A Million Shards Now

The soothsayer was immediately proved right in the general election of 1996. Smarting from years of neglect and denial of power, political parties representing subaltern castes, minorities and regional aspirations melded together to form the United Front (UF) government at the Centre. Most of the social groups constituting the UF were precisely those which the Congress leadership, predominantly upper caste/middle class, had welded together into an umbrella grouping around the idea of India—a secular socialist republic aiming to provide social, economic and political equality to all.

The UF's birth unravelled this grouping, its splinters or fragments defying the votaries of the idea of India, and coming together to sing in chorus: we too have our own dreams to fashion.

The growing recalcitrance of these fragments elicited two contradictory responses from the upper caste/middle class. One entailed adopting a new strategy to market the idea of India, as we knew it till then. The second sought to reinvent the idea itself. Out came Sonia Gandhi, talking of the Gandhi-Nehru legacy to lure the masses. Giving her competition was A.B. Vajpayee, whose task it was to bring the splintered fragments into the unifying fold of the Hindutva ideology. The rivalry between the Congress and the emerging bjp split the upper castes/middle class, and diminished its status as the cornerstone of the socio-political structure. The divided upper caste/middle class was itself consequently reduced to being just another fragment engaged in competition with others.

Neither Sonia nor Vajpayee's charisma worked substantially. Gone were the days of leaders who could reach out across the class/caste divide. Mayawati became the Sonia of Dalits; and Laloo Prasad Yadav a Vajpayee for the Yadavs and Muslims of Bihar. Successive elections, understandably, failed to provide the glue to piece together the political fragments—and Parliament remained precariously hung. The fragments were compelled to reach a working arrangement through tortuous negotiations and compromises.

This fragmentation of the polity replicated itself at the regional level as well. The search for that elusive majority prompted a division of states. Ironically, the demands for Uttarakhand, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand were accepted when the movements espousing their cause weren't particularly strong. This stoked suspicions that the upper castes/ middle class had created the new states to retain their hegemony, however truncated. The creation of these three states inevitably spawned demands for small states elsewhere.

On an election tour of Bihar, a few OBC boys, tipsy on toddy, expressed their joy at the fragmentation of the polity and the system of governing through alliances. "Kisi ki manmani nahin chalti hai," one of them explained. This seemingly simple statement, spoken in inebriated jest, testifies to the deepening of democratic consciousness and participation. No doubt Mandal was a catalyst. The virulent backlash against reservations convinced the OBCs/Dalits that the idea of India was just upper-caste rhetoric to cheat them of their share in power. They were now determined to see this idea deliver the promised gains.

The challenge to the classes, ironically, occurred during the decade of economic liberalisation. The new economic policy enhanced exponentially the wealth of the middle-class Indian, enabling him to imitate the ostentatious lifestyle of his NRI cousins. He decided to transplant the 'foreign' to India—pockets of growth surfaced in the vast deserts of poverty. This trend has only burgeoned—spiffy, insular colonies continue to mushroom, plush cars swish down gleaming highways, and thousands of rupees are blown away in a night of revelry.

But the middle-class Indian isn't just synonymous with profligacy. He's creative and assured. No longer must he find employment after securing his MBA degree. With bank loans and cutting-edge ideas, he establishes successful companies, challenging the typical 'bania entrepreneur' of yesteryear through his lifestyle and business acumen. New economic mobility has expanded the middle class, its consumption pattern an aspirational model for those lagging behind. No wonder automobile companies are in intense competition to launch small cars, hoping to cash in on the phenomenon of men with small means dreaming big.

The new lifestyle of the middle-class man has changed his political and cultural expressions. As if tired of bearing the burden of developing Bharat, he rarely shows empathy for the wretched in the slums. His consciousness has shrunk from pan-India to middle-class India, its interests and concerns defining his responses. He now justifies the appropriation of fertile agricultural land to establish SEZs in the name of national interest—and without a twinge of conscience. It's indeed a story of a fragment mistaking itself for a composite whole.

This is reflected in Bollywood too, arguably the best barometer of change and aspirations. Films with pan-India themes are rare; they now mostly cater to middle-class dreams and travails. The angry young man has vanished because the middle-class Indian is smiling. Such films can dispense with the mass audience because of new economics: small multiplexes with exorbitantly priced tickets, and the growing NRI market, has created a Bollywood oeuvre foreign in feel and middle class in orientation.

But the other fragments, the teeming masses, aren't willing to accept the cultural hegemony of the middle class. They have created their own entertainment/art. An example of this is the 'Bhojpuri film industry' that flourishes on an audience comprising underclass migrants in urban areas; or the low-budget films made in UP's Muzaffarnagar belt, parochial in their themes and with a cast drawn from local talent.

This contest between different fragments of India has been replicated elsewhere too. SEZs and land appropriation for industrial units have evoked a concerted challenge from the dispossessed. Farmer suicides spoil the perennial celebration of the 9.2 per cent growth story. But even such protests aren't national in their sweep, nowhere near to approximating the geographical spread of the Mandal, mandir or anti-Emergency agitations. It's as if the national has lost its meaning, confining battles only to those between fragments.

Not all contests turn out democratic though. You have the Naxalite movement and Islamist militants challenging the Indian state through the gun. Every bomb blast, however dastardly, is as much an explosion of hatred as it is of anguish, as much a cry for justice as it is of hatred. Combating them are the Hindu militants, who fan terror through rioting and burning of places of worship, as also those elites who have initiated the Salwa Judum to counter Red radicalism in Chhattisgarh.

Obviously, it's erroneous to perceive these fragments as homogenous entities. Identities are usually multiple, a mix of class, caste, language, region etc. Which of these ultimately defines the individual depends upon his choice in a particular context. For instance, it's possible for an upwardly mobile OBC to identify with his class counterpart in the upper castes. Conversely, don't progressive sections of the middle class spearhead or support anti-SEZ movements? It's this sub-fragment of the middle class which has tapped the subversive potential of the internet to create a narrative radically different from what the national media provides.

These fragments are not always in conflict. For instance, when intense academic competition prompted middle-class children to retreat from playgrounds to their study rooms, children from humble backgrounds from small towns stepped into the vacuum. You now have Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Munaf Patel and the Pathan brothers playing for India. You have the boxers of Bhiwani catching the popular imagination. You have Sushil Kumar wrestle his way to stardom. Suddenly, sports is a new avenue of social mobility for the underclasses.

It all ties up. The story of the small shining in glory, the competition between fragments, the contest to redefine the idea of India, it's a recurring leitmotif that runs through the 13 years since Outlook was born.