ABSTRACT
Since 1991, the Indian middleclass took on greater significance through some economic reforms heading for more integration of Indian economy into the world economy and an opening towards the Western world. Their propensity to consume was discovered and became a main condition for an economical boom. Rachel Dywer, professor for Indian Culture and Film, subdivides the Indian middleclass into three categories. In the context of this chapter, only the first two of them the old and the new middleclass are of some importance. According to Dywer, the old middleclass nowadays would work mainly in bureaucracy, medicine and journalism, be secular, and have cultural capital, a civil mentality and a democratic political attitude. They would control the cultural values of India, since they worked in the administration, educational system and cultural institutions. In contrast to the old, the new middleclass would work mainly in the media sector.
