Comment

The boys and girls of Jet Airways who were retrenched and then reinstated in a matter of days present the face of a new proletariat of the new economy. It is easy to dismiss them as an English-speaking brat pack, because they shouted their slogans in English, and they wore lipstick and sunglasses, and they were quite hip in their social graces. But the truth is that they do not come from well-off background and they are not really well-heeled though they work for the well-heeled. Most of them have only elementary educational qualifications. They work hard though their earnings are modest. But they tend to have an aspirational lifestyle. They try to live by the brands, spend well and have a good time.

It is a class that has been in the making for more than a decade, and its emergence is coterminous with the economic liberalisation of the last decade. It was assumed by many that with the easing of the stranglehold of the state over the economy, the new entrants into the work force are of a different kind compared to the workers of the old, brick-and-mortar economy. They would not be aggressive. They would not unionise. They would not go on strikes and shout ugly slogans against managements and capitalists.

Many things converged to maintain the fragile façade of a genteel work force, which is willing to work harder than ever and take home salaries which are not really handsome in the strict sense of the term. They tend to spend more than they earn. They are also the new homeowners, who will sustain the realty sector boom for the next decade if not more. The weakness of this new class is that they do well when the going is good. But when things turn bad, they are the most vulnerable. They are not hardened enough like the old proletariat to weather a crisis. They are often caught in a debt-trap.

What links them to the old working class is their low educational qualifications. Their skills base remains limited. It is this which makes them so much more vulnerable. Of course, this class has better opportunities compared to their older compatriots to get an education and improve their prospects. There is hope there, but it is one that may remain unutilised for a large number of them.

The other wrong assumption made about this new class of people is that they are apolitical. It was felt that as most of them spoke English and loved to enjoy life, they would have no interest in politics led by semi-literate leaders. The flash of protest of the momentarily dismissed Jet Airways crew showed otherwise when they readily turned to a politician like Raj Thackeray. And he too did not calculate whether they were all Maharashtrians. This crowd could have been appropriated by the communists, except that the Left did not recognise the opportunity because of its own old-fashioned ideas.

It is quite likely that these young workers will be conservative when it comes to politics and religion as well. They may appear to be liberated in their social life, but that could be deceptive. They are most likely to uphold family values. They would not opt for radical politics of the Left. And it cannot be ruled out that they will not tilt towards the Right. The brush with Raj Thackeray gives an inkling of what can happen.

Is this then the classical petit bourgeois, the faithful base of any good fascist party? Not really. The reason it should be considered the new working class is due to the nature of the new economy. This class forms the base rung of the new system, and that is where the workers usually stand — at the base. They hold up the system. There is a need to educate this class in liberal democratic values so that they will grasp the meaning of the new economy — freedom of choice.

The new economic order does not mean there is no underclass, and there is no exploitation. The inexorable laws of class formation continue to operate, under new labels and in new ways. Class conflict is not a matter of the past. It haunts the present.
Email: r_parsa@dnaindia.net