It’s astonishing and simultaneously demoralising: the sense of entitlement of the great new Indian middle class. Pampered through life with indiscriminate government subsidies on cooking gas, food, water supply, electricity and higher education among other goodies, and now following liberalisation and globalisation of the Indian economy, enjoying an unprecedented consumer goods boom, the chic and trendy within India’s insensitive new middle class believe they have a fundamental right to high-flying and well-paid employment. And they don’t worry about means and ends issues to secure their entitlements.
How else would one interpret the kerfuffle in early October when the country’s largest private sector airline Jet Airways, hit by a fall in passenger traffic following the global economic meltdown which has devastated stock markets worldwide, announced the lay off of 1,900 probationary cabin crew? This costs-cutting measure was greeted with blazing newspaper and television headlines with the media awash with hard-luck stories of laid-off Jet employees. Moreover even as politicians of all shades and hues jumped into the fray to plead their case, the Mumbai-based airline’s Gucci clad employees themselves had few compunctions about taking their grievance to notorious political mafioso Raj Thackeray, known for his lumpen politics and strong arm tactics.
Confronted with media, political and middle class pressure, within two days of the job cuts announcement, Jet Airways chairman Naresh Goyal crumbled and decreed the lay offs null and void. Never mind that Jet Airways is reportedly incurring an operational loss estimated at Rs.2.3 crore per day. Moreover under pressure from Raj Thackeray, Goyal not only reinstated probationary cabin crew but pledged to maintain their remuneration, reportedly Rs.80,000 per month upwards. This in a social order in which according to the Arjun Sengupta Committee (2006), 800 million Indians subsist on Rs.20 per day.
Who will pay for the jobs of Jet Airways’ chic employees? Standby for a massive government, i.e. taxpayers, bailout. That’s entitlement!