The rich and the poor in India; what goes around comes around?

      10 December 2010
      Written by Guus van der Zijden

      Having visited Mumbai recently for The Fleet Forum and being faced with such an enormous disparity between the rich and the poor, I felt blessed to be a national of a country where division of wealth is embedded in society. But it does make you wonder why in Indian society it is commonly accepted for the rich to be rich and for the poor to be poor. India is the nation with a few of the most affluent people in the world (www.forbes.com), and the wealthiest 1% of India controls 16% of its national wealth. However, India also holds a dominant proportion of the world’s poor. A recent report identifies that 40% of the Indian population, a staggering 400 million people, lives below the poverty line of having less than $ 1.25 to spend each day. The report also concludes that there is a huge difference between the proportion of donations by India’s rich, when compared to the Western countries. Sharing is caring does not seem to fly for the wealthy in Hindustan!

      I would say it has to do with a major principle in Hindi religion, karma. Karma is an Indian religious concept that explains all human dramas as the will of God, resulting from present and past life actions. Belief in karma is very strong and if you are on the receiving end of Evil in your current life, you must have earned it, having behaved badly in the past. You can find excesses of karma on the Indian roads; ambulances have a hard time to avoid congestion to save lives. People don’t make way, using karma as an excuse; if those people in danger of their life have good karma they will survive, with or without the ambulance. Relating the karma concept to wealth, being a slum dweller is therefore the result of bad karma and being the number fourth richest man in the world is the result of unbelievably good karma. If you think about it karma seems to be a quite the rewarding self-explanatory theory for the establishment...
       
      As I mentioned earlier in this post, work allowed me to visit Mumbai. The Fleet Forum is working closely with UNICEF and WHO to implement fleet management within their Indian organisations. The last two weeks we travelled through the South and the West of India and visited regional offices in cities the likes of Bangalore, Chennai and Mumbai. We have trained another 200 staff members on road safety best practices and the staff of WHO and UNICEF were dedicated to advocate the message. People working for humanitarian organisations are influencers in their respective communities and hopefully by leading by example and informing others, the road behaviour of thousands can be changed.
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      Comments

      Submitted by Kayleigh on 10 December 2010
      It does seem too 'easy' to justify everything with Karma. Is Karma also trans-life - what I mean, is the Karma of your last life reflected in this life? Does Karma cross the borders of reincarnation? I guess it makes me think of the Calvinists who, even though they don't believe in Karma or reincarnation, believe that what you have and how good your life is proves if you were chosen by God to go to heaven - predestination. I don't know whether predestination or Karma are either comforting or demotivating.. I vote for option two. I love that you're actually analyzing the society, keep it up! x

      Submitted by Jeroen on 10 December 2010
      Interesting post. It is the kind of faith that helps the poor people deal with all the misery around them, while at the same time it will not give them motivation to try to change it. Isn't this comparable with Africans saying 'This is Africa'? Sadly enough the wealth of the 'lucky few' covers up the poverty around them and limits the willingness of Europeans/Americans to donate money to humanitarian organisations. The main news we receive about India is the exponential growth of the economy. Furthermore the egocentric behaviour of the new millionaires in poor countries is not something new; look at the first millionaires in Russia and China after the collapse of communism. Watch this presentation about the development of life expectancy and wealth over the world: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUwS1uAdUcI
      sophiegaarenstroom's picture

      Submitted by sophiegaarenstroom on 14 December 2010
      Wow, heavy story Guus!! I have problems with the inequality in the world too and especially the fact that you cannot change it! How was your fieldtrip? Keep on the good work there and enjoy your Christmas and NY!!! Beso from Nica

      Submitted by Marlous on 16 December 2010
      Nice observation, and thanks for putting it in your blog. The main problem of course is that people are unfortunately quite greedy and quite often out for themselves. It's a shame that Karma seems to be used in this context of 'I currently have what I deserved through past actions' context, rather than 'I can improve my future (life) and that of others through my present actions'... Utopia is a long way off, but hope springs eternal!

      Submitted by Duterloo on 17 December 2010
      very good blog

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