The Great Split within Indian Middle Class

A word is splitting the great Indian middle class into two.

And the word responsible for causing this split is ‘Crore’.

Crore – a word that once represented the elusive figure for the Indian middle class is now seen everywhere and being earned by, as if almost everyone.

Movie starlets and IPL second-timers earn it in ones and tens. Bigger fishes in both these leagues earn it in hundreds. Start-up entrepreneurs flash it in their books by tens and hundreds, with some actually earning it too. CXOs at corporates are suddenly seen earning it liberally. Industrialists’ accumulation of this in thousands is always in the media.

And the first time that the Indian middle class associates himself personally with this figure is when finally agreeing to buy a 1-crore Term Insurance Policy.

Second time is when he browses through the prices of new residential projects. 2.5cr is the base price for real estate projects “designed for the Indian middle class.”

With terms like job security, steady flow of salary, assured increase in salary with the passage of time – all being concepts left behind in the pre-covid world, there is a sharp split between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’ within the great Indian middle class.

Those who sustained and blossomed through the Covid era and afterwards, are the ‘haves’ – and are transitioning to move above the middle-class tag. And many of those who struggled through and are still fighting on are currently the ‘have nots’ – and the new middle class being formed.

The lower base of this new middle class is being joined by another sub-class that is derived from a previously lower socio-economic group of service providers – owing to their increasing consumption expenditure. They are our house helps, drivers, security guards, delivery agents, app cab drivers and the numerous other odd jobbers. All of them own a smart phone, pay digitally, buy from ecommerce everything like gadgets, accessories, clothes, grooming products. They aspire and provide their children a life beyond basic food and education – social media on mobile, colouring kits, hobby classes, birthday parties.

Africa is also splitting into two.

We have been reading about this for couple of years now. This being a split at the level of tectonic plates would manifest itself at the land mass level in over a million years or so.

However, closer home and in our neigbourhood, the socio-economic fabric in India has been undergoing a transition post the pandemic as a result of which the Indian middle class is being slowly but surely, split into two like the great African subcontinent. Unfortunately, the result of it is already visible.

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