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The pursuit of a middle-class life-style is swiftly altering Indian society. While most marriages are still arranged, restrictions of caste compatibility are giving way to considerations of money. Marriage advertisements in newspapers often contain the phrase "caste no bar." Even more dramatic is the emergence of the working wife, once regarded by the middle class as a sign that her husband could not support his family. Today, says Medha Damle, manager of a Bombay matrimonial bureau, "99% of the men who apply want working girls. Most prefer girls with bank jobs, so ((they)) can get loans."
Like their yuppie cousins in the West, Indian puppy couples are finding that the dual-income household can prove costly. Headlines in the newsmagazine India Today document the challenges: THE INDIAN MALE: MID-LIFE BLUES; MARRIED WOMEN: CHANGING SEXUALITY; DIVORCE: GETTING COMMON. The last reflects the clash of expectations in marriages in which the woman is now educated, assertive and independent. While a typical middle-class man wants a well- educated mate who works, he still expects his wife to run the house, look after the children and cater to his needs -- all without benefit of servants, who have become too expensive. Not unexpectedly, women find such demands unreasonable, and their quiet revolt is boosting the divorce rate.
Middle-class angst, however, pales beside the miseries of India's poor. Free marketers argue that if economic growth reaches 7% or more, the "trickle down" will benefit the poor far faster than did four decades of socialist central planning. In the meantime, India remains divided between the barely subsisting poor and the consumer-happy middle class.
An enormous national effort is necessary to reconcile those two worlds. The challenge for New Delhi is to provide education, health care and job opportunities to the poor, so they too can participate in India's revolution before resentment erupts among the have-nots. "You can view these changes as a great success," says an economist close to the Prime Minister's office, "or as the seed of a tremendous explosion." He adds, "I see both."