It was the Anna phenomenon that threw the Indian middle class into the limelight. For the first time since 1947, a swathe of humanity lifted itself up and marched into the Ramlila grounds and the gaze of the waiting TV cameras. Until that moment, the lot had remained invisible; they did not vote, they did not agitate, they did not terrorize, they did not steal, they went about their business quietly and stayed off the national radar.
While the visible India was busy looting the exchequer and wheeling and dealing and living it up, the middle class was adding to its investments in real estate, their children’s education, savings plans and personal entrepreneurship. The prospect of a dispensable income, a comfortable life style and future security were factors driving this relentlessly working mass of humanity. Through all this lifetime of drudgery and thrift, their glue and anchor remained the family. Needless to say, one generation’s drive prompted a saga of growth and opportunity and evolution for the next.
It is no secret that as India’s growth rate sparkled, so did her international image. From a dowdy, meek, terribly diffident body language, Indians made the ballistic switch to designer wear and attitude, going so far as to begin to wear their provinciality with a panache, some of it stoked by Bollywood. Nowhere was this metamorphosis more evident than on the cricket field where the polite guys of yore had transformed into cocky, finger waggling icons of defiance.
Today, when this newly confident middle- class is blamed for being selfish and impervious to its social responsibility, I wonder at this surprising and misdirected demonization. In his recent interview with Barkha Dutt on NDTV, Javed Akhtar trashed the trending “anger” of the middle class, calling it a very self-oriented and self-focussed concern. He said the educated and professional India was supporting the Anna movement for her selfish reasons and that no one was actually bothered about the deprived and the poor. It is another matter and perhaps Javed Saab is not aware, that a sizable number of this reviled middle class’s children are choosing to shun dazzling salaries for social activism, based in no mean measure upon a sense of security provided by the consolidation efforts of their parents.
It would therefore not be far fetched to say that this segment’s “selfishness” in fact makes up the stable, productive, sane fabric of India. India’s middle class has had no help from any quarter. They are entirely self-made. It is their hard earned prosperity that struggles to survive in the shadow of bribes and corruption and it is their peace of mind that struggles with the national guilt over India’s disadvantaged.
Before blaming and vilifying the golden goose, let us address political paralysis, clear the long pending Parliamentary Bills, enforce laws, stop robbing the State coffers and give credit where it is due. To those gathered under the “zariwala shamiyana” immortalised by Gulzar Saab. May their number grow. Jai Ho!