Poverty Alleviation, no, Poverty Elevation

I am really proud to be an Indian. I do not know whether many of us have seen poverty as closely as I had done, but if you are an Indian then you’re sure being shackled, restrained from thinking the dark cloud of poverty that hovers all over the rustic. Almost all of us had had many an encounters with the burgeoning poverty, bludgeoning people to the extreme just to earn a living.

I am describing not much but just one of the protagonists which I happened to encounter, and apart from just neglecting, reached into his sphere to have an interview of him. He did report his name to be Pappu, but names really don’t signify themselves in their diaspora. They do not matter at all. He wore clothes which might have been given by some affluent family’s generous member, having the logo of the best school in the city, whose fees even if given to the boy in dreams, would seem him elusive. So, he ‘wore’ clothes (at least the namesake), he wore a lean look, perfectly emaciated, which was more revealed out of his clothes.

We now discussed his business….business? Actually his all day busy-ness was of picking rags from repudiated goods, thrown in the junk, the same place where there was a colony of pathogenic bacteria, a coterie of street dogs, savaging over the same rancid refuse, refused by everyone, but accepted by him. From the elementary Social Sciences, which I happened to learn in school, reminded me of an ‘evil’ practice of child labour, purportedly banned in India, but prevalent pragmatically, whose proof I had in front of me. He did not ever see a how a school’s wall was from within. Unfortunately like the generous clothes giver, there was none so generous to contribute to his school fee. My next question to him was about his daily wage, about which he was neither proud nor flustered in divulging. Which he claimed to be Rs.30 and bonus if his ‘owner’ pleased. Far below requirement, far below U.N.’s 2 dollar a day hedge. How can a living being survive in such a modest amount? He said that he had 3 siblings, all of whom were under the same profession. At the end of the day, the whole family would accrue their wages to get facilitated by ration shops for food. And a significant part of their wage went to his tippler father’s everyday revelry. Someday, when the accretion was not sufficing, their mother had to sleep half stomached. “Beggars have no choice”, it seemed to be very much true now. This was their diurnal; hackneyed routine, unflinching even by a feather.

After this encounter I was left contemplating that government policies were given, but how far and deep did they penetrate was the matter. For which, they seemed to flounder. Anna Hazare’s hunger strike seemed to be a viable thing which the ‘aam aadmi’ could do, which at first instance seemed to be hypocritical and an unnecessary display of power of NGO coteries. If plight of all the oppressed can be heard, the government policies can be applied diaphanously, it will be the best poverty alleviation programme my country shall see. Then on I would love my India, more, in true sense and spirits.