Conservative and derided Indian Middle Class?

The middle class is any class of people in the middle of a societal hierarchy. In Weberian socio-economic terms, the middle class is the broad group of people in contemporary society who fall socio-economically between the working class and upper class. Could the Great Indian Middle Class be the Great Indian Mythical Class? A persistent source of confusion surrounding the term "middle class" derives predominantly from there being no set criteria for such a definition. From an economic perspective, for example, members of the middle class do not necessarily fall in the middle of a society's income distribution. Instead, middle class salaries tend to be determined by middle class occupations, which in turn are attained by means of middle class values. Thus, individuals who might fall in the middle ground on a societal hierarchy as defined by sociologists do not necessarily fall into a middle ground on an economic hierarchy as defined by economists. As a result, intuitive colloquial and journalistic usage of the term casts a wide net and does not necessarily coincide with an academic sociological or economic definition. National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) has held that a family with an annual income between Rs 3.4 lakhs and Rs 17 lakhs (at 2009-10 price levels) falls in the ‘middle-class’ category. Applying this arithmetic, NCAER hold that the middle-class households would be 53.3 million (267 million people). This unwieldy definition base puts the statistics to ridicule. The same way, Planning Commission calculated poverty as per day spending equivalent to Rs 32/- in urban and Rs 26/- in rural area. The absurd methodology adopted by these bodies to calculate the basic statistics is to arrive at a high figure in the case of ‘middle-class’ and a lower figure at the Poor category of the Population. Growth rate has never been able to reduce the unemployment rate which stood at 9.4%(2009-10) while average quarterly growth rate has been averaging around 7.45 % between 2000-11, even though in Q3 of 2003, the growth was 11.8%, Q3 of 2002 was 1.6%. Rob Peter to pay Paul. This seems to be the economic philosophy of the Government. In spite of persistent, consistent, aimless designed social security programmes with outlay of Rs 1 lakh Crores end up incomplete with neither the physical nor the monetary targets accomplished. The Policy editors have narcissist temperament, deceptive assumptions and outrageous greed. Against laudable objectives with which the Scheme was ambitionally lodged the Result is dismal emptiness, creating an un-necessary class war. The Poor continues to be poor, and the generation gap sees another poor taking over from his ancestor (Munishi Premchand’s famous story), when our well worked Planning Economics take us half way to zero, mathematics no longer work! Horizontal organizing, democratic decision making challenges, technocratic governance driven by credentialed experts, takes Indian economy to the dark jungle economy of wealth for none! The term “middle-class” is a classical example of a semantic plot! It is a widely misused term. People of the ‘cattle class’, legacy of the Victorian era, is it not linguistic outrage? The rich are busy counting their cashes. The Poor, darling of the political class, social scientists and so called intelligentsia, while, the ‘middle-class’ forlorn and uncared is without a Patron or a God-father but increasingly, the Finance Minister wants him to buckle his shoes by making him pay dear and dearer. His salary is cut in the mode of Tax deducted at source, service tax clamped while Government is pretending to be lax in collecting taxes from their favourite Corporate who enjoy plethora of tax concessions and benefits and in case of trouble can approach the ‘settlement commission’ The income earned by the Cricket Board which vulgarly displays wealth is exempt from taxes. What public purpose they serve, only the North Block die- herds know. Tap funds from these people who figure in Forbes list, increase the tax slab for the high rich, those who build houses worth Crores Float high interest Government bonds and compulsorily make these corporate houses to purchase them, so that the additional income earned can be used for reducing fiscal deficit. World Bank has pointed out that Indian Government is very liberal with low taxation base at the higher income slab- only some 15-16% of the GDP is collected as direct taxes, mostly they are the ‘middle class’ who can be meddled in any way to shell out, as compared to 25-40% in developed countries, enough taxes from the taxable lot. But the Corporate rich, who play the victim card, say that the jealous Indian Middle mentality in them feel that they want to take somebody else’s ‘Cadillac’ for nothing! In India, the middle class is a neglected constituency. Hike, hike, hike in the domestic interest rate on a regular level, while allowing the Corporates the luxury of availing Credit from External markets at low rates, increasing the prices of petrol incessantly, not because of high crude world prices but for making the Public sector navaratna bulge their profits, tinkering with indirect taxes, and reducing the taxable portion of income from the Corporates while hiking the rate for the middle-class. The population share of the rich is shrinking, the Poor is shrinking but the middle-class is growing. This augurs well for the prophets of high, higher, highest growth in the Indian Economy.

History is a Seven act Play?

History is the seven act play of the heroic description of the past, golden ages, of the splendid and worst times, eras of the Past. History is about War and Peace, rage and hate, prejudice and grievance, hope and despair, tyrants and saints, geographers and plunderers, good, pure and true events of People, of their religions, cultures, a sort of scoreboard of achievements. Karl Marx felt that ‘history itself was nothing but the activity of men pursuing their purposes’. Another thinker, Ralph Waldo Emerson was of the view that there is properly no history but only biography. Cicero characterized History as the witness that testified to the Passing of time as illuminating reality. Wright Morris felt that past was useless which explained why it was called past. Arnold Tony bee, was of the opinion that, “civilization was a movement and not a condition, a voyage, not a harbour”. According to him, of the 22 civilizations that have appeared in History, nine-teen of them collapsed when they reached the moral state the United States is in now.

Then is History is a back dated memories of the past clad in antiquity. A sense of the Past. There have been great Historians and thinkers like Arnold Tony bee, AL Basham, Thomas Carlyle, HG Wells, and others, who wrote capturing poignant expressions of empires, rulers and the ruled emphatically. Would anybody for that matter call Antony and Cleopatra as fiction because, William Shakespeare wrote their history in prose. Crossing the Rubicon is ascribed to Julius Ceaser (49 BC) even though there might have been many who would have crossed the Rubicon. Ceaser’s crossing the Rubicon is an historic event. Edward Clalleth Carr would like to call it as ‘hist oriography’.Is American Revolution, really a revolution or a War of independence where the England troops led by Cornwallis lost to George Washington in the Batlle of York. America became a Free Nation. If British historians had no problem with American Revolution, why did they call the 1857 up-rising as a ‘mutiny in India’ and not first war of independence. Is today’s Indian National Congress a continuation of the Indian National Congress of 1885 founded by A O Hume? Carlyle wrote The French Revolution: the History and Charles Dickens had adopted many incidents for His Tale of Two Cities from Thomas Carlyle’s book. Fidel Castro made a great speech, concluding it as, “History will absolve me”. The same History, will it absolve Mikhail Gorbachev, who was responsible for sweeping reforms in USSR, but his successor Boris Yelstein was a willing tool to the West as he dissolved the Confederation, and followed the Politics of Dismemberment. The British Empire were sun never set, adhered to the Politics of dismemberment of India into India and Pakistan. Bangladesh broke away from Pakistan, even though the majority of people professed Islam, because they wanted Sonar Bangla. Korea, Vietnam, Germany, which was balkanized, turned one. Palstine is still vulnerable.

Did Liberty, Equality and Fraternity, the theme of the French Revolution, create stability in France after the Revolution. It required a Napoleon, who proclaimed himself as the Emperor to restore authority. Oliver Cromwell (1653-1658) ruled England as Lord Protector at the Head of the Commonwealth after beheading King Charles I in 1649. But was he not a greater autocrat than Charles?

Winston Churchill became the powerful Prime Minister of England on the resignation of Neville Chamberlin in Sept 1939. He was one of the greatest prime ministers Westminster had ever seen. Did he not lose elections to Labour enabling Clement Attlee to become Prime minister? Why did people loose faith in Churchill? Franklin Roosevelt was the President of America. But when the Second World War came to an end, it was a beaming Harry S Truman who represented America as its President. It has been said that Allies had powerful leaders like Churchill, Roosevelt, Stalin, and many others while Axis only had an Adolph Hitler. After War, Stalin who was a powerful ruler fell into infamy. Gandhiji was one of the greatest apostle of Peace yet he did not win a Nobel for Peace.

There were many who felt that China should not be awakened. Let the sleeping giant sleep. When Nixon and primarily Kissinger made the voyage to the country of Dragon, the country woke up. The Sleeping Giant woke up.

If Shakespeare’s work Ceaser and Cleopatra was the centre piece of history of the Romans in the remote days of the Christian era, likewise, Poet’s description makes up for many events re-constructed with the help of novels. Tolstoy’s War and Peace, Nehru’s Discovery of India and Glimpses of World History, whether they were plots from History or created plots for History, only researchers can pin point. Socrates was sentenced to death for asking provoking questions in pursuit of truth during the Golden age of Athens ruled by Periciles. Alexander in the remote time of History knew geography to invade India. Adi Sankara in the 8th century AD set up monasteries in different parts of India when travel was by Road, and he died when he was 32. Layfatte is said to have participated in both the French and American Revolutions. There is a Layfette square in New York. Cornwallis is said to have fought the Battle of York in New York against geogre Washington (defeated) and against Tipu Sultan in the Battle of Mangalore in 1799(won).

Samuel Johnson correctly stated that, there are in every age, new errors to be rectified and new prejudices to be opposed. Even though History may be history of men and matters, it shows precisely a different era, in different surroundings. History repeats!