New Economy and Human Crisis: In the Context of Hindi Stories

Abstract

After the 1990s, the processes of economic liberalization, privatization, and globalization transformed not only the Indian economy but also social life, family structures, employment, consumption patterns, human relationships, and individual perceptions of life. The new economy created opportunities, mobility, technological expansion, and greater consumer choice; however, it simultaneously generated problems such as economic inequality, employment insecurity, informalization of labour, displacement, loneliness, competition, consumerist mentality, and the commodification of human relationships. Contemporary Hindi fiction has articulated these transformations with considerable sensitivity and critical insight. In the new Hindi short story, economic change is not represented merely through the categories of markets, employment, or wealth; rather, it penetrates the individual's psychological world and influences family relationships, love, marriage, morality, aspirations, and social identity. Urban life, corporate culture, unemployment, precarious employment, migrant labour, middle-class consumerism, the changing economic position of women, rural crises, and the digital economy have consequently emerged as significant concerns of contemporary fiction. From this perspective, Hindi short stories reveal not only the external manifestations of the new economy but also the human crises embedded within it. The present research examines the concept of the new economy, its socio-cultural impact, and its representation in Hindi short fiction, with particular attention to middle-class life, labour crises, consumerism, women's lives, rural society, migration, metropolitan loneliness, and the disintegration of human relationships. The central argument of the study is that contemporary Hindi short fiction does not view economic transformation merely as a narrative of development; it also foregrounds the hidden human crises, inequalities, and emotional disintegration produced by these transformations.