Nikhil Kulkarni

Tonnes of newsprint, miles of television tapes, years of television airtime and millions of calories of energy(ok, that was a bad one) have been spent on analyzing, debating and arguing about the Indian middle class. Honestly, all this noise got to such nauseating levels that people who constitute the middle class have ended up becoming mere statistics which various research and survey agencies have modified to suit their findings.

I am presently reading The Great Indian Middle Class by Pavan K Varma. It is perhaps the best work on the Indian middle class yet that I have read*. It takes a very balanced view on how the middle class evolved, its participation, rather non-participation in the larger national issues, how its traditions, beliefs and aspirations have changed over the years and what future holds in store for them.

I will try and post some key points once I finish the reading the book. What really struck me and what I really liked is how Mr. Varma has tried to look beyond the numbers and has come up with a well-researched and comprehensive analysis. Here’s what Mr. Varma says in the introduction to the book –

In the course of this work I have deliberately avoided the not uncommon obsession with computing the exact size of the middle class and its precise income and consumption parameters. Such an exercise is better handled, as indeed it has been done, by market surveys commissioned by those who wish to sell or to buy.

Mr. Varma also talks about how the middle class has although become more prosperous over the yea, but has become become increasingly insular and turned consumerist at an alarming rate. I totally share that concern and the middle class has somehow seems to have just turned into a huge target market. Reminds me of the cover on Meeting People Is Easy, a documentary on Radiohead, which I highly recommend watching.

* I still haven’t read Mother Pious Lady. I know there can’t be a best book on a subject like the Indian Middle Class, but I’m really liking what I’m reading in Mr. Varma’s book.