The Gap: Do we love or to hate the poor?
It is not clear to how we should treat the distressed, they hate us
A normal afternoon in the national capital region of India, where one can effortlessly catch a glimpse of the poor begging for money with little ones or selling balloons at the traffic signals. The other big city, Mumbai is worse because most beggars there are physically handicapped with no clothes or horrible diseases affected their faces, limbs etc. What does such sights make us feel of the world we live in?
India is home to about 20% of the world’s total poor (and also 17.5% of the world’s total population) which makes it a subset of the world in general. The widening gap between the rich and the poor has come to senses by a recent report which claims that the richest 1% own more wealth than the rest of the world (full report here). This is alarming because it directly questions the sustainability of the social system we are trying to build. Unfortunately, there are no fast solutions to this so ‘the gap’ is here to stay. Our role then becomes to empathise and understand the poor. We need to know their struggles and sufferings so we can help them in the right way. Is money always good and makes people more happy and developed?
Rich means happy?
For all those who are unaware, the global economy is not all headed in the right direction (award winning documentary film). Development is still very far from sustainability. In such scenario, pulling all the rural poor to the cities is a bad idea. Globalisation has threatened cultures and big cities have become ant-holes with even the rich or upper middle class is not very happy — reasons being pollution, loneliness etc etc. Dubai, which is a super rich city lacks some essence of life like content and feelings, freedom of women, values and crime, existence of artists etc. The rich is often occupied with work, making more and more money, indulging in luxuries than enjoying a sunset and many more natural pleasures. He rarely identifies real beauty and his social responsibility or his relationship with nature (in his daily life not vacations!).
The poor on the other hand has a very different life. It majorly revolves around survival. Every now and then he becomes worried about how is he going to survive the next day. Every moment becomes a struggle, sometimes so much that he stops thinking and lives in the lowest zone of physiological needs (Maslow’s hierarchy of needs). Sometimes he falls in love, is attracted to life, enjoying a beseeched chocolate as he knows he might never get another one. Every moment is an adventure and his last breath. He is jealous of others, blames the government and hates every rich person. Sometimes he feels that it is his own mistake to be born poor and he could never do anything about it — in this case he falls prey to disbelief, superstition and exploitation.
The Background
I can see both sides as I came from a very poor family, but now that I am in top 1% owing to my education with scholarships. Private schools are not good with giving scholarships to poor kids by the way. Sometimes it becomes hard for me to explain why I did not read novels as a kid. And still, my heart fills with utter happiness when I see new colours, I literally jumped when my Wacom arrived. I still cannot waste white papers. Because I remember how how it was so rare to see a booklet with white pages. There are many stories like mine — of resourceless children (I will not call then poor or pity them; I love them the same way I love other children and play with them).
There are a lot of examples of how a middle person people rises to stardom; a poor individual becomes the president. Believe me, you need to be very strong-headed to beat all the odds and rise from poverty from generations. Yet some people enjoy the same luxuries without much effort. These people complain of poor roads when some do not have food to eat. Many rich people feel that the poor are just useless people and they should all die. The same rich exploit and employ them in many chores. The managers eat up 90% funds for building a bridge which the workers make, risking their lives. But nobody cares about them. How do we ought to respond to them?
An real act of kindness
The rich often sympathises the poor, feels bad for them, gives them pennies they don’t care about them about ‘really’ helping them with their lives. Or teaching them something because like we said, money is not the only thing the poor needs. Maybe they the rich trust the government for the same. What they rich really needs to do is empathise and not just sympathise. Money is a great resource and with it — some can have the liberty to think of creative ideas, take risks, try new things, think of different solutions to a problem. So money is like a basic need. How else would we ever make sense of our lives?
We need a minimum amount to survive, get basic education, healthcare and travel facilities. The rest we spend — is really what defines us. And yet like all resources, money is NOT seen as something the rich can be accused of misusing. So fines are imposed on people polluting air, wasting drinking water but money matters remain controversial, mostly ethics driven. While it is not good to ask rich people to donate, while some wealthy people ask to be taxed more to solve global problems others spend their money lavishly on things they don’t need. We are the junction of more and more information transparency and so we now know how some big CEOs are refusing to get paid. More and more people are going eco-friendly, stories of moving to the organic farming to opening free schools in rural areas of India are rising. Especially youngsters are coming forward to the rescue — techies are working on reviving water bodies, cleaning beaches of Mumbai and what not.
These are GREAT STEPS that prove the willingness of the rich to bridge the gap and also to show their responsibility. But is it what we are teaching the kids?
Social media is a mix of such news and all of lavish parties and new stuff which the children might find more attractive at first owing to their quick decision mindset, adamant behaviour and sometime even violence. We have to take steps to teach them about patience and perseverance since the beginning. This is the real knowledge that needs to be spread.
Dealing with poverty
Probably we should be more aggressive than sad, disgusted than depressed. American people who go to Africa or attempt suicide is an example of how wrong is the world today and no matter how we are progressing we will always be human so we should also satisfy our needs of peace, balance and harmony. Who cares about the poor? They need no sympathies, they need real support.
If now today I give 10 rupees to a poor children when he begs, I don’t loose anything but this guy becomes a beggar for life. Their stories remain untold stores with no Premchand writing about how confused the poor actually are. There has been serious concerns about his last story ‘Kafan’ who portrays the downtrodden protagonists as lazy mindless or even selfish. There hasn’t been more truth in any other story or transparency to this level of understanding how they really are — bad in the eyes of everyone else. For those who are unfamiliar with the story, the lead pair try roast some potatoes in open fire and then try to eat as hot as they are so that they can fill their stomach faster the other person can, of course they did not have enough potatoes for two people. Can those who have enough then credited to being more humble? Can those who have much more than they need even lauded for giving away what they don’t? These are tough questions whose answers are more assumed than thought in a world that we live in.
As discussed before there is a lot of difference in the psyche of a person who is rich vs who is poor — fearlessness and ability to take risks being the most important asset of the rich. Sometimes the poor don’t even see confidence as their main tool; true that nothing in this world comes free.
Some politicians in India have now started to think about a minimum wage model that exists in the west to eradicate poverty once and for all.
One, that poverty is the product of personal moral failure.
Survival of the poor
The poor needs to be very strong and rise above all odds; he needs to be positive, confident and daring not only in his words but his actions. All the quotes of the world are his masters.
Poor cannot think of multiplying money but only earn it somehow to spend on basic stuff to survive — 100 rupees per day beggar drinks 20 rupees food and 50 rupees drugs so he can sleep properly — ask a person who lives on footpath how important it is to be able to sleep properly? This is not just for adults, the plight of street kids in Delhi is alarmingly disturbing.
Conclusion
Besides health issues, lack of basic resources and other problems, the most disturbing attribute of the life of the poor is exploitation and unawareness. The poor knows nothing about businesses, politics, general knowledge as well as their own rights. The education system has yet other problems about being so expensive, etc. Thus education is the only way the poor can ever come to senses and start living a meaningful life. It can then know about the wonders of the world and the beauty of life. Sadly, the poor today is engulfed with misbeliefs. The internet has offered new windows of media and knowing many things without the books and much resources, thus becoming a breakthrough. It becomes vital for us to educate this section of society.
We can only do little but sometimes only little help does so much. And if everyone does the same, we will have enough to save the world’s poor.
Happy success!
