Middle Class Base

The social base of the regeneration seen in the nineteenth century was the newly emerging middle class and the educated (both traditionally educated and the Western educated) intellectuals, but there was a significant contrast between the broadly middle class ideals derived from a growing awareness of contemporary developments in the West, and a predominantly non-middle class social base.

The nineteenth century intelligentsia searched for its model in the European ‘middle class’, which, as it learnt through Western education, had brought about the great transformation in the West from medieval to modern times through movements like the Renaissance, the Reformation, the Enlightenment and democratic revolution or reform. However, the intelligentsia of nineteenth century India did not grow from trade or industry (which were firmly under the control of British agencies); their roots lay in government service or the professions of law, education, journalism or

medicine—with which was often combined some connection with land in the form of the intermediate tenures.