ABSTRACT
I write this book in a time during which an acute interest in knowing about elites has emerged, or indeed, reemerged. Every few days there are reports on the lifestyles of the 0.01% of the world – scoops on their hidden wealth (Panama papers), ways in which they exert influence over politics, their exclusive clubs, and the rampant patriarchy and misogyny that exist in the upper echelons of contemporary society. This story is no different in India. The Indian economy ‘opened up’ in the 1990s, with promises of more job opportunities and general progress within society. Three decades hence, the rewards of this economic policy are far more lopsided than was originally imagined. James Crabtree, in his recent book ‘The Billionaire Raj’ (2018), explains that India has mapped a journey from being under the British Raj (from the late 19th to mid-20th century), to being under a ‘License Raj’ (post-independence to the late 1980s). The latter is marked by the dominating control of state and bureaucracy in granting licenses to industries for production of goods and services. India now finds itself under the ‘Billionaire Raj’ (beginning mid-2000s), he argues, where the main power holders are (newly established) billionaires, who control the economy and cultural and social spaces in manifest and latent ways. It is quite true that contemporary India boasts a large number of billionaires, but the underbelly of this glamourous and ‘progressive’ image and story of India is acute inequality, environmental travesties to make way for ‘progress’ and industries, and disruptive social trends and practices. It is this bizarre interrelation between India’s super-rich and its high level of inequality that draws further attention towards the lives of elites. There is a curiosity to know, ‘see’, critique, and at times admire (especially when popularised by film and fashion industries), the world of the rich and the haves. My book is certainly not the first to plunge head-first into this world: (as detailed in the first chapter) several other scholars have recently explained the story of the rise of wealth and the interconnections between caste, community, education, and money, thereby bringing out the simultaneous existence of the haves and the have-nots. As relevant and important as these themes of exploration are, this book is not an account of the rise of the super-rich or the expansion and role of business elites in furthering an unequal society. Instead, it is about the role of women (those not professionally employed) in drawing class boundaries and shaping the tastes and cultures of India’s .01%. Significantly, it also helps understand the ways in which they set the tone for those immediately below them, and in fact also influence Bollywood movies and celebrity lives.
