Reserva Natural Cerro Cumaica – Cerro Alegre

The liberalisation of Indian economy is often seen as an important moment of rupture in Indian social history. This marked the beginning of a period of expansion of the middle classes and the consumer market. This period also marks the beginning of sociological interest in the Indian middle class (Béteille, 2001). Starting in 1991, India embarked on a long-term programme of economic restructuring. Since then, the Indian state has gradually withdrawn from several sectors including healthcare and higher education, and progressively reduced entry barriers for foreign investors (Münster and Strümpell, 2014). The 1990s also mark the beginning of a new era of globalisation in the world at large. The term, closely linked with neo-liberal reforms, signifies a new era of

international free trade (Tsing, 2000). It marks a period of internationalisation of production and financial operations. Globalisation is associated with new

communication technologies and intensified circulation of money, goods and services, ideas and symbols and labour (Pakulski, 2004). This period has also witnessed the emergence of international regulatory mechanisms and the weakening of national sovereignty (Balachandran and Subrahmanyam, 2005). The Coimbatore industrial capitalists (the clientele of KI, see Chapter 2) were extensively involved in international trade even before the 1990s. Trade liberalisation accelerated the international expansion of their operations (Chari, 2004a; Carswell and De Neve, 2014).

As an economic theory, neo-liberalism reposes faith in the rationality of the market and privileges an abstract model of rational, human action (Bourdieu, 1998; Laval, 2017). However, it is more than just economic restructuring; it signifies new regimes of

governance modelled after the market, diffusion of economic theodicies to other spheres of life (including education) and the making of market-responsive subjectivities

(Münster and Strümpell, 2014; Venugopal, 2015). Over the decades, neo-liberalism and globalisation have become overstretched, reified concepts, used to explain a wide range of contemporary developments (Balachandran and Subrahmanyam, 2005). Laval (2017)

cautions against the tendency to construe capital as possessing an independent agency which can mechanically change the social order. Rather, it is political agents,

bureaucracy and people who enable or resist any social transformation. Social analysts such as Deshpande (2003), Carswell and De Neve (2014) and Münster and Strümpell (2014) argue that instead of using neo-liberalism and globalisation as hegemonic categories, it is better to foreground the specific social, political and economic

constellations within a region. They contend that only an empirical study that focuses on specific contexts can ascertain whether and how neo-liberalisation has made incursions into the lives of particular communities. Deshpande (2003), discussing the Indian context, reasons that researchers should seek to understand the continuities of tradition within which changes are assimilated. Further, globalisation has multiple, contradictory effects which cannot be captured in terms of simplistic trends. It introduces greater complexities in the inequality of life chances (Pakulski, 2004). If spatial mobility and cosmopolitan identities mark some people, others are ascribed identities that are stagnant and immobile (Tsing, 2000; Assayag and Fuller, 2005). Globalisation also introduces new discourses of class, requiring a redrawing of

traditional class relations (Skeggs, 2004a; Fernandes, 2006). In the Indian context, this period marks the emergence of a ‘new middle class’, which as discussed earlier, is seen as distinct from the older middle classes.

Economic liberalisation in India is crucially dependent on an expanding consumer market, namely middle classes who have purchasing power. As a result, even though small in comparison to the population of the country, the middle classes who are large in terms of absolute numbers, are critical to the success of these reforms (Kohli, 2006a, 2006b). Fernandes (2006) argues that one of the consequences of liberalisation and accompanying social changes is the emergence of an idea of citizen as a consumer. She considers that the neo-liberal regime in India has shaped the construction of ideal citizenship in the image of a ‘new middle class’. This new middle class is construed in terms of consumptive and aesthetic practices. These images are ubiquitous in visual media and are influential in shaping popular perceptions. Fernandes (2006) argues that a discourse of the new middle class has become hegemonic and normative. The ‘newness’ associated with this construct is related to a marked shift in the cultural and political dispositions they are assumed to possess. As a representational category, the new middle class signifies a class of professionals with credentials, skills and cultural resources

needed to navigate the globalising world. They are English educated, embody a global outlook and seen to seamlessly weave traditional values together with modern consumptive and aesthetic practices. Fernandes argues that these symbols and images help Indians at large in orienting themselves to the bewildering changes that have followed economic reforms. Images of new middle class also serve as normative ideals for aspirational communities such as rural land owning classes.

For social scientists, an important question is how processes related to liberalisation have changed the cultural project of becoming middle class. For one, those associated with this imaginary are largely from the historically privileged castes, suggesting continuity in social formations. However, their increased political disengagement and lack of concern for the issues of the nation marks the new middle class as distinct from the middle classes of the colonial and early post-independence eras (Fernandes, 2006). The middle classes seem to have abdicated their historical responsibility as an enlightened self-critical class (Mazarella, n.d, p.7). They embrace a transnational cosmopolitan ideal and show distaste for the whole gamut of others who fail to embody these ideals. Further, they are also implicated in the growing religious chauvinism in the country, betraying the secular, liberal outlook that the earlier middle classes brought to the public sphere. Changing characteristics of what being middle class means notwithstanding, social scientists also highlight historical continuity in middle-class values and practices (Fernandes, 2006; Donner and De Neve, 2011). In contemporary academic literature, the Indian middle class is understood to be an analytical abstraction, an ideological construction whose connotations vary over time and context (Baviskar and Ray, 2011; Joshi, S., 2017). These writings, which highlight the discursive production of the middle classes, point to the growing influence of post-structural thought and culturalism within sociology and allied disciplines (Fernandes, 2011; Thakur, 2017).

Earlier in the chapter, I noted that rich farmers constitute important proprietary classes in India whose political power has grown considerably since independence. They constitute aspirational communities whose adoption of middle-class practices is relatively recent. Examining the case of western Uttar Pradesh (UP), Jeffrey (2010) notes that as a result of pro-agricultural government policies, large landowning farmers made considerable economic gains from 1960s until the mid-1980s. This enabled them to venture into non- farming businesses, and further their financial gains. During this period, they also gained considerable political visibility and lobbied for their collective interests. Liberalisation

disrupted this process for varied reasons including reduced government control over agricultural subsidies and strengthening of private markets. Responding to these developments, the rich rural farmers, largely drawn from upper and middle castes, have adjusted their strategies, trying to establish cultural domination. Their practices, which include consumptive lifestyles and English education, mark these rural communities as aspiring middle classes. Jeffrey’s observations are about Uttar Pradesh, but Fernandes (2006) considers that such practices are widespread among rich rural farmers. As discussed in Chapter 2, in the case of Gounders and Naidus, their transformation from farmers to industrial entrepreneurs was via a different trajectory and has a longer history (Chari, 2004a; Damodaran, 2008; Heyer, 2016). Further, De Neve’s (2011) analysis about the changing educational practices of Gounder industrialists concur with Jeffrey’s commentary about the transformation of farming communities in Uttar Pradesh. These industrialist communities are also increasingly turning to education to enhance their class status.

In the post liberalisation era, the ubiquity of consumptive culture and concomitant changing lifestyles have resulted in the merchant middle classes also adopting some of the practices of the professional middle classes, including providing English education to their children (De Neve, 2011). While Fernandes (2006) considers that these

communities are also increasingly adopting middle-class practices, Markovits (2008) argues that they nevertheless remain distinct from the salaried classes. However, given the paucity of work on merchant middle classes (Joshi, S., 2017), more research is required into the shifting cultural practices and class aspirations of these groups. Both the older and the newly emerging middle classes require more than access to material resources; psychic investment is needed for the cultivation of middle-class subjectivities. Researchers have examined different sites where middle-class subjectivities are produced, including the workplace, the home, urban spaces and educational institutions (Baviskar and Ray, 2011). Consumptive practice is a key concern in the contemporary research on the middle classes. The relationship of the middle classes with the state and their hegemonic role continue to be important areas of research (Fernandes and Heller, 2006; Jeffrey, 2010; Donner and De Neve, 2011). Many of these works position themselves as Bourdieusian, but some studies have interpreted Bourdieu in a limited manner. For example, some works have presented cultural practices in isolation from larger social, political and economic processes (Fernandes,

2011); others have sought to locate participants’ class based on their occupational positioning alone, overlooking Bourdieu’s relational understanding of class (Sancho, 2012; Gilbertson, 2014).