There was a remarkable conversation between alleged propagandist, and self-proclaimed ‘journalist’, Rohini Singh and her comrade Aditya Menon. It was remarkable because it is not everyday that the liberal hatred for the middle-class can be observed in full public display.
Rohini Singh declared that ‘Middle Class India’ has always been the “most immoral”. Menon agreed, and said, “The responses to your tweet only vindicated what you’ve written.” What triggered such a response was the apparent dislike for the ‘farmers protests’ and the anti-CAA protests among the Middle Class in Delhi.
The hate for the Middle Class is particularly pronounced in case of Rohini Singh.
The ‘journalist’ does not believe the Middle Class even has the right to complain about perceived injustices.
It is a universal phenomenon among rich liberals and not limited to Rohini Singh and Aditya Menon. There is an undeniable disdain that rich liberals feel towards the Middle Class. But why is this so? The reasons are fairly simple, to be fair. The Middle Class is the biggest ideological adversary that rich liberals have to encounter.
Rich liberals and the Middle Class are extremely antagonistic to each other. The former is a revolutionary force, the latter, by and large, a stabilizing one. The former advocates and seeks radical transformation of society, the latter believes in incremental change and wants nothing more than the simple joys of life.
Rich liberals seek glory and pursue a policy of self aggrandizement in their personal lives while the Middle Class is more interested in attending to his duties and responsibilities. There is no boundary that the former would not cross and no cost that is big enough to dissuade them from pursuing individual ambitions. For the latter, however, rules and restrictions are the realities of life within the boundaries of which they must navigate.
Most importantly, however, social norms and traditional mores are perceived as obstacles to be overcome by rich liberals. The Middle Class, on the other hand, believes that these values lend meaning to their existence and they would like nothing more than passing on the world they inherited from their parents to their children.
Naturally, rich liberals are well aware that they do not have the numerical strength required to defeat the Middle Class, either electorally or in a revolution. Therefore, they rely on disenfranchised and marginalized sections of society to do the ‘dirty work’ for them. Therefore, what emerges is what Bertrand de Jouvenel described in his theory about the mechanism through which power operates.
While Jouevenel did not provide a name for it, it has been named by others as ‘High and Low versus the Middle’, that is, a section among the rich allies with the marginalized sections in their effort to seize power from power centers that lie in the middle. This was postulated as the mechanism that operates in revolutions.
The exact same theme cannot be said to operate in Indian society or a Democratic one but it is a fair idea about the mentality that operates here. People such as Rohini Singh are well aware that the ones protesting at Singhu Border or those involved in the anti-CAA protests do not subscribe to their view of the world. Nonetheless, such rich liberals seek to enforce their worldview by riding on the back of protesters.
It is also pertinent to mention here that it is the Middle Class that has the most to lose in any revolution and that is precisely why there’s such a lack of support for protests among the Middle Class. In case violence breaks out, it will be the Middle Class that suffers losses. The rich can hire private security to defend their assets, and even if they sustain some damages, they are more than capable of sustaining them without a collapse.
The Middle Class, on the other hand, does not have such luxuries. In revolutions, it is their way of life which will be most affected. It can also be observed that in the Western world currently, a rise in the popularity of radical ideas and a ‘populist uprising’ coincides perfectly with a declining Middle Class. It is especially true in case of the USA. For all such reasons, Rich liberals and the Middle Class are natural enemies. And that is why, the hate.
