ABSTRACT
The emerging middle class in India is a very visible entity, especially in metropolitan centres, where it is characterized by buoyancy, growth and ambition. There are several factors which would cause people to be less than entirely sanguine about whether the Indian middle class, as it exists today, has the capacity for the creation of a desirable civil society. A striking feature of the Indian middle class is that it is largely immune to the transparent deprivation around it. As per official statistics, close to 300 million people live below the poverty line. The largest number of patients suffering from tuberculosis live and die in India. Every three minutes, a child in India dies of something as common as diarrhoea. Female illiteracy in some states is as high as 70 per cent. A factor closely linked to the media-fuelled consumerist revolution in the middle and elite classes in India is the disproportionate impact of western life style.
