🪓India’s Middle Class Fetish.
Middle class is a kink.
It’s in a kink’s nature is to be satisfied. If you don’t, you start decaying within you.
India has been aroused by this kink for so long, we forgot this endless stimulation ends by being your identity. This kink is not a temporary economic position but a permanent psychological cage that now feels like home.
Ayn Rand wrote “Upper classes are a nation’s past; the middle class is its future.” This is exactly where India stands and that is the problem. We are so drowned in idea of being middle class that we increased our romance for being bourgeoisie in society. The underdog mindset.
The never-escaping permanent underclass.
Because that is what creates sympathy within society. This is disease entire nation suffers from.
India’s middle class fetish or call it middle class syndrome, middle class disease, operates through simple mechanism: in order to have gaze of eyeballs on you, narrative you sell to bind people to your cause must give them something they relate to. Relatability becomes highest virtue. Not excellence. Not transformation. Relatability. This race to the bottom disguised as mass appeal is the kink.
Has this ever happened to you? Saturday night. You are back from job. Relaxing. Striped pajamas. One hand in pocket, other on remote, mindlessly scrolling. This image is sold as authenticity. As real India. As what we should celebrate and protect. But this is not authenticity. This is resignation performed as contentment. This is giving up disguised as relatability.
The dumb-down fallacy: the more you dumb down your story, the more people relate to you, thus you get incentivized through their sympathies. This is economics of mediocrity. Excel and you alienate. Struggle relatably and you connect. So everyone performs struggle. Not actual struggle that transforms. Performative struggle that garners sympathy while changing nothing. This is what Indian middle class mastered.
Sad.
That is my India’s Middle Class.
It has been normalized to such extent that escaping permanent underclass does not even cross majority consciousness in this country. We are too comfortable in this narrative. And why should you not be? It makes you feel like cushion from society. This cocoon made your ancestors survive all this long and that is what you inherited. Survival. Not thriving. Just survival. And you call this wisdom.
What a f*cking Joke!
Observe closely in your home. The mindset is middle class. Do not take it as slur or negative reinforcement but change your lens toward this mindset and you shall realize how parasitic this ideology of being middle class is. This fetish is never ending. It reproduces itself across generations. Parents who escaped poverty into middle class teach children to be grateful for middle class. Never to risk it. Never to transcend it. Just maintain it. Pass it down. Not legacy. But a curse.
When nation’s collective wisdom resides with dense population of middle class, narratives drafted are to soothe the one enduring pain, but no one really wants to address solution out of it. Every Bollywood film about middle class struggle ends with protagonist accepting their station with dignity. Every political speech promises to protect middle class, never to elevate it. Every cultural product celebrates middle class values: frugality, stability, conformity. Never ambition. Never risk. Never transcendence.
Every Indian is trying to escape permanent underclass. But no one is able to. Is this not crazy when you think about it?
Entire nation claiming to want escape while collectively reinforcing the cage. This is not accident. This is equilibrium. System is designed to keep majority in middle class because middle class is easiest to govern. Not poor enough to revolt. Not rich enough to have power. Just comfortable enough to accept status quo while uncomfortable enough to keep working.
Middle class is a kink.
And every action you take on daily basis until you are f*ck-you rich is to fulfill or cater to those kinks. Discounts. Sale. Offers. Coupons. Code. Everything. You let yourself be exploited out of this kink and then complain about conditioning of society which is too status-driven. You made society selfish. That is DNA of middle class mindset. All they think about is themselves. Not collective good. Not long-term vision. Just personal survival. Personal comfort. Personal security.
If your mindset is middle class, you are prisoner. Prisoner of kink that has not been satisfied yet. The moment you start loving that conformity is where you are never escaping permanent underclass. And India loves its conformity. We celebrate it. “Simple living, high thinking.” “Contentment is wealth.” “Be grateful for what you have.” These are not wisdom. These are chains disguised as philosophy.
Bhagavad Gita teaches about 3 gunas: sattva (harmony), rajas (activity), tamas (inertia). Middle class fetish is tamas disguised as sattva. It presents itself as balanced, harmonious, content. But it is actually inert. Static. Refusing to move because movement involves risk and risk threatens the fetish. True sattva would recognize one’s dharma and pursue it regardless of comfort. Middle class mindset pursues comfort regardless of dharma.
Nietzsche warned about this. The Last Man. The one who has no great ambitions, takes no great risks, seeks only comfort and security. “We have invented happiness,” says Last Man, and blinks. Indian middle class is nation of Last Men. We invented happiness and called it middle class lifestyle. Two-bedroom apartment. Stable job. Weekend movies. Annual vacation. This is happiness we invented. And anyone who wants more is greedy. Anyone who risks this is foolish.
The fetish operates through constant reinforcement. Every institution tells you middle class values are correct values. Education system teaches you to get stable job, not build empire. Family teaches you to marry within your class, not risk everything for love or ambition. Society teaches you to maintain appearances, not pursue truth. Religion teaches you to accept your station, karma justifying staying in your lane. This is comprehensive programming.
And it works because middle class position is genuinely better than poverty. So there is grain of truth in “be grateful.” But gratitude for escaping poverty should not become prison preventing you from achieving prosperity. This is confusion Indian middle class suffers. They conflate “better than poverty” with “good enough to stop.” It is not. Middle class is waystation, not destination. But we turned it into shrine.
Middle class fetish creates specific pathologies. First: risk aversion so extreme that any deviation from stable path is seen as madness. Start business? Too risky. Choose passion over paycheck? Irresponsible. Invest aggressively? Gambling. The middle class mind calculates every decision through lens of “what if I lose everything?” Never “what if I gain everything?” This asymmetric risk assessment keeps people trapped.
Second pathology: status obsession without status achievement. Middle class is desperate to signal status: “right brands, right education, right marriage” while having no actual power or wealth. So they overextend. Buy car they cannot afford. Send kids to schools that bankrupt them. Maintain lifestyle that requires both parents working constantly. This is not prosperity. This is performance of prosperity that enslaves performers.
Third pathology: collective mediocrity celebrated as culture. “Tall poppy syndrome” Indian style. Anyone who excels is cutting down. “Who does he think he is?” “She is showing off.” “They forgot where they came from.”
WHY THE HELL HAVING THE ASPIRATION TO EARN MONEY OR BE AN OBSESSED INDIVIDUAL IN LIFE PSYCHOTICALLY MAKES YOU A VILLAIN IN INDIAN SOCIETIES?
Middle class cannot tolerate excellence within its ranks because excellence reveals that mediocrity was choice, not inevitability. So excellence must be punished, ostracized, or explained away.
Arthashastra analysis on this very idea labels it as strategic failure. Chanakya understood that nation’s power comes from having upper class that builds, middle class that implements, lower class that supports. But if middle class refuses to become upper class, if upward mobility is blocked by psychological barriers disguised as values, then nation stagnates. Everyone is implementing. Nobody is building. This is India.
The fetish is reinforced through consumer culture designed specifically for middle class psychology. Sales, discounts, offers, coupons...you think it helps you save money? They are training you to feel clever for spending money you should not spend on things you do not need. But deal feels like victory. This is how middle class is kept in place. Give them small wins that distract from large loss.
Credit cards, EMIs, payment plans. All designed to let middle class consume beyond their means while feeling responsible because “it is planned expense.” But debt is debt. And debt is chain. You cannot take risks when you have EMI. You cannot quit job when you have debt. You cannot pursue vision when you are paying installments. So consumer culture transforms middle class from potential upper class into permanent debtors.
Education system is most pernicious. It trains children to be middle class. Not upper class. Not builders. Not risk-takers. Middle class. Get good grades. Get stable job. Do not rock boat. Do not question authority. Follow path. Indian education is factory producing middle class minds that will spend lifetime maintaining middle class position without ever questioning why they should not transcend it.
Parents are enforcers. They lived middle class. They survived. They want same for children. But survival is not ambition. Wanting your children to survive is low bar. You should want them to thrive. But middle class parents are too traumatized by poverty in their family history, too grateful for stability in present, to risk children’s future on anything uncertain. So they program children for middle class. And children, being obedient, comply.
The problem is not being middle class economically. Problem is being middle class psychologically when you have potential for more. Problem is choosing comfort over growth. Problem is staying in position because moving is scary. Problem is celebrating limitation as virtue. Problem is fetishizing the cage until you cannot imagine freedom.
Every Indian discourse about inequality focuses on bottom. How to help poor. How to create safety nets. Nobody discusses top. How to create more wealthy people. How to encourage risk-taking. How to celebrate excellence. Because middle class controls narrative and middle class does not want to discuss transcending middle class. They want to discuss protecting middle class. This is how fetish maintains itself.
Middle class is kink and you are prisoner of it until you recognize that prison has no walls. Only your belief that walls exist. The moment you stop finding comfort in limitation, stop finding identity in struggle, stop finding community in mediocrity, you are free. But freedom is lonely. Freedom is risky. Freedom is uncertain. So most will stay in prison. Stay middle class. Stay comfortable. Stay stuck. This is choice. Tragic choice. But choice nonetheless.
India’s middle class fetish will end when it either destroys nation through collective mediocrity, or enough individuals reject it and build alternative culture that rewards excellence over relatability, ambition over stability, transformation over comfort.
Until then, we remain prisoners. Aroused by our chains.
Calling it culture. Calling it values. Calling it home.
This is not home.
This is cage. And only you can leave it. Question is: will you?
To my India’s Middle class, you are like dead man walking. Where you are dead inside and you letting the world piss on your grave. Don’t.
Fascinating angle on how comfort becomes the enemy of ambition. The part about sattva vs tamas really clicked for me - saw this play out when my cousin turned down a startup opportunity for a steady bank job, and now five years later he's still talking about "maybe next time." What's intresting is how this middle-class cage gets reinforced through every institution: education teaching compliance over creativity, families pushing stability over risk, religion justifying staying in your lane. The systme isn't broken, it's working exactly as designed to keep the majority productive but powerless.