My book The Great Indian Middle Class, published in 1998, was a critique of the propensity of the middle class Indian to be oblivious to anything outside his or her immediate ken of interest. It lauded the buoyancy, energy, entrepreneurship and resilience of this class, but also gave it a poor scorecard on its ability to engage with the larger issues of Indian society, such as poverty, illiteracy, corruption and inequity. The question that needs to be asked is: do middle class Indians continue to be just residents of where they live, or are they gradually graduating to become citizens within the civic space they occupy?

Before we answer this question, it is important to understand how this class has evolved in the last decade or so. Firstly, its numbers have grown. The definition that I use to define a person who has climbed on to the middle class wagon is anyone who can afford three meals a day, has a home to live in, and has access to basic health care, public transport and schooling. Essentially, we are looking at a class that is above the poor, and below the very rich, and that makes its size very large. Secondly, the composition of the class has changed. It is no more the exclusive club of the early decades after Independence; today, much to the resentment of the old guard, it consists of all kinds of ‘interlopers’, including sizeable representatives of the ‘bullock capitalists’ from the countryside, who have husbanded their landed resources skillfully and benefited from the Mandal reservations. Thirdly, it is a far more aspirational class. The reticence it might have had in the early days after liberalisation in pursuing the good things of life has been decisively shed. Consumerism is no longer a dirty word, and any notions of Gandhian austerity and Nehruvian socialism have been definitively disowned. And, finally, it is a more confident class, more global in its world view, surer of what the future holds for it, and proud of where India appears to be heading as an emerging global power.

Has the middle class also developed a greater awareness of its civic responsibilities? One thing seems quite clear to most middle class Indians: they are no longer in the driver’s seat in running the priorities of the Indian state. There was a time when they took this role for granted, but the consolidation of democracy has politically empowered the masses below them. The middle class is still influential, but it realises that in order to get what it wants it has to compete with other erstwhile more quiescent constituencies. This realisation has perhaps made its members more aware of the need to aggressively take up issues of, and in, its own interest. The newfound activism of some Resident Welfare Associations in urban India is a good example of this development.

The communications revolution in the country is an important factor in this evolving situation. Almost every member of the middle class has a mobile or plans to acquire one soon enough. SMS-ing has become a very potent tool in galvanising this class into collective outrage. The exponential increase in the reach of the media, and in particular the electronic media where the fight for TRP ratings can make one single issue appear to be the most important event in the destiny of the nation, is also a contributing factor.

However, it is important not to lose a sense of perspective. The middle class still responds to those issues which it co-relates to its own well being. Jessica was a middle class girl, whose brutal murder sent a chill down the spine of all urban middle class Indians. The blatancy of the attempt to whitewash the culprit became a matter of personal concern, and it was willing to come together to oppose it. This is a positive development, but sobriety demands that we do not take a quantum leap in wishful thinking into believing that middle class Indians will react similarly to the dozens of rapes and murders and acts of collusion among the powerful that go unreported or happen to people who are not from its class. Even today, for every one Jessica Lall for which the middle class so laudably organised itself into action, there are thousands of smaller acts of injustice, corruption, and unethical behaviour to which it is a party, and mostly a beneficiary. If we were to draw a balance sheet, perhaps the best that can be said is that the Indian middle class is today on an important cusp: it has still to do much more in developing the public spiritedness that is the hall mark of real civic sensitivity, but it has made a beginning in that process, and only the future will tell whether this nascent trend will survive.