Life in India is full of contradictions, as any visitor to the country will tell you. For someone living in India, however, reconciling these contradictions is essential for survival. It is hard if not impossible, to be faced with crippling poverty on a daily basis and not feel an overwhelming sense of sadness and guilt.
My home state of Maharashtra was recently contemplating changing the rules so that taxi permits would only be issued to persons who had lived in the state for at least fifteen years and can "read and write marathi (the local language)". The move is primarily aimed at keeping migrant workers from poorer states from acquiring local jobs. In a country where a vast number of people are illiterate, where we have failed to provide our poorest and most vulnerable sections of society with a minimum standard of living, where large sections of the population go hungry, this is what the Government imagines up. Perhaps we should soon expect a set of minimum qualifications that all of the urban poor must meet if they want to subsist amongst the more affluent. The irony is not lost on me.
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5 comments:
Once again, thank you for this. I, an affluent graduate student, am sitting at a cafe in a developed country and a homeless man walked in to order a sandwich. At first he asked for it for free. The barista refused to give it to him, understandably. As he walked out, I almost, *almost* got up and bought him the sandwich.
Then he walked back in and paid for it. I'm not sure what to make of the whole thing. How am I supposed to focus on achieving 1/2 log(1 + SNR) with lattice codes when this is happening around? I used to be convinced that it is my responsibility to help, nowadays I have no idea. Or is this a contradiction that you just learn to live with, the same way you learn to live with an ugly nose?
-g
I think that deep down I can't help feeling that whatever I'd be willing to do alone would be too insignificant to make any real difference in the long-term to this one person. I'm not sure if that should really stop one from doing it regardless. The other thing that strikes me is the difference between the levels of poverty in a developed country and an undeveloped country like India.
On a separate note, I somehow find it much easier to donate to a micro-lending organization like Kiva for example. At least that way I know that the person has a plan to try and improve their own standard of living, and I feel that the money is actually going to make a difference. I know the logic doesn't really make perfect sense. I guess that's just my rationalization.
To look at poverty as an issue to be dealt with beyond or above politics, does not really work. Labour migration is a problem in all countries and there are rules for labour migration within the US also among states.
If you continue to look at poverty as a problem, then it will remain a problem. If it is seen as an opportunity then you will have more chances to alleviate it.
To sum up , the rules might just spur a opportunity for the useless states "exporting" labour to do something for themselves.
The point of my post was not to dispute that poverty needs to be tackled within a political framework. We need laws, yes. We need regulations, yes. But the laws and regulations being proposed are ridiculous.
Specifically in the context of my post, my point was that the Government was only proposing the requirement on the issue of taxi permits. Do you think they would even think about similar restrictions on white-collar jobs? I don't think so.
I think, the issue is about demand and supply at one level. Demand for white collar jobs is far less. Even in that case though, number of people wanting a white collar job is high. But since white collars are us, no particular interest in politics and not a sizeable votebank (effort to profit ratio) would say no point working for us.
If you see in the US though.. they have legislation and congressman fighting to save jobs in their states (white collar).
Lastly, putting regulations is to make other states work and not offload their work on states progressing. If to that objective the plans succeeds then regulations will make sense.
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