A Tale of Three Cities: India's entry into Modernity

What Marx said: Marx's prophecy: In the 19th Century Karl Marx observed that India, among other nations in the Non-West, is pre or non-modern, as it lacked vital structures of modernity, i.e. a thriving industrial/manufacturing base. It should therefore be yanked into modernity through "violence" if it needs be, because on its own India cannot progress and needs the guidance of Europe.

In other words, it's a good thing that Britain and in fits and sparks other European nations, colonized India.

It's interesting that Marx suspended his usual humanitarian principles when it came to judging what makes the non-West modern.

The West is modern and will always be the image of the non-West's future. So to be modern is to recast oneself in the image of the West.

Fast forwarding into the 21st century India, let's look for some markers of modernity:

Is the 21st century Indian Middle Class "modern"?

A Middle Class family in pictures.

UB City: India's glitziest shopping mall.

There is an "Indian dream" equivalent to the "American dream." (Upward mobility).

"The Indian middle class is hungry for new experiences and is optimistic," observes Mr. Dilip Kapur, founder/CEO of Hi-Design, an Indian luxury leather goods firm, and adds that for retailers and brand builders like us it is explosively exciting."

In essence, the Indian middle class is fulfilling Marx's prophecy of becoming "modern" by asserting their consumption power.

The definition of "modern" has radically changed since the time of Marx, but in the 21st century, wealth and upward mobility, and consumption are clear markers of what it means to be modern.

By this definition, the likes of Mukesh Ambani, one of India's super rich, (sort of an Indian Warren Buffet), is ultra modern.

In other words, the story of India's "rise" and by default, the story of her coming of age into the globe as a "modern" nation, is the story of the middle and the rich class.

What about those left behind and excluded from the narrative?

Here's what journalist, activist and Booker Prize winning author, Arundhati Roy has to say about the narrative of modern and rising India:

"There are other ways of being modern" says Roy and the shapers of this narrative of modernity in 21st century India are the rural indigenous and urban poor, who are also the displaced rural indigenous.

The other India: Listen to how this other India is perceived in one of the many visions of aspirational India:

Aman Sethi's A Free Man is about the other India that too, as Roy says in her interview, has its own vision of what it means to be modern in contemporary India.