India’s New Middle Classes – Friends of progress or a Political mall-rats?

India’s New Middle Classes – Friends of progress or a Political mall-rats?

A Conversational blog written and edited by Duncan Green

One of the topics that kept coming up during my recent trip with Oxfam India was the role of the rising middle classes. We had a great debate with Aseem Prakash from Jindal University, who is in the middle of a paper on this (I’ll link when it’s published). According to Aseem, different definitions yield numbers for India’s middle classes ranging from 5 million ($10-$20 per day) to 214 million ($2-$4 a day). What’s not disputed, however, is that the numbers are rising rapidly as India’s economy continues to boom.

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Click here to read a post on the same topic by Bipasha Majumder, Communications Officer, Mumbai

Click here to read Duncan's previous blog on ‘Bricifying’ international NGOs is hard work

I spent last week trying to understand an intriguing experiment. About five years ago, Oxfam GB’s ‘white men in shorts’ left India, along with all the other Oxfam affiliates, and a new, completely Indian-run Oxfam India took over. All part of ‘Bricification’ within the Oxfam family (there’s an Oxfam Brazil in the pipeline too).


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