Don’t underestimate the middle class

Do the ruling party’s politicians care that the middle class is falling out of love with this government?

They should. But, judging by their behaviour, my guess is that they don’t.

 

All politicians love dissing and dismissing the middle class. It is fickle, they will say. There is just no pleasing middle class people, they will add. It is foolish to rely on middle class support. Just look at the record of the middle class, they will sneer dismissively.

 

   After all, it was the middle class that raved about Rajiv Gandhi during his first three years in office. But by the fourth year, middle class voters had turned against him. It was the same with VP Singh. Welcomed as ‘Mr Clean’ by middle class voters when he became Prime Minister, he turned into Public Enemy No 1, in a matter of months. And what about Manmohan Singh? When he ushered in the economic reforms that transformed India in 1991, he was hyperbolically hailed as the second father of the nation. When he became Prime Minister in 2004, his appointment was widely welcomed. But by UPA II, he had become a figure of fun to the middle class, which called him gutless, ineffectual and incompetent.

 

   So, say politicians, why should anyone care about the fickle middle class? It doesn’t even have enough votes to make a significant difference at elections.

 

  There are two answers to that question which most politicians miss. Yes, the middle class had low numbers in 1984 when Rajiv Gandhi was elected. But that is not true any longer. In many constituencies, it is the middle class that makes the difference between victory and defeat.

 

   And secondly, never, ever underestimate the power of the middle class when it comes to shaping the mood of the nation. Even when its numbers were small, it was Rajiv Gandhi’s middle class critics who turned India against him. It was the middle class that drove VP Singh from office.  If it had been possible then middle class voters would have chased VP Singh down Race Course Road hitting him with chappals: such was middle class anger. And as for Manmohan Singh, whose liberalisation pushed millions of India into the middle class and who is probably the creator of today’s new middle class, even he was thrown out of office by people who had only become middle class because of his reforms.

 

   So, don’t underestimate the middle class. Yes, it can be fickle. And perhaps it can be unreasonable. But lose the middle class and —sooner rather than later — you will lose India.

 

   I always believed that Narendra Modi, of all people, would recognise the importance of middle class support. After all, in 2012-13, when he began his irresistible rise to national prominence, it was the middle class that sang his praises. Forget about the Gujarat riots, his middle class supporters said, what the Congress did in 1984 was as bad. Focus instead of his leadership capabilities, on his record as an administrator, on his incorruptibility and his promises of development.

 

   The people who chanted “Modi, Modi”, when their hero appeared in public were not landless labourers or poor farmers. They were solidly middle class — all the way from New Delhi to New Jersey — and believed that Modi had the solution to India’s ills.

 

   But after ten years at the top, there is every indication that Modi has begun to accept the political consensus: just ignore the middle class. It doesn’t matter very much. And even if it is upset, it is so fickle that it will come around.

 

"In many ways the budget — which was noticeably tone-deaf when it came to middle class concerns — was a symptom of his government’s insensitivity."

   As experienced a politician as the Prime Minister must know that after ten years in power, every government faces anti-incumbency and even its strongest supporters will usually have wearied of supporting it.

 

   The only way to handle this negative sentiment is to return to your support base and reassure it; to provide a vision of the future that has your supporters at its centre; and to seem sensitive to the grievances and disappointments of your base.

 

   For some reason, the Prime Minister seems unwilling to do this. He must know that much of the early promise of his reign has not been fulfilled. The rupee is not at Rs 40 to the dollar as his devoted Sri Sri Ravi Shankar had piously assured us. Inflation has eaten away at real middle class incomes. Nor is it clear what middle class income taxpayers are getting in return for their taxes. The fancy trains that were promised never lived up to their billing and the existing ones derail and crash regularly, killing people.

 

   While the government's education policy focuses mainly on rewriting textbooks to tell lies about our history to children, competitive examination papers are leaked and young people die because of the callousness of so-called coaching centres. The only significant telecom innovation to affect the middle class has been the rise in spam phone calls which has reached such levels that fewer and fewer people even answer a call from a number they don’t recognise.

 

   When Modi came to power, the Prime Minister’s supporters promised us a Modi revolution that would transform India. Perhaps there was indeed such a revolution (you can argue about whether it was good or bad in the way it changed India) but what is clear, especially after the BJP failed to win a majority at the last general election, is that this so-called revolution is now spluttering to a halt.

 

   In the circumstances, everyone expected Modi to do something to reassure his middle class base. But ever since he has taken office, he has done nothing for his original base.

 

   In many ways the budget — which was noticeably tone-deaf when it came to middle class concerns — was a symptom of his government’s insensitivity. The angry and indignant response of middle class Indians, many of whom were Modi supporters, may be overblown. But it tells us how high feelings run and how strong the feeling of betrayal is.

 

   I would be very surprised if there was no rollback of some of the more foolish taxation proposals by the time the budget is passed by parliament but so far, at least, neither the Prime Minister nor the Finance Minister has said anything to make the middle classes feel better. When Modi spoke at a CII gathering about the budget, he blew his own government’s trumpet without addressing any middle class concerns; the Finance Minister has been as unyielding in her responses during post-budget interviews.

 

   Instead, in yet another miscalculation, the BJP has decided that contempt and abuse are the way to deal with differing views and unleashed its social media army on those former supporters who are complaining about the budget. Even an RSS spokesman has complained on social media about the arrogance of the BJP’s response.

 

   Till now, the BJP has worked on the assumption that the middle class has nowhere else to go. Sonia Gandhi’s politics were never directed at the middle class and even Rahul Gandhi has been more focused on caste than on middle class concerns.

 

   There are signs that this could now be changing. Speaking in parliament on Monday, Rahul told the government that though the middle class had traditionally supported the Prime Minister, “in this budget, you stabbed the middle class both in the back and on the chest….the middle class is going to leave you.”

 

 It is not clear how seriously the government takes Rahul’s rhetoric. But it is hard to deny that his caricature of the government as being run only for the benefit of the oligarchs is taking hold. Nevertheless, the PM seems unconcerned. During the campaign he claimed that the oligarchs sent tempos full of money to the Congress (in which case, the treasure in the tempos clearly did not work) and he has shown no hesitation in openly fraternising with and associating himself with oligarchs.

 

   The middle class sees all this. It also sees that its own interests are being neglected. And while it is largely loyal to the BJP, it recognises that it now has other options.

 

   And the BJP is making a basic mistake: when you dismiss a class as being prone to change its mind and be fickle, then you should not give it an opportunity to demonstrate its fickleness.