What the middle class isn't

What the Modi govt got wrong: Moving away from its generally upbeat messaging of 'India is on the rise, growth will get steeper, and markets are red hot and will get hotter'

With her latest Budget, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has walked into the nastiest of all hornets’ nests: The Great Indian Middle Class.

Through the week, she and her ministry have been pilloried on social media. Those in the mainstream media are dismayed, but more measured. There can be reasonable, pragmatic, ideological, and even moral arguments against the new, Thomas Piketty-esque (soak the rich, especially when they earn from their accumulated wealth) changes in the capital gains taxes. However, it doesn’t justify the kind of outrage it has unleashed, with hundreds of furious, often personalised, memes.

Did the