This volume explores the emergence, evolution and definition of the middle class in India. As a class created as the interpreters between the colonial rulers and the millions whom they governed in the pre-Independence era, the Indian middle class has existed in congruence with the state, occupying vital positions in state administration. Since Independence, this middle class underwent major sociological change as they live independent of the state, which affected their social, economic and political position, reaping benefits of liberalisation and globalisation through education and employment. An otherwise internally differentiated and heterogeneous group, the new Indian middle class often unifies itself to shape socio-political discourse that affects politics and policymaking, from domestic to international affairs. This volume analyses this class phenomenon through a close study of a new metropolitan middle class in India – the software professionals, emblematic of the 'new India’. It discusses this emerging class as a political category and their engagements with the state, democracy, political parties, issues of gender, basic necessities and social justice. Further, it discusses their social action and ‘middle class activism’ for issues such as environment, cleanliness and corruption, particularly highlighting its presence in the private sector and electronic media. A fresh perspective on India’s political milieu, this volume will be of interest to scholars and researchers of sociology, modern Indian history, political science, economics and South Asia studies.

Today India's middle class numbers more than 250 million people and is growing rapidly. Public reports have focused mainly on the emerging group's consumer potential, while global views of India's new economy range from excitement about market prospects to anxieties over outsourcing of service sector jobs. Yet the consequences of India's economic liberalization and the expansion of the middle class have transformed Indian culture and politics. In India's New Middle Class, Leela Fernandes digs into the implications of this growth and uncovers--in the media, in electoral politics, and on the streets of urban neighborhoods--the complex politics of caste, religion, and gender that shape this rising population. Using rich ethnographic data, she reveals how the middle class represents the political construction of a social group and how it operates as a proponent of economic democratization. Delineating the tension between consumer culture and outsourcing, Fernandes also examines the roots of India's middle class and its employment patterns, including shifting skill sets and labor market restructuring. Through this close look at the country's recent history and reforms, Fernandes develops an original theoretical approach to the nature of politics and class formation in an era of globalization. In this sophisticated analysis of the dynamics of an economic and political group in the making, Fernandes moves beyond reductionist images of India's new middle class to bring to light the group's social complexity and profound influence on politics in India and beyond. Leela Fernandes is associate professor of political science at Rutgers University, New Brunswick.

The march towards a ‘new India’ began with its entry onto the global stage as a rising economic power, impelled by liberalization policies and the forces of globalization. The success of India’s information technology (IT) industry symbolizes these larger developments, yet we lack a critical understanding of the wider social and cultural reverberations of this phenomenon. Reengineering India explores India’s post-liberalization transformation through the lens of the software industry. This book views the IT industry as a key site where new identities, aspirations and social imaginaries are being created and circulated. It examines the origins and organization of software capital, the production of the Indian IT workforce, the introduction of new forms of work and management and the connections between software and the ‘new’ middle class. The author argues that the software industry has been central to India’s post-liberalization refashioning, yet it remains deeply embedded in older structures of inequality and modes of accumulation. An anthropological account of the relationship between work, class, capital and culture in India’s new economy, this book is essential reading for thinking about the future of the post-IT revolution nation.

This book analyses India’s middle class by recognising the diversity within the class, the people, their practices, and the production of spaces. It explores the economic and social lives of the new middle class, expanding the areas of inquiry beyond consumption in post-liberalisation India and its intersectionalities with gender, caste, religion, migration, and other socioeconomic markers in various cities across the country. The book interrogates the meanings and perceptions of social mobility, growth, consumerism, technology, social identity, and development and examines how they can be emancipatory or subjugating in different contexts. It engages with the new entrants in the middle class, particularly from the marginalised sections, their struggles, insecurities, anxieties, agency, and experiences. The personal, emotive, and psychic dimensions of social mobility have been dealt with in the larger context of socioeconomic settings. The book crosses disciplinary and spatial boundaries and uses a variety of methodologies to provide perspectives on several unexplored or underexplored areas of India’s new middle class. This book will be of interest to scholars and researchers of sociology, economics, development studies, public policy, social work, and South Asian studies.

The spectacular victory of Narendra Modi and the BJP in 2014 and again in 2019 demands a nuanced exploration of the factors that led to it. Though the role of the middle class and the media in the making of what is called the 'Modi Wave' is often talked about, a clear-eyed and unbiased look at how they transformed the political landscape in post-liberalization India is still wanting. This book studies how the Indian middle class, once seen as politically indifferent, has gradually become a player of importance. This change, which slowly began in the 1990s, has now reached a crescendo, and Modi has become the icon of the changing economic demands of the middle class and their ideological rightward shift. The new middle class played a decisive role in the electoral outcomes of 2014 and 2019 - two elections that have undoubtedly changed the way India imagines itself and how the rest of the world sees India. Modi's management of mainstream and social media - primary consumers of which is the ever-growing middle class - has played a key role in his emphatic victories. This book will help the reader understand the arsenal that Modi used in these elections and is a must-read for scholars of politics, media studies and sociology.

Who exactly are the middle classes in India? What role do they play in contemporary Indian politics and society, and what are their historical and cultural moorings? The authors of this volume argue that the middle class has largely been understood as an income/ economic category, but the term has a broader social and conceptual history, globally as well as in India. To begin with, the middle class is not a homogeneous category but is shaped by specific colonial and post-colonial experiences and is differentiated by caste, ethnicity, region, religion, and gender locations. These socio-economic differentiations shape its politics and culture and become the basis of internal conflicts, contestations, and divergent political worldviews. The authors demonstrate how the middle class has acquired a certain legitimacy to speak on behalf of the society as a whole, despite its politics being inherently exclusionary, as it tries to protect its own interests. Further, perceived as an aspirational category, the middle class has a seductive charm for the lower classes, who struggle to shift to this ever elusive social location.