Devesh Kapur, Neelanjan Sircar, and I have a chapter in a forthcoming edited volume on the middle class in Brazil and India. Our chapter uses data from 2013 to study the Indian middle class. There is a huge definitional debate–in India and around the world–about what constitutes the middle class. It occurred to us that one powerful definition is what individuals themselves think about their class status. Using this concept of self-identification, we find that nearly one out of two Indians believes he or she is in the “middle class.” Furthermore, it turns out that self-identifying as “middle class” is linked to a very distinct outlook about the world. Here’s a snapshot of the variation across Indian states:

You can read the full chapter here.