Professor's Study Reclassifies Traditional Gentleman Class in India.

(From AScribe)

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. -- The image of India's popular middle class established under colonial rule in the mid-1800s is still rippling through current Indian society, says a Purdue University Indian history expert.

The "bhadralok" (pronounced BHAD-ra-lock), which means gentleman or polite man, makes up less than 2 percent of the Indian population. It is a social group that originated in Bengal (now composed of the state of West Bengal in India and Bangladesh) during the period of British rule in the 18th and 19th centuries. Myths about the group's intellectual prowess, however, are still so dominant that even today people from Bengal are considered to be more educated and cultured than the rest of India, says Tithi Bhattacharya (pronounced TITH-ee BAT-a-char-ee-uh), an assistant professor of South Asian history.

"Yes, a small part of the bhadralok does think of itself as the gatekeeper of Indian culture," says Bhattacharya, who researched how this gentleman class was created in the 19th century. She focuses on the northeastern part of India, which is Bengal.

"It is a very small group, but its influence is still significant. Even today, prominent people in West Bengal still see themselves as bhadralok. People think that this group is limited to doctors, lawyers, heads of government departments, magistrates, poets and novelists. Little attention is given to the other group of the bhadralok -- orderlies or bookkeepers."

Bhattacharya's analysis is published in "The Sentinels of Culture: Class, Education and the Colonial Intellectual in Bengal." The book ($29.95), released by Oxford Press in February, focuses on the formation of this group from 1848-1885.

The Bengali bhadralok in India is the result of British colonialism in the 18th and 19th centuries. In 1835 the British replaced the traditional Indian education system with a Western one to educate a class of men who could serve as interpreters and work in the new government.