Does The Indian Middle Class Really Exist?
Channel: India Ink
Date: 2021-03-05

The great Indian middle class is a myth. What we think of as the middle class is actually a tiny elite. This is their story - from their origins in colonial India to the present day. 

India Ink is a public history project that simplifies complicated ideas from Indian history that are relevant to today's debates. More at http://indiaink.org.

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Sources:

1. Quote from Colver: https://www.livemint.com/Companies/11ECLUIfvTt0QqqJkXK5GM/India-will-be-one-of-Starbucks-top-five-markets-in-long-ter.html

2. Data that says if you live in a city and spend more than 6300 rs per month, you’re in the top 5% of the whole country: https://www.thehindu.com/data/how-many-indians-are-richer-than-you/article8551773.ece

3. Quote from Macauley is from his Minute on Education: http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00generallinks/macaulay/txt_minute_education_1835.html

4. Joshi, Sanjay, ed. “Introduction.” In The Middle Class in Colonial India. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2010. https://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~sj6/Middle%20Class%20Course/Joshi%20Volume/Sanjay%20Joshi%200B%20introduction.pdf

5. Pandian, M. S. S. “One Step Outside Modernity: Caste, Identity Politics and Public Sphere.” Economic and Political Weekly 37, no. 18 (2002): 1735–41. https://www.jstor.org/stable/4412071.

6. Cutts, Elmer H. “The Background of Macaulay’s Minute.” The American Historical Review 58, no. 4 (1953): 824. https://doi.org/10.2307/1842459.

7. Torri, Michelguglielmo. “Westernised Middle Class, Intellectuals and Society in Late Colonial India.” Economic and Political Weekly 25, no. 4 (January 27, 1990): 7–8. https://www.epw.in/journal/1990/4/review-political-economy-review-issues-specials/westernised-middle-class.

8. Chatterjee, Partha. The Nation and Its Fragments: Colonial and Postcolonial Histories. Princeton University Press, 1993. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvzgb88s.

9. Sarkar, Sumit. “Identity and Difference: Caste in the Formation of the Ideologies of Nationalism and Hindutva.” In Writing Social History. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. https://www.amazon.in/Writing-Social-History-Sarkar-Sumit/dp/0195646339

Music: Quasi Motion by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License. http://incompetech.com/