Poverty is part of India's story
I can see that my recent analysis of India at 60′ has upset a few people. Too relentlessly gloomy apparently even senseless according to scullerz. Go and find some positives to write about, seems to be the message.
Indias rural poor have been shamefully overlooked
I can think of several reasons why writing about Indias very real poverty causes such anger and offence, particularly among Indias middle classes.
The first is nationalism. Indias well-to-do are having a ball right now and dont like to be reminded about the ground realities. They are rightly enjoying Indias new-found place in the world and dont want to be reminded of inconvenient truths.
So bravo to Dr Singh, I say, for not letting them get away with it at his Independence Day speech which noted the national shame strong words indeed of Indias malnutrition rates.
The second is racism of a peculiarly inverted kind. Even if its true that India is mired in poverty, runs this argument, its wrong that a foreigner, and particularly a Brit, should write these things. Its just India Bashing dressed up as liberal sympathy.
Well, I cant defend myself from being a foreigner I am but I believe if you read what Ive written in toto these past four years, youll see that the allegation is pretty unfair.
However it is the third rationale against highlighting Indias poverty that is the most worrying and I encounter it from both wealthy Indians and foreigners alike. To this group Indias poverty is just plain boring, its old hat.
Cant you just shut up with your carping and celebrate, runs this argument, India has always had lots of poor people, but things are getting so much better. Why are you too mean-spirited and short-sighted to celebrate that fact?
It is at this point that I start to get angry.
Two particularly pernicious views are embedded in this third attitude to Indias poverty.
The first is that Indias poor are an unalterable fact of life. Im reminded of the government health official who once told me that these people dont need toilets.
This is a nasty manifestation of the caste system which still prevails in India and says that people are irrevocably bound to their lot. It is their karma, their place in life.
Well, Im here unapologetically to tell you that its not or at least it shouldnt be. If Indias poor had toilets and clean water less of their children would die unnecessarily. The UN estimates that currently 500,000 Indians a year die from lack of clean water, which puts the recent floods in perspective.
Allied to this view is the sense and foreigners are the worst for this that somehow Indias poor are happy in their lot. Ive lost count of the number of foreign visitors to India who say blithely as they peer through windows of their luxury cars, isnt it amazing how happy the poor people look?.
I must beg to differ. In my experience Indias poor are far from happy in their lot and to my mind it is patronising, complacent and offensive to suggest they are.
Of course wealth is relative. What makes an Indian villager happy is different from what makes a middle class Indian or westerner like me happy. A new car, a cappuccino at the coffee house, a decent salary rise are not on the average Indian villagers wish-list.
And this is not to say that all of Indian village life is miserable. There are, as in all lives, days of happiness, days of sadness. But offer a poor Indian healthcare, education, land and a dignity and I suspect hes unlikely to say, You know what, Im happy as I am. You can keep your food and medicine.
An Indian villager is, lest we forget, a human being and should be entitled to the same fundamental human rights and dignities as the rest of us.
When an Indian villager is beaten up for offending a higher caste, he feels the same pain, anger and humiliation as you and I would.
When his daughter dies for want of 20 rupees worth of antibiotics, he feels loss.
When the elder one is raped by a higher caste man and the cops ignore his complaint you can have the rural sex-crime figures by going on the UNICEF website he feels powerless and angry.
When he cant pay his debts he feels worthless to the point of suicide. (If 1,000 Indian farmers commit suicide annually, how many, I wonder, feel like doing it?)
When a villager looks at his son and grandson and finds them as illiterate and landless as himself, he feels empty, resigned and a terrible emotion this hopeless, in the true sense of that word.
And believe it or not, when a villager doesnt have enough to eat he even feels hungry. Funny that.
Forgive the sarcasm, but writing about Indias poverty, however inconvenient, is a necessary fact of being a foreign correspondent in India.
Indeed, given that two-thirds of Indians remain dirt poor, the amount of column inches that I and other foreign journalists devote to Indias richer classes is disproportionately huge.
The aim is not to lament the mere fact of Indias poverty that is old hat but rather to scream and yell about how little is being done to alleviate it.
Dr Singh talks bravely about eradicating malnutrition in five years, but lets see what the government actually does about it. Talking is not doing.
For most of the first five decades after Independence you could argue that India really wasnt in an economic position to lift its masses out of poverty, but that is no longer the case.
With Indias new-found economic power come new responsibilities. I believe that India really does have the means if not sadly the will to make things better for all of its people and not just a self-satisfied middle class minority.
And if Im guilty along with Dr Singh of pointing out where India, as a civilised society, is disgracefully neglecting those responsibilities, then I plead my guilt without a shred of apology.
Poverty is part of India's story – Telegraph Blogs
80% indian vehicles dont have spare tyre
