The 'new middle class' in India is upwardly mobile, educated mostly in English and works in professional, technical and managerial careers. It is connected to global networks of consumption, consuming global brands and aspiring toward lifestyles of conspicuous consumption.
The identity of this class is defined by its participation in global commodity chains. The market defines the identity of the middle class, as a site of identity formation, expression and aspiration. Within the new middle class are several strata.
The highest stratum is occupied by white-collar corporate mid-to-high-level managers who actively participate in transnational capitalism. What connects these various groups in the elite class is a common vision of the nation-state narrated in the miracle of the market. The articulation of the market as the centre of India's economic growth and development is the overarching anchor for the various discourses of policy-making and implementation.
The middle class in India makes up a segment of India's elite and participates in the consumption culture of India. This culture is enabled by rapid reforms and punctuated by the rise of urban hubs of belonging, where belonging is recrafted in the story of consumption and lifestyles, and consumption is equated to development and modernisation.
According to the passage, participation in global commodity chains has given the middle class its own
The answer is identity.
The passage says this class is defined by its part in global commodity chains.
Through this participation it forms and expresses who it is.
So the global commodity chains give the middle class its own identity.
The market is the site where this identity takes shape.
Economic status and upward mobility are related but not the answer here.
So the answer is identity.
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