The New Middle Class and the Civic Activism

Abstract

In the Indian context, a significant section of the population is middle class which newline traces its root from the colonial regime and its administrative policies. The first newline explanation on the middle class in India was captured by B.B. Mishra (1961) a newline historian, who captured the coming up of middle class from colonial to post-colonial newline times. The range of initial literature traces the formation of middle class through the newline policies of the colonial regime, its emphasis on English education and other newline administrative practices. However, with the opening up of Indian economy in early newline 1990s, the composition and characteristics of the middle class has substantively newline changed. This shift had influenced the literature that started emphasizing upon the newline newness in the middle class and termed this class as New Middle Class. The change newline in nature, characteristic and dynamics has encouraged the scholars to study the new newline middle class as an important category for reasearch. The middle class and the new newline middle class have been less studied in the Indian context which brings in the range of newline complexities in defining this class. It becomes important here to study the nuances of newline newness in the middle class and its manifestation. Why the new middle class has newline become so significant as a class in contemporary times? How do we study these newline complex and heterogeneous groups? What are the roles which the new middle class newline plays in the city space? What are the groups, associations, and networks they have to newline influence the city space? This study is an attempt to understand the debates and newline discussions around the constitution of the new middle class? How and why they newline mobilize and form associations? It is also an effort to understand how their rising newline aspirations led to urban restructuring? newline The study emphasises on the formation, associations, and networks of the middle class newline movements and activism. The approach of the study is qualitative for which both newline primary and secondary sources of data collection was utilised. Extensive interview was newline conducted with the members of Advanced Locality Management (ALM), members of newline the NGOs, BMC officials and Ex-BMC Officer on Special Duty for ALM. newline XVIIThe educated and politically active middle class evolved into a pressure group through newline their civic activism. Many ALM activists identify themselves as middle class for newline various reasons like middle class ALM activists are often characterized as those who newline embraces traditional practices and simultaneously welcomes and incorporates western newline practices; the gatedness in middle class is increasing as the consumption is rising in newline technological usage of CCTV cameras, elite neighbourhood are operating as middle newline class ALM so that they can politicize with the issue of the middle class. Mumbai s newline middle class being enriched with their ancestral property, considering themselves as newline honest tax-paying citizen as rightful users of urban public space tends to distance newline themselves with urban poor. These flexibilities and uncertainties in the nature of the newline middle class aggravate the place and space that seems to complicate lives. The middle newline class use their social capital to maintain good relationship with various stakeholders newline like MCGM, media, NGOs, educational institute and other stakeholders which helps in newline gaining awareness towards certain civic issues. On the other hand, the ALM also holds newline a position which acts as a pressure group to which the state seems to recognize the newline contribution of the middle class. The urban civic issues like Solid Waste Management newline are dealt in each ALM differently given the fact that the middle class comes from newline different background, area, locality etc. The civic issues like removal of hawkers, newline encroachers, claiming urban space from urban poor seems to reflect strong sense of newline aesthetics, politics of othering and bourgeois environmentalism etc. Another civic newline issue of the middle class ALM is to deal with the governance by initiative like meet newline your corporator, knowing your candidate, using PIL and RTI as a tool to emerge as a newline prominent groups shaping ALMs in Mumbai having evolved as a stronghold. The newline heterogenous middle class focuses on certain common civic issues yet there are also newline place based civic activism which complicates space and place which reflects the newline heterogenous nature of middle class newline