Highly qualified employees in Bangalore, India: Consumerist predators?

Abstract

This chapter discusses the lifestyles of the upper tier of the Indian new middle classes. Its members can be seen as a pilot group which is about to adopt a Western way of life. But there is little evidence that environmental and social responsibility were basically being rejected, as suggested by the predator hypothesis. The data suggests that many in this group like to shop and consume, however, in a businesslike and sober way, trying to pragmatically balance diverging concerns. Ecological concern is just one among many, and clearly one that is accorded minor importance. But about one third of the sample explicitly repudiates excessive consumption and can be seen as amenable to elements of the ecological and the civil society discourses - which is the same pattern as can be found in the West. © Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009.