Retributions  

The present government in New Delhi has been perhaps the most unfriendly to the middle class in recent memory. Whether it is the openly hostile attitude of Left parties towards the middle class or regressive tax policies, or following the same old failed poverty removal schemes or the soft attitude towards terror, the government has repeatedly ignored supposedly middle class concerns. However, all recent opinion polls suggest that the middle class continues to be loyal to the present regime and Congress will actually improve its tally in case elections are held now.

So what explains this love affair? In a recent column Vir Sanghvi offers four reasons. A couple of them are interesting enough to require further discussion.

First, of course, there is no alternative. B.J.P has never really recovered from its loss and it is increasingly functioning as a Left B team. It is not just the constant infighting and contradictory statements. It has given up almost all issues it once championed. Economic reforms have been largely forgotten and even close relations with America are looked at with suspicion. Desperate for an identity, it is increasingly turning towards emotive and discredited issues like the Babri Masjid/Ram Temple imbroglio. A party which once looked like the natural party of governance, has fallen to such depths that it cannot even function like an effective opposition now.

The second important reason which Mr. Sanghvi offers is that the middle class has suddenly turned less selfish.

Could it be that the middle class has matured? That we have realized that most of India is not like us? That the vast majority of Indians have not benefited from India Shining and that it is only fair that the government redirects some of the country’s new-found prosperity towards those whom the boom has left untouched?

Sigh! It is quite surprising how many of our commentators peddle the same rubbish. An outside observer would feel that it is the middle class which is holding up India’s progress or at least the emancipation of her poor, while the real culprit, the government goes scot free. A mere questioning of inane government schemes leads to charges of being selfish and what not.

So what really explains the continued middle class fascination with the present regime?

The answer strangely enough is paradoxical. At one level, the middle class is deeply suspicious of the government and yet it thinks by closing its eyes, it can eclipse the all pervasive influence of the state. On the other hand, it stills craves for state largesses unable to cut the Gordian knot which ties it to the government.

Let us take the economic reforms as an example. The reforms have largely stalled under the present government, privatization is dead and even minor reforms have faced resistance. Yet, the middle class seems strangely indifferent. The problem is that the middle class can only appreciate the end and not the means. It can see the increased job opportunities, the shiny new malls, the outsourcing industry yet it is unable to appreciate that economic reforms have made these possible. In many ways, it is actually scared of free markets.

So the middle class will run to the government when Petrol prices rise or even when vegetable prices do! It will demand uninterrupted power supply but balks at paying fair rates. It demands the best of education but is loathe to pay the true cost of the same. It will demand that the government bring in legislation to stall the demolitions in Delhi but will not ask for scrapping of anachronisms like DDA and rent control acts. It is this inability to appreciate that only the correct process can lead to desirable ends which lies at its reluctance to understand why India has to vote against Iran or why freedom is only a relative term in a unipolar world.

One might argue what difference does it make? After all even subsidies come from the taxes. Apart from the economic inefficiencies it creates, it is a clear violation of the most basic of freedoms: choice. So, if power prices go up, one might want to decrease consumption or in response to increased petrol prices, one might switch to public transport. The whole business of subsidies takes away the power of the choice from an individual and places it in the hands of the society which exercises it in a whimsical manner. And of course, when you invite government interference in one sector, you leave the door open for it in another one.

So what explains this reluctance embrace of free markets, this flirtation which never seems to mature into a love story? Perhaps, it is a our socialist past, the power of government to deliver has become so ingrained in our psyche that we are unable to see beyond it. Perhaps it is because much of the struggle in India is for things which would be taken for granted elsewhere, motorable roads, adequate power supply and such. Thus the failure of the government to supply even the most basic infrastructure acts in its favor by lowering the bar of expectations. Also, a large section of the middle class has a huge stake in the status quo, folks who work in comfortable government jobs have little interest in seeing increased private sector participation and the resultant competition.

Governments generally have little interest in reforms for this entails lowering of its own power, to dictate life, to distribute rewards and to influence. It will only move when the people force it to move or when circumstances leave it with no alternative. We truly need a free market Mahatma, but not just for the poor but also for the middle class.

Update- Amit Varma discusses transforming the mental mindscape of India.