Vol. 4, Issue 1, Part A (2022)

The development processes in India have undergone a considerable transformation due to globalisation, liberalisation, and privatisation, and they have created spaces of advantage for its middle class to grow and become a significant means of global power projection. Global power projection refers to a nation's ability to influence events and policies on a global scale. With a 7.02% share of the world's Gross Domestic Product and standing at $42 billion FDI (2018) ^[1], the size of India’s middle-class population represents a huge rising consumer market and an economic and political powerhouse. India implemented a series of economic reforms in July 1991 that boasted an average growth rate of 6-7% annually. These reforms have essentially transformed the class system in India, particularly helping to bring about the rise of the middle class that has started shifting the centre of gravity of world consumption and political power. The IT revolution, marked by the growth of the software and services industry, and the education reforms, which focused on increasing access to quality education through initiatives such as free and compulsory education for children aged 6 to 14, were among the significant factors for the rise of the middle class in the late 1980s. In the present scenario, India has been using its rising middle class to project its power on the global platform.