It's the middle class, stupid

Nobody within the government saw it coming. The middle class has risen massively in support of Anna Hazare, upsetting the government's calculations about being able to manage the anti-corruption movement easily. In doing so, the middle class has upended the received wisdom that it is politically apathetic.Some element of that received wisdom must have played its part in the government's assessment that the Hazare group was just an unrepresentative bunch of civil society activists who would be easily browbeaten. That assessment has proven spectacularly wrong, with the government having to eat humble pie on the very day he was arrested. It's clear by now that Hazare's arrest was the spark that lit a prairie fire of protests across the country.The middle classhas stamped its character on those protests in many ways, not limited to thegoodly number of professionals, white-collar workers, housewives and collegestudents hitting the streets in support of Anna. The protests are novel in thatthey have been remarkably disciplined and peaceful wherever they have beenstaged – as opposed to the rioting, stone-throwing, brick-batting, arson,prolonged public bandhs and damage to property that are the norm for politicalprotests in India.Moreover, instead of being relayed through caste, clan and kinship networks or routed through political parties, the organisers have used modern forms of communication – such as text messages, Twitter and Facebook – or relied on secular civic organisations to quickly assemble large crowds. And there's no denying the role that saturation television coverage has played in transmitting their message.Thathas caused some commentators to glibly conclude that the protests are asuperficial TV phenomenon that will die down when the TV cameras go away. Butthe point about 24x7 news coverage is that the TV cameras never go away. In thatsense, we live in an inherently tele-visual society; this has played a role inseminal events in history. The fall of the Berlin Wall, for instance, has beenattributed partly to the beaming of West German TV images into East Germanhomes, allowing people in the communist half a glimpse into life in WestGermany.For many of those who have hit the streets, it isn't reallyabout the merits or demerits of the Jan Lokpal over the Lokpal Bill, of whichthey have only a hazy idea. Rather, the Lokpal debate is merely a trigger forthe sense of inchoate rage they feel at a political system which displayscontempt for their priorities. It's not divorced, for example, from theirresponse to the outrageous loot of Commonwealth Games coffers, or to the factthat 76 MPs in the current Lok Sabha – 14% of its total strength –stand accused of not ordinary but serious crimes such as murder, kidnapping,extortion, rape.For politicians of the old order (and professionalpols belong mostly to the old order), only the two ends of the social spectrummatter. While moneyed elites can bring in the moolah, the poor masses have thevotes. The middle classes don't figure in this equation. On the other hand, whena middle-class person looks at the taxes deducted from his hard-earned salary,he's liable to ask what the government is doing with his taxes. That's a basisof democratic politics everywhere, but given shoddy governance standards inIndia the answers – or more accurately the lack of answers – arelikely to enrage him. Taken in its widest sense, the theme of corruption is justa metaphorical way of broaching the question – what are you doing with mymoney?It's here that India has arrived at an inflexion point. Themiddle class (defined as those with monthly household income between Rs 20,000and Rs 100,000) has exploded in numbers from 25 million in 1996 to 160 millioncurrently. By 2015, it's expected to hit 267 million. That makes it asignificant proportion of the electorate, a ‘vote bank' politicians can nolonger afford to overlook. Moreover, this rapid rise in numbers indicates ashift in the balance of power within the middle class itself. The ‘new'middle class – which owes nothing to state employment – is eclipsingthe ‘old' middle class that was a creation of the pre-liberalisationNehruvian state.The old middle class is less likely to question thestate, since it is dependent for employment, professional life and pensions onthe state. Moreover, its symbolic economy and world view are convergent withthat of the state itself, and therefore its needs are better taken care of. Itis the new middle class that has reason to feel disconnected. And it will countmore and more as a strategic factor in Indian politics.Anna Hazareis just a catalyst who happens to chime with the middle-class mood today. Butthe arrival of the new middle class is a more lasting phenomenon than Hazarehimself. Just like the TV cameras, this middle class is not going to go away.Smart politicians had better hone their strategies to co-opt middle-class rage.They ignore it at their peril.