This disease didn't come from nowhere. British colonialism didn't just loot resources. It rewired ambition. It taught us to follow, not lead
A strange, inherited illness plagues the Indian middle class. Not poverty. Not privilege. Just a quiet paralysis passed down through generations. A condition I call middlity – where survival is mistaken for success, where the ceiling of your parents' ambition becomes the floor of your own.
It's not a caste. It's not a salary bracket. It's a state of mind – numb, polite, terrified.
You see it in the way we speak to children. "Be careful." "Don't dream too big." "Settle down." Settle – a word we throw like a medal, even though it sounds like surrender.
Middlity is not born from greed. It is born from trauma. Partition taught our grandparents that land is never really yours. The Emergency taught our parents that freedom is a luxury. The economic crash taught us that jobs can vanish overnight. Every riot, every news bulletin that begins with "violence in..." has taught us one thing – safety is everything.
In response, the Indian middle class did not rebel. It adapted. But in adapting, it shrank. The child born into a middle-class home learns early that love must be earned, that joy must be justified, that ambition must come with a disclaimer. He is told to do well in school not to understand the world, but to escape it. He is told to become a doctor not to heal, but because it's stable.
Our childhoods are textbooks of fear. Don't talk back to teachers. Don't question God. Don't take arts. Don't befriend people who live "there." Even love is rationed. "We'll support you, but don't bring shame." What they mean is – don't be different.
This disease shows up in subtle ways. A boy loves painting, but his father says, "What job will you get?" A girl wants to study away from home, but her mother says, "Shaadi ka kya?" (What about marriage?). We don't kill dreams with knives. We kill them with suggestions. Every step is insurance. Against poverty. Against shame. Against failure.
But what happens when your entire life becomes a list of things to avoid? You stop living. You start maintaining. You become a perfectly tuned machine. Productive. Respectable. Hollow.
This is the truth of middlity: it is not poverty of resources, but poverty of risk. You can see it in the homes. Many middle-class households have the same furniture, same fan, same curtain, same silent resentment. The same sofa where the same son explains to the same father why he's quitting his job, and the same father looks away and says, "Beta (son), I've seen the world. Don't make the same mistake."
You can hear it in family WhatsApp groups. Forwarded quotes. Stock advice. No real conversations. You can feel it in career choices. Science stream that students fear. Software jobs that mean nothing. MBAs from places no one respects. Sarkari (Government) jobs that triumph over startups even if it means sitting at the bottom of the hierarchy.
And then we wonder – why is there so much restlessness? Why do people hate Mondays? Why does marriage feel like a job? Why does passion feel like a luxury for the rich?
But middlity runs deeper. It shapes how we vote, how we love, how we raise children. It makes us obsessed with control. It makes us worship routine. It makes us choose comfort over clarity.
This disease didn't come from nowhere. British colonialism didn't just loot resources. It rewired ambition. It taught us to follow, not lead. Macaulay's clerical education model produced generations of obedient survivors. Even after 1947, we didn't build a nation of creators. We built a nation of adjusters.
When liberalisation came in the 90s, we finally had access to opportunity, but our imagination was still colonised. We wanted foreign brands, but not foreign ideas. We wanted Google salaries, but not Google mindsets. So we taught our kids how to code, but not how to question.
Anthropologically, this is a tragedy. Early humans survived not by being safe, but by taking intelligent risks. They crossed rivers, scaled mountains, wandered into the unknown. The ones who didn't disappeared in sands. Risk was not rebellion. It was evolution.
But middlity tells us the opposite. That risk is recklessness. That comfort is maturity. That playing it small is the highest form of responsibility. So now, we clap for the job that drains us. We celebrate marriages that feel like negotiations. We glorify homes that cost 30 years of freedom.
But no one asks – at what cost?
The body remembers. The soul knows. You can feel it in your chest when you're alone. That quiet ache. That stifled scream. That voice that says, "This isn't it." But middlity teaches you to mute it. It gives you distractions. Weekend sales. Two-day trips. Promotions that feel like golden handcuffs.
And this numbness spreads. It becomes culture. A society where art is mocked, vulnerability is weakness, failure is shame, and silence is strength. A society where everyone is waiting for someone else to take the first leap.
But here's the paradox. The middle class is the one group that can take risks. You're not starving. You're not trapped. You have access, education and mobility. You have just enough of a safety net to fall and rise again. You just need to stop asking for permission to be yourself. But you don't. Because middlity teaches you to guard that net like it's life itself. What it doesn't teach is this: risk is not the enemy. Inaction is.
You don't need to abandon everything. But you do need to question. Question the plan. Question the patterns. Question whether the life you're living is yours or inherited. Because no one else will break the cycle for you. Your parents can't. They did what they could. Society won't. It thrives on your compliance.
Try the thing you keep shelving. Say what you're afraid to say. Walk away from what's slowly killing you. I'm not saying risk everything recklessly. I'm saying risk something meaningfully. Stop seeking permission to be alive.
The only way to break the shackles of middlity is to risk being misunderstood. Risk being alone. Risk being alive. Because the worst prison is the one with a fridge, WiFi, and a broken dream hiding behind the curtain.
Shashank introduces himself as an Indian boy who risked to live
