Post #9 Poverty and inequality - take #1

One evening, as we walked not two blocks from the elegant India Habitat Center, one of Delhi's premier cultural arts and convention centers, and we saw an alley alight with fires. Curious, we wandered in to find a large community of families living in the streets, warming their hands and cooking their food on fires stoked by scavenged wood and trash. Barefoot children played while others got haircuts. Makeshift tents of metal scraps and cloth provided minimal shelter from the 40-50 degree nights. Throughout there was amazing energy, activity and warmth.  Tiny mini-shops providing mini-services abounded. As we walked through a quarter mile block, we could not have been more alien to this world, yet seemingly we were totally ignored. The disinterest was striking.  If we were in their position, would we not consider jumping us, confronting us or distaining us, given what we represent?

There are lots and lots of urban slum pockets, ever changing in size and location, and often providing supports to the urban core. Just behind Ken's office, squeezed in between the railroad tracks and a riverbed, a slum goes on for half a mile. It will exist until the office needs of the city grow sufficiently to force its elimination.

"The sprawl of fragile huts spread outward like a shallow, tender root system for the huge towers that were to come... The squatters slum grew rapidly with a haphazard planlessness...  The kinship fostered in workers' slums guaranteed a sense of unity and family solidarity..."  
[But when the time comes,] workers set about the task of demolition. Each man had a rope and grappling hook that he swung onto the roof of a hut until it caught fast. He then tugged on the rope, collapsing the fragile hut. Everything was tumbled and raked into the wreckage..."
"They knew that the ritual they'd all seen so many times before would be played out: the ghetto would be gutted and burned, and a car park for limousines would take its place..." 
                        ---Shantaram, by Gregory David Roberts

Invisible yet co-dependent. What a two way gulf.

We all know that India expects to be one of the world's biggest economies by the mid-21st century. It is a hopeful, forward looking culture. But this sense of growth and optimism masks serious problems of poverty and inequality.

Ken's host institution for the Fulbright --the National Council of Applied Economic Research -- has conducted ground-breaking in-depth surveys and interviews with 40,000 India households to assess income, work, health, education, etc. The results are distressing.  Caste, religious, and regional disparities are still massive, and the current scenario for the  21st century world economy will likely widen these disparities. The core of the national agenda for the past half century has been to try to address these issues, and while real progress has been made, the success of these public endeavors is very disappointing.

The average rural Indian household lives on about $400 a year, and urban families about $1,000 a year. The top 10-15% of the population are doing well, with good incomes, pensions, health insurance, etc. But the majority of families are still in dire straights, and a quarter of families are in abject poverty. Over 50% have no toilets and no access to toilets.  Only 10-15% of the population receives direct government support, although a large share receives food and fuel aid.

The future of India, as with many other developing countries, lies in the cities.  India has a relatively small industrial and manufacturing base compared to China and most of Asia. About 85% of workers are members of the informal workforce. Only 2% of families have a car, and only 3% have a washing machine.  Less than a quarter have a flush toilet. For the vast majority of families, a major health incident leads to either a financial catastrophe or an absence of care -- or most likely both.

But this is key: the problem is not just lack of income. Compared to many comparable countries, India dramatically underinvests in education, pensions, health care, etc.  We will be exposed to a lot of very hard issues during our stay in India. Amyarta Sen asks whether any country wants to be the combination of Southern California and Sub-Saharan Africa. Can India invest it its future? Can it be a world powerhouse without investing more in its people? More on this in future posts.

Satellite discs on the roofs of the shanties in a very poor neighborhood.

Everywhere you go in cities, this is the life.

Life along the RR tracks

A tent city for the poor on the banks of the Ganges. The community springs up seasonally, when the river is low, to be disassembled in monsoon season. No idea where everyone lives when the river is high.