what poor want

It’s a known fact that poor are most vulnerable. Expectedly, sympathy towards them is abundant and resources are copious. It sounds just to 'help' them to break the vicious poverty trap by providing them a ladder. Civil society, philanthropists and Central/state govts relentlessly run expensive programmes and spend countless hours analyzing the outcomes. But ironically, the poor themselves seem to be indifferent, as if all of these are pointless.

I am not being sarcastic. I cannot say about others, but I never saw a poor, begging on street or selling innocuous cheap goods in train or roadside, is planning to get rid of poverty, as we want. They live in their own world and try to imitate so called 'rich' every possible way, except a good plan. Their expenditures on lavish items are proportionately higher than actual riches.

Everyday, I see a middle aged woman begging just outside Dwarka More metro station, and I find her begging with these words, 'Aaj Sombar hai. Amma ke dua leke jaa bhagyawan'. Only the name of day is being changed accordingly. Like, 'Aaj Mangalbar hai' or 'Aaj Shanibar hai'. Few months back, I had shifted to Dwarka More and I was looking for a maid. So I approached her and offered her the job. In line of my expectation, she declined and asked me few bucks. While I was opening my purse, I noticed an interesting fact. She is a Muslim, and even after that, she is invoking Hindu Gods and sacred days in the process of begging. I was amused and astonished by her business acumen. She is shrewder than me, but she will remain poor.

In general, poor are better financial managers, for they prudently spend every pie of their meager earnings. They obviously know what is best for them. They even go for a lavish marriage party for their children and they buy gifts for relatives. Or they find alternatives, some kind of substitutes of originals. Once a young rickshaw puller proudly showed me few locally made potato chips packets labeled 'Loys' (not 'Lays'), he had bought for his 10 year old son. And Indian streets and markets are full of these examples of imitation. Here we, the suppliers think wrong. We don’t explore beyond books and thus, try to impose something on poor which is incompatible with their expectations and concept of life. We try to behave like parents and end up with frustrating results, finally blaming the poor themselves. All they want is a sense of importance or dignity. An old tea vendor in Kolkata once offered me a free cup of tea, when I enquired about his hard life and children and spent half an hour in Maidan.

Barred a few, all schemes including the cash transfers are failed to touch the epicenter of the issue of poverty. They fail to realize the psychological aspect and treat poor as physiological patients, as if an external medicine will cure all malice. India is becoming home of maximum poor and they are growing fast alongwith the visible development in every front. India is accommodating them without knowing how to do.

We knew from beginning of our independence that our education system was elitist and schools were meant only for toppers. We knew the bottom would plunge into darkness of poverty. We knew our students were not learning things in schools, even sometimes they are unlearning. But we did nothing. Whereas a section with wealth with definite mediocrity got higher jobs, the poor even with superiority were kicked out. And we blame the system.

Now I sigh, when I hear that Govt is 'helping' poor or civil society is 'empowering' them. It is same as when your 2 months old baby is crying and you have no idea how to stop her, but you are 'helping' her despite your ignorance about her reason for crying.