Why Is India So Poor?

Yes, it has been long since we posted anything. We were stuck with our lives to say the least. India, however, did not stop moving. So much happened over these months that it does not make sense to give you a recap (!) Mr. Kalmadi's CWG (I say that the games belong to him because that's how he has been treating it really!) would be the next big thing for India in the global front and we're all so excited about it :)
Here's what I have for you in this post: A blog post about a Malaysian student's experiences in India. While most of the post is a rather personal perspective on things, there's one comment which really touched me and inspired me to write this post.

Seeing the poverty around you changes your outlook. Dealing with such an alien community with such different values and tolerances teaches you to understand people.

Here's one question which has bugged me enough. I have tried to escape from it, tried my best to answer it, tried to avoid it, tried to change it but it keeps hitting me right in the face all the time: Why is my country so poor? I wish I had the answer, but I don't! I wish I at least had a clue or a theory, but even that is something that I can't offer to you, my readers!
Most of us reading this post are not poor. We are well provided, well taken care of. We have families to support us and we have families that we support. But, the moment we step out of our homes, the moment we step into public transports, trains, buses, the moment we get on the roads and the footpaths we know it - India's poverty glares at us. The poorly kept infrastructure demands an explanation, the struggling lot on the streets, though keep fighting with a resilient and rude attitude towards life, have a question written right across their faces. Why are we so poor?
We know we are a unique nation. We know that we're a huge economy and we know India still has a lot of wealth but why does it not reflect in our lives?
If corruption is the answer then there has to be someone who is rich right? The corrupt are the poorest of all, they're afraid of their own money and often live in conditions so miserable and minds so drenched with thoughts and fears of poverty that even the beggars laugh at them!
When I read about the Lords from England who ruled us for so many years, their rich way of life which was supported by the suppressed Indian people I can't help think about the situation that is prevalent even today. The ruling faces have changed color but the rule has remained the same. The suppressed Indian class is still present, the suppressors are still living in the mansions and palaces constructed by the British! How do we put the common man in a position of power and how do we keep them 'common' even after giving them power over a billion+ people?
Is it about an absence of National pride? Is it about an absence of good education system which should urge one to destroy all the anti-nationalist systems in India?
I don't know!
Take a look at this picture, does it look very different from the days of the British? We need to act right now!

What foreign nationals feel about India and her beggars!

Ron (a friend of mine from the US working in India for over a year now), like any other guest in India thinks that beggars are one of the worst things about this country! He did see 'Slumdog Millionaire' and was offended by the sequences involving the beggars (and how they are 'made'). But, now that he has been in this country for quite sometime, he has stopped being 'nice' to the beggars (even the small children) and has in fact pretty strong reasons for not being charitable. I will write them down for you here:

• He has seen a number of beggars 'getting ready for work' early morning when he goes for a jog. One beggar helping his colleague tie bandages around his head, making sure the color looks like fresh blood, etc.
• He has observed a 'strategy' that these beggars adopt, specially for foreign nationals. One small kid would target one particular foreigner in a day and then follow him/her/group everywhere they go. Into the park, out of the restaurant, near the parking lot, outside his gym, near her spa; everywhere the person goes they would follow them with a face expression full of hunger, pain and helplessness. This particular strategy actually works wonders for them as this day's investment often results in a couple of hundred (and sometimes more) bucks at the end of the day.

My grandfather used to say, "Never say no to a beggar! But, always give a pinch of flour so that he/she gets to eat half a meal after working hard the whole day!" Forced beggary, forced prostitution are two big evils of Indian society. Often hidden (and ignored), these dark alleys of India need to be exposed to eradicate this evil which associates itself with a number of other crimes in our society!

Say no to beggars! Don't be 'nice' be practical and considerate about our nation and her pride!

Related posts:

1. The land of the poor.

Yet another 'slumdog' moment!

I came across this ad in the Telegraph's Indian e-edition. Don't wish to say much on it as we've got Oscars for Slumdog now but the way the west sees us is amazingly captured in this pic. This pic alternates between an accident site lined up with mumbai taxies and a pic of 3 really cute kids. Accidents do happen everywhere in the world, don't they? Just a thought!

Pepsi and Christian missionaries

The marketing and sales strategy of Pepsi co. has always been to project its products in a ‘local’ flavor. In India we have Sachin and his ‘gang’ running around the ground sipping Pepsi and in Pakistan a similar setup with more greenery (the green clad players gulping down the drink). Its interesting to note how the two neighbors are oblivious to the fact that when the two nations are fighting it out on the cricket ground the commercial breaks are inspiring both the nations to cheer for their players by drinking the beverage which has make the players strong enough to beat their arch rivals.
This same marketing practice, interestingly, works marvelously in another area. This is how the message of Jesus is spread in the whole world (and in India). If you visit a temple you would notice that the prayers (mantras, etc.) are all in Sanskrit and the Holy Scriptures written again in the same language which has become indecipherable for most of us (which is a matter of shame indeed, but a fact!). On the contrary, when you attend a mass on a fine Sunday morning in a church you would notice that the people are able to communicate with God in their own mother tongue. The priest would deliver the mass in the local language and offer the prayers in a way which all can understand!!!

Israeli visitors !!!

Israel is one place which I’ve always heard about and never heard the right thing. I guess to most of the people it stands as a complete mystery which they claim to know quite well. I was traveling from Trichy to Thanjavur and met two amazing people from Israel with huge backpacks, carrying everything they would need on their shoulders (this included camping stuff for a camp in Kerela). The things that they spoke among themselves were all Hebrew for me (see the pic above) but we started our conversation in English and all of us were comfortable with the way each other spoke (except for a few words). Coal was a dancer and Hogard a musician (I know, quite a people to meet!). I didn’t have a really tough time starting the conversation, unlike other foreign visitors that I have met these were very friendly and we picked up our conversation instantly. We spoke of so many things that made me form a totally different image of Israel than what I had before (the image which was painted by the news channels for me).
They said that they were Jews but not religious and though it sounded like the coolest thing to me it was quite a dangerous statement to make for a person living in Israel. It sure must be a very pitiable situation when you cannot express your own views in your own country. Coal said that it was sad that in their own country they were under immense pressure to ‘behave’ in a ‘religious’ way. It was dangerous to such an extent that they had to think many times before visiting a place of religious significance in Israel. The collaboration which seems so natural to us as Indians with the Israel is in fact only on the political level, the people of Israel do not welcome secular thoughts very often (though the number of Indian students in Israeli universities has increased drastically and Coal expressed her happiness for the fact).
Political instability is something that they have got accustomed to now and the constant feeling of unrest is not alien anymore! The most depressing thing that I heard was that even Jews who preferred to stay secular (and peaceful) were scorned at and felt unsafe in their own land. I read about a similar situation prevailing in Turkey (Orhan Pamuk’s Snow), where being secular was not always an option for an individual without power. As Indians I think we are much better off.

The land of the poor :-(

“Jobs arrived in India barefoot and threadbare. This is how he chose to dress, as an expression of a specific ideal or aesthetic. In India he was confronted for the first time with people who were poor – not the way California hippies were poor, by choice, but poor by fate. It was an eye-opener for him. The complete contrast with the material comforts of American life was intense and shocking, and it challenged everything he thought he knew up to that moment.”
The above is an excerpt from the book iCon by Jeffrey S. Young and William L. Simon. The book is about Steve Jobs, the man behind the company which challenged the way people thought and gave them things beyond their imagining, Apple. He came to India much earlier than he became the man the world recognizes today, in search of peace, in search of true knowledge, in search of his ‘guru’. It has been many years since then. Governments have changed, people have become more ‘educated’, industries have been flourishing; money has been flowing now in India like never before. Today the world talks about Ambanis and Mittals and the world of technology has had the Indian impact in the western world which even Jobs recognizes today.
So, what would be the picture in front of Steve Jobs if he happened to visit India in the near future? He would perhaps land on the Mumbai airport, his plane caressing the world’s largest slum, Dharavi. He would then be escorted to his hotel and along the roads would notice small children thrust into begging. As a face of the technology world, he may want to visit the mecca of Indian technology, Bangalore. He better choose either to go on a chopper or make a trip at the time of a public holiday else the traffic would kill the good old man! And ironically, these are just the few of the ‘best’ places that any visitor to India may want to see. The Himalayas and the other tourist attractions are replete with so much commotion nowadays that the ‘firangis’ are easily baffled.
Today we may be able to boast of some of the richest men of the world belonging to India, but the fact remains that poverty is not abating. The number of people living below the poverty line is increasing by the hour. ‘Every fourth poor is an Indian’ has become a cliché (and is sadly true). Diseases like AIDS, cancer are engulfing the urban and rural alike and we still feel ashamed to discuss sex in front of our children while make no fuss about the tobacco that we smoke even with little children at home. Beggary is a bigger ‘industry’ than 'khadi'. The money is indeed flowing into our economy and India is getting rich but the percolation of this huge wealth is not yet happening. Add to these the troubled borders of India. Surrounded by arch rivals, petty beggars, infiltrators, have-nots, politically unstable nations and those that have a long history of stabbing on the back, India is indeed not in the situation which most of the European nations enjoy (with all of them surging forward competitively). Add to this our internal security threats and civil agitations like the ‘gujjar’ uproar recently. Sadly for India, though a lot of positive things are happening, we still are years behind the true independence that every human being dreams of; the true happiness is still elusive.

IIM-C now has international students

The demand for Indian CEOs have always been on rise.. People like Indra Nooyi, Arun Sarin are at top posts in the some of the largest organisations of the world. And the biggest factory for this is the prestigious institution called Indian Institution of Management.
We all know how much every Indian craves to join this institution. But now the success stories of these institutions are now reaching all corners of the world. A 26-year-old Californian, Travis Donselman is now the first foreign-origin student to join IIM-C for the regular 2 year PGP program. His decision is not because of the cost but its because he received some great feedback from Indian students as well as the faculty as the University of California. The institute’s curriculum and calibre and its previous placement records were, in fact, the clincher. Now after spending 1 week in campus, he is overwhelmed by the economics and financial planning and said “very few universities are as strong as IIMC is in finance, barring a few like the University of Chicago, MIT, Wharton and Columbia”.

So now along with the reputation, even the intake of IIMs are going global..