Elite and Everyman : The Cultural Politics of the Indian Middle Classes

"This book examines the middle classes -- who they are and what they do -- and their influence in shaping contemporary cultural politics in India. Describing the historical emergence of these classes, from the colonial period to contemporary times, it shows how the middle classes have changed, with older groups shifting out and new entrants taking place, thereby transforming the character and meanings of the category. The essays in this volume observe multiple sites of social action (workplaces and homes, schools and streets, cinema and sex surveys, temples and tourist hotels) to delineate the lives of the middle classes and show how middle-class definitions and desires articulate hegemonic notions of the normal and the normative"--Publisher Cover Half Title Title Page Copyright Page Contents List of Abbreviations Glossary Acknowledgements 1. Introduction Who are the middle classes? Economy, politics and history 2. The Growth and Sectoral Composition of India's Middle Classes: Their Impact on the Politics of Economic Liberalization 3. Hegemony and Inequality: Theoretical Reflections on India's 'New' Middle Class 4. The Spectre of Comparisons: Studying the Middle Class of Colonial India 5. From Landed Class to Middle Class: Rajput Adaptation in Rajasthan 6. Are Rich Rural Jats Middle-class? Being and becoming middle-class: Work, domesticity and consumption 7. Software and the 'New' Middle Class in the 'New India' 8. Gender, the IT Revolution and the Making of a Middle-class India 9. The Middle-class Child: Ruminations on Failure 10. The Middle Classes at Home 11. The Sexual Character of the Indian Middle Class: Sex Surveys, Past and Present 12. Privatization, Profit and the Public: The Consequences of Neoliberal Reforms on Working Lives Middle-class politics, citizenship and the public sphere 13. The Obscenity of Censorship: Rethinking a Middle-class Technology 14. Urban Spaces, Disney-divinity and the Moral Middle Classes in Delhi 15. Cows, Cars and Cycle-rickshaws: Bourgeois Environmentalists and the Battle for Delhi's Streets Bibliography About the Editors Notes on Contributors Index Examining the middle classes in multiple sites of social action, this book looks at the historical evolution of these classes — their changing relationships with colonial power, the Indian state and other social groups — as well as their influence in shaping contemporary cultural politics in India. Editors, Amita Baviskar, Raka Ray. Includes Bibliographical References (p. [419]-449) And Index.