‘At the same time, it could’ 1¢ allowed the full measure aes TeETaSis, ted which were inevitably thwarted at some poitit It is these'd elite who helped give birth to the idea of the nation, and in time, toa nationalist movement (Anderson 1991). As is well known, middle- - class professionals (specially lawyers) dominated the middle and upper, level leadership of the Indian National I Congres ss (Misra 1961). u(t class acquired’a, ~ “Te is hardly surprising, therefore, that'd stranglehold on the state apparatus after im iependence, and wi eleyated tothe position of: indispensable m« member of the, ruling fie domninianié Segmiéiits of which were agrarian capitalists and thé*fhdustrial and financial bourgeoisie (Kaviraj 1988, Rudra 1989, Bardhan 1989, Beteille 1989, Iyer 1989). Given-that this class helped to create and maintain a ‘native’ public sphere in the colony (Chatterjee 1994), it carried over this role into the post-colonial period. Perhaps the main function of the middle class was to build hegemony.” This was a function it partly inherited from the Western history of modernization/capitalist development and the emergence there of the contemporary forms of the bourgedis-democratic nation- state with a rapidly evolving economy. By the late nineteenth century,” the Western rolé model of the middle class, (as famously g articulated ~ s. like Matthew7Arnold) ‘was ready. [Link] and » by ideolos i iP. members of the emergent Indian middle class—urban x Is, white-collar workers in government and in ee id igentsia—s consciously i invoked this mori privileging of the > middle class."" ~ ““Tarthe Indian cont mn context, ext, this moral privile the colonial pe period, , of an ethical ir imperative to la “The nationalist revival in the flow farniliar strategy: Coe— § 144 Contemporary India , while at the same Western THE MIDDLE CLASS AND THE IDEOLOGY AND PROCESSES OF DEVELOPMENT Although we refer to them as members of the middle classes, the leaders of the nationalist movemerit were mostly members of the social elite who had taken to the new urban professions; particularly the law. It is only in the post-independence phase of Indian history that the middle classes in the contemporary sense emérged, consisting of people who were notsubstantial property owners, and who were dependent on educational and cultural capital and the professional careers: that these promised. / oo This post-independence middle class was entirely a product of the developmental regime. This was true both-at the ideological arid institutional levels. Ideologically, the particular notion of development that-held sway in the Nehruvian era conceived of it as primarily a scientific-technical process over which professional experts should preside. The state, assisted by such experts, would bring about development on behalfof and for the people who needed and wanted development gave Primacy to the bureau i on ofthe middle classes, - i aie: ——. Té-this was the‘demand? side-of the mutually’ supportiveThe Centrality of the Middle Class 145 ween the middle class and the developmental state, ide. The massive expansion of higher. hhasis on scientific and technical training, all this was relationship be there was also the ‘supply’ s education and the strong emp swelled the ranks of the middle classes. Most significantly, seen not as providing unprecedented opportunity and encouragement for the middle class, but as part of the great task of nation building. The middle class itself could participate in this task in the same spirit of high-minded dedication that pervaded all state initiatives in these initial years of unbounded hope and optimism. ‘This Nehruvian high-mindedness and the powerful sense of moral legitimacy that it engendered was an important factor in rendering invisible the unequal benefits that development brought to diferent classes, castes and regional groups. This could nov be kept up indefinitely, however, and eventually the failures and unforeseen consequences of the development process helped undermine the ideology of development. Although they were not noticed at the time, the chain reactions were set in motion in the early post-independence period. These led, by the mid-1960s, toa pervasive multidimensional crisis that ended the Nehru era and decisively changed the trajectory of the nation. Tthardly needs stating today that the development idea is no longer dominant. What needs to be emphasized, however, is that its decline was only partly due to its own failures. In other words, it is not so much that the development process itself has failed—the historical record on this countis a mixed one—but that development-as-ideclogy no longer resonates with the changed ideological context at the national [Link] Jevels. Just as this context once exaggerated the promise of development, today it is magnifying its real and apparent failures. It is not coincidental that the decline of the developmental state is accompanied by the differentiation of the middle class which had experienced a phenomenal growth under its nurturance. The rhetoric of the Nehruvian era had seemed to issue an inclusive invitation to all members of the nation to come and play the role ofthe secula-modem Citizendevoted To the task of nation building, However,146 Contemporary India despite the absence of any overt attempt to constitute an eo (rather than an inclusive) ‘audience—despite, that is, their app’ ie ‘openness’—nationalist narratives also served to differentiate sy “ than unite. As it became clear retrospectively, eve. that most mode! and universal of languages, Nehruvian secular-socialism, ne harboured subtle strategies of exclusion and selection. The secu modern citizen, though he remained unmarked in public one turned out upon closer ‘examination to be the simultancously familiar and-elusive middle-class subjectgyhho continues (© claim the pre- modern privileges of ‘community, caste, gender and region. Coste was a particularly prominent marker of this middle-class subject, as discussed in the previous chapter. One indication of this can be found in the fact that, in everyday language, the term ‘middle class’ often fianctions as a code word for ‘upper caste’. It is only very recently that the stranglehold of the upper castes onall middle-class jobs, specially in the technical-administrative sectors, ‘has been Joosened. The NSSO data for 19 din the previous 199-2000 discusses chapter suggest that the Hindu upper castes are heavily, over- represented in the top-most MPCE class in both the rural and specially ly 59 per cent of-this the urban areas. They account for approximatel d 40 per cent of this class (Rs 1,925 or more) in urban areas, and aroun class (Rs 950 of more) in the rural areas, although they account for only about 18 per cent of the rural and around 27 per cent of the urban population.” ‘THE DIFFERENTIATION OF THE MIDDLE CLASS Itis not surprising that the possible consequences of thé symbiotic relationship between the developmental state and the middle classes were poorly understood in the Nehru era. The standard approach was the. naive, unidimensional one of ‘increasing the pool of scientific and technical manpower’. Such an instrumental view failed to accord any agency to this ‘pool’: that itcould constitute a powerful pressure group —waith desires and-ambitions of its_own.da not seem to have been &The Centrality of the Middle Class 147 rgence of the “brain drain’ only with the eme! lem drew fate 1960s and carly "70s that the probl both as a cause and partly as 2 ology of development, one the developmental anticipated. It was phenomenon in the attention. By this time, however, consequence of the weakening of the ide could no longer be confident that the middle class, state, and the nation were marching in step. While the issue awaits detailed investigation, it would seer that the middle class during the Nehru era was not only smaller in absolute size, but also relatively more homogenous than it appears to be today. (Or perhaps a more accurate way of putting this might be that only a relatively homogenous fraction of the middle class was centrally involved with the Nehruvian enterprise, the regional middle class and other suck less horriogenous elements being excluded.) seem to have been two major growth spurts, which also resulted in -f” greater diversification of this class: one, during the late 1960s and ‘early 70s, the other in the decade since the mid-1980s. As an initial mise that the first spurt marked the end of. While the'second the era of There hypothesis, anie might sur ‘Blobalization’._ 7 ‘The task of identifying the different coherent fractions of the contemporary middle class is an urgent one. Undertaking this concépituial-empirical exercise may, in fact, render the term ‘middle class’ redtindant, which is an unsatisfactory one to begin with. What could be the various axes along which we: might differentiate all members of that residizal income group (not rich, and not poor) which forms the carididate-pool for this class? The answer would depend, of course, on whiaé.we wish to do with our definitions/criteria (Wright 1985); what follows is only an. illustrative list of possible criteria. Ifour aim is to exarmiine the role played by this class in building and maintaining the hegemony of the ruling bloc (as was suggested above), a first cut distinction could be made between the ‘elite’ and ‘mass’ fractions of [Link], the one mainly involved in producing ‘and the other in consuming legitimizing ideologies. This would produce something like an intelligentsia vs tower=and-middle=middie~148 . Contemporary India it (Rudra 1989). ‘cultural eee ed could bede OPS ca ae - capital owned by different fractions of this class. This oeechnical= something like an occupational distribution, with tect | professional groups, generalist administrators, ae Scene professions’, various categories of white-collar workers, SE esol Access to languages could be an interesting indicator o ce, character of different middle-class fractions. One cou! Pe division into: monolingual English speakers; a barege Sree segment consisting of a) those whose first language. is j lish. bu who have a firm link with some Indian language; and b) U . es first language [Link] Indian one, but who are confident in : ing a well; and finally, a large group which is rooted in Indian languagy and has no real access to English. , Amore broad-based division between the globalized, metropolitan, and regional fractions is also possible. This would give due weightage to the sphere of influence/action of each fraction. To these shou! F pethaps be added (at least since the greén revolution) a rural-base« fraction, which continues to have its main base in the rural/agrarian - sector but is also a significant actor in the regional urban centres. Whatever be the actual ways in which the middle class may have become differentiated, the basic assertion being made here is about the fact of differentiation. The loss of hegemony experienced by the [Link] developmentis related [Link] process of differentiation; the ideology loses its addressees;:its [Link] various fractions of themiddle class evolved:in their different ways, their perceived self- interests took them further and further away. from the nation-state. / and the:divergenice between the ideology of development aiid the tiddle class increased Over time. In essence, for the most influential and powerful elite fraction of this class (which would have supplied ____ thesecond generation of. Nehruvians), + Jor their dreams and aspiratic ions. This is due to the decline of old as much as the rise of new u Ones—the emergence of sul — loyalties as well as the lure of | transnational identities. ideologies b-national the nation is no longer the canvas °ae ~ identities. Such idéntities may soon’o! The Centrality of the Middle Glass 149 GLOBALIZA DLE CLASSES , " ee deologies,as Louis Althusser has tau the tree falling in the forest makesasoun tg hear it, Itis when a connection is made ‘addressee’ when a person or social group feels themselves addressed (interpellated, hailed) by an ideology —that it becomes effective. The rise of the new ideologies of ‘adjustment’ and ‘globalization’ must therefore be understood partly in terms of the emergenct of ‘new publics’ who see themselves reflected in the identities they offer. The Jifferentiation of the Nehruvian middle class has created new audiences that invest these ideologies ‘with meaning. ‘Who are the publics addressed by adjustmentand globalization? What do they promise to whom? Why do these groups believe in once again, await investigation. While these promises? These questions, there may be a significant body of work now on the sectoral irhpact of adjustment and ‘globalization—the ‘economic promises it makes to different classes or économic groups—the socio-cultural aspects oF these equations are still to be studied. [Link] pointis that the direct or most important economic beneficiaries may not necessarily be the most effeetive or important forces responsible forthe success of the ideology on the possibilities presented by “Tn a wide-ranging argument globalization, Arjun Appadurai (1997) has suggested that new, ‘post- . The intensified global patriotic’ identities may be emerging toda le, capital and technology have led toa flows of images, ideas, peopl situation where national borders can no longer contain ‘diasporic’ (fer more progréssive’and ‘TION AND THI NEW MIDI ional phenomena; ight us, are relat there is someone d only when between a ‘message’ and its emancipatory alternatives to‘national identities. ‘The implications of this argument are such as to pre-em) whole question of comparisons with development. Appadurai sees great promise in the transcendent ideologies, organizations and identities spawned by. globalization-Such a transnational telos could provide a substitute for development, one that does not require the nation-state as its condition of possibili pt the ty-In fact,the reach, ofthese. =150 Contemporary India i ‘nati n even transnational identities and organizations is such that they cai ee act as a check‘on the predatory nation state (for example, Ami « a iv International, or politically powerful groups of ‘non-residen : nationals). The constituency for such a view is likely to be found among Privileged diasporics newly exposed to, and seduced by, the charms of Zmulticulturalexistence in a globalized world. However, this is already being recognized as too naive a view, as shown by the recent a controversies around the differences (of class, gender, nationality, ethnicity and so on) which distance different fractions of the cosmopolitan group from each other. Perhaps one needs to concede to it the ambiguity that is claimed on its behalf, but this too is far from being a settled question. ? But if there is one class for whom inne of globalization, seem to clearly Gutweigh [Link], itis the ¥4 iddle class, particularly { upper (managerial-professional) segment. This class segment is today interpellated by globalization’in thé same (or perhaps more- intense) way that, a generation or two ago, it identified itself with . development. Indeed, much of the celebratory thetoric about globalization emanates from, and ‘is. aimed at, this group. Having consolidated its social, economic and political standing-on the basis of the developmental state, this group is now ready to kick it away as the ladder ito longer needs, : This class segment has expe development and globalization. rienced no discontinuity between —it has made the transition smoothly. h nn is a change in its social stance vis-3-vig . other groups within the nation. From its avon, this class has now graduated TORRES ng OL sels a Portes at of the nation." That is to say, to represent the People (wh £0 Fepresent th 10 alone were thought toc nation i tie eraaf deve pment), but rather that ig ~~ cuage in the World view (and self-image of th ite can be found al at)-[Link] ind all around us; its con : ao the middle class no longer