Punjab Newspaper

Department of Political Science organized a seminar on “Middle Class Discourse, Mass Politics and the Making of Global India”. Those who made presentations included Professors Neera Chandhoke, E Sridharan, Jagpal Singh, Surinder Jodhka, and Ajay Gudavarthi. Prof. Bhupinder Brar introduced the theme and Prof M.M. Puri presided over the inaugural session, according to Punjab Newspaper (www.punjabnewspaper.com).


Prof Brar referred to the prevailing middle class discourse of a ‘modern’ India which revolves around the idea of a cohesive, prosperous and powerful country and prescribes the methods which are liberal, rational, secular and technocratic in nature. Middle class acts as an agent of the globalizing nation. Terming the middle class as a fuzzy category, Prof. Sridharan from University of Pennsylvania, in his inaugural lecture referred to five types of criteria to enumerate middle classes in India: Structural/political economy criteria; income/consumption criteria; possession of cultural capital criteria; occupational criteria; self-definitional criteria. Prof Sridharan argued that contrary to popular perception, the middle classes are not unanimous about the economic reforms. The public sector employees and the state subsidized agricultural farmers who also constitute the middle class would not like the subsidies to go or the service facilities to go. It is only the metropolitan middle class who would like to give unambiguous support to the market economy. This explains the slow and gradual incremental process of reforms unlike the ASEAN countries.
Prof. Puri in his presidential remarks referred to the mobility, entrepreneurship and the ability to connect as the virtues of the middle class in a resurgent India that has led to the shaping the policy shift in Indian economy and making India a global power. Prof. Neera Chandhoke, Director DCRC, Delhi University referred to the recent incidents in India’s political history like the Gujarat carnage, Afzhal case, use of violence in Kashmir where the middle classes have maintained studied silence even when the cannons of human rights and natural justice have been violated with impunity. Widespread indifference that characterizes the attitude is evidenced in the middle classes dominated visual and print media. Dr. Ajay Gudavarthi, JNU argued that the democracy preceded middleclass in India unlike the western countries and that explains the lack of sensitivity of the middle class in taking up ‘citizen’s politics’. He referred the absence of the middle class in the participation in the radical movements.
Dr Kailash KK, PU made a comparative study of the middle classes in the northern and southern states of India and pointed out the different characteristics of the two set of middle classes in terms of their political and economic choices. Prof Jodhka, JNU talked of the distinction between the old and the new middle class in the context of the ideological and cultural shifts while comparing the middle classes in Kolkata and Ludhiana. He also referred to the difficulty in defining middle classes. Dr. Satish Jha, DU refereed to the critical role the middle classes play in consolidating the base of democracy in India. Dr Jagpal Singh, IGNOU referred to the emergent middle class which is in a state of formation comprising of the intermediate and backward castes who are neither rural nor urban in strict sense of terms according to Prof. Bhupinder Brar, Seminar Coordinator, Dept. of Pol. Science, Dept of political Science.