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

INDIAN MIDDLE-CLASS IDENTITY 267
represented in these groups. Nevertheless, the upper castes tend to be dominant.
The upper caste presence among the professionals reflects both the historical
nature of India’s caste structure and colonial experience. Initially, the Indian middle
class(es) was a creation of British colonial administration which promoted English
education amongst Indians in order to create a cadre of administrators (Frankel
1988:225; see also Misra 1961). Consequently, in the British period the middle class
(es) included significant numbers of civil servants and professionals. Further, many
of the educated Indians under colonial rule were of upper-caste origin, especially
the Brahmans who constituted the literati of pre-modern India. Under the caste
system, caste affiliation is ascribed by birth and corresponds to ritual status which
is hierarchically ordered with the brahmins at the apex of the hierarchy (Dumont
1972:70 and 106). British colonial rule largely worked through and consolidated
this structure and its broad correspondence to class differentiation.
However, during the post-colonial period, a wider spread of education has
resulted in many people of low-and middle-caste origins acquiring qualifications.
The wider middle class in India, therefore, has socially expanded, but the
proportionate representation, especially of the low castes, in the upper echelons of
government administration and private corporate management is relatively small.
Nevertheless, caste divisions and conflict have fragmented the broad middle class.
Competition for university places and jobs is intense, particularly as economic
opportunities have not kept pace with the expansion of the labour force. Under
relatively slow economic expansion, the government policy of reserving a certain
percentage of university places and civil service jobs for the middle and low castes
has heightened inter-caste competition and tensions. In Gujarat, for example,
agitations against the government’s reservation policy pitted upper-and middlecaste
groups against the low-caste new ‘entrants’ to the ranks of the middle class
(Shah 1987). 20 Caste hostilities arising from economic competition and the
reservation policy intensified in north India during the late 1980s and have
persisted in the 1990s with varying degrees of intensity in different parts of the
country. In the Indian context, therefore, a certain degree of tension exists between
the two social categories of caste and class. Yet one line of disparity seems to be
between, on the one hand, the new-rich component of the middle class who occupy
more powerful, well-remunerated positions, largely in the private sector, and who are
disproportionately upper-caste, and, on the other, a broader, less wealthy middleclass
population who come from a cross-section of castes.
In the context of reservation (or affirmative action), the resistance of the upper
castes has assumed the form not only of overt political action but also the
articulation of an ideology that privileges the concept of merit. Thus it is commonly
argued that preferential treatment on the basis of caste rather than qualifications is
undermining the principle of merit which in turn has lowered the standard of
administration and thus diminished the country’s development prospects. Such
claims are common amongst upper-caste, middle-class people opposed to the
reservation policy, and even train accidents and other problems are blamed upon
the filling of government positions with those allegedly lacking sound qualifications