Culture and Privilege in Capitalist Asia - Jurusan Antropologi ...

254 SALIM LAKHA
with definitions of the middle class, particularly in the context of journalistic
representations, and the role of caste and religion in shaping the cultural identity of
middle-class Indians.
THE STATE, ECONOMIC LIBERALISATION AND
THE NEW RICH
In social and cultural terms, the role of the state has been most significant because
it has allowed people who were outside the boundaries of the old rich to experience
economic mobility and join the ranks of the new rich. 4 In the process it has fostered
new social forces and cultural identities. However, the limits of state-sponsored
development paved the way for India’s economic liberalisation which, combined
with the earlier emigration of professionals, has contributed in major ways to the
globalisation of the Indian middle class. The middle class is a major beneficiary of
liberalisation.
After independence in 1947, the state assumed a dominant role in industrial
development and the promotion of higher education on which industrialisation
relied. As Stern aptly states, ‘India’s industrial revolution was to be engineered
from the top’ by a state over which the English-speaking middle classes had a
substantial influence (1993:209—10). The beneficiaries of state-driven development
included various socio-economic groups such as sections of the peasantry, the socalled
labour aristocracy, the professionals, and both small and large businessmen
and industrialists.
The state’s involvement in industrial development is partly explained by the
relative weakness of the indigenous bourgeoisie who, during colonial rule,
remained subordinated to the interests of metropolitan capital and the colonial
state. Even though the indigenous bourgeoisie managed to expand its economic
base during the inter-war period, the lack of economic development at the time of
independence generated hostility among the middle class who attributed the
country’s economic woes to the indigenous bourgeoisie (Khanna 1987:48).
Consequently, the middle class favoured economic planning by the state and
encouraged state development beyond the mere provision of infrastructure
facilities (Khanna 1987:49).
The emphasis on industrial development in the first three five-year plans (FYP)
(Hardgrave 1980:80) beginning in 1951, privileged the role of the state in the
country’s economic development. During the period 1950—65, which encompassed
the first three FYPs, the dominant economic objectives included ‘self-sustaining
growth in industry, transport, and energy’ (Bhagavan 1987:59). The country
embarked upon a strategy of heavy industrial development in which the ‘state
planned, financed, built and controlled’ a major part of capital goods and substantial
sections of intermediate goods (Bhagavan 1987:59—60).
Under Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s version of socialist development, the
state sector of the economy was viewed as the ‘dynamic entrepreneur’ creating
technical and administrative-managerial positions for the middle class (Khanna