Subject: Political Science

Paper Name: Colonialism in India

Lesson: The Rise of New Middle Class

Lesson Developer: Dr. Shiv Poojan Prasad Pathak

College/Dept: Bharati College, University of Delhi

Introduction

The Indian national movement was one of the biggest „mass and
popular movement‟ which modern society has ever witnessed. It was a
movement which “galvanized million of people of all classes and
ideologies into political action and brought to its keens a might colonial
empire”.1 The national movement has developed through many stages
over the past century. In this process, several political ideas and
methodologies have originated in different forms, adopted legal and
illegal means, constitutional and revolutionary measures with extreme
and moderate approach. It has comprised many currents-conservative
and radical and in the modern era, socialist and communist.2 During
the movement, India also witnessed huge social, cultural, political and
economical transformations.

The middle classes were bedrock of each current and

transformation. It was vehicles of national movement. This middle
class created nationalism, social reform, political awareness and finally
led to India‟s independence. However, any (social or political)
movement operates on certain specific environments and conditions.
Movement carries several dimensions, variables and factors thereby
the evaluation and assessment is being made by research scholars.
For the this chapter, our interest confine to know the factors that
helped to rise of middle class in colonial period and what kind of
impact it had over national movement. There is acceptance that the
arrival of British changes the pattern of administration, economy and
education that produced new middle class3. In the words of Sanjay

1
Bipan Chandra, India’s Struggle for Independence, New Delhi: Penguin Books, 1989, p.12
2
R. Palme Dutt, India To-day, New Delhi: People’s Publishing House, 1940, tenth ed, 2008, p.14
3
See also, Michelgugliemo Torri, “Westernised Middle Class”, Intellectual and Society in Late Colonial
India” Economic and Political Weekly, vol. 25, no.4, 1990, pp. PE-2-PE11
Joshi, “the ascendancy of the middle class was the product of a
relatively long historical process, predicated on the creation of new
forms of the politics, the restructuring of norms of social conduct, and
the construction of new values guiding domestic and public life”.4

This chapter focuses upon the rise of new middle class in colonial
India. It tries to conceptualize the idea of middle class and its
implications on society and state. It explores the link between rise of
middle class and its confrontation with European colonizer especially
British empire. This chapter address following questions:

 What is middle class?

 What were the political and economic conditions of India before
arrival of arrival of European?
 What were factors that helped the rise of middle class?
 What kind of impact had been made by it over the British
Empire?

Middle Class: A Conceptual Framework

In every stage of human civilisation through the ages, society has

been hierarchically organised and socially stratified. The base of social
stratification could be caste, gender and class. Recently, class became
one of the dominant tools for the analysis of society. Class is a group
of people who share common political and economic interests, values
and ideas in society. Class is a division of society on the economic
criteria. The economic criteria include income, profession and
education level. It forms motives of common economic interest,
common ways of behavior, and common traits character. Each such

4
Sanjay Joshi, “Introduction” in Sanjay Joshi (ed.) The Middle Class in Colonial India, New Delhi: Oxford
University Press, p. xiv
class forms a hierarchy of status according to the varying quality of
social prestige and power expressed through the standard of living,
nature of occupation, and wealth. A class is in fact “a complex
phenomenon whose complexity grows with the existence or
emergence of a wide range of interest connected with ownership and
management of economic and social institutions”.5

The word middle class highly used term in social science but
resists any tight definition. Generally, it has been loosely defined
because there is no perfect mechanism to classify the middle class.
Sumit Sarkar argued that middle class is very vague term because the
subjective bourgeois aspirations were so often associated with links
with profession and tenurial landholding rather than industry and
trade. He used middle class as “the groups which began asserting
some kind of regional or national leadership from the 1870s onwards
and which had a significantly different social composition and outlook
from the princes, chiefs or zamindars who had led earlier outbursts
against British rule down to and including 1857”.6 The objectives of
these leading groups could be quite diverse: national emancipation,
regional self-assertion, caste or communal gains and formulating class
demand of toilers. The backbone of the middle class is a particular kind
of occupational system which was new in the 19th century, at lease
outside the West, but has now become a worldwide phenomenon.
These occupations enjoy unequal esteem and authority and are

5
B.B. Mishra, The India Middle Classes: Their Growth in Modern Times, Delhi: Oxford University Press,
1961, p.3
6
Sumit Sarkar, ‘Popular’ Movements and ‘Middle Class’ Leadership in Late Colonial India: Perspectives
and Problems of a ‘History From Below’, Calcutta: Centre for Studies in Social Science, and New Delhi:
KP Bachi and Company, p.2
unequally paid.7 The middle class is not only an indicator of social
change but also brought about the social change.

Indian society is throughout its existence complex,

heterogeneous and segmented. Its diversity requires several
dimensions to explain the objective conditions. Generally, middle
classes are a group of people who exits between capitalist and labour.
This model could not be applied in context of India. So, we need to
have a broader perspective. The study of class is being made in the
discipline of economics and sociology that generates two approaches
to employ the middle class as variable to study the national
movement. First is Marxian and second is Webrian. These approaches
to certain extant would help us to understand the rise of middle class
in colonial India.

Marxian Approach:

For Marxian, class is a deriving force of social changes, but minimize

role of middle class in the historical development. This approach
argues that at any stage of human civilisation, it is an economic factor
that determines the political, legal, social, and cultural system. It
believes that if mode of production changes, it alter the superstructure
of society. In other words, „base decides the superstructure‟. The study
from Marxian perspectives is being done by M.N. Roy, R.P. Dutta and
A.R. Desai. They believed that rise of middle class in colonial India was
result of economic change in Indian society. B.B. Mishra was not
Marxist scholar; however he employed the Marxian framework in his
analysis of middle class.

7
Andre Beteille, “The Indian Middle Class”, The Hindu, New Delhi dated, 5 February, 2001 available at:
www.hindu.com
Weberian Approach:

In Indian context, the analyses of middle class will have to see in

context of social system and culture. The society within which it began
to take shape was not one of classes, but of castes and communities.
The Indian social system is based on the caste system. During the
national movement, caste consciousness was not in predominant
position. The idea of nation liberation subsumed other competing
ideology. This approach explored other option like ideological and
cultural factors in the emergence of middle class. Historians like Bipan
Chandra; Ravinder Kumar are the example of this school.

Sanjay Joshi offered the cultural perspective to the rise of new

middle class. The middle class in colonial India was not a social group
that could be classified as “occupying a median position in terms of
standard sociological indicators of income, consumption, or status”.
Though usually not from the traditional landed aristocracy, there is
little doubt that the people who came to term themselves middle class
were from the upper rungs of Indian society.8 According to him, the
middle class in colonial India was a category and the product of a
group of people sharing a social and economic background. They were
“the producers and products of a new cultural politics in a transformed
historical context”. It was not simply similarities in education,
occupation, or profession that made a middle class in colonial India. It
was “the initiation of new cultural politics which allowed them to
articulate a new set of beliefs, values, and modes of politics, thus
distinguishing them form other social groups both below and above”.
It was not traditional status alone that upper caste Hindus or asharaf

8
Sanjay Joshi, Introduction” in Sanjay Joshi (ed.) The Middle Class in Colonial India, New Delhi: Oxford
University Press, 2010, p. xvi
Muslim men deployed to crate distinctions between themselves and
other social groups in colonial India. Rather, it was by “transforming
traditional cultural values and the basis of social hierarchy that a
distinctive middle class emerged”. It was not simply the objectives
circumstances of their existence that made a group of intellectuals and
bureaucrats key political and social figures. Rather, “efforts of cultural
entrepreneurship made them into a middle class and a significant
player in the social and political life of colonial India”.9 The dominant
English-educated groups did not emerge as a result of economic
change. It had cultural values.

India before Arrival of European

Politically, India was divided and disunited. The Mougal Empire began
to shatter after the death of Aurangzeb in 1707. It had suffered from
the disease of monarchy. Internal succession fight led to rise of
regional centre of power like Nizam of Deccan, Bengal, Awadh, The
Maratha, The Aphgan, The Rajputs, Jats and Sikh etc.10 . These
regional centers of power became independent when central power
became weak. There were many princely states, when European began
to settle down in India. India was not a unitary state. Some states
were rich, some were not. Indian had divided into many social,
economic classes, and they were not developed.

Socially, India represented heterogeneity in its mosaic. It was

stratified and divided on the basis of caste and religion. There were
ruling class which was composed of emperor, nobility and courtier. In
the middle came the small and frugal middle class comprising small

9
Sanjay Joshi, Introduction” in Sanjay Joshi (ed.) The Middle Class in Colonial India, New Delhi: Oxford
University Press, 2010, p. xvi
10
Sekhar Bandyopadhyay, From Plassey to Partition: A History of Modern India, New Delhi: Orient
Longman, 2004, pp. 11-37
merchants, shopkeepers, lower cadre of employees‟ town artisans. At
lower strata, it was artesian and peasantry who were living in the
village.11 B.B. Mishra identified four elements in Indian society at pre-
British period: “the king and his courtiers forming the bureaucratic
apparatus of the state, the priestly intellectual comprising scholarly
and professional categories, the merchant, called vaishya, and the
agriculturist, including both artisans and peasants”.12

Economically, the instability at political level influenced the

economic system. The disintegration of the political authority
inevitably brought about economic fragmentation and disruption. Inner
conflicts and war among the princely state adversely affected the
economic activity. However, in the beginning of the 18th century the
basic unit of Indian economy was self-sufficient and self-governing
village community which produced almost all for its local needs. Decca,
Mushirdabad, Ahmedabad, Lahore, Karachi, Bombay Agra,
Masulipatam were major centre of economic activities. Indian artisan
industry and occupational specialization were very highly developed.
India was the second largest economy of the world after China upto
1820. It had shared near twenty five percent of world gross domestic
product in 1700 and sixteen percent in 1820.13

Arrival of European and the Consolidation of British Rule

European penetration into India began with Portuguese establishment
of their factory at Calicut in 1500 and their conquest of Goa in 1506,

11
B.L Grover and S. Grover, A New Look at Modern Indian History, New Delhi: S. Chand, 2000, p. 26
12
B.B. Mishra, The India Middle Classes: Their Growth in Modern Times, Delhi: Oxford University Press,
1961, p.21
13
Angus Maddsion The World Economy New Delhi: OECD and Academic Foundation, 2007, p. 641;
A.G. Frank “India in the World Economy. 1400-1750” Economic and Politically Weekly, vol. 31, no, 30,
pp. PE50-PE64
more than four centuries ago. The British East India company was
founded in 1600, the Dutch East India company in 1602 and the
French Compagnie des Indes in 1664.14 Several wars had been taken
place among the European country especially between French and
Britain. It was Britain which got upper hand, overpowered French and
paved the way of British rule in India for two hundreds years.
The British were involved in continuing hostilities after the
victory at Plassey. The decline of the Mughal Empire and Indian
disunity contributed to British success. Three presidencies, centered at
Madras, Bombay, and Calcutta, directly governed the territories
gained. Other regions were controlled through agents at Indian rulers'
courts. By the beginning of the nineteenth century, India was
becoming Britain's major colonial possession. It contained the empire‟s
largest colonized population. The willingness of Indians to serve in
British-led armies contributed a powerful land force to the empire.
Indian ports were vital to British sea power. During the nineteenth
century, India became the major outlet for British manufactured goods
and overseas investment, as well as a major supplier of raw materials.
India was the jewel in the crown of the British Empire. It was
said that the sun never set on the British Empire, whose territory
touched every continent on the Earth. The British Raj, the period of
British colonial rule from „Plassey to Partition‟, treated India as a sort
of empire in its own right.15

Factors of Rising Middle Class

14
R. Palme Dutt, India To-day, New Delh: People’s Publishing House, 1940, tenth ed, 2008, p. 8
15
S. Bandopadhyay, From Plassey to Partition: A History of Modern India. New Delhi: Orient Longman,
2004
A new middle class began to emerge in India in the middle of the 19 th
century in the womb of an ancient hierarchical society. The advent of
Europe rejuvenated Indian society with introduction of modern
education system and their scientific achievements like railways, postal
system and telegram. The introduction of English language became
beneficial and emerged as an integrative force and connected Indian
leadership that had a western educational background16. They changed
the nature of state and its governing principles. Territorial
consolidation made by the British generated the „collective
intentionality‟ that led for the resistance capacity against „the
foreigner‟. It helped in the recovering of national self.17 This provided
an opportunity for the emergence of middle class. There were so many
factors responsible for rise of middle class in colonial India. A.R. Desai
argued that “the emergence of social class in India was the direct
result of the establishment of new social economy, new type state
system and state administrative system and spread of new education
system”18.

Educational Factor

It is believed that the introduction of British pattern of education in

English medium had propelled to rise of new educated class in society.
Humayau Kabir established the links between the British education
policy and rise of middle class. For a long time, the administration was
being run for the benefit of empire. There was necessity for a group of
people which could meditate between rulers and Indian masses and

16
Henary Cotton, India in Transition, Delhi B.R. Publishing, pp. 2-3,
17
Sisir Kumar Mitra, Resurgent India, vol. I, London Allied, 1963, p. 93
18
A.R. Desai, Social Background of Indian Nationalism, Mumbai: Popular Prakashan 1948, 2000, 6 th
edition, p. 162
provide man power to the lower level of administration.19 This was the
sole purpose of education policy. Education created a variation in
society. The most important single factor that accounts for this great
transformation is “the impact of the West through the introduction of
English education. It broke the barrier which had hitherto effectively
shut India from the outside world and opened the floodgate of Western
Ideas”.20 The arrival of British education attracted new class of society
that was engaged in the study of Persian and Sankrit. New system
presented a different kind of political, social and cultural values. These
educated people came into touch modern idea and concepts like
liberty, equality, right and freedom of state. By this education system,
a new middle class, English educated social group came into existence,
which was not loyal to British. They prepared a platform for the
national movement.

The purpose of education was to colonise Indian mind. Western

education had deep impact over the mind of middle class. However, “if
this education was designed to colonize the mind of the Indian
intelligentsia and breed in them a sense of loyalty, latter also
selectively appropriated and manipulated that knowledge of
domination to craft their critique of colonialism”. 21

Here, it is not need to invoke the Orientals and Anglolist debate

but it should be remembered that every educated man or women were
not the part of western educations. The native education system also
produced professional middle class. The medium of language was

19
Hymayun Kabir, Indian Heritage, Kessenger Publishing, reprinted, 2009, p.102
20
R.C. Majumdar, History of the Freedom Movement in India, vol. I, Calcutta (Kolkatta): Firma K.L.
Mukhopadhyay, 1971, p. 260
21
Sekhar Bandyopadhyay, From Plassey to Partition: A History of Modern India, New Delhi: Orient
Longman, 2004, p. 210
continuing in Sanskrit, Arabic and Persian. They are the educated class
and have started playing a major role in politics which was earlier
reserved for upper and royal classes.

Political Unification and Centralized Administration

Politically, a radical transformation had occurred. The medieval

political order and the concepts, on which it was founded, had
completely disappeared. British introduced a new system of
administration in India. They introduced a rule of law in the territories.
Modern judiciary came up. A natural corollary to the principle of
equality before the law was introduced. This certainly was novel
feature in a caste- ridden society. Equality before law of the new
judicial system wiped out earlier differences of Indian society.

The main changes which the British made in Indian society were
at the top. They replaced the wasteful warlord aristocracy by a
bureaucratic-military establishment. The East India introduced certain
changes in Indian administration. It strengthened it rule over
provinces gradually, so its approach towards administrative reforms
was tactical. The remedies adopted by them differed somewhat in
different provinces, but the general lines of reform in all were to retain
the village system and to improve the machinery for supervision. 22 The
first stem in this direction was to relieve the zamindars of their liability
for police service, which was commuted for a payment of enhanced
revenue. Considerable reforms were also affected in the administration
of criminal justice and a milder and rational system of trial and
punishment was substituted for the cruel and partial methods of the
native governments. In its long course of evolution, it started to work

22
Angus Maddison, Class Structure and Economic Growth: India and Pakistan Since Moguls, New York:
W.W. Norton, 1971, Chapter-3, p. 13-14, available at: ttp://www.ggdc.net/maddison/articles/moghul_3.pdf
on principles of rule of law, although the law did not conform to the
interest of Indian people.
British administration in India through civil and police
mechanism had taken a long journey to consolidate its empire. The
advent of civil and police bureaucracy was sideshow of political
development. It came in two forms, first, the charter act from 1773 to
1935 and secondly, separate acts related to specific departments. This
historical period had undergone with massive political and
administrative transformation. Since the battle of Plassey to 1857
revolution, the British administration was reined by the East Indian
Company. This period is characterised as expansion of British
Imperialism in India. People in the eighteenth century tended to think
of the empire in terms of trade and commerce.
The 1857 revolt was a major turning point in the history of
modern India. In May 1858, at the same time, they abolished the
British East India Company and replaced it with direct rule under the
British crown. Whole administration had gone in the hand of British
crown and political activities got central place in British administration.
In two hundreds of British rule, the structure, social composition and
the nature of administration had transformed accordance with demand
of British interest. At the last phase of national movement, three kind
of service was emerged namely all Indian civil services, central
services and provincial services. The present Indian bureaucracy is
reflection of these three services.23

Features of British Administration:

It organised Indian administration on the basis of rule of laws. The
organisation of an Indian Civil Service which worked according to set

23
For detail study of the development of civil and police administration of India, see A.C. Banerji (ed)
Indian Constitutional Documents,1757-1947, 4.vols, Calcutta 1961
rule and with machine-like efficiency and impartiality was another
striking feature of the administration in contrast to the personal rule of
the monarch or his governors as the case might have been in pre
British times. ICS officers worked as Collectors, Magistrate and
Judges.24 It introduced a centralised administration.
Elective politics, in however limited a form, was introduced. It
started to induce national voice in administration. The effect of elective
politics was drawing the attention of administrative brutality operated
over nationalist leaders. It also sensitised native who were the side of
British government. It was disjointed as the different provinces had
different civil services. There was no code of conduct developed by any
of the British-India provinces. As we have seen, British government
did not have any preplan to develop a particular mode of
administration. It was totally contingent and based on the connivance
of its facilitations. The reformative effort was the response to demand
of Indian leaders.

Collective Intentionality
Political unification and centralization of Indian political system
generated collective intentionality. India attracted the invader from
ancient to the modern period from Iranian, Bactrian, Huns, Turk,
Moguls and European. It was invaded throughout in its history. “In
3000 years of our history people from all over the world have come
and invaded us, captured our lands conquered our minds. From
Alexander onwards, the Greeks, The Turks, the Moguls, the

24
B.L. Grover and S. Grover, A New Look At Modern Indian History, New Delhi, S. Chand, 2000, p.253
Portuguese, the British, the French, the Dutch, all of them came and
looted us, took over what was ours” 25 Moraes observed that “India‟s
history is a story of assimilation and absorption and of invasions
punctured with the period of imperial rules”.26
In its historical existence, India hardly remained under the single
control of a king or dynasty. It was ruled by different dynasties and
kings in different parts of its territory. Its history is a tale of rise and
fall of great dynasties. India has a 3000-year history of “growth,
decay, and renewal; of invasion, absorption and survival; of imperial
conquest and imperial subordination”27. It happened due to lack of
„collective intentionality‟ towards their greatness and vision of unity.
This was a cultural lag on the part of civilisation that could not allow
the formation of „resistance capacity‟ to check out the adversaries. In
the words of B. M. Jain, 'geographically giant in size, politically
disunited and disintegrated, socially heterogeneous and ethnically
divisive and diverse, India allowed outsiders to tinker with its polity
and socio-economic systems. Whenever aliens landed on the Indian
soil with the motive to rule the country, Indian had hardly offered any
resistance to drive them out with a sense of collective moral
responsibility. On the contrary, they amazingly displayed a passive
attitude towards the invaders and predators'28. The diversity was one
reason to make India scattered in its different territorial existence.
Unification instilled the feeling of nationalism and worked towards
development of India as a nation. It provided the middle class a
foreground to look forward for national cause and overlooked their
economic, social and cultural diversity.

25
APJ Kalam “My Vision for India” 2004, available at www.indiavision2020.org
26
Frank Moraes, India Today, New York: Macmillan, 1960
27
SP Cohen, India: Emerging Power, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2001, p. 35
28
BM Jain, Global Power, Lanham: Lextington Books, 2008, p.41
Economic Factor

Colonial economic was two way responsible for the rise of middle class.
Firstly, the introduction of new industrial system and land system
created a group of people that helped in the formation of it. Secondly,
the nature of economic exploitation heightened the consciousness that
British Empire was imperialist. Economical changes dragged people
from their old traditional village professions to urban industrial
labouring. These new classes came into existence as a result of the
basic economic transformation brought about by the various acts of
the British Government such as the new type of land relations, the
penetrations of Indian society by the commercial and other forces from
the outside capitalist world, and the establishment of modern
industries in India.29

The introduction of private property in land in the form of

Zamindari and Ryotari by government created the new classes which
owned the large estate. They were zamindars, and peasant
proprietors. Further, the creation of the right to lease land brought into
being such as tenants and sub tenant. The creation of to purchase and
sell land together with the right to hire and employ labour on the
land, created conditions for the growth of the class of absentee
landlords and that of the agricultural proletariat. With the new
agrarian-economic system, a hierarchy of intermediaries developed
between the zamindar and the cultivating tenants in the zamindari
zones, and a chain of intermediaries, namely moneylenders, absentee
landlords, and merchants, grew up between the cultivating tenants
and the state in the Ryotwari area. In the agrarian area, a group of

29
Angus Maddison, Class Structure and Economic Growth: India and Pakistan Since Moguls, New York:
W.W. Norton, 1971, Chapter-3, pp. 7-9, available at: http://www.ggdc.net/maddison/articles/moghul_3.pdf
modern money lenders and merchants who were unknown in pre-
British Indian society, developed on an increasing scale. They are
intermediaries between the peasants and the market, and absentee
landlords.30

In the rural area, the classes of money lenders and merchants

existed in pre-British India. But the role was transformed when the
new land system was introduced. So, the class of modern money
lenders and merchants might be described as new social classes linked
up with the new capitalist economy and performing functions quite
different from pre-British Indian society. Under the British rule, the
internal and external trade expanded which resulted in the emergence
of a class of commercial bourgeoisie, who engaged in extensive
internal and foreign trade. These new merchant classes traded in all
production, rural and urban, agriculture and industrial in the country.31
The establishment of railways and accumulation of wealth in the hands
of the Indian trading class, a section of zamindars and wealthy
members of the professional classes led to the rise of Indian owned
textile, mining, and other industries and the growth of a new class of
industrial bourgeoisie such as mill owners, mine owners, and other
owners of new capitalist enterprises. Along with this class, emerged
the new class of modern proletariat such as factory workers, mine
workers, railway workers, and workers on the plantation. Thus, with
the growth of modern industries in India the new class of the modern
bourgeoisie and modern proletariat came into existence.32

30
A.R. Desai, Social Background of Indian Nationalism, Mumbai: Popular Prakashan 1948, 2000, 6 th
edition, p. 164
31
A.R. Desai, Social Background of Indian Nationalism, Mumbai: Popular Prakashan 1948, 2000, 6th
edition, p. 166
32
Percival Spear, The Oxford History of Modern India: 1740-1947, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965, pp.
290--91
 In reality, the British Colonialism was disrupting Indian economy
and preventing the rise of modern industry and agriculture. The result
of colonial rural economy was that the great mass of the people were
submerged in poverty and a large sector of the Indian economy was
condemned to stagnation. There was growing up “a small group
depending on agrarian pursuits which took advantage of the conditions
established by British administration to improve their economic
condition and strengthen the bourgeois class which led the struggle for
freedom”.33 So, it was both, the utilization of opportunity generated by
colonial economy and sense of deprivation created by it was the main
reason to form the middle class‟s consciousness.

Social and Cultural Factor

Obviously, India was caste ridden society. Upper castes were middle
class. But new educational and administrative system helped to break
the caste and religion linage on the front by creating new set of
cultural beliefs and values. With the advent of British rule immense
intellectual and cultural changes characterized the 19th century India.
We see the rise of a new class of people in Indian society during the
British period. This was the rise of the English educated middle class.
Now naturally the question comes to our mind that who actually
constituted this class of people. In the 19th century, British
administrative and economic innovations gave rise to a new
professional or urban middle class in Indian towns.34 This new class
readily learnt English, for it promoted employment and gave a sense of
prestige. The newly educated class usually adopted the professions of
junior administrators, lawyers, doctors, teachers etc. Some of them

33
Tara Chand, History of the Freedom Movement in India, vol. 3, New Delhi: Publication Division,
Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India, 1972, p.69
34
Dr. Baljit Singh, Urban Middle Class Climbers’, p. 32
visited England for pursuing higher studies. While in England they saw
with their own eyes the working of the political institutions of a free
country. On their return to India, they found the situation in India was
quite different from that of England. These foreign educated people
along with the ever expanding English educated intelligentsia formed
the middle class intelligentsia in India. Intelligentsia minimized the
impact of parochial loyalties. The class was not a closed hereditary
caste and was not bound by any traditional laws. But its components
recognized communal and caste obligation, which tended to interfere
with their loyalty to the nation. In this sense, it was constituted from
Hindu upper caste and Asharaf (well-born) Muslim)35.
The overall development in especially new form of political
system and administration provided an inntituional opportunity. The
institutional opportunities created a public space. New education
system requires new teachers, judiciary requires advocates, railway
and postal services requires lower level employee. The cumulative was
the rise of new middle class. Joshi argued that it was through the
public sphere that “middle class norms came to be universalized in
colonial India”. Using new institutions of the publish sphere, these men
were able to “recast ideas of respectability to distinguish themselves
form upper and lower classes in society, and to posit a moral
superiority over both”. All of these were a crucial element in the
constitution of a middle class.36

The formation and composition of Middle Class

The formation of middle class in colonial India was the result of long
historical process. Its beginning could be traced since arrival of

35
Sanjai Joshi, Fractured Modernity: Making of a Middle Class in Colonial North India , New Delhi:
Oxford University Press , 2001
36
Sanjay Joshi, “Introduction” in Sanjay Joshi (ed.) The Middle Class in Colonial India, New Delhi:
Oxford University Press, 2010, p. xviii
industrialization and trading economy, but concrete observation could
be made after 1857 revolution. The formation of middle class could be
explained by understanding the nature of national movement. The
historical context of the development of middle classes in India is quite
different from those in western world. In Europe, it came through
industrial revolution. In case of India, it was 19th centaury under the
patronage of British colonial rule that the middle classes beginning to
emerge. The study of B.B. Mishra had shown four categories of middle
class that are the commercial middle class, industrial middle class,
landed middle class and the educated middle class. 37 However, the
middle class was mainly comprised of three sections: agricultural,
industrial and professional.
We also look into the duality of India economy to grasp the clear
picture of middle class in colonial India. There were two layers of
economic system in rural and urban India. In urban area, the middle
class was the product of new economy introduced by the British while
rural middle class still based on the land distribution system. It also
has been noticed that there were uneven growths in middle class. As
we knew that Bengal was the seed of Indian nationalism. British began
to settle in this presidency. So Bengal presidency was precursor of the
Indian modernization. Calcutta (Kolkatta) had seen first instance for
the emergence of middle class. The rise of the middle class in Bengal
is therefore for “the most remarkable and the most reassuring of the
signs of the times. It is certain indication that in this part of India our
faces are set in the right direction, that progress and not retrogression
is the order of the day and that the whole tendency of present

37
B.B. Mishra, The India Middle Classes: Their Growth in Modern Times, Delhi: Oxford University Press,
1961
conditions make for an increasing measure of prosperity38. After it, the
new middle class first emerged in other presidency capitals of Bombay
(Mumbai) and Madras (Chennai).39 The rise of middle class in Bengal
resulted in Swadeshi movement of 1905. Gradually, British occupied
the most part of India, the national consciousness generated in the
middle classes of all India. This expansion of middle classes and their
consciousness waged three decisive movements which altered the
reign of power. Later, this phenomenon expanded and operated all
over India.

Professional class

The major constituents of middle class were professional classes that

were coming from new administrative set up namely judiciary and civil
administration. They were the educated middle class. It included
doctors, teachers, professors, managers, clerks, engineers, chemists,
technologies, journalists and others. They formed new social group,
which evolved in Indian society during the British period. These social
groups linked up with modern industry, agriculture, commerce,
finance, administration and press and other section of the new social
life were unknown to pre-British India society since such a social,
economic and class system did not then exist.40

These groups became the spearhead of the Indian middle

classes. Though composed of different castes, they developed a
common pattern of thinking, and these features contributed to the

38
Surenderanath Banerjea, The Bengali, 17 February 1911; quoted in Rajat K, Ray, “Three Interpretation
of Indian Nationalism, in BR Nanda (ed.) Essays in Modern Indian History, Delhi: Oxford University
Press, 1980
39
Andre Beteille, “The Indian Middle Class”, The Hindu, New Delhi dated, 5 February, 2001 available at:
www.hindu.com
40
B.B. Mishra, The India Middle Classes: Their Growth in Modern Times, Delhi: Oxford University Press,
1961, p.307-340
growth of India nationalism. The professional classes were the first to
break through caste or regional barriers and to develop a sense of
unity and solidarity which made possible the development of
nationhood in India. These groups were “cultural entrepreneurs” of
national movement.41

Industrial class:

Industrial revolution in Europe led to demand of new market and

search of raw materials. So, European began to invest the money in
India on utilitarian ground. The major industry sectors were jute,
cotton, neel, sugar and mining. The unintended consequence of
industrialization created a group of people who constituted the core of
middle class. According to Mishra, by 1921, Indian capitalism had
emerged as “an independent force, the growth of indigenous as well as
foreign capitalist interests in the country led to a considerable increase
in the industrial population”. He stated that “the percentage of
employed in industrial and other not-agricultural occupations
continued to rise in spite of the considerable increase in India‟s
population, which went up form 279 million n 1891 to 389 million in
1941, and 360 million in 1951 for Indian alone”.42 In addition to
increasing the number of industrial workers, the growth of industries
and urbanization brought into being a considerable number of salaried
employees below the managerial and supervisory levels.

Agrarian Middle Class

41
Sanjay Joshi, “Introduction” in Sanjay Joshi (ed.) The Middle Class in Colonial India, New Delhi:
Oxford University Press, 2010, p. xviii
42
B.B. Mishra, The India Middle Classes: Their Growth in Modern Times, Delhi: Oxford University Press,
1961, p. 397
The rural India witnessed different set of middle class from urban
India. There were changes in the pattern of land ownership. The
agrarian middle class were grouped into three sections. First section
includes the larger landholder in the Zamindari areas; second group
were the bigger farmers in the Ryotwari region; the moneylenders-
landowners and businessmen and merchant were come into third
sections of the middle class. Basically, they were trader in cash crops
which were showing increase in the area sown and the quantity of
output.43

Nature of Middle classes

The rise of middle class was growing with evolution of national

movement. The nature of national movement had deep impact over
nature of middle classes. At least, two stages are identifiable. As it has
been observed that the national movement was the history of “the
advancing consciousness and mass basis of this movement of national
liberation”. It began in earlier stage as “a narrow circle of the rising
bourgeoisie and professional strata with the most limited aims”, and in
latter stage, “this process of history reached out to its full stature and
achievement”. It has prepared the way for a still more far-reaching
social liberation44.
These phenomena had reflected in the consciousness of middle
classes especially English educated people. In its first stage, the
middle class were loyal to British government. This was the period
1857 revolt to formation of Indian national congress. Even, it was
charged that Congress was formed on the consent of government.
However, in latter phase, these middle class disheartened and started

43
Tara Chand, History of the Freedom Movement in India, vol. 3, New Delhi: Publication Division,
Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India, 1972, p.69
44
R. Palme Dutt, India To-day, New Delh: People’s Publishing House, 1940, tenth ed, 2008, p. 283
mass activity. The Swadeshi movement was first example of mass
movement and mobilisation. These educated dissociated with
government and began to expose cruel nature of Empire. In the words
of Sumit Sarkar, “Macaulay‟s vision of an English-educated
intelligentsia brown in colour but white in thought and tastes was, it is
true, beginning to turn a bit sour by the 1880s. Yet the middle class‟
ambitions which went into the making of provincial associations in
Calcutta, Bombay, Poona, and Madras and eventually found expression
through the Congress were still little more than an irritant”45.
The basic pattern was of an English-educated „middle class‟
reared by British rule, engaging in various renaissance activities and
eventually turning against their master and so giving birth to modern
nationalist- out of frustrated selfish ambitions, ideals of patriotism and
democracy derived from Western culture or natural revulsion against
foreign rule, the imputed motive in each case depending on the
viewpoint of the scholars.46

The new middle class was united. They had ignored their
background. Earlier, the old middle class of India played a very
subordinate part in the affairs of India. According to Spear, the reason
was that they were not connected; they were divided by distance, by
language, by caste feeling, and by occupation. It had no “common
consciousness and was dependent everywhere on the intellectual
aristocracy of the Brhnmans and the landed aristocracy of sardars and
zamindars”. The merchant had little in common with the government
official or the doctor with the lawyer. Each profession or vacation was
insulated from others by walls of custom and prejudice. No common

45
Sumit Sarkar, Modern India:1885-1947, New Delhi: Macmillan . 1983, p. 2
46
Sumit Sarkar, Modern India:1885-1947, New Delhi: Macmillan . 1983, p. 5
consciousness was possible until this exclusiveness between upper and
lower, between group and group was broken down.47

Mishra went on to say that ideas and institutions of a middle

class social order were imported into India. They did not grow from
within. They were implanted in the country without a comparable
development in its economy and social institutions. The Indian middle
class whom the British aimed at creating was to “be a class of
imitators, not the originators of new values and methods”. The West
proceeded to develop education so as to “satisfy the needs of an
already developed economy. That was the British theory of infiltration
which was to apply to both educational and economic fields” .48

Role of Middle Class

The struggle of independence was being carried by these middle

classes. They put their effort in two ways: first they began to criticize
the British empire‟s policies and second they held direct confrontation
with it. The middle class intelligentsia led the Indians in the social,
political, religious and cultural sphere and helped a lot in the
modernization of India. According to Percival Spear, “the new middle
class was a well integrated all-India class with varied background but a
common foreground of knowledge, ideas and values… it was a minority
in Indian society but a dynamic minority…it had a sense of unity of
49
purpose and hope” . This middle class became the new soul of
modern India and in due course infused the whole of India with its
spirit. It provided leadership to the Indian National Congress in all its
stages of growth. Accordoing to Bipan Chandra middle class formed

47
Percival Spear, The Oxford History of Modern India: 1740-1947, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965, p. 289
48
B.B. Mishra, The India Middle Classes: Their Growth in Modern Times, Delhi: Oxford University Press,
1961, p. 11
49
Percival spear, The Oxford History of Modern India, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965, p. 291
the “backbone of the Indian national movement”. 50 Peasant
movements were also the work of the lower middle classes.51

Impact

The sole purpose of British Empire to strengthen its hold over Indian
territory and made available maximum natural resources for England.
In this process, some modern technique and ideas trickled down to
Indian. According to Bimal Prasad, it is one of the ironies of history as
well as a tribute to the work done by the British in India that the
administrative and economic unification of India under British rule
itself provided the necessary base for the dawn of a national
consciousness52. The struggle for independence was not a narrowly
limited movement for political emancipation. It was broadly an
endeavor to reconstruct an old, static, collective society and to
establish in its values as liberty, justice, individualism, humanism and
secularism. Middle class was success to establish these objects in
Indian constitution.

The new middle class generated the new spirit which had the
impact of western culture. There are claims that the impact of western
culture “awakened a sense of Indian nationality and deep patriotic
53
feelings such as India never before” . Indian nationalism can best
explained by “the anti-imperialist alliance between the westernized
middle class- plus vernacular literati and the peasantry”.54 Among

50
Bipan Chandra, India’s Strguggle for Independence, New Delhi: Penguin Books, 1989, p. 403
51
Sumit Sarkar, ‘Popular’ Movements and ‘Middle Class’ Leadership in Late Colonial India: Perspectives
and Problems of a ‘History From Below’, Calcutta: Centre for Studies in Social Science, and New Delhi:
KP Bachi and Company
52
Bimal Prasad, The Origin of India Foreign Policy Calcutta: Bookland, 1960, p.13
53
R.C. Majumdar, History of the Freedom Movement in India, vol. I, Calcutta (Kolkatta): Firma K.L.
Mukhopadhyay, 1971, p. 260
54
Michelgugliemo Torri, “Westernised Middle Class”, Intellectual and Society in Late Colonial India”
Economic and Political Weekly, vol. 25, no.4, 1990, pp. PE-5
them there were many grades, but they constituted the most dynamic
part of Indian society. Each section had its own special interest
although among them a community of aims existed and there was
growing a consciousness of nationality and sentiment of patriotism
which was the result of both material and psychological needs.

Conclusion:

The middle class was the base of social reforms, cultural revivalist,
political awareness, protest and demonstrations in national movement.
Institutional opportunity had created public space that drove to unite
and generate collective intentionality. The emergence of middle class
was associated with development of economic and educational
activities in the regions. The significance of middle class in colonial
India was that it was enlightened class that generated the aspiration
for liberation of nation from the British empire.