Emergence of Middle Class in Assam

In many ways 'middle class' is the least satisfactory term which attempts in one phrase to define a class sharing common work and market situations. The middle stratum of Industrial societies has expanded so much in the last hundred years that any category which embraces both company directors and their secretaries must be considered somewhat inadequate. In popular perception, all white collarwork Is middle class, but sociologically it is necessary to sub-divide this class into distinct groups sharing similar market, work, and status situations. Conventionally, this class is referred to as the upper-middle class; the Junior service class; and the others as the lower-middle class. Thus defined, in India the upper-middle class comprises some 10 percent of the population; the middle class accounts for around 20 percent, and the lower-middle class is 20 percent. Taken together, the middle class is the largest single class In the overall structure.

However, some sociologist, would not accept that most white-collar workers are middle class on the grounds that their employment situation Is generally equivalent (or even Inferior) to that of many working class people They prefer to call this group the 'new working class'. This Is not a view which most white-collar workers themselves share, nor one which is substantiated by sociological evidence Equally, the term 'middle class' is new often used by journalists and politicians to refer to what might better be called the 'middle class' of those earning somewhere close to average incomes.

As regards to the term 'upper class', distinctions can be made between the 'old' and 'new' middle class. The former generally refers to the Independent professionals whose existence as distinct groups pr-dates the twentieth century expansion of the class as a whole. While the latter refers to all other elements of the middle class; that is, salaried professionals, administrators and officials, senior managers and higher grade technicians who together form the service class, and routine non-manual employees, supervisors, and lower grade technicians who form a more merglnal middle class.

According to Professor Dodwell, on the consolidation of British rule the growing demand for administration of professional skill created the urban middle class educated on western lines possessing of professional qualifications. A knowledge of English or English education became essential for securing a Job under the government or for liberal profession in law, teaching, medicine or journalism. Hence, there was mushroom growth of English schools and colleges and unprecedented rise in the number of students seeking western education. After the British occupation of Assam, David Scott, the Agent to the Governor-General, sought to convert the dispossessed nobility of the former government into middle class by absorbing them in the revenue and judicial departments. The spread of education, however, elementary, created a middle class of lower income group mostly In rural areas of Assam. Though a few occupied the posts of clerk, copyist and accountant, the majority of them were Choudharies, Bishayas, Patgiris, Gaokakotis, tea-garden mohorrers and teachers in village schools. They had little or no inclination for trade which was then a monopoly of the outsiders. Since the sixties of the last century when it was obvious to the intelligent section of the Assamese that with the knowledge of Assam alone, they could not expect any other than jobs under the government, and as a result there was a growing demand for English education that would make them eligible for holding higher posts of responsibility and trust under the government. With the spread of English education there emerged the upper middle class intelligentsia in Assam. The members of this class were 'non productive and non commercial in character'. Assamese upper class includes doctors, engineers, lawyers and journalists. The leadership of the community passed from the old official aristocracy to the middle class elite educated on western lines. Inspired by their counterparts in Bengal, they took the lead in trying to remove every evil of the Assamese society and advocated social reforms. Thereby they had a significant role in converting Medieval into Modern Assam. The middle class Assamese appears to have laid greater stress on issues cocerning material interests ot its own class than those of the masses in general. Assamese middle class also played a significant role in the nationalist movement from its very beginning.

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