Dispatch #84: Political preferences of the Indian middle class - Part 1

In this & subsequent dispatches, we will closely look at how the Indian middle class has voted in the past two Lok Sabha elections

Source: ECI

Earlier, in two dispatches, I covered aspects of the accurate measures of the Indian middle class and its implications on the labour market. One aspect that I left out deliberately was the political aspirations and preferences of the middle class. While the literature on the political proclivities of India’s middle class is quite scarce and scattered, a few studies look into the middle-class voters’ preferences in terms of which political parties they have been supporting. 

Political scientist E Sridharan did these studies based on the CSDS post-poll surveys in 2014 and 2019.

Before I go to each of these studies, there are three key terms that we should all know to get a clear understanding of the theoretical formulations of the Indian middle class: 

1. New social bloc: In 1999, at the time of the rise of the BJP, Yadav, Kumar and Heath coined this term. The new social bloc was a loosely tied social section of the societies that grouped, united by their economic and social privilege, that lent its support to the BJP. These groups consisted of the urban rich and middle class, upper caste and rising landed peasant castes.  

   They further explain:

   A new social coalition of various groups that now lays claim to political power formed by the convergence of traditional caste community differences and class distinctions….defined by an overlap of social and economic privileges.

2. Middle-class coalitions:  Iversen and Soskice in their seminal 2006 paper titled ‘Electoral institutions and the politics of coalitions’ argued that in a majoritarian 2-party system (where first-past-the-post system dominates) the middle class has an incentive to ally with the rich to stop the poor from electing center-left parties that might lead to redistribution. However, in a proportional representative system, the middle class has an incentive to ally with the poor because they think that the centre-left party that will be elected to power will pursue redistribution and tax the rich. Hence the conclusion:

   The centre-right governments therefore tend to dominate in majoritarian systems, whereas centre-left governments tend to dominate in proportional representative systems.

3. Poor voter paradox: As we will see in this post later, the BJP got tremendous support from the lower and poor classes in 2019. This is a paradox since the BJP is always considered a party for the wealthy. Tariq Thachil calls this a poor voter paradox. This situation where the poor go against their interests and vote for a party that stands for the rich can be attributed to 3 factors:

   1. Programmatic redistribution shifts (like anti-poverty programs) undertaken by elite parties

   2. Patronage distribution

   3. Distracting appeals of identity politics.

Class voting in the 2014 elections:

Even though the conventional wisdom tells us that the middle class has more political clout in India owing to its human capital and opinion-shaping character, the pro-BJP swing in the 2014 elections cannot be specifically attributed to an anti-minority sentiment, nor economic dissatisfaction. Sridharan argues that the middle class was inclined towards the BJP in 2014 due to a combination of complex reasons. Faster economic growth, increase in urbanization and rise in incomes have resulted in an exponential increase in the Indian middle class since 1991 economic liberalization. Irrespective of its small size in 2014, the middle class in India was and has been politically impactful. Sridharan used the CSDS-Lokiniti post-poll survey data for the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. The survey classified class based on a composite class index comprising a combination of economic (income and ownership of durable assets like home) and sociological criteria (occupation and occupational levels) with assets and incomes adjusted for rural and urban respondents. 

Based on this index, the survey classified respondents into 4 classes:

1. Upper class or upper middle class - 11%

2. Middle class - 36%

3. Lower class - 33%

4. Poor - 20%

Hence the upper and middle class comprised 47%, nearly half of the Indian population with 20% poor.  Now, let’s look at how the upper and middle classes in India voted in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. Compared to 2009, the Indian upper and middle classes swelled significantly, from 26% to 47% (refer to Table 1).

Source: Sridharan (EPW)

The overall turnout also increased from 2009 to 2014 (refer to Table 2). One obvious reason could be the increase in its size as seen in Table 1.

Source: Sridharan (EPW)

The turnout by the poor (60%) is less than that by the upper and middle class (68%). This increase in turnout could be due to the anti-corruption movement that started in 2010. Vinay Sitapati in an EPW article argued that the middle class’s interest in the anti-corruption movement can be attributed to the intellectual strands of political engagement of this class that has evolved a lot especially post-emergency. The turnout of these two classes in 2014 was equal to that of the lower class but higher than that of the poor class. This trend where the turnout of the upper and middle class was higher than the poor class was seen across rural and urban areas (refer to Table 3).

Source: Sridharan (EPW)

In terms of party preferences, the upper and middle classes preferred voting for the BJP in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections as shown in Table 4 (32% and 38% respectively).

Source: Sridharan (EPW)

 Since the upper and middle classes are disproportionately upper caste, their party preferences highlight the fact that the BJP got the support of the upper and middle classes that belonged to the upper caste (refer to Table 5). This does not mean that other castes did not vote for BJP. OBCs and STs preferred the BJP equally. 

Source: Sridharan (EPW)

Sridharan argues that this upper caste and upper-class consolidation to support the BJP in 2014 was due to the emergence of the ‘new social bloc’ as conceptualized by Yadav, Kumar and Heath. This social bloc was the result of ‘economic and social privilege after 15 years of high growth, rising incomes and greater urbanization’. This also aligns with the Iversen and Soskice framework where in the majoritarian electoral system, the middle class aligns with the rich and supports the centre-right party to ensure that the redistribution to the poor can be checked. 

Sridharan, based on the survey data, explored the factors behind the upper and middle-class shift towards the BJP in 2014. Here are his key arguments:

1. Was there a dominant Hindu consolidation or anti-minority sentiment? The CSDS-Lokniti post-poll survey findings did not find an anti-minority shift among the upper and middle-class respondents. Around 68% of upper-middle-class respondents and 62% of middle-class respondents strongly or somewhat agree on equal treatment of minorities. Only 16% strongly or somewhat disagreed. There could be regional (state-wise) differences with few states having more anti-minority sentiments than others. 

2. Was the pro-BJP support due to widespread dissatisfaction with the country’s economic conditions? The survey did not find any significant dissatisfaction with the economic conditions that led to a pro-BJP shift of the upper and middle-class Indians in the past 5 years. Among the upper middle class, 38% said that India is better or much better off. 44% of the middle-class respondents thought that the country’s economy was better. 

3. Were UPA’s pro-poor policies not popular among the middle class? The survey found a distinct shift in attitudes on the question of whether the government should spend more on infrastructure or subsidise the poor. Most of the upper-middle and middle-class respondents were in favour of government prioritising infrastructure spending rather than subsidies. 

Sridharan concludes that:

In 2014 the class-wise gradation of pro-BJP responses, with the pro-BJP sentiment rising as we go up the class hierarchy as well as caste hierarchy, indicates support for the emergence of a loose, not compact new-social-bloc of caste and class privilege.