South Asia Center
presents: Nicole Wilson, Department of Anthropology, Syracuse University “Everyone
Knows the Story of the Greedy Dog”: The Middle Class Moral Dilemma in South
India In a reactionary essay concerning the recent Indian middle class
anti-corruption movement led by Anna Hazare, Arjun Appadurai identifies the
formation of two distinct Indian middle class selves as a consequence of
modernity and a foundation for angst-ridden social activism in the Indian
public sphere. These selves, he argues, are at war - a “modern, abstract and
impersonal” identity versus a “self-interested, family-oriented and totally
localistic” self – in the lives of many middle class Indians. I argue that at
the heart of this formation and confrontation of selves, as well as movements
sprung from these clashes, is a communal understanding and employment of a conceived
middle class moral compass that embodies particular class and caste-based
values and worldviews. In this paper, I identify and explore middle class
morality and value systems as they were revealed to me in the south Indian city
of Madurai, Tamilnadu. I use ethnographic material collected between 2009 and
2011, as well as examples from Tamil cinema and literature, to illustrate the
battle between “modern” and “traditional” selves, commenting on how these
confrontations are manifested in the moral codes and daily interactions of
middle class Tamils.
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