Continuing in a world like the present times requires hardships unprecedented in the bygone days. Infested by the social evils and inequalities, the human mind clinches new trophies of frustration and failures every new day. With the massive implementation of pro bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie policies, the working people find themselves in an abyss of unfulfilled hopes and aspirations. It is a common sight to see a teenager wining for an expensive mobile, an adult crying as he could not provide for his family, a woman looking at the polished windows of a Gucci showroom. We face these situations every day, but rarely do we ever attempt to analyse the causes behind the same.
The neoliberal assault has hit the country hard, hard at the very roots of the country’s moving force, the workforce. The labor finds himself wondering about the costly luxuries that he can’t afford with his meagre salaries. This desperation is not only confined to his thirst for a better lifestyle but also aligns itself to one of the tendencies to rebel against the system, which has given him the cause to be desperate. The basic requirements of the human mind, the tendency to achieve higher, to resort to something better, makes him so virulent that he at a point of time, forgets the task at hand and the correct method to achieve that.
While the historic task is to rebel against the system in a procedure promoting to the revolution of the working class, he resorts to the paths of crime and jealousy. On one hand, the feeling of jealousy leaves him wining for a better society which does way with the inequalities, the dark paths of crime puts him deep down in a pit of bad deeds. Our country, infested by the germs of neo liberalism has witnessed a steep increase of crime rates over the years. The population fails massively to understand the cause behind the same, keeping the crimes like rape and molestation outside the purview; we can conclude that the majority of the crimes are performed by hearts dislodged from harmony by the immense poverty and social pressure exerted on them. A man dejected by the system has been deprived of the means to provide for his family, the society has no one to blame except itself if that man resorts to the path of crime.
Institutions like religious bodies and NGOs though help those poor souls by restituting a part of their lost hopes but those are all short lived. Post modernist works such as these can keep the virus away but cannot kill the epidemic. The religious bodies quite often use the workforce for their own benefit, while the poor already pushed to the limit entertain the rhetoric requests from them hoping for a salvation, which cannot be expressed in any materialistic form and hence can be treated as something left to one’s own judgement and nothing concrete. The commercialisation of religious bodies, a driving force in the economy of the major market of religion, derives a huge impetus from such people.
The NGOs too, which have mushroomed all over the country frequently can be seen vying the post modernist agenda of self satisfaction, they promote the idea that if you help a poor hen you have helped the society by a great margin. Nobody disagrees on the helping part, but the philosophy regarding society is a total sham. They need to understand that helping a poor person and eradication of poverty are two completely different things. The eradication of poverty, which has been misconceptualised many times in the past and has on the whole resulted in the eradication of the poor, requires salient planning, pro people and pro poor policies. Hugo Chavez, once said, “The only way to end poverty is to give power to the poor.” This is what should be driving the policies of the government and not the lame philosophical Yojanas that are being showcased presently.
The middle class is affected most severely by the effect of neo liberalisation. While the upper class fills up its repository, the middle classes remain behind dwindling between the needs and the means. The pseudo imperial system puts up people in a multiclass system which only cares about the profit it can generate. We have witnessed since the last few years the innumerable foreign companies which have set up stores in various parts of the country ransacking the nation’s money by putting a major portion of the money in importing of commodities, which in turn is making the country poorer. The growing number of outlets of such companies only justifies the fear. The insurgence of such companies plays a mental game on the middle class which has been traditionally found to shift towards things which glow, neglecting whether they are gold or not.
The middle class finds itself trapped inside the arena created by neo liberalism by promoting such companies and the prosperous people which have been forced to live in symbiosis with them by the same. The co-habitation of the two classes makes the middle class vulnerable to wishes it cannot fulfil on its own, but the urge to match the higher class keeps them active, and finally forces them to work under degrading conditions. It’s the nexus between the system and the profit seeking businessmen which puts the middle class in this position.
The foreign brands packed with fiery grandeur and priced heavily attract the highest attention leaving behind the local brands. The middle and lower classes, can only dream of such things. The middle classes can however, give a fight for the same by toiling their mind out in the air conditioned offices. But, the lower class, 70 percent of India’s population, can only look with prying eyes at the doll placed at the opposite end of the glass door, they have no hands to hold the doll, no legs to cross the glass door.
