Stuck in the middle

By all guesstimates, the middle class probably constitutes 30-40% of our population in India. The middle class is the one that consumes all media – yet, peruse the papers, watch television... other than sporadic outbursts on inflation and price rice, this voter community is largely a silent mass. This is simply because they are so busy working to earn their living, battle through the everyday business of budgeting so that they can live ‘decent’, honourable lives.

This middle class battles through great hurdles in every sphere of life, be it education, healthcare or housing or just living. This class also aspires and is the target for a majority of advertising that happens. Having said that, who really represents their concerns?

Anna Hazare was bang on when he touched upon the core hurdle that this class faces. But now, he is an icon with feet of clay. He showed the middle class hope and a light, then went on to dash the very same hope and put out the light faster than fast.

The middle class educates itself, saves something of its earnings, travels abroad to study, travels abroad on vacation, consumes, connects and... wishes to stay away from anything that could disturb its placid life.
Unable to handle the roughness of corruption and conversation on ground level, this is the class that is active on blogs and twitter, that thinks, converses and has gone virtual.

For a media that is largely disconnected from ground zero, the horror stories that poverty generates is TRP ratings, forgetting that for the majority in poverty – these are not one off stories – this is the story of each of their lives, one mirroring the other with no way out.

It is easy from the confines of an air conditioned studio, to exclaim on the drunken husband biting wife and child; or of the farmers taking their own lives tired of the circle of debt that cannot be ridden.

With no efforts to reclaim the promised claims of education for the poor, no efforts to create the beginnings of the easing of corruption, the political class is now creating totalitarian spaces forgetting that come elections – the unpredictable could happen.

The current generation in their forties now has consumed like never before, aspired and has allowed in some sense, a personal ‘greed’ to fuel their success stories. Perhaps this is why, in this quest for better lives, better homes, better lifestyles, better cars, better brands... the list is endless... the generation in question allowed itself to be swept along without scruples, into the new era, even while several demons raised their heads in this journey.

These demons now threaten their next generation, many of who eschew this vicarious quest for ‘success’ and are treading new paths.

But the biggest demon that has been created in the last two decades has been the political class, who have in some sense walked this path alongside the success stories and who have exploited the means to the end.

The change may be beginning – many cannot see the big picture as yet, but there are little pockets of thought that are growing bigger as communities catch on. Media has just to catch the change correctly to create the big wave.